Broken

...Twenty-fifth Part: Dark...

Krad was completely worn out. He was curled against my side, trapping my arm beneath his neck and my chest under his arm. I didn't necessarily want to get up and leave him, but my arm was falling asleep and I needed a shower to clean up the sweaty grease mop that was my hair.

"Krad," I whispered. "Let me up, Angel."

"Nm-mm," he murmured, nuzzling his nose into my neck.

I laughed despite myself, pushing his face away and sliding my arm out from under him. "No, baby. I'm getting up now."

Krad groaned shortly and whacked my side as I got up, for calling him 'baby'. My pet-name for him – 'Angel' – was alright, but 'baby' was unacceptable... I called him that from time to time anyway, though, just because irritating him was still kind of fun.

"Babe," I whispered tauntingly.

"Daaarrk!" he whined – just like a little kid.

"You know I do it just to bug you," I told him. I kissed Krad's forehead before walking off into the bathroom, leaving the pretty immortal man to his sleep.

. . .

"NO!" I shut the water off and scrambled into my clothes as fast as I possibly could when I heard the scream, shaking my hair in a sad attempt to dry it and flinging water everywhere. I was about to crash the door open, too, but stopped short of the handle when I noticed other voices accompanying Krad's choked sobbing.

"Hush, little angel," a woman's voice cooed. "Somebody might come to hurt you if they hear you. Shhh. Don't cry. You remember me, don't you?"

"Amelia, I think I heard something," a man's rough, gravelly voice tried to interrupt her. I recognized it immediately. Hotarou Ogata.

Amelia Ogata didn't seem to hear her brother at all. She kept ranting on in a sweet, childlike voice – something so deceiving and wrong that I thought I was going to be sick, knowing what she really was. Psychopath. "Pretty pale thing," she chimed. "So pure, so naïve, and innocent – but you're not innocent, are you? Nope. Your golden hair is all a lie. You look just like an angel, don't you? But you're a devil. There's a devil in all of us, you know. Nobody's perfect. And you're a dirty little thing, aren't you? Tainted, my friend. You..."

I grit my teeth together, restraining myself from bursting into the room until I had a sure idea of what exactly I was dealing with. Krad's muffled crying tore at my heart, though. I knew I couldn't wait much longer. I had to save him from these criminals. Rapists. Rapists of body and mind. And they had to die. Today.

"Amelia, I swear I heard something," Hotarou Ogata insisted.

"What's this...?" she went on, ignoring him again. Krad whimpered, and I thought that I might, too, knowing what could be happening. "Oh, look at this... hmm... Hotarou, my brother, somebody else has been playing with our toy!"

This seemed to catch the oaf's attention, because he stopped insisting he heard something – probably me.

I pressed my face against the door, listening more intently as I prepared myself to open it. I could hardly hear anything over the horrified pounding of my heart. Somehow they had managed to find Krad, figure out where we lived, and barge into our house unnoticed – unless they had killed everyone else. I doubted that possibility, but I shivered nonetheless, thinking frantically what I would do without my family. What would I do without Krad if I couldn't save him? How could I live?

I heard another of Krad's terrified cries and swung open the door, nearly busting it off of its hinges. I went straight for Hotarou, the ugly monster bent over my lover. I grabbed the back of his jacket and dragged him off of Krad, throwing him across the room without taking any account for his size. I was more powerful than him anyway. Violet magic gathered in my hand and I hurled it at him. It hit him, though it probably wasn't a fatal shot.

I ran over to Krad, cupping his face in my shaking hands. "Are you okay?" I asked fiercely.

He shrank under my intense eyes, but nodded. I'd saved him from molestation, but I wasn't too sure how his mind was holding up. I could feel the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand on end when Amelia came up behind me. I couldn't see her, but I knew she was there. I smoothed my hand down the length if Krad's tense face once, caressing his skin, before turning around.

My arm met a metal bar and I discovered that the woman had somehow managed to pry a towel bar off of the bathroom wall. She tried to hit me with it again – acting very out-of-character from the profile the police had created – but I caught it, wrenching it out of her little hands.

She flipped her hair away from her face, grinning. "You wouldn't hit me with that," she said. "You wouldn't do that, would you? No, I don't think you have the courage to. I don't think you have the brains to. Like my brother, you can't think for yourself," she taunted, her predictions getting off-kilter from her usual mind games. But then, as she backed away from me slowly, she grabbed a hold of her disgusting 'charm' again. "Why did you wait so long, hmm? Is this precious thing not worth enough to you? That you would hold back for so long, and not come to his rescue. Maybe it was to save your own skin."

"Shut up, Amelia," I growled. I could feel the magic bubbling up in me from my anger. I felt my wings sprout from my back and I towered over her like the angel of death. Her eyes widened.

"Impossible," she spat. "Impossible!"

I grabbed her by the throat. "Stop. Talking," I demanded through my teeth. She tried to pry my hand away from her neck, to get air into her lings, but failed miserably. Even when her fingernails tore open my skin and blood trickled down my arm, I didn't let go. I was slowly suffocating her, and my hand burned with magic that was dying to get out and kill her.

Unnervingly, she was smirking at me when she died. I dropped her, and she looked like some crazed doll on the floor, her glazed, dead eyes still looking at me cunningly, like something I did was hysterically funny.

Hotarou got up from his wounded position on the floor and came at me, snarling about his sister's death and that he'd "crush me like a twig". The psychotic woman had been right about her brother having no brains. Even as my magic whorled, he ran at me, charging right into certain death.

"The bigger they are," I whispered. "The harder they fall."

I smirked a little at the two dead beings on the floor of my bedroom. I had killed them both.

I killed them.

I killed...

I sank to my knees, breathing heavily. Sure, I'd been in fights, knocked a bunch of guys out, but never had I actually killed anyone before. I ran a hand back through my hair and shook my head disbelievingly.

"Dark...?" Krad groped around the floor for his clothes. His shirt and underwear were what he could reach, so he put those on, not bothering to ask where his jeans had gone, and walked over to me.

I rested my head against his leg for a moment and looked up at him. "I told you so," I laughed softly.

There were tears in Krad's eyes again, but they didn't spill over – mine did, though. They rolled down my face slowly, and I stood up to look at him before pulling him into my arms, just to hold him.

"I love you," I told him sincerely, swaying slightly.

Krad wrapped his arms around my neck, burying his face between my neck and his right elbow. We rocked back and forth together, as if to some silent music, just holding each other close.

"Thank you," Krad choked, and I felt his hot tears on my shoulder.

Late, there was the sound of running footsteps, and a small crowd called the Niwa family burst into the room, Emiko at the lead. At least they were alright – obliviously sound sleepers, but alright.

I knew that Krad realized that they were there, too, but he tried to ignore them.

"Dark, what happened!?" Emiko demanded, cringing away from the deceased criminals on the floor and wondering at the misplaced towel bar.

"I killed Hotarou and Amelia Ogata!" I snapped at her. "What does it look like!?"

Seriously.

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The moment we've all been waiting for! (Insert applause here)