God wasn't there when the angel tore his skin. No face. Black wings. It flew away, the fire burning bright and heavy in the moonlight. His bones became skin, and his skin became ash. His arm was itchy.

Mello opened his eyes and his blood ran cold.

He was in a small room with no windows.

Black shadows shifted in the night, tickling the sky. Crawling like hands. In the darkness, the walls were brown, purple, black, spinning around him like a sick carnival ride.

Mello's eyes darted. Humming machinery. A lightbulb, off. Low ceiling.

Where the fuck was this?

Mello's skin was damp with sweat. He was stuck to his back like a fly in honey trap, his arm itching like hundreds of ants inside of his flesh. He scratched at his skin, and pain broke through like a cut, slicing and slicing.

Mello pulled back with a hiss. Goddamnit, what the fuck was going on?

He wasn't at the base. He was bandaged up in a room he didn't know. He couldn't remember anything, and—

Boom.

A gunfight. Several dozen television screens flickering icily off the back of someone's head. Bullets in their back, in their twisted neck.

Mello remembered a gasmask in the drawer. Thinking, now or never.

He was on the ground after, dirt caked to his face. The earth smelled like smoke. His mouth was full of rocks.

The notebook was gone. He couldn't find it. It was on fire. He was on fire.

Where was everybody?

Mello opened his eyes, his pulse skyrocketing. It didn't matter.

He had to get back.

Mello pushed his numb shoulder off of the sticky bedspread, ignoring the pain that shot down his arm. Plastic shifted under his fingers as he moved, rolling onto his side, and slid off the bedspread with a thud.

He looked up. Mirrored closet door. Another shut door with a brass knob, behind a bedside table overflowing with wires.

Recognition settled a moment later. Why the fuck was he in Matt's room?

Mello ignored it, getting on all fours as he crawled towards the door, illuminated by pale grey light through the cracks.

Suddenly, the room went quiet. Mello ducked, laying his arms flat on the ground like a corpse.

Someone was outside.

Mello heard it as he lay on the hardwood, his breaths heavy and mingling with the faint sound of the TV on the other side of the door. Energetic voices laughed tinnily in the silence.

The radiator behind him kicked back into life.

Mello exhaled slowly, pushing himself up by his elbows. He crawled closer to the door, groping blindly until he felt the grooves of the wooden frame under his fingers. His body was heavy when he pulled himself up to his knees. Shoulder tight, arm sore.

He reached out to grab the brass knob and twisted with all his might.

The door fell open slowly, grey light turning blue as it flowed from the crack onto the low mattress. Mello shifted, lining his eye with the crack in the door, and peered outside.

The living room outside was dark. Somebody was sitting there on the couch, visible only from his shadow. He was hunched over, barely moving.

Dead?

Mello squinted. No, there was movement. There was smoke. The person shifted, and Mello saw a cigarette pinched between two thin fingers. A short and rough cough followed.

It was Matt.

Good. Mello was safe.

Mello gripped the doorway as he pulled himself up to his feet, his arms shaking. His joints were weak like heated steel, buckling under his weight as he tried to stand up. He felt like he hadn't moved in months.

He slowed down and restarted, waiting for the blood to settle in his feet. He pulled himself up off of his knees, leaning against the doorframe for balance.

Another few minutes passed until Mello tried to move.

He pushed the door open, and took a shaking step. Then another. The floor was cool and dirty under his bare feet. Mello steadied himself against the wall as he dragged his body out into the living room, into Matt's line of sight.

The TV light flickered boldly beside him, the heaviness lodged in the back of his head tripling in weight.

Mello stopped. He closed his eyes, sliding his fingers against his temples. Jesus Christ, he needed some Tylenol.

"Holy shit," Matt's voice muttered. "Mello?"

Mello looked up carefully. Matt was moving to get up from the couch, his face curious and shocked. He was surrounded by empty cigarette cartons.

"Sit," Mello rasped quickly, and Matt stalled. Mello jerked at the couch with a finger and cleared his throat. "Stay. I need to talk to you."

Matt blinked and nodded, slinking back into his seat.

Good enough for now. Mello pushed himself off of the wall and ambled to the kitchen cabinets, grabbing onto the handles in the dark. He pulled them open forcefully, the doors slamming against the walls.

