T~T ...it's my last day of summer vacation... So I decided to do a mass update for all of my stories today! (sorry if this is the third time you've read this message today.)
So thank you for all of the reviews I got last chapter! I'd like to thanks TallyGurl for reviewing last chapter, mainly because I've wanted someone from Tallahassee to review this story for a while now. :D I'd also like to thank Softballfre3k for your awesome (and very sweet) review and I'm glad you had fun breezing through the thirty or so cliffhangers I've had in the past chapters. :P
Again, thank you Dani-Chan for correcting the million or so mistakes that I had in here after writing this chapter while half asleep!
Chapter 37! *sigh...* you're gonna be mad at me again.
Enjoy!
"Home sweet home little Eddy?"
Anger for the man on the other line began to course through his veins so strong that he could hardly utter a single word in return. Several of the people in the small kitchen began to whisper and muttered things, or at least they sounded muttered to Ed whose blood was currently pounding so fast in his ears that he could hear little else.
"So I was thinking…" Kimblee continued, sounding malicious and horribly happy, "let's play a little game."
"Kimblee…why the fuck would I ever-?"
"I don't think you realize what kind of position you're in," he continued. "You play my game with me…or you can say bye-bye to your wittle orphan sibwings."
Edward's anger began to lessen slightly, just enough for his fear to rear its ugly little head into his heart. So this was how Kimblee would play it? Make Ed run and scramble around as he tried to keep up with his insane game and then…what? Ed tried not to think of what might lay at the end of this crazy goose-chase.
"F-fine," Ed shuddered. "Just…just let me hear one of them. No point in me playing if they're all…"
"Dead?" Kimblee cackled. "Aww….poor wittle Eddy can't even think about what could happen to his precious street rats. But fine…I guess that that it's only fair-."
Since when has Kimblee ever been fair? Edward thought bitterly but was happy that he wasgoing to accept his wishes as well.
Ed could hear Kimblee set down the phone on something hard and heard retreating footsteps. His heart began to beat franticly when he heard voices in the background.
"Get over you little shit!"
"No you damn asshole!"
SLAP!
Kimblee has obviously struck Terry for his tongue. Ed could not help but feel a small piece of pride for the kid for defying Kimblee. But he remembered now was not the time and place that Terry should choosing to finally stick up against Kimblee.
"I'm not planning on doing anything else as long as you cooperate. Try that again and…" Kimblee's voice dropped too low for Edward to hear his threat to hear, not matter how hard Ed pressed his phone into his ear. "Now get over here…remember, just say hi and then get out and if you try to tell him anything about where we are you'll be skinned alive. Now talk."
"Terry?" Ed asked hopefully.
"H-hey Ed," Ed could hear that the brave front he was desperately trying to put up had already crumbled.
Ed did not know how much time he had but hoped he could say a bit more, so he went on, hoping that this would not get the kids into anymore trouble.
"I'm sorry…" Ed said quietly, trying his hardest to not beak down in front of all his friends and family.
"I-it's not your fault idiot…" Terry continued and Ed could hear it that he was trying not to break down too.
"Yeah it is…I should have come home as soon as I got your messages," Ed muttered, collapsing forwards so that his elbows rested on his knees and his head was downturned, shielded by his bangs just in case he could not keep his emotions in check.
"So you got them…"
"Terry, tell me, how are Sammy and Kyl-?"
"Bye-bye!" Kimblee said into the phone before it appeared that Terry was pulled away from the phone. There was more scrambling and words that Ed could not decipher before Kimblee came back onto the line. "So, you've got your proof, now you can play along."
Edward wanted to yell, to scream and threaten the man but for once he restrained himself; he knew that only bad things would come from him cussing out Kimblee at a time like this.
"So, go to the old, abandoned GM factory on the other side of town."
"What after that?" Ed asked through clenched teeth.
"Just stay there and wait for a call. Take as long as you want, I'm not the one who will suffer if you take too long. Oh, and don't you dare try to contact the police or anyone else…because it will cost you more than you think if you do."
The line clicked to an end before Ed could say anything else. When he looked up at the others he found that the room had gone dead silent and that everyone's eyes were on him. Ed let out a raged sigh before he stuffed his phone into his pocket and stood up.
"Come on," Ed muttered as he took a step towards the back door.
"What did he say?" Winry asked.
"He's decided that he wants us to play a game," Ed said bitterly. "Basically he's going to make us go from place to place and give us instructions that we have to follow."
"What?" Half the room asked in confusion.
