Chapter Twenty Six

What Fate Has In Store

I couldn't breathe. Every part of me felt empty and cold and I couldn't feel my heart beating. My eyes were staring but I wasn't seeing. I forgot about the others and I forgot where I was. His voice echoed through my head like a cruel joke, mocking everything I was. I gripped the phone so tight that it began to hurt. I gripped the table with my other hand to stop it shaking, as though I was digging my fingers into the wood. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

"Listen very carefully, you sick, twisted fuck." Everyone looked at me sharply. The room became very still and very cold, like everything warm and happy had been sucked from it in a moment. Shock registered on their faces as I spoke softly into the phone.

"Leave him and walk away now. Walk away and we can forget about this. We can go our separate ways. But let me make this very, very clear." I stood up, leaning on the table. "Whatever you do to him, I will do to you tenfold. If you hurt him, I will not rest until I twist every limb from your body and make you howl for mercy. There is nowhere on this earth you can go where I will not come for you. Do you understand?"

"How passionate." Jai's voice was a purr. "Oh, English, I'm very disappointed."

"Don't toy with me, you son of a bitch," I snarled into the microphone. He laughed.

"But it's just so much fun," he replied smoothly. My nails dug into my palm and I ignored the wide eyes of the hosts. I didn't say anything to them. They could handle people like Tsubame, people swayed by reputation and riches but I knew people like Jai. I'd learnt how to fight fire with fire because I'd been burnt too many times before. Violence was the part of me that I kept close to my chest – until something like this happened and they could do nothing. This was not their territory. This was mine.

"Let. Him. Go," I hissed, looking up. Hikaru's eyes were wide and horrified and he'd gone a frightening shade of white.

"Not in the mood to talk, English?" Jai's sigh made my ear burn. "Not even to your rich little friend?" I stilled, saying nothing. A moment later, there was a small yelp and someone on the other end moaned.

"Kaoru?" I murmured. Hikaru jerked forwards but Mori put a hand on his shoulder. I didn't know how being a twin felt but considering how I was feeling, Hikaru was probably dying inside.

"Katya?" My heart soared and I sat down heavily, my hand on my forehead. Relief flooded through me – he was conscious and he could speak. At the moment, that was all that mattered. I was about to answer when there was a crack. I heard Kaoru cry out and my heart contracted painfully. He was hurting him and it was all my fault.

"Koaru!" I could hear him coughing but the phone moved away from him.

"That's enough of that," Jai said coldly.

"I am going to skin you alive," I spat. "I'm going to make you wish you had never heard my name." He laughed, but there was an ice to it that I really didn't like. I tried to pull myself together.

"What do you want, Jai?" I saw Kyoya stand up, his chair falling back with a crash. He was gripping the files so tightly that his knuckles were white.

"I don't need to tell you," Jai drawled. "I'm already getting it." There was a click and I stood perfectly still, staring at the table. This wasn't happening. I wanted to be dreaming. I wanted to wake up somewhere else where none of this was happening and I could go on with my life. My heart was cold and still. I didn't want to feel anymore. I couldn't. It had all been going so well. I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes, trying to stay calm. It didn't work.

I kicked the chair away from me angrily. It slid along the floor, hitting another table with a bang. I took a deep breath, leaning on the table.

"What can we do?" Kyoya asked, his voice eerily void of emotion.

"I don't know," I muttered. I couldn't think straight. My mind kept replaying Kaoru's cry of pain and the ice in Jai's voice. I was missing something here, I was sure. Why didn't he make any demands? What was he even doing? I glared at the table, my brain trying to make sense of everything, of anything.

"What's going on? Where's Kaoru?" Hikaru's voice shook. I looked at Kyoya. Neither of us spoke. Hikaru's hand slammed into the table.

"Where's my brother?!" He yelled at us.

"If I knew that," I said coolly. "I wouldn't be standing here."

"But you knew who that was. You knew!"

"Hikaru, now is not the time to lose your temper," Kyoya told him. He whipped around to face him.