The first shelf was empty. The second shelf only held cereal and a small cereal box toy. Mello slammed the cupboard shut, pulling open another cupboard to find one fork and two mismatched knives. The next cupboard, a pair of scissors and some twine.

Jesus Christ, the junkie bastard really didn't have any fucking Tylenol. Mello slammed the cupboard shut, knees popping as he bent to rummage through the shelves under his sink. Why did a kitchen this small need so many damned drawers anyway?

"What are you looking for?" Matt's voice called from the living room.

Mello threw aside an empty dish detergent. "Tylenol."

"First shelf on the right."

Mello kicked the cabinet shut, pulling himself up to open the first shelf again. A bottle of painkillers was tucked behind the hinge, impossible to see on first glance. Mello snatched it in his hand and looked around the kitchenette, scowling.

There was nothing to drink from. All he found was an overflowing sink, dirty pots and dirtier utensils glinting in cold TV light.

Mello turned around, heading to the living room dizzily. "Get up."

Matt frowned. "What?"

Mello jerked his thumb behind him, the pills rattling in his fist. "Go get me some water."

Matt's frown deepened. He stood up from the couch and walked to the kitchen with his tail between his legs, and Mello moved to the vacant seat to sit.

He popped open the pill bottle with his thumb, tapping white tablets into his palm. Four. They looked chalky. He didn't think he could dry-swallow them whole.

Dishes clanged in the tiny kitchen as Mello thought. The faucet roared, the pipes in Matt's apartment walls creaking in unison. Mello closed his fist and looked up at the television screen, and immediately looked away.

Christ, it was bright. The newscaster's dress burned in the back of his eyelids, pulsating as he dropped his head. His eyes wouldn't stop watering. He couldn't tell if his eyes were opened or closed.

Fucking Hell, he couldn't see.

Mello's migraine wrapped around the back of his neck as he swallowed the lump in his throat. He couldn't see, he couldn't move, he couldn't talk. His entire body was failing him and Mello didn't fucking know why.

He inhaled slowly. Anything to keep his fists from pummelling the first thing in sight.

He didn't think he had the energy for it anyway.

Matt's heavy boots clomped into the living room. He set down a glass on the coffee table with a clink, and said, "Here."

Mello grit his teeth, clenching and unclenching his weak fists.

"You need anything else?"

Mello shook his head limply, exhaling as he reached over for the glass from the coffee table. Pills to mouth, water to tongue. The glass rattled against his teeth as he drank.

He was exhausted already. But he couldn't go back to bed and rest. Mello looked up from his hands as he replaced the glass, his vision blurry when he stared up at Matt.

The news program ended, bleeding into a commercial. Neither of them spoke. The bright television light lit the tips of Matt's reddish hair on fire, standing up messily from his head like he hadn't combed or showered in days.

Mello spoke first. "What the fuck happened?"

Matt looked away like he knew. "Uh…"

Mello's eyes were watering from the strain, but he didn't blink. "Tell me."

"I dunno," Matt mumbled, scratching his jaw, his eyes settling everywhere but Mello's face. "You tell me."

"I'm fucking asking."

Matt's eyes darted back, fear simmering in his tired expression. "What?" he mumbled guiltily. "I said I don't know."

"Then where the fuck is everybody?"

Matt blinked. "Oh," he said dumbly, scratching his jaw again. "Uh, they're fine."

"They're fine," Mello repeated.

"Yeah, I mean. They're not fine. They're dead. But they're not—"

Mello's heart stopped. "They're dead?"

"Yeah."

"How many?"

"Everyone."

"How'd they die? How'd they all fucking die?"

"Chill out," Matt answered quickly, putting up his hands in surrender. "It's okay. I'll find you something to eat."

Mello could barely talk without his voice wavering. "How'd they fucking die, Matt?"

"Okay, okay," Matt answered, sighing. "Kira killed them. The Japanese got the rest. Shot 'em to hell and back."

What Mello wanted to hear the least. "Then where's the notebook?"

Matt frowned. "I don't know, man. Uh… no, I don't know. I think…"

"I don't care what you think," Mello cut in, his voice tearing from the disuse. From the flames burning up his chest, wrapping around his throat in a chokehold. He couldn't breathe. "Tell me where it is. Where I can fucking find it."

"I said I don't know," Matt snapped. "I was kind of preoccupied, man. So I don't know where it is."

"Fucking Christ," Mello uttered, closing his eyes. "What are you even good for?"