"What happens when we've done everything he's told us to do?" Roy asked.
Ed opened his mouth but closed it after a moment and merely shrugged his shoulders.
"All I know is that we better just follow along with Kimblee's damn twisted game."
"Where did he tell you to go Edward?" Hohenheim asked quietly while his eyes searched his oldest son's solemn face.
"The abandoned GM building across town," he answered. "He didn't give us a time limit or anything, he just told not to take too long."
"How are we going to get there?" Jean asked, seeing as most of their cars were currently parked in the parking lot of the Tallahassee airport.
"We could run to my house and ask for my mom's mini-van," Sheska offered. "I know my mom and dad went to a Spa for the weekend and they only took my dad's car."
"We'd still need another car," Maes said. "After we get the mini-van we could cram inside and run to my house to grab my car."
"Alright but we have to run," Ed said, taking a step out the back door. "It'll take a good ten minutes to run to Sheska's and then another five to drive to Maes and then we have to drive across town."
It must have been a strange sight for anyone who happened to drive passed them as they ran like maniacs to Sheska's house. Sure, if it was only a group of kids running, people would think little of it and be glad that there were kids outside instead of sitting in front of a computer in the dark. But what made the scene a strange one were the three fully grown adults, running along with the kids or huffing and puffing in the back.
Sheska had been correct in thinking that her parents had opted out of taking the minivan on their trip. It was like a clown car inside of the mini-van with eleven people in seven seats. Fortunately, the trunk area gave room to at least two more seats and with the small floor room it was only slightly uncomfortable and hot in the van. Thankfully the traffic was not bad on the side streets and they had arrived at Maes's house a few minutes later.
"I'll just be a minute," Maes said as he jumped, or more like fell, out of the crowded van before he ran up the drive and into his garage with Sheska, Riza, and Jean following behind him.
"Maes?"
Maes turned in horror to see his father peering out the kitchen window at them. The elder Hughes looked very similar to his father although the elder's eyes were blue and he did not have Maes' cowlick or his teenage facial hair. He was dressed for work and it appeared as if he had come home fore lunch instead of staying at the office.
"…Hi dad," Maes said, hoping like Hell he sounded innocent.
"I thought you were still in Florida son…?" he said, sounding extremely confused.
"Uh yeah…but, we, um…we came back early!" Maes said before changing the subject, hoping to take the spot light off of himself. "So why home so early Dad?"
"Um, I forgot to grab a report this morning and thought I should just grab it during lunch. But why didn't you call us-?"
"Love to stay and chat Mr. Hughes, really let's do it another time!" Jean yelled, pulling Maes a bit towards the garage. "But we're kinda in a hurry!"
In an instant, the four teens were inside the car and pulling out of the drive faster than they probably should have and were flying down the street behind the mini-van.
The old GM had only been abandoned for a year now but it had already been attacked by climate, animals, and teenaged vandals. They pulled in to the empty parking lot and began to walk towards what used to be the front of the building. Ed knew that somewhere…someplace…was a crony of Kimblee's who would alert him of Ed's arrival. But just incase one of his men were stationed in a spot where they could not see Ed…
"I'M HEAR KIMBLEE!" Ed screamed out into the high heavens, scaring away several flocks of birds.
The others gave him worried looks but knew better than to try and stop Edward; he did have a rather legitimate reason to be acting a little off today. Silence rang out after Ed's loud yell for almost five minutes; no one dared talk for some odd reason. Finally, Ed's phone began to vibrate in Ed's clenched fist. He didn't bother saying hello since the caller I.D. continued to say Unknown.
"We're here," Ed barked into the phone. "What now?"
"My, my…not even a hello?" Kimblee muttered absentmindedly.
"Just get on with it! Tell me what you want already! Money?" Ed growled.
"While money is a nice touch…no, at least, not quite."
"Just spit it out already."
"Fine then you brat. Do you know where the old Metro hospital is, a few towns over and is about a half an hour away?"
"No."
"Heh…here I thought you would have but I guess not. Well I'm sure your daddy does so why don't you ask him. Be there soon or else."
Ed closed his phone after the line went dead and stuffed it into his pocket before he began to storm over to the group. He took Kimblee's advice for once and went over to his father.
"He told me to ask you where the Metro Hospital a few towns over is," Ed said, ignoring the others questions. "Do you know it?"
"Yes…but why would he want us to go there?" Hohenheim seemed to ask this question more to himself.
The car ride to the hospital was anticlimactic and irritating. Why the hell was Kimblee making them go farther and farther away? Was he merely doing this to get them out of the way so that he could make is move?
