Adins Presents
"My Four Kings"
Today's Episode: Going Mobile
Zoisite's teeth were chattering in his mouth very much in time with the rumble of the jackhammers across the street from the Four Kings Bar and Grill. Another slew of weeks passed by with only the loud, rowdy construction workers and hopelessly lost tourists offering any kind of patronage to their once well-patronized establishment. It was the middle of the week; possibly Wednesday, but he thought for some reason that it felt like a Thursday. In truth it really didn't matter what day it was. It wasn't like they were looking forward to the weekend since they all worked seven days a week and they weren't waiting on a paycheck to drop because they all paid themselves whenever they felt like it straight out of the till.
The year seemed to fly past at an ungodly rate. It seemed like only yesterday their little gang was gearing up to crash the Chamber of Commerce Christmas party and then it was spring again, despite winter hanging on for as long as humanly possible. Zoisite shivered and silently thanked the rotation of the earth for putting them back on the sun's good side.
"Anybody see any good movies lately?" Andrew asked from his usual position at the bar.
The gathered crowd grunted an ensemble reply of disinterest and Andy shrugged and went back to studying his dark brown ale. Nephrite was slouched so far over his bar propped up by his palms on his face that he was practically laying down. Zoisite and Jadeite were sitting opposite their comrade, with an empty stool between them and Andy's VIP section.
Lita stood next to Nephrite leaning on one arm while she idly flipped through a cutlery catalog with the other hand. For all intents and purposes she was now an employee of the Bar & Grill, having taken over the majority of culinary duties during the evening when they saw their greatest spike in activity, a position once filled by the absent Kunzite. Nephrite was glad to have her there, of course, but the endless hours they spent at the restaurant day after day was still severely cutting into the amount of downtime he could spend with her. When they did have a day off that intersected half the time neither of them wanted to do anything but sleep.
In front of Jadeite sat a pile of shredded paper from a napkin that he had absentmindedly torn up while sitting at the bar waiting for something to occur to snap him out of his bored stupor. He grabbed his left hand with his right hand and began cracking each knuckle in turn. By the time he reached his middle finger Zoisite was glaring angrily at him and Nephrite looked about ready to brawl.
"Sorry." He mumbled ineffectively.
Such was the content of a majority of their days now that the far end of town where their isolated little Eden resided had become a cacophonous Sodom of machine-raped earth. About the only thing they could stay positive about in their current predicament was that the excessive amount of free time they had only served to strengthen the analogies they crafted to describe their woes.
After another dreadful few minutes of silence, Jadeite spoke up, "You guys want to get out of here today?"
Nobody answered, so Jadeite answered his own question.
"'Cause I sure wouldn't mind just taking off." he elaborated, "Lock the place up and go."
"Go where?" Lita mumbled uninterested but polite.
"I dunno…" Jadeite stalled, "Anywhere."
"We could go see a movie or something." Andy suggested.
"Jesus Tree-Fucking Christ, Andy…" Nephrite unhelpfully swore, "Give the movies a rest, huh?"
"Hey!" Lita gasped. Even she was taken somewhat aback by Nephrite's searing admonishment.
"What the hell, dude?" Andy demanded, obviously surprised at the reaction.
"Fucking movies…" Nephrite grumbled incoherently.
"I don't hear any big ideas from you, ass." Andy, in a rare moment of brazen showmanship dared to challenge the larger, stronger, more verbally abusive King.
And Nephrite looked ready to pounce…
"Guys, settle down!" Zoisite interrupted the escalation, "I know we're all bored out of our minds, but for God's sake let's try to keep it civil. Go fucking play darts or something… Christ."
"Well shit, look at the big sacks on Zoi and Andy today!" Nephrite announced condescendingly, "You boys get a shot of Viking jizz in your lattes this morning?"
"Dude, this is cabin fucking fever if I've ever seen it." Jadeite added his two cents, "If we don't do something to snap us out of this soon we're going to end up murdering the shit out of one another."