No answer. Mello knew Matt had nothing useful to say.

Mello's blood surged through his veins and pounded against his skull as he looked down, breathing shakily.

He'd lost his men. He'd lost the notebook. He'd lost the base, he'd lost everything he set up for the past two years since he met Pavone in that club.

The explosion was only supposed to take out the mansion and some of the supplies — things they could make up later when they found a new hideout. It wasn't supposed to take out the whole Los Angeles casa nostra, or reduce his men to nothing but rubbery black corpses.

The sound of Matt stomping his boots loud over the hardwood jerked Mello back to reality. He glanced up from his hands, seeing Matt grabbing a cigarette box, jittery.

"Wow," Matt laughed, circling the living room aimlessly. "That's rich."

"Matt," Mello interrupted. He didn't have time for this. "Shut up."

Matt stormed back in front of him, the metal on his boots clanging. "Me? Shut up?"

"Stop," Mello answered, agitated. "Let me think."

"About how you're a dick?"

"About what the fuck I'm going to do now that everybody is dead," Mello snapped, lowering his eyes to the floor again. "Stop acting like a fucking child, Matt."

"Fuck you," Matt shot back, his voice barely audible. "Five whole fucking days, and this is what I get in return."

Mello tilted his head, his blood cooling down in his veins as the words sunk in. Matt was seething, his face twisted into something ugly.

"What did you say?" Mello asked slowly.

"You should be a little nicer to your fucking friends. Or coworkers. Lackeys. Whatever," Matt grumbled in reply, sucking smoke from his cigarette as he flicked ash into a mound of cigarettes. "Just a thought."

Mello swallowed and repeated, "Five days?"

"Yeah. What, did you forget?"

Mello stayed silent. Matt's expression softened as he realized the answer, his eyes darting all over Mello's features, his mouth falling open.

Five days. Mello'd been dead for five days.

It didn't matter where the notebook was. The base's structure had already gone cold and black. For all he knew, the LAPD had found the notebook in the ruins and the rubble. If it wasn't here in Matt's apartment, then it wasn't anywhere at all.

Mello had no way of reaching out to Rod's men now. He had no position without Rod in Los Angeles. No name. No place to stand when he was on his own.

Mello had lost. He'd lost all of it. There was no way to win now.

Matt looked away, his boots squeaking on the floor as he mumbled, "I didn't know."

"Matt," Mello said steadily. He lifted himself off the couch, his hands gripping the sofa arms as he feigned steadiness. "Do you still have the surveillance footage from the mansion?"

Matt nodded.

"Set it up for me when I get back," Mello said, looking at the dirty floor. "I'm going to take a shower."

"Okay," Matt answered hollowly.

The fire in Mello's chest left nothing behind. Only cold black ash and scorched flesh.

Mello's wounds were worse than he'd expected. Raw to touch and painful to move. His vision remained cloudy in his peripheral vision in his left eye, and he had to suppress the raging urge to scratch his burns whenever his body itched.

The footage of the night of the explosion hurt to rewatch.

He didn't remember most of it. Not how his men collapsed around him in the base, or how he found himself in the control room only minutes afterwards.

Not even Soichiro Yagami, staring at him earnestly with his notebook in his hands, having performed the eye trade sometime before their meeting. He said his birth name, spelling it out letter-by-letter.

Now the NPA had his name. Something nobody else knew in the world today.

Mello had found Soichiro's obituary on Nikkei and the Los Angeles Times from four days ago. Killed in the line of duty defending Kira. Soichiro Yagami was a decent man, but Mello didn't mourn his death when Jose emptied the clip into his back.

He had a few more days now that Jose secured his escape.

Snydar had been cuffed since the last raid, which meant that Kira had used someone else in the mafia to get to the base somehow. Mello didn't have time to pour over the footage to find out who. Especially not since everybody was dead.

What mattered was that Kira sent the NPA like an army over to the base to storm Mello and his men out. The Japanese police force was working together with him. That much was certain.

Now all Mello needed was to prove it.

Without the mafia's resources, it would be hard. But not impossible. Mello still had contacts strewn here and there, and he had an internet specialist on his side to find any information that he needed remotely.

He didn't need ten men to locate the NPA and the notebook again. The police were stupid enough to work for Kira. Surely they were stupid enough to fall for Mello's plans, too.

