Hal came back that evening, a finger to her lips. Mello stood in the doorway with his Beretta cocked and ready, his hood over his head.

"Near, I just got home, and I want to take a shower," she announced as she slipped through the door. "I'm taking off the wire for a while."

Mello glared as she fiddled with a tap, unclipping it from her coat lapel and placing it onto the entry table with her keys. She looked back and held her finger to her lips, beckoning Mello to come over with her as she strode to her bathroom.

Mello scowled to himself, his gun at his side, and took off his hood.

He wasn't surprised. Near was backed into a corner with Sairas' announcement.

It was only a matter of time before he started doubting his own people.

Hal led him to her bathroom, spacious and shining white. She shut the door behind her, walking over to her toilet.

She flipped down the cover and sat down, crossing her legs as she unzipped a boot. "Did you watch the news today?"

"Yes," Mello responded, standing by her shower curtains. His hand gripped his gun tight.

"Near is nervous." Hal lined her boots up with the bathmat, draping her elbow over her knee. "Sairas is dissolving the SPK soon."

"I know."

She looked away, shifting and pushing her plastic shower curtains back. She reached over to the bathtub, turning on the faucet. The sound of rushing water echoed off bathroom walls.

"You can't leave my bathroom," she said, pulling back.

"I know," Mello repeated.

She stood up, moving over to her shelves. "I'm going to shower," she said.

"You didn't shower at the SPK?"

She looked back over her shoulder as she unbuttoned her shirt. "No. Near told me to go home tonight to set up the bugs."

Mello shook his head, snapping a piece of his chocolate bar. Of course he did.

Near knew Mello was out of options.

"Near's going to dissolve the SPK before Sairas does," she said, peeling her blouse back.

Mello frowned as he watched her folding her shirt neatly on her shelf. That was a smart move on Near's part. He didn't want the attention, either.

He most likely had more than enough money in his trust fund to run the SPK without government intervention.

Hal fiddled with the zipper on her suit pants, pulling them over her legs. "Near wants to see you."

"What?" Mello sneered. "Why?"

She unhooked her bra and dropped her underwear, placing them onto the shelf. "He has your photo," she said.

"My photo?"

"One from your time at the orphanage." She reached up for a towel, unfolding it and wrapping it around her chest. "It's the only existing photograph of you left."

A photo.

Wammy's House had taken care of most of their records the night they found out about L's death. The headmaster had been ordered to destroy all of their photographs.

Mello glared at the white wall, his teeth clenching. The motherfucker took one as a bargaining chip.

It was the worst thing to hold onto. The little piece of shit never played fair.

"When did he tell you this?" he asked carefully.

"Today," Hal answered, slipping past him towards the bathtub. She hung up her towel on the rack, stepping into her shower and yanking the curtain shut. "You should get it."

Mello shook his head. Near telling them today meant that he was trying to bait Mello to him. Mello couldn't ask Hal to steal it, or else Near would know they were working together.

The sound of the water softened as Hal stood underneath the stream. "Near thought you'd come to one of us soon," she said, coming to the same conclusion.

Mello grunted, biting into his bar of chocolate as the smell of lavender filled the walls. "I thought he would."

"He said you'd choose me first." The sound of a bottle cap clicking shut. "He never thought we'd already be in contact."

Mello looked up. "Why would he say that?"

"Because I'm a woman," she answered, a hint of irony in her tone. "He said you could overpower me. Could you?"

Mello rolled his eyes, biting a piece of his chocolate. He didn't answer.

"He said that you don't have the notebook anymore so you can't control me to keep you a secret. You can't kill me either. Near will know now." She paused, followed by the sound of her squeezing a bottle. "I have to place cameras in my apartment aside from here, too, after this. What are you going to do? Stay in my bathroom?"

Mello still stayed silent, his grip tight over the stock of his gun. Leaving just the bathroom was Near's way of gloating, his way of forcing Mello to do things he didn't want to do.

But New York was dangerous. Where else could he go?

"If this is the only place you can go to stay safe, then I guess I have no choice." She shut off the faucet, her voice ringing clear against the bathroom's tiles. Her hand slithered from behind the curtain, groping for her towel on the rack. "Besides, Near also thinks that the new L is Kira."

"L?" Mello repeated.

But the new L was an idiot. He was nothing more than Kira's puppet. Someone that listened to Kira and had the power to influence the group from the inside. He couldn't be Kira. The NPA was too stupid.

Unless it was a front.

If Kira was L, then he could have used somebody else to deliver the message to the NPA. He would have access to all the NPA files because he was L himself.

Mello looked up. "How sure is Near about this?"