Lita's hand jerked slightly on the page she was flipping in her cutlery magazine and gave a little tear, but she managed to force down the bile in her throat without drawing any undue attention. Nephrite's hand moved swiftly below the bar and reassuringly squeezed her thigh as his eyes threatened to ignite the oblivious Jadeite where he stood like a pile of dry leaves. If there was one thing he would never do with this group of misfits it would be to reveal Lita's childhood trauma.
"Maybe it wouldn't hurt for you guys to get out of here for a few days." Andrew suggested.
"I don't have the money to take a vacation right now." Zoisite whined, "And it would be just our luck that the place would suddenly decide to be busy as shit the day we weren't here."
"Fuck that." Jadeite opined, "I'm sick of milling around this place day after day with nothing to show for it. And I'm twice as sick of worrying whether business will pick up or if the next day is going to be the day we file our Chapter Eleven."
"I think you guys spend a little too much time worrying about things you can't control." Lita keenly observed, "I mean I know you haven't really been riding high lately, but you can't let it consume your every waking thought."
"Yeah, miserable sheep." Nephrite intoned.
Lita's head tilted backward to stare up into Nephrite's eyes hovering above her and she smirked at him, "You're not much better, my dear."
"My dear." Playful, yes. Tongue-in-cheek, yes. It really didn't matter; Nephrite ate that shit up.
"What if we just got in the car right now and started driving?" Jadeite offered, "What's the worst thing that could happen? Our finances suck the way it is; a couple days shut down isn't going to sink us if we haven't sunk already."
"Where would we go?" Zoisite complained more than inquired, "And who's paying for gas?"
"It doesn't matter where, Zoi." Jadeite began waxing philosophical, "It's just the idea of movement. We've been stuck here for so long doing nothing that we need to get up and physically go somewhere else to shake ourselves out of this slump."
"We could always throw some sleeping bags in the trunk and head for the mountains." Andy thought aloud, "A few days alone out in nature? Breakfast over the campfire?"
"Ugh. I hate sleeping bags." Zoisite paled at the thought, "Like oversized sausage casings. Uhhhghh… no thanks."
"Then we can just drive." Jadeite stressed, "We don't really need to go anywhere. I just want to be in motion instead of standing around here watching the rest of my sorry-ass friends stand around and be miserable with me."
"I haven't had a good old-fashioned road trip in a long time." Andrew stated excitedly.
"We'll toss some food and some booze in cooler and just see where the road takes us." Jadeite pressed the issue, "It'll make us feel better, I promise."
"I've got nothing holding me back if you guys want to go." Lita told them.
"Shit, son." Nephrite seemed to be caving, "Maybe. We'll see. Kind of getting hungry right now."
"We'll stop at a diner." Jadeite promised knowing full well of Nephrite's fondness for chromed-out roadside chop-shops, "With spoons greasier than ours."
"I dunno, I was kind of feeling like making ribs tonight. It's been a while." Nephrite rubbed his chin, "Unless we can figure out a way to rig up the barbecue pit to the back of the Jeep."
"Now that would be a powerful maneuver." Andrew applauded.
After that… silence.
People sometimes fantasize about cosmic events taking shape during eclipses, or when the planets fall into alignment. This Wednesday (or Thursday) afternoon featured neither. It was simply one of those inexplicable moments when the light of reason shone down on a collection of weary minds and suddenly all were unburdened in the warm, basking glow of a collective idea. First came the shock; then the undeniable awe.
"Holy shit." Nephrite spoke first, the barest inkling of a smile tugging at his lower lip.
"I just had the same fucking idea." Jadeite agreed, shaking his head in slow, methodical strokes.
"It's brilliant." Zoisite added, for once on board with this mystical revelation.
"What private epiphany are you guys having?" Lita asked both irked and interested.
"We've got to take this show on the road." Nephrite told her and slung his arm around her shoulders which surprised, but didn't offend.