Mello's arm started to itch and burn again. He needed better painkillers than this. He needed something to cover his blurry eye. He needed a hell of a lot more ointment than just Silvadene and a roll of gauze.

He should call Mario tomorrow and stock up. The doctor still owed Mello a few favors, after all.

There was a rap on the door.

Mello grunted in response, staring at his laptop screen. He'd hidden himself in Matt's room after rewatching the footage, and Matt had been kind enough to let him. Now, the bedroom door eased open and Matt stood in the doorway, his goggles strung around his neck and his hands fidgeting.

They hadn't talked since their fight, and a tepid tension still lingered between them, crackling when either of them tried to say anything. This time, Matt spoke first. "Hey."

Mello didn't look up from his laptop screen. "What?"

"How are you feeling?"

"Fine."

"You found the morphine?"

Mello nodded. "Yeah."

And he was going to throw the rest of it out tonight.

"Good." Matt paused, and scratched himself. "Uh.. so I got an email from the NPA guys a few days ago."

Mello stopped. "You did?"

"Yeah. They were trying to contact me through the Wammy's email server."

The NPA were more desperate than Mello'd initially believed then. The past five days must have been productive for them. Mello lowered his laptop screen and looked over, nodding for Matt to continue.

"I think it was a mass email," Matt said, leaning against the doorframe, his hands still fidgeting. "They told anybody at Wammy's to reach out to them if they knew about your whereabouts."

"And did you respond?"

"No. Of course not."

Mello nodded. "Check the server to see if anybody else did. Keep a copy of the email on a drive in case Roger wipes it."

The name slipped out of Mello's mouth before he thought twice about it, hanging in the air like a rotten smell. Neither of them had talked about Wammy's at all. Neither of them should have remembered the name of the headmaster when they were under his care.

Matt shook his head. "No one else did. Near reply all'd it. Said it was a phishing scam and told everyone to ignore it."

"Near?"

"Yeah. He's trying to find you."

Near. How convenient. He had no reason to look for Mello. They always went their separate ways, played their separate games. The only way that Near would have wanted to contact him was if there was an emergency, but Mello had no wish to see him even then.

The only time he wanted to see Near was at his funeral so that he could piss on his grave.

"How'd you know?" Mello asked, looking steadily at Matt's face.

Matt looked away quickly, shifting his hands behind his back. "Well, he called me yesterday," he admitted, a hint sheepishly.

Mello caught on. "Are you working with him?"

Matt looked up surprised, his eyes widening. "No, no," he said. "Jesus, fuck no."

"Then why would he call you?"

"He was just making rounds. Calling all the Wammy's kids to tell them not to talk to the NPA and to see if they knew where you were." Matt shrugged, ducking his head. "I didn't tell him anything. Seriously."

"Did Near ask if we were working together?"

Matt shrugged, his boots squeaking on the ground as he shuffled. "Yeah, he asked," he answered vaguely.

"Then he has proof," Mello said coolly, tearing his gaze away.

Matt didn't respond for a long moment, and that was confirmation enough.

"Well, uh," Matt mumbled awkwardly, sighing as he slapped his hand on the doorway. "Anyway, I'm gonna go sleep now. You can take the bed."

Mello jerked his head. "Thanks."

Matt paused for a beat before clearing his throat. "Uh… you're welcome I guess. Night."

Mello nodded dismissively, and Matt closed the door behind him. Mello heard as his boots walked back to the living room, and then the sound of the television screen zipping shut.

It was quiet now. The radiator was off. Mello exhaled, closing his eyes.

They both knew that Near never made accusations unless he had the evidence. Near was using the information he'd gleaned to taunt them, to use their friendship at the House as a sort of bargaining chip.

Near's actions were threatening, and the NPA were clawing at his throat. Mello was on thin ice.

Having Matt on his team could quickly become a liability at this rate. Matt needed to be undetectable in order to be effective. But Mello had just lost all of his men in one night, and he couldn't risk losing the only person he had left.

If Near knew about Matt, it meant he could leak the information to the NPA. If the NPA knew about Matt, then he could become a threat.

Kira would use him to get closer to Mello, and Mello would have no choice but to kill him before it was too late.

Mello shook his head, gnashing his teeth. He needed to make his next move now. His passivity would leave him cornered and he didn't have enough time to hatch an escape plan.

He needed to leave for New York City tonight.