"You know something too!" He gripped the front of Kyoya's shirt and the hosts made to stand when Kyoya held up a hand to stop them. After a moment, Hikaru's hands loosened and all the strength seemed to be sapped out of him. He was shaking.

"Is he okay?" He whispered.

"No."

"Katya," Kyoya warned but I glared at him.

"What do you want me to do, Kyoya, lie?" I looked at the hosts, who stared back at me. I had wanted to keep them far away from this but it looked like there was no way to do this. Not now. I looked down at the table and tried to arrange this into something that would get my point across.

"Kaoru might be alright for now but that's not going to last long," I said.

"How do you know? You can't know that!" Hikaru said, slightly hysterically.

"I can and I do." I pushed my sleeves up, revealing the thin bandages. "You know what this is from?"

"You fell through a window…" Haruhi said slowly, but I saw the cogs working in her head. I laughed and must have sounded slightly insane.

"I wish it was a window," I sighed. "Think less building addition and more crazy bastard with a knife." Her hand flew to her mouth as she realised who I was talking about. Hikaru stumbled to a chair and sat down with a moan, his head in his hands. His shoulders began to shake. Nobody said anything for a moment. I didn't know what to tell them. If I started worrying like they were, I would lose it. I couldn't think about Kaoru, dear sweet Kaoru, my Kaoru, anywhere near Jai. I didn't know what he was doing to him. I couldn't bear to think of him going through the pain I went through.

"Who is he?" Mori asked, his voice low.

"His name's Jai. He's a gang leader for the neighbourhood and he's completely insane." I looked up at them.

"There's a file on him," Kyoya said from his corner, his fingers flying across his keyboard at the speed of light. "Himura Jai. There's not much on the police database – a few assaults and a couple of robberies. He's not been around for long but it seems he went underground recently."

"For everyone else, yes." I rubbed my hand along my chest, which had started twinging for no reason. "Not for us. Not for me. That file is the tip of a very dangerous iceberg."

"So tell us," Tamaki said. I stared at him.

"What?"

"You obviously know this man. Therefore you can tell us everything that isn't in that file. What doesn't the police know?" I rubbed my hands over my eyes.

"You cannot piss this guy off without consequence," I said eventually, unable to get the image of a blood-soaked knife from my head. "Kaoru cannot afford to give Jai any reason to hurt him. He's not doing this with any kind of logical excuse. He's completely insane. He's an undiagnosed psychopath with a fetish for blades and he will not hesitate to use them at any opportunity he gets." Hikaru moaned into his hands. Haruhi put a hand on his shoulder and stared at me, white-faced.

"What does he want?" She asked. I shrugged.

"He said he was already getting it."

"Maybe he already called in a ransom demand," Kyoya said, tapping away. I shook my head.

"This isn't about money," I said. Hikaru raised his head.

"Then what is it about?" He asked desperately.

"I wish I knew, Hikaru," I muttered, sinking into a different chair. I would do anything, anything, for Kaoru not to be there. Jai could have asked for anything in the entire world – if it were money, immunity, anything, we could have given it to him. And if he knew about Kaoru, he knew about my school and he knew my friends could do that. He knew who Kaoru was. Why hadn't he demanded anything? It didn't make any sense. It was like there was no plan to this. What kind of idiot took a boy like Kaoru without a plan? It couldn't just be the pain and suffering Jai liked to cause – he wouldn't have called.

"You have to know! You know him! Why is he doing this?!" Hikaru looked like he was going to throw up, tear streaks shining on his cheeks, and I swallowed.

Maybe this was my fault. Going for Yuri hadn't worked. Going for me hadn't worked. It was a logical step, I'd admit, but something about it just seemed… off. It was like my nightmares and my dreams had merged into one horrible creation. My heart was twisted in terror. I couldn't get the image of Kaoru's smile out of my head.

"What are you doing, Kyoya?" Tamaki said suddenly. Eyes turned to the Shadow King, who was completely absorbed in his screen.