"He seemed sure," Hal answered.

Mello narrowed his eyes. He'd been so close. He'd known L and Kira were working alongside one another for months. But Near still figured it out faster.

Why the fuck was he always one step ahead?

"So what are you going to do?" Hal asked, pushing the curtain back, her towel wrapped around her body. She stepped out of the tub, her feet making puddles on the white tile as she walked across the bathroom floor to her clothes. "If you're not going to stay here."

But the logic fell into place. It was L who encouraged the November 11th raid so that he could kill Mello. L was the one who killed Soichiro when they were none the wiser.

Kira killed L. Kira wore L's skin. Which meant that…

"Hal," Mello interrupted, looking up. "Are you on my side, or Near's?"

He needed to know if she would still help him even if Near uncovered their connection.

"I already told you before. I'm not on anybody's side." Hal wrung her hair out. "We're all trying to catch Kira. I don't care who gets there first."

Then Mello would go to the SPK. Kira and L had been a suspect.

Near had a direct connection to the new L.

Hal was looking at him. "What are you going to do, Mello? Run away?" she asked. "You know I can just tell Near that you were hiding here, and that I met you."

That didn't matter anymore. The NPA trusted Kira. The NPA had worked with L before.

Kira was a member of the NPA, or at least someone close to them. Someone close enough to have seen L personally.

L never showed his face to anybody, not even the Wammy's House children. Mello had only met L twice by pure luck.

"Are you going to keep meeting me for information somewhere else?" Hal pressed.

Mello ignored her. There was something there.

The fake rules.

"Hal," Mello cut in, finally meeting her eyes. "Go back to SPK headquarters."

"What?" She made a face. "I don't have any reason to go back there right now."

Mello pulled his gun. Her eyes widened, her lips falling open in shock.

"Make one up," Mello commanded, pressing it against her forehead. "Go back."

He had to see Near. This was a breakthrough.

The fake rules were created so that L could acquit Kira.

Hal's eyes trailed from the gun back to him, her hair dripping over her face. She didn't look scared.

She looked betrayed.

"Okay," Hal muttered, glancing away. "I will. Just don't point that thing at me, Jesus Christ."

It'd been years. Five years. The moment the door opened, Mello's heart seized in his chest.

White hair, white pajamas, white skin. His back was facing the door, but Mello remembered that back perfectly.

Nothing had changed. He sat surrounded by stacks of cardboard boxes of varying heights, like he was the God of a little town. A toy train ran through it, zipping around, turning corners, chugging along.

Just like he did when they were children. The lights of the surveillance cameras surrounding the room looked like the glow of the little television screen in the Common Room, coloring his curly hairs blue.

Mello swallowed. The pit in his stomach grew. He thought to himself that maybe, coming to see Near was a bad mistake.

The door whooshed shut behind them, the sound distant. Hal shifted and Mello pressed the barrel of his gun tighter into the back of her head, biting back his memories.

The sight of Near made him sick.

"Welcome, Mello," Near intoned, raising a finger. "How are you healing?"

His voice was the same. The way he talked was the same. Mello knew the voice so well, like an old record player, the sound of a rotten memory.

He wanted to run away. He wanted to go back to his room and hide under his covers.

The gun in his hand felt like a toy. It felt unloaded. Something he'd found in a closet that he couldn't show anybody or he'd get in trouble.

Fucking Hell. Mello swallowed. He blinked and narrowed his eyes.

There were two agents holding their guns to his head, pointed like an execution squad. Near was telling him to stop. Put down their guns. They weren't listening.

Mello refocused. Near was saying, "There is no gain from killing Mello right now. As someone who had the notebook, and was able to get closer to Kira than any of us had — that is something we should respect. In fact, pointing a gun at him is simply rude."

The men withdrew their guns. Mello followed and snapped the Beretta away from Hal's head swiftly, shoving it into his pants. She stumbled forward, leaving Mello standing defenseless.

He had to speak.

Mello asked, "Is everything as you've imagined it to be?"

"Yes. Although I hadn't expected you to come all the way here to see me personally."

Mello flexed his gloved hands, feeling the touch of the leather. He wasn't fourteen anymore. He wasn't afraid of Near anymore.

"And thanks to you, Mello," Near continued, "I have been able to greatly narrow down my suspicions for Kira."

Mello saw red.

Before he knew it, he moved. His gun in his pants, his gun in his hands. His gun pointed at Near's white head, about to splatter the clean floors with his brain.

God, why hadn't he already killed Near when they were younger?

Because the guns were fake when they were children. This was real.

"I'm not a fucking tool to solve your puzzle," Mello spat. He was ready. He could kill Near now.