The hospital parking lot was filled with cars and people coming and going. The group marched towards the visitor entrance and it was here, standing in front of the building that Ed realized that he did actually know this hospital, quiet well in fact.
"What is it Brother?" Al asked as he stared at his frozen brother.
"I know this place…" Ed muttered just loud enough for the others to hear and stop them in their tracks.
"You do?" Izumi asked.
"This was the hospital I stayed at after the accident. Once they knew I wasn't going to die, they shipped me here for a few months."
Izumi and Hohenheim exchanged looks that Ed couldn't even begin to decipher. Just as a large, dark-haired man skulked out of the hospital's automatic doors, Ed's phone went off.
This time there was no playing around, no asking to talk to a kids, Kimblee only uttered nine words clearly before he cut the line.
"What happened?" Winry asked, confused by the extremely short call.
"'Go to the place where you found the truth'," Ed said aloud, looking at the group.
"That's all he said?" Roy asked.
"Yeah…and I know just where to go," Ed said with a sudden smile.
"Where?" Hohenheim asked.
"To the place where I found out that I had a brother."
The small joy Ed got from realizing he understood Kimblee's cryptic clue quickly left him when he realized that the drive could take up to another hour and a half. But why was he going to all of these weird places? Sure, the hospital and his old social worker's office made sense, tying it to him, but…the GM building? That made no sense at all. He had never ever messed around there.
The building looked just as abandoned as I did a few weeks ago when he made Roy and Jean come with him and broke in with Roy's help. It felt like years had passed since that fateful night; how could it have only been a few weeks?
"Does he mean that we have to break into that room or just stay here?" Roy asked Ed.
"Don't know…" Ed muttered, gripping his phone tightly waiting for it to start to buzz; he really didn't feel like climbing through a room of file cabinets.
Fortunately it began to ring. Before Kimblee could utter a word, Ed yelled into the phone, "Let me here them Kimblee! I've had enough of your games!"
"Go back to your home," Kimblee muttered icily after Ed had stopped yelling.
Before Ed could really get his head around what had been said, the line clicked dead again.
Ed nearly bit threw his tongue as he tried to contain his scream of frustration and rage and just barely stopped himself from tossing the phone onto the ground.
"What now?" Maes asked quietly.
"Damn bastard…he just said to go back home!" Ed yelled. "What the Hell is he doing?"
"So what…?" Riza asked. "We go back to Kimblee's?"
"Edward, were those his exact words?" Hohenheim asked.
"Um, well he said 'go back to your home'. What else could it be?"
"Do you think he could mean…the house we lived in? We as in you, Alphonse, Trisha and, I?"
"Huh?"
"I simply mean to say that well…I wouldn't think you considered Kimblee's house as a home, just a house, a place to stay at. But your home was with your family."
"But…but I thought it was destroyed."
"Oh it was," Hohenheim whispered gravely. "But that does not mean that there isn't something there."
It would take over two hours to get from the old building to whatever remained of Ed's old home. By that time it would already be night fall and Edward hoped that Kimblee would at least allow him to talk to one of the kids once they got to their destination.
Unfortunately for Ed, the odds just seemed to keep piling up against him. About a half and hour into their trip, black smoke began to gush out of the car behind them: Maes' car. Containing his fury for only a few moments, Ed allowed his father to pull over onto the side of the road to see their damage.
"Shit!!" Maes exclaimed as he opened the hood and was instantly attacked by smoke.
"Here, let me look at it," Winry said, pushing passed the teen.
"What's wrong with it?" Ed couldn't help but ask and hoped that he didn't sound too demanding.
"Not sure," Winry muttered as she slammed the hood shut before she turned to look at Ed. "But this car is not moving much farther."
"What?"
"So go," Winry said, nodding towards the van. "You'll only lose time on us. Go. We'll be fine."
"But…" Ed mumbled.
"Just go!" Jean insisted.
"Honey," Izumi said, turning to look at Sig, "would you might staying with them so they stay safe?"
"Sure," Sig grunted, causing Izumi to beam and the teens staying behind to look wary of such a large man staying with them.
"Just call us when you get the next direction," Winry said.
Ed wanted to say something to her but didn't have a clue as to what he should say to her. So he nodded quickly before running back into the van.
"So how long do you think it'll take?" Winry asked the mechanic.
"Oh…maybe two or three days at least," he said, causing everyone to suddenly feel a brick drop into their stomachs.
"Alright," Winry said with a sigh. "Thank you."