"I'm creating a map of all offences to determine Jai's most probable location," he said simply.

"Would that work?" Hikaru asked, hope rising in his voice.

"It already has." He swung his laptop around. The map had a lot red dots connected my very thin black lines. Between the lines was three highlighted buildings – empty buildings, most likely. Two seemed to be warehouses and another an empty apartment block. I knew vaguely what he'd done but only from television; it was something called geographic profiling and I was not in the least surprised that it was one of the skills in Kyoya's arsenal. He began dialling a number, face blank.

"Shouldn't we call the police?" Haruhi said, looking around the room. I was honestly surprised no one had suggested it yet.

"We can handle it," Kyoya replied distantly. "And we don't know what will happen if we involve law enforcement. No, this is better handled in-house." He stood, his phone at his ear, and began giving orders over the phone. I put my head in my hands, trying to think. I felt like something else was bothering me but it was so hard to focus on anything. It was like everything had clouded over. Part of me was screaming that this couldn't be happening but I knew it was and there was nothing I could do about it. I hated feeling helpless. I gripped my hair tight, determined not to cry.

It wasn't long before the door to the music room slammed open, making us all jump out of our skins. I dug my nails into the palm of my hand and tried to pretend I hadn't just leapt to my feet in anticipation of certain death. The man in the doorway, garbed in all black with a helmet under his arm, saluted Kyoya smartly.

"Master Ootori," the soldier type barked. "Reporting for duty and awaiting orders, sir."

"Mori. Honey," Kyoya said, rising from his chair.

"What do we do?" Honey asked, jumping down from his chair.

"We help," Mori said in his low voice, watching the Ootori men out in the corridor intensely. Hikaru got up shakily.

"I want to come." Kyoya glanced over his shoulder and shook his head.

"No, Hikaru. You will only get in the way. We will get Kaoru back – don't worry." His eyes snapped to me. "You too, Katya. Stay here." I narrowed my eyes. I knew that logically I shouldn't go with, considering my state of healing, but I wanted to. I didn't want to just do nothing. There had to be something. But part of my mind was whispering at me to stay and I didn't know why. Reluctantly, I nodded my understanding and pretended not to notice the guard he put on the door.

It got very quiet after the corridor had emptied of whatever regiment Kyoya had called in. Haruhi buried her face in Tamaki's chest and the four of us sat in defeated silence. We were completely lost. I kept telling myself that between the Ootori army, Mori and Honey, Jai didn't stand a chance but no matter how many times I repeated it, the knowledge didn't get rid of the feeling of dread that had latched onto my spine. I glanced across at Hikaru, who had backed into the chair and sat there staring at nothing, completely white. It was like he'd broken. My eyes strayed back to the laptop where the buildings flashed lazily. The red dots lay scattered around and I began to wonder what they were for. More than one sat squarely on the high street where Haruhi had got involved, and the others lay scattered across the neighbourhood. In fact, most of the red dots from the past six months were in Haruhi's neighbourhood itself.

My brain began to scream at me and slowly pulled me out of my stupor. I couldn't just sit here like a zombie; that wasn't helping. Something was wrong and my subconscious was desperately throwing hints at me. After a moment, I sat up sharply.

"Wait a minute." The others looked at me as I pulled the laptop towards me.

"What are you doing?" Haruhi asked.

"He couldn't have used all offences," I muttered, scrolling sideways to find my apartment block. The dots he'd used, the numbers beside them – they were reported offences. No one downtown called the police on Jai anymore because everyone knew what it would get them – a lot of pain or a pot on the mantelpiece – which meant he'd used barely any offences at all. The majority of crimes were completely unreported. That meant geographical profiling wouldn't work on Jai, I realised. He wasn't working from these central locations at all. There was no way the gang's headquarters was any of them.

"They've got the wrong place!" I whipped out my phone, dialling Kyoya's number and swearing when it sent me straight to voicemail. Great. He'd obviously switched it off for the raid. I stared back at the computer, thinking. I had to think.