"Uhh…" Andy droned incoherently.
"Meals on wheels, son." Nephrite explained in his gruffly exuberant way, "Like a god damned chuck wagon out on the Oregon Trail."
"Little help?" Andy nodded towards Jadeite who seemed to have inadvertently sparked this idea.
"We're going to take the Bar and Grill on the road." Jadeite answered with a huge, confident grin.
"What?" Lita asked astonished and suddenly aroused at the thought, "You mean like catering?"
"More like a mobile eatery for our downtrodden clientele who dare not risk the perils of our little corner of the city!" Zoisite announced and swept his hand in front of his eyes as though he beheld an impressive marquee that no one else could see.
"Sons of bitches don't want to come down on this end of town for the tough love anymore, so we've got to bring it to them." Nephrite elucidated in his splendidly working-class way.
"Ohh… I get it!" Andy chimed in and snapped his fingers, "You want to do something with, like, a vending truck?"
"Right, yeah…" Lita's eyes were beginning to light up with this prospect as well, "Oh, shit! What do they call those trucks that drive around in the industrial parks?"
"Huh?" Jadeite asked.
"It's basically what you're talking about, but they have a special name!" Lita turned to Nephrite, "You know what I mean, right? They go to the factories and construction sites when the workers go on their lunch breaks?"
"Ohhh…" Nephrite recalled from his days as a construction foreman, "The roach coach?"
"Fuck yeah!" Lita exclaimed and Nephrite's skin buzzed. God damn he loved it when she swore…
"Oh, Christ…" Zoisite suddenly lapsed into dread, "We're not calling it that."
"The fuck we aren't." Nephrite countered him immediately.
"Jesus…"
"That's what we have to call it, Zoi." Jadeite defended the argument, "Think of it as overcoming the adversity of a stereotype. We're not going to sell moldy pizza and week-old gyros. We're going to have the same shit we make here, all done right inside the truck!"
"The Four Kings Roach Coach." Nephrite strung the words together, "We need a badass logo of the four of us riding a huge fucking cockroach with a mushroom cloud in the background."
"Holy shit, I can't breathe…" Andy choked out through his painfully welcome fits of laughter. Just like that the doldrums had passed.
"Ahh… hang on, just a second." Jadeite groaned and spun around in his chair to face the group, "We're getting ahead of ourselves, aren't we?"
"Don't kill my momentum, Jed." Nephrite threatened and punched a fist into his hand for effect.
"I mean, we're low enough of funds the way it is." Jadeite, who had taken over Kunzite's bookkeeping duties, explained, "This is going to be a huge investment…"
"Guys…" Andy spoke up, having regained his composure enough to speak, "If you need me to spot you some greenbacks to get this idea rolling, just say the word."
"Oh, dude!" Jadeite exclaimed, "We can't expect you to do that!"
"Listen, you guys are like family to me." Andy spoke with his customarily shy warmth, "Despite how rocky everything started off and all this shit lately with Mamoru." He looked at each one of them in turn, "I just want you all to know that I really appreciate you propping me up after I lost my job and everything." He smirked at Nephrite, "Even if I drank your bar dry every night."
"Andy!" Lita gushed and implied the "Awww!" without actually saying it.
"Fuck, man. You're alright." Nephrite told him and slapped Andrew as hard as humanly possible on the shoulder, "I'm giving Andy the rest of my friendship points."
"Me too!" Jadeite announced. Zoisite just rolled his eyes.
"Here!" Nephrite barked and slammed a pitcher of lager on the bar in front of Andrew, "Drink that and continue pissing excellence."
"Whatever that means." Andy laughed with the rest of the group, "Thanks, guys."
"Hell, we might as well just start calling you "New Kunzite" after this." Jadeite joked, but his mirth was met with several sour glances and silence.
Kunzite. The Absentee King.