Near said something else, overlapping with his words. Mello couldn't hear. The agents were shouting again, but all Mello could think of was how much better the world would be without this little child in his way. How many sleepless nights he'd get back for this.

Mello thumbed the safety trigger.

For making him feel useless. For making him feel like no matter how much he did, he wouldn't be enough.

"Mello," Near said calmly, and Mello stared at his back. "If you want to shoot me, feel free."

Mello flipped the safety trigger down. Yes, he wanted to. God, he wanted to. He'd stomp through the blood, feel it squish under his boots. It'd be a waste to just kill him without making him feel it, but it would do.

He'd pull the trigger. Near's soft features would explode outwards, like a vessel burst open, his childish little body falling limp on the ground. Mello would step on it, too. His carefully constructed cardboard towers would crumble, splashed with blood and Near's face.

Mello held the trigger, about to pull, when—

"Mello."

Something dove in front of his gun. Mello dropped his finger, his eyes darting to see a blurry Hal, her palm pressed over the barrel.

"If you shoot Near," she said, her voice wavering, "We'll be forced to open fire on you."

Mello stared at her. Hal's eyes were watering. Mello didn't know why.

"If both you and Near die, then we will have nothing," she said. "Don't do it. Don't let Kira win."

Mello exhaled, pressure unravelling. He looked up from her face to the rest of the room. The two other agents had their guns out, aimed at his head.

They were ready.

They were going to kill him. There was no respect for Mello in Near's headquarters. They didn't care about what he'd done.

They were rabid dogs trained to protect the little bastard at his feet.

Mello clenched his jaw and looked back at Near's smug white back. He decocked, lowering his Beretta. The agents lowered their guns slowly, eyeing him.

Heat burned through Mello's belly. Shame or the residue of anger leaked through his teeth.

Mello ignored the distasteful gazes of the agents around him. He ignored Hal, who looked at him with a mixture of disappointment and concern in her eyes.

Mello had come with a mission in mind. Forget everything else.

"She's right," he said, curling his hands into fists as he looked back down at Near, thawing his voice. "I came for the photo you have of me."

His pulse thrummed in his ears.

"Yes. This is the only remaining photograph of you. There aren't any copies of it."

Near produced the photograph, pinched between his thumb and forefinger.

"The surveillance cameras here only monitor," Near added as he flung the photograph backwards like a boomerang. "They do not record."

Mello caught the picture deftly between his fingers. Wallet-sized and small. A younger Mello smiled for the camera, his skin unmarred.

He flipped it over instinctively. In Near's cursive, Dear Mello.

He had to stop himself from ripping it to pieces.

"I've contacted members of the House, including anybody else from the past who would know your face," Near said. "Or anybody you may be working with."

Mello looked back up, narrowing his eyes at Near as he continued, "I can't guarantee anything a hundred percent. But I think it's safe to say that you won't be killed by the notebook for the time being."

"I have no intention of joining forces with you."

"I know."

"But I owe you."

Near paused, digging a finger through his hair. One of his autistic tendencies that he never broke. "Oh?"

"Yes." Mello exhaled, throwing his pride away. "The death note belongs to a death god, and people who touch it are able to see it."

"Bullshit," one of the agents interrupted.

Mello shot the agent a look as Near countered, "I believe him. Why would Mello come up with something as insipid as a death god? If he were to tell a lie, he would have said something more believable. Therefore, a death god exists."

Mello cocked his head slightly. Near took well to this bit of information.

"My notebook belonged to a death god named Sidoh. It came to take it back. Another death god had the notebook in its possession before it."

"It's odd for the death god to write rules down in English for humans, only to take it back for himself," Near mused, catching onto his logic quickly.

Mello jerked his head. "That's the last thing."

The most important piece. The reason he came.

Near stayed still, listening. Mello turned around, shoving his Beretta back into his pants.

"There are two fake rules hidden in that notebook," Mello said, flexing his hands into fists. "That's all I'll say."

Silence. Near was thinking. Mello knew it would change the direction of how he'd been taking the case.

Near wouldn't have been able to get anywhere without Mello's help.

"Thank you," Near said finally, his voice quiet with respect. "The race is on."

"We're headed to the same place," Mello responded, striding toward the automatic doors. The doors opened for him dutifully, revealing a long, sanitized stretch of a stark white hallway leading back to the world outside.

Mello would take his chances. He didn't want to stay here any longer. He was sick of the SPK. Sick of anything that made him think of Near. He wanted to leave, to be away from memories of his younger, weaker days.

It was photo day. Mello was at the river behind the House with the big willow trees, smoking a cigarette that wasn't his. They used to go there all the time. They used to skip rocks and stay out until sundown.