After plenty of waiting, the tow-truck they had called arrived and took them along with Maes's busted car to the nearest garage. Over an hour had passed since the group had split and Winry wondered how much longer it would take to get there. But for now this half of the group was stranded.
"So what now?" Jean asked as he stared around the empty street.
"Do you think we should just go to a police station?" Winry asked, sounding worried.
"Didn't Ed tell us not to contact police?" Riza asked.
"Well yeah but could Kimblee really have enough people to tail everyone? We could tell the police what's going on and tell them the clues as we get them and maybe a special team of undercover cops or something could tail them."
Winry looked around desperately at the group. It was going to get dark soon and being stranded in the dark in an unknown place certainly unnerved Winry enough to seek refuge in a police station, even if Ed had told her not to.
"We don't really have anywhere else to go…" Jean muttered as a shady-looking hobo gave Jean a look. "And this place is kinda giving me the creeps."
"I don't want to be standing around in the dark," Sheska whispered.
"It's not a good idea for young people like you to be wandering around in the dark," Sig said in his deep voice.
"Let's just ask the mechanic where the police station is," Winry said, motioning to the garage behind them. "What harm could it do to send some extra help?"
After taking a few minutes to get some directions from the old mechanic, the group set off to find the police station. After quickly deciding against trying to get a cab or two, they decided to run there; run because it was getting steadily darker out and Winry was right to assume that it was dangerous to run around an area they didn't know in the dark.
Oblivious to the rest of the world, the group of teens and Sig continued to run towards their destination of the Police station. Maes lead the group with Jean only a nose behind the dark haired teen. Riza kept up with the two boys just fine with Winry only a bit behind her; Sheska and Sig brought up the rear, huffing and puffing behind the more physically fit teens.
Unfortunately, being oblivious can sometimes be a problem; a rather large one that brings you to a halting stop.
There were no headlights but they should have at least heard the noises of the oncoming vehicle but between the noise of their own blood pulsing in their ears and the pounding of their feet on the pavement, it was really rather easy to not hear anything. They knew running in the streets at night was a rather reckless thing to do but they all thought that they would see the lights of the car before it came too close; too bad the driver of the car in question had purposely turned off its lights.
Just as Maes and Jean took a step into the deserted intersection, Riza heard the noise and looked desperately for the lights but when she realized where they were, it was already much to late for even someone of the fastest reflexes.
The car continued on through the intersection, barely even swerving or slowing down as it plowed through the two teens.
"MAES! JEAN!" Riza screamed as loudly as humanly possible before she pushed her body to its limit and continued to run towards the boys.
Riza heard the others scream out and in fear or confusion, for they were too far back to see what had happened in the night. She could already see the outline of Jean pushing his body off of the ground; this loosened the great ball of fear that had twisted itself up in an instance. But the form of Maes continued to lie on the pavement, not moving.
"MAES!" Riza couldn't help but scream as she skidded to a halt and collapsed on her knees in front of the teen.
"W-what h-h-happened?" Jean moaned before he collapsed back onto the pavement, gripping one of his legs that was obviously broken due to the sickenly odd angle it was twisted into.
Riza could not and would not answer to him for she was too busy trying soak in the image before her.
She had never seen anyone look so broken before. His right arm and both of his legs looked broken, lying at a clearly unnatural angle. Blood was quickly soaking through his shirt, staining it a deep crimson that made her stomach churn ever so slightly. His face was covered and cuts and scrapes that were already bleeding thickly, along with already forming bruises. His glasses had been knocked off by the force and were no where in sight; probably just as broken as their owner.
"Maes!" Riza said, giving his shoulders a shake. "Maes!"
Riza noted dully that someone was screaming for help in the back ground and that Sig had moved forward to help Jean. It appeared that most of the others were in shock, unable to retrieve their cell phones from their pockets to call for help.
"Maes Hughes answer me dammit!" Riza screamed through blinding tears as she continued to shake the limp and unmoving form, barely aware that shaking him might not be the best thing to do.
But Maes did not answer and Riza was not sure if he ever would again. Exhaustion and fear mounted until it began to cripple Riza, and forced her to collapse onto the pavement, sobbing uncontrollably as she went into shock.
*evil writers smirk*
...You see Winry, that's what you get when you don't listen...
Well again I'm sorry to say that updates will slow down now that school is starting up and I have no idea when I'll be able to update this again but whenever I get the chance, I'll try and update this first...since this was just an awful cliffy I gave you.
Ugh...screw school...
-FSK