Jadeite recalled instances in the collective past lives of the Shitennou, specifically during the Silver Millennium, when they would travel across the world on varied assignments and often not see each other for weeks or months at a time. Then, however, there was always the spiritual and elemental connection to the Earth that kept them in constant contact. The Shitennou existed for each other as much as they existed for the mother Earth in those days.
Now, with Kunzite missing for what was coming up on a full year, each of the remaining Kings felt nothing more than a lingering dread. There was no sign of the mightiest among them; no communications at all save for the sporadic and impenetrable postcards which called out the changing of the seasons. Truth be told, they had no way of knowing if the simple life lines were even from Kunzite at all, but the emotionless characters always carefully hand-written on the cards matched his meticulous style and often icy demeanor.
In some ways they felt as though they weren't doing enough with a member of their group missing, but by and large the Shitennou realized that if Kunzite did not want to be found then it would be pointless to try to search him out. Whatever had riled him and caused enough mental anguish in the composed, stoic rock of the Shitennou was not something that the other Kings could wrestle out of him. Wherever he was, Kunzite would have to face his demons alone.
"Fuck." Nephrite said with an aggravated sigh.
"Way to go, Jed." Zoisite added, now glowering at the bar with one eye while rubbing anxiety and a possible tear from the other.
Andrew, sensing the sudden downturn in attitude, checked his watch and stood up from his VIP bar stool.
"Well guys, I'm gonna take off for a while." He announced casually, "I'll be back tonight, of course. I'll see if I can pull anything together for the roach coach idea."
The Shitennou murmured their half-hearted goodbyes and Lita excused herself as well. As soon as she rounded the edge of the bar and disappeared into the kitchen, Nephrite reached out and palmed the back of Jadeite's skull with one of his broad hands and slammed the younger King's head down onto the bar where it left a sizable mark.
"Mother fucker!" Jadeite screamed and pawed at the guaranteed welt that was forming.
"You deserved it." Nephrite countered him immediately.
"God! Fuck you, Nephrite." Jadeite swore, "My god damned eyes are watering."
"Cry me a river." His woody-haired companion replied.
"Could you stop?" Zoisite admonished them both, "I don't want to be in the middle of another one of your idiotic games of one-uppsmanship."
"He started it!" Jadeite accused Nephrite with a pointed finger on the hand that wasn't cradling his bruised cranium.
"You started it!" Nephrite shot back.
"Why, because I mentioned Kunzite?" Jadeite correctly assumed, "Are we just not supposed to talk about the fact that a member of our blood-sworn brotherhood has been missing for a long-ass fucking time?"
"You always bring shit like that up at the worst possible moment." Nephrite railed him and recalled his jest to Andrew, "New Kunzite…"
"It was a joke." Jadeite reminded him sourly.
"Not to me!" Nephrite roared and a tray of shot glasses rattled at the force of his voice.
Jadeite was stunned to silence at the power in Nephrite's declaration. It slipped his mind often; Zoisite's too, that despite the fact that at some point in the distant past they had sacrificed their mortality to serve as the Earth's eternal wardens, that they were younger than Nephrite and Kunzite by a few years each. The two elder Shitennou had known each other; grown up together, so they said, long before their blonde compatriots ever entered the picture. Even in light of his often callous remarks and dismissal of the older man's so-called wisdom, it was obvious that Nephrite shared a deep, abiding connection with the leader of the Shitennou that bordered on true brotherhood. Jadeite couldn't be faulted for not taking that ancient memory into consideration while he was joking with Andrew, but now the recollection stung him with guilt.
"I'm sorry." He said meekly, not daring to meet Nephrite's gaze.
He was met with that snort of a sigh that signaled the end of Nephrite's occasional fits of rage. The elder Shitennou shank back down from his tense stance and grabbed a glass of beer to calm his nerves. A sudden pounding at the door called their attention.
For a moment they tensed; fearing that they were about to be robbed by someone who wasn't smart enough to just turn the handle, but as the rattling and thumping on the front door of the restaurant continued, Zoisite instinctively rose and approached. He couldn't see anything through the upper window of the door and when he swung it open his heart leapt into his throat.