That day, a professor grabbed him back to take a picture for the display case in the foyer. Elites used to have to pose for pictures. All of the top ten, for all the children to see whenever they left for recess.

Mello was thirteen then. He was mischievous and young, his face smooth and clean, and his hair smelled like smoke. All he wore were hand-me-downs from the donation bins of the orphanage.

Fire ate his face, the paper curling over the flames.

Mello stared at the ashtray as he sat in the netted swivel chair. The sound of lower Manhattan's rush hour bloomed up to this floor, just a few blocks away from the SPK's main base and Hal's hideout.

He'd taken a taxi here. He arrived safe. The hotel didn't know Rod's or Pavone's names. He'd scanned it for bugs and taken the landline apart for taps just in case, but everything turned up empty, which meant this was a fine resting spot for the next few days.

He just had to make sure he didn't leave.

Mello didn't have much of a choice. He couldn't stay with Hal any longer. Not when he'd established contact directly with Near.

Mello decided to isolate himself just for the sake of having his own base to work from. Maybe that was worth his while.

A lump had formed in the back of his skull after he left the SPK, the drugs struggling to cover his headache after his meltdown. His vision was blurry and he'd been eating nothing but chocolate since his five-day death.

Mello was exhausted. But he had to keep going. There was new information, new leads to pursue.

This time, it wasn't a dead end. He could feel it. Still, he couldn't be in New York alone. It left little option.

Matt. Mello hadn't been eager to involve him at all. Matt was too good to be implicated, and he didn't want to have Matt anywhere near the SPK or the NPA. Keeping him in LA had been his way of reducing the risk of losing his only colleague.

Mello swallowed, watching the flickering flames eating his young face, touching the phone still on the receiver. Should he? Did he have to?

Yes, he needed Matt. Despite his reservations.

He ran his fingers through his mottled hair, careful not to tear it out of his burnt scalp. He picked up the receiver. He pressed it to his ear, listening to the droll dial tone on the other end, waiting for him to establish a connection.

Mello untangled his fingers from his bangs and pressed the digits. The numbers beeped as he keyed them in. All ten of them.

The call connected, purring.

Matt turned his head to glare at his fucking Blackbird phone. God have mercy on him, but he was starting to hate Miku, even though it wasn't even her fault that he had a Pavlovian reaction of hiding under the table whenever she rang.

It was screaming somewhere by his feet on the other end of the sofa, tucked between the cushions or something. He could see the blinking lights against the fabric of his couch, but he didn't go to pick it up.

He was busy with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. It had saved his fucking life, keeping him busy with an arsenal of missions from the day he woke up to his empty apartment. He'd been clearing the Charlie Ops since this morning. Right now, he was busy in Chernobyl.

So whoever wanted to reach him could fucking wait.

Matt rolled his head back to face the TV screen, his neck held up by the arm of the couch. Back to grey, cloudy Ukrainian skies and abandoned churches, crawling with enemies and radiation and snipers who wanted to blow his head off.

Matt had spent the last hour memorizing the shit out of his enemy positions. He knew exactly where all of them were. It was a matter of getting three stars.

He knew this was the game.

Matt climbed up the stairs inside the house, going up to the rooftop. Miku fell quiet, like she was watching him play with anticipation. Through the scope of his shotgun, three guys stood with their guns aimed at him by the wooden shed.

Boom. Headshot. Kachak. Boom. Headshot. Kachak. Boom. He shot, and —

His phone started ringing again.

Missed.

Matt tsked, riddling bullets into the last guy before he went down. He pushed himself off the arm of the couch, his bones creaking all the way down his spine, and unearthed his phone from the crack between the cushion and the back, squinting at the subscreen.

New York area code. Near must have wanted him bad. Matt sighed, flipping the phone open. "What do you want, dude?"

"Hi, Matt."

Matt stopped.

It wasn't Near's mechanical little voice after all. Instead, over the other line, in a room that sounded quiet, another, rougher voice spoke.

Mello.

Alive.

Why was Matt surprised?

It was Matt's own goddamned fault for checking news articles for days for random bodies being found in Los Angeles. His own fault for looking for John Does that matched Mello's description. He should have known that Mello didn't die.

Mello just disappeared and reappeared in New York a few days later. You know. The type of heartless, cruel, mean shit that Mello always did. Matt didn't know why he expected anything else.

Matt rolled his eyes, balancing his phone between his cheek and his shoulder. "Oh, it's you," Matt said blankly.

He shuffled back into position, grabbing his controller off the seat.

Mello asked, "How are you?"