"What do you mean? Katya, what are you doing?" I ignored Tamaki and tried to focus. I could discount most of Haruhi's neighbourhood as points because that was pushing his boundaries – Jai had to be in my neighbourhood. He had to be downtown. My apartment block had been the focus for some time now but there were two others that had been plagued by Jai's gang. Everyone downtown knew when Jai had done something and I was no exception. I clicked a couple of time and two red dots sprang into being.

It literally took me five minutes of placing dots to find it. There were a few empty buildings downtown but those that were listed as empty rarely were. The old warehouse, which seemed in prime position, was ran by Old Mo and his family of homeless people. The abandoned multi-storey car park on the riverfront was widely thought of as the skate park, local teenagers having an almost constant presence. Once I'd started, a void showed up. A void that would make sense in any criminal's mind – don't commit crimes next to your lair.

That would make complete sense… unless you became so active that the lovely crime-free spot became very obvious.

I skidded to a stop at the door as the guard Kyoya had so kindly left held up a hand.

"I need to go." I tried to duck around him. It didn't happen.

"I'm sorry. Master Ootori was very specific – under no circumstances can you leave this room," he intoned, standing straight and tucking his helmet under his arm. He looked like he really didn't want to be there. He wanted to be with the others, where exciting things were happening. Instead, he was stuck on babysitting duty.

It rang some bells.

"But they're going to the wrong place!" I yelled at him.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, bored. "You cannot leave."

"Just radio Kyoya or something. Look, this could get Kaoru killed!" He looked me up and down and I felt the judgement begin.

"We will make radio contact after the raids. Should they have been unsuccessful, I shall endeavour to share your… suspicion." My blood boiled. I was questioning Kyoya so he wouldn't believe me? Was this guy serious? I turned away, gritting my teeth. As much as this guy wanted me to, I was not going to stay in this room while they conducted the most pointless of raids on buildings holding nothing. I eyed to the windows, wondering if I could survive the fall. I had to have a plan. Hikaru stood up, staring at me.

"Katya?" He asked hesitantly. I sighed, closing my eyes. I really didn't have a choice.

My elbow smashed into the side of the guard's head, crashing into the doorframe. Reeling, he didn't see the punch coming and I sent him flying out into the corridor, where he fell to one knee. His hand rose to his face and he muttered an oath before stilling. He looked up at me slowly before my heel met his temple with a sickening crack. He slid along the floor to a stop and didn't move. I knelt down to make sure I hadn't accidentally killed him or anything and began to search his pockets.

"What are you doing?!" I looked up at Hikaru, who stood in the doorway with a place-faced Tamaki, and looked at him blankly.

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

"Beating the crap out of the Ootori private army?" Haruhi suggested, poking her head around the door.

"With frightening ease," Tamaki added under his breath. I straightened, satisfied.

"I'm saving Kaoru. You can either stay here or lend me a car. Either way, Kyoya's wrong and all you've got is me." Hikaru stared at me for a second.

"Okay," he muttered and then louder. "Okay. Let's go."

"Hikaru! What are you thinking?" Haruhi caught his arm. "You can't go after this guy! You heard what Katya said!" I didn't interject but there was no way I was letting Hikaru anywhere near Jai. Giving the twins matching but opposite scarring would please him no end.

"It's Kaoru," Hikaru said and the emotion in his voice made her let go. She stared at the floor.

"You two stay here. Keep trying to contact Kyoya. The address is on his laptop," I told them, undoing the ribbon around my neck. Tamaki nodded, putting his arm around Haruhi.

"What are you going to do?" I started away from them, not waiting for Hikaru to catch up. I was just focussing on finding Kaoru. I had no idea what I was going to do when I found Jai.

But I hoped it was going to hurt.

Author's Note: Sorry about the gap (though your reactions were, quite frankly, hilarious). Have an update. Hope you can wait for the next one!