Ares was panting furiously and shaking from the exertion of his cross-town sprint. Dried blood caked one side of his face from the awful wound inflicted by Artemis. Zoisite cried out and dropped to his knees and reactively pulled his panting canine prince into his lap.
"Holy shit, is that Ares?" Jadeite exclaimed in worry at seeing what remained of the dog's right eye.
He raced to Zoisite's side and knelt as well. Nephrite raced around the side of the bar with a towel that he had wetted and handed it to Zoisite. He pressed it against the dog's bloody snout and he let out a soft whimper
"Shh." Zoi coddled, "It's okay."
"Mmm- meh…" Ares spoke painfully, "Metalia."
"What did you say?" Nephrite gasped, astonished at the word he just heard spoken by a creature that shouldn't have been talking the first place.
"Metalia." Ares said clearly. His one good eye looked up at what where, for all intents and purposes, his brethren, "She lives."
That was all he managed before the dog's underdeveloped body gave out. He slipped into unconsciousness and simply breathed, haggard, in and out as he lay in Zoisite's lap. The three Shitennou looked up and saw the shared worry among them.
"Zoisite." Nephrite spoke up.
"I told you he could talk." Zoisite reminded the elder king.
Nephrite nodded grimly, "I think it's time you told me everything he's had to say…"
Usagi sat at the kitchen table wrapped in a blanket with her knees tucked up under her chin. She had set her cup of tea on the nearby windowsill to cool what seemed like an hour ago, but every time it touched her lips it still felt too hot. She sighed and took a tiny bite of the sliver of cheesecake that sat in front of her. She hadn't slept in hours; she was trying to avoid it. Sugar and caffeine were helping, but she was nearing that jittery, sense-dulling plateau where her two favorite meds were becoming ineffective.
The sound of the door opening scared her half to death and her fork rattled on the table as she dropped it. Mina shuffled in and immediately dropped her camera bag, backpack, and tripod with an exhausted huff. She spied Usagi at the table and, shedding her coat and glasses in stride, sat down next to her and offered a concerned glance.
"Why are you up so early?" Usagi asked puzzled.
"Why are you up so late?" Mina countered and glanced at the clock, "Have you been up all night?"
Usagi nodded with a tiny frown.
"Still can't sleep?" Mina asked worriedly.
"Nope." Her Bunny answered truthfully.
Mina grimaced. She always felt that she was good in a crisis. She never lost her cool and she was awfully adept and working various angles to get done what needed to be done, but Usagi's recent insomnia was a problem that she was having a damnable time surmounting.
"Forcing yourself to stay awake is different than not being able to sleep." Mina reminded her.
"I desperately want to sleep." Usagi whined and stretched every joint in her body, "I hate this awful fuzzy feeling you get when you've been chemically-assisted for so long. I feel dirty even though I just took a shower; it's like my skin is just crawling."
"Listen, I'll dig out my sleeping bag and camp on the floor next to your bed if it'll give you a piece of my mind." Mina offered sweetly.
"Peace of mind." Usagi mumbled gratefully back, "But that's not it."
"Then what?" Mina hoped.
Usagi let out a long, weary sigh and stated, "I can't close my eyes."
"What do you mean?"
"It's dark when I close my eyes." Usagi told her. It sounded childish, but it wasn't, "And I see Her."
"The woman that attacked you?" Mina surmised. Usagi gave a tiny nod in reply.
There had been no word from the police on who the woman was. No one got a decent look at her besides Usagi. Other tenants of their apartment building attested to her presence and the surprising speed at which she fled, but there was so little to actually go on that the police had a hell of a time drumming up any sort of lead. There were no other break-ins or domestic disputes reported in their vicinity that night, so there was no pattern to follow. Mina didn't see the woman herself; only heard her last, terrified shriek, but Usagi's vivid recollection was enough for her to draw her own shocking mental picture.