His character crouched, reloading. "Fine."

"That's good."

Matt walked off the roof and back down the ladder into the house. "Yup."

"Are you doing anything right now?"

Matt hummed noncommittally. "Yeah."

"What?"

"Nothing important."

"Come see me then."

Matt frowned, twisting his features as his character landed on his boots. "What?"

"I'm in Manhattan."

"Are you serious?"

"Of course I am."

Fucking psychopath. Matt said as much, laughing humorlessly. "No fucking way, man."

"I can't move right now."

Matt shrugged. He paced back into the hallway, crouching behind a broken table. "So?"

"So board the AA28 flight to JFK. Bring your system."

Matt frowned. "What? No."

"Give me a call when you arrive at JFK. I'll give you further instructions then."

Matt turned away from the screen. "Dude, what the fuck are you on about?"

"Destroy this phone after we're finished this conversation," Mello continued briskly. "And bring a new cellphone with you."

"I said no."

"The flight leaves tonight," Mello said, ignoring him. "Keep in touch."

Matt squinted just as the line went dead. Beep beep. Stared at his cell phone screen, the black background staring back at him complacently.

Was Mello for fucking real? What the fuck was that?

Matt tossed his marked phone onto the sofa with a bounce. Asshole.

No meant no.

Back to CoD.

Somebody was up ahead in the hallway. Matt tried to reload, but remembered belatedly that he already did. He got up, dashing down the hallway, and stood by the window, aiming through the glass at the roof across.

Seriously, Mello had too much nerve, and Matt was sick of it. Sick of taking his shit. Sick of having to walk on eggshells all the time, too worried to fuck something up irreversibly. He'd spent the past three days mourning the friend he'd never had and the boss he'd never wanted.

Enough was enough. Matt wasn't going to go through that again. All that for 70k — no thanks. Matt would rather play online poker.

Matt fired. Headshot.

Besides, he had all the Spec-Ops to beat. He hadn't even started with the Co-Ops, and he was positive that he'd sink another month of his life on multiplayer. Seriously, thank fucking God for CoD, because without it, he'd be—

Matt was taking damage from behind suddenly, his controller vibrating. The screen turned red. He turned around, trying to find the enemy, but his health was dropping quick.

His character panted, slowing down, ears ringing. The dreaded message flashed up on his screen: You are hurt. Get to cover!

Fuck. Matt sighed, rolling his eyes, and paused the game. He lost it. He couldn't fucking focus. This was Mello's fault.

Why did he need him over in New York so bad, anyway?

Matt threw his controller down and leaned over to his idling laptop, drawing up an incognito tab on his Opera browser. He googled, AA28.

Flight from LAX to JFK. Duration: 5 h 17 min. Scheduled departure: 11:00PM.

Hell no. That meant he had less than eight fucking hours to pack his system, kill his Blackbird cell, haul ass to the airport, get stuck in traffic, get a new phone, and get to the gates before boarding.

That was stupid. Top tier stupid. He wasn't going to just get up and go. He had CoD to finish. He wasn't going to leave everything behind and just go because Mello fucking told him to.

Fuck Mello.

Matt didn't want to be a fucking lackey anymore.

Matt's eyes drifted back to the pause menu of his screen. He started imagining the next couple of months of his life, not working on the Kira case. It would look something like this:

November: finishing solo Spec-Ops on Veteran. Andre still hasn't gotten a new hook-up.

December: Cali's still dry. Trying to find people to play Co-Ops with him on Christmas Day, get called a lonely faggot by like-minded teenagers for not having family or friends.

January: Cali's still dry. Starting to get bored of CoD, but still in too deep to stop.

February: Still dry. Bored of CoD. Decide to get on fent patches instead. Overdose on his 20th birthday.

Matt grabbed the controller and quit the game, moving over to slam his laptop shut.

That sounded fucking miserable.

Looked like Matt was going to New York after all.

He paced back into his bedroom to grab a duffel bag, spreading it out over his floor, and started to shove whatever he could find into it. iPod. Laptop. His 10TB hard drive. All his underwear, socks and dirty laundry.

Matt's eyes glossed over his overflowing trash bin, at the crumpled Saran wrap that sat above his garbage, and he stopped.

Did he really want to do this? Mello was a total dick. Why wait on his beck and call?

Matt pursed his lips. The answer was easy.

Because he didn't want to stay here and wallow, waiting for tomorrow to come and dreading it all the same.

His existence would mean slightly more in New York, at least. Even if slightly. And, fuck, maybe that was what he needed to get back on his feet.

Matt zipped up his bag, sighing to himself. Who was he kidding? He had nothing to lose, anyway.