"You can't let it do this to you, Usagi." Mina advised, "The police are 99% sure she was just a half-crazy vagrant."
"Mina…" Usagi spoke slowly. She was dismissing that theory altogether and the tone of her voice implied that, though she would never say it to her face, Mina was insulting her intelligence.
"I just don't want to see you so torn up about it." Mina assured her, "You're safe here, Usagi. With me."
"I knew that woman, Mina." Usagi told her. She had said as much before, but Mina dismissed it as nerves and shock, "When I looked in her eyes… I must have done something terrible to her."
"Don't do that, Usagi!" Mina scolded her, "I read about this. It's called Stockholm Syndrome. She attacked you. You're the victim, not her! Don't try to justify what she did!"
"I can't help it." Usagi confessed.
"Yes you can." Mina reassured her, "Because you don't know that woman. You might think you do, but that's just the trauma talking. You have to work past it, Usagi. Focus on other things. Don't keep playing it over in your mind; I know it's hard, believe me."
"Believe you?" Usagi almost laughed, "How would you know?"
For a moment, Mina was genuinely upset with her friend for not remembering, but then she tempered her anger with logic. She didn't ever speak of it; she had told Usagi that much, that she didn't ever want to speak of it. She was just obeying her wishes…
"Because of my Accident." Mina reminded her icily.
Usagi's eyes grew wide for a moment, but then turned downward to her lap. Mina never talked about her "Accident." It wasn't even an accident in any traditional sense. She was a junior in high school; the social-climber, head cheerleader, volleyball champion, goddess of the hallways. She was somewhere she shouldn't have been, drinking things she shouldn't have drank, smoking things that had no business being smoked, and in the company of much older men who should have all been in jail already. To call what happened an accident was actually an apt description from their point of view. It was an accident that nothing actually happened.
"You remember the guy I told you about?" Mina asked her, "The blonde who was cheering his boys on from the sidelines while I got drunker and drunker and misplaced more and more clothes?"
"You don't have to do this, Mina." Usagi warned her.
"With a name like Ace you knew he was just an intelligent and upstanding member of society." Mina scoffed, "He was the only one who didn't lay a hand or some other body part on me. He just sat there in the shadows smiling; watching me get pulled down deeper and deeper."
Usagi momentarily forgot her own troubles and wanted nothing more than to halt Mina mid-story and sit around watching the Food Network all day; one of their favorite activities to unwind.
"If the police hadn't shown up for a noise complaint I probably wouldn't have gotten out of there." Mina continued, "I was this close." The space between her fingers was about a hair's width, "This close to having every bit of innocence ripped away by a gaggle of drunk, horny, drug-addled, deadbeat, fucking redneck scumbags."
"I hate this story." Usagi reminded her with as much levity as possible. None.
"After that I couldn't sleep in a room that had windows for fear that he might climb in one night." Mina continued, "Every time I blinked I would see his face in a dark corner just sitting there watching me with that stupid fucking grin; like he'd planned the whole thing." She looked up at the ceiling and closed her eyes, "In some ways it was worse than what they wanted to do to me."
"Mina…" Usagi moaned knowing full well that last comment was a stretch.
"But here I am!" Mina announced and turned on the perky charm even though she was clearly melancholy from the bad memories, "I got over it. I had to, you know? You can't live in fear, Usagi. You can't live in fear."
"I know." Usagi acquiesced. It sounded like she was just Yes'ing her friend.
"I had some severely ass-backwards emotional fuckery to overcome." Mina told her somewhat proudly, "All you've got is a crazy homeless bitch that you'll never see again."
"Yeah." Usagi sighed, "Until I close my eyes again."
"Usagi!" Mina snapped at her.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry." She corrected herself, "That… I'm sorry. I know you're trying to help."
Mina nodded and brushed a hand onto Usagi's shoulder, "I'll camp in your room tonight anyway."
"Thanks." Usagi laughed and shook her head, "No fantasizing about Kunzite, though. You keep me up with that enough the way it is."
"A girl has needs." Mina winked at her, "Don't worry, though. I had a run-in today with a friend of his that really pissed me off. Taking a man-break for a while, I think."
"Who did you talk to?" Usagi asked.
"That Mamoru guy." Mina replied and Usagi's neck snapped audibly as she turned.
"You saw him?" she squealed.
"Yeah." Mina confessed carelessly.
"And you didn't tell me?" Usagi whined back.
"Honey, I have to tell you." Mina began, "I know you had a thing for him, but he's seriously not worth your effort. He's not just a tool, he's a power tool. He's got his own frigging aisle at Home Depot. Hell, he's a whole hardware store."
"Be nice, Mina!" Usagi scolded, "He's just a little… odd."
"He's not odd, he's a jerk." Mina irrevocably stated, "You must have caught him on the one day of the year when he wasn't being a complete ass-bag."
"I don't care what the goddess of love and beauty has to say; I know what I felt and I'm telling you there's more to him that what you're seeing." Usagi stubbornly refused to accept Mina's character summary.
"Well then you need to put forth a whole hell of a lot more effort to prove me wrong." Mina challenged her, knowing it would take her mind of the strange woman who attacked her, "You're single and unemployed so you have no excuse not to be pursuing this man 24/7."
"Maybe I will!" Usagi gladly accepted the challenge, "I've just been too busy until now."
"Well alright then!" Mina agreed.
"Fine!" Usagi shouted.
"Spaghetti for dinner?" Mina hollered back.
"Sounds good!" Usagi screeched.
"Wonderful!"
"GREAT!"
"I LOVE BEING LOUD!"
"ME TOO!"
They deteriorated into laughter not long after and within a few minutes Usagi had fallen asleep at the kitchen table with one hand on her cheesecake fork and the other one propping her head up by the chin just inches above her cheesecake. Mina smiled and slid her plate out from under her nose for the inevitable moment when her head would fall. The poor girl had enough to worry about without having a face full of dessert.
Once she was sure that Usagi was down for the count Mina retreated to her bedroom at sat down at her desk to consult the wise oracle known as Google for any and all information she could find about a mysterious man she knew only as Kunzite. To her surprise the internet returned very little. He didn't have a Facebook page nor MySpace. He didn't have an email address registered. There was mention of him in local archived newspaper articles about the Four Kings Bar & Grill from back when it opened, but beyond that nothing. She learned quite a bit about a semi-precious gem stone that shared his name which she didn't give much thought to considering some of the other names people had come up with for their kids in recent decades.
"Sneaky devil." Mina said to herself as she considered Kunzite's masterful ability to remain off the grid.
She threaded her fingers together behind her head and reclined in her chair. It had been months since the Christmas party. Surely he'd forgotten her and moved on by now, but she couldn't help but remain intrigued. The Four Kings was an obvious place to start her search, but she felt it was too obvious. She twirled a bit of hair around her finger and pondered.
And puzzled.
Her concentration was shattered by Usagi's shrill, horrified scream.
Mina lurched out of her chair so quickly that it fell over and flew halfway across her bedroom. She staggered out into the hallway to see her lifelong friend pressed back into the corner of their tiny kitchen with her back against the radiator and a bony, half-gnawed, red-tinged hand around her throat.
"GET HER OFF!" Usagi screamed hoarsely against the pressure on her throat.
The emaciated, black-dressed, black-haired vagrant of a woman cocked her head towards Mina and offered a grim, fanged smile that filled her with dread and a loathsome sense of déjà vu. Somewhere in her short amount of years on this earth she'd encountered that craggy, evil grin before. Her heart sank. Her blood went cold.
Usagi struggled and screamed as the woman choke the life out of her, but Mina was frozen in place. She didn't see the decrepit creature anymore. Now all she saw was that heart-wrenching, endlessly smiling, gloating face of a terrible human being that the boys called Ace.
