Burning tears
The dense fog that clouded her mind slowly cleared itself and made her aware of her own existence again. Ran blinked, opened her eyes, but the bright burning light caused black shadows to dance in front of her field of vision before she could close them again.
The young teacher swallowed, wanted to stand up, but something prevented her from doing so.
'What? Where am I?' Her fingertips felt cool metal beneath them. A shiver ran down her spine as she realized where she was, or rather what she was lying on. Images of him bound tightly to the unyielding cold examination table flickered in her mind and choked her breath.
'No...'
The sharp smell of the tape around her mouth stung in her nose, her eyelids fluttered as she tried to remember what had happened.
She had left Shinichi's room in a hurry, her vision and mind clouded by tears as she made her way through the maze-like hospital hallways. But before she could enter the elevator, it was over.
A pungent smell.
A warm hand.
Darkness.
Her breath caught in her chest, she felt her heartbeat accelerate while cold panic took possession of her. A single tear escaped from the corner of her eye, seeking its way down her cheek before being stopped by a cold hand.
"Don't, it's too early for tears."
His voice let the blood in her veins freeze.
Her eyes grew wide, the bright light still burned in them, but Ran ignored it. She blinked, but the man who stood in the cold light remained nothing but a black shadow.
However, she didn't need to see him to know who the man was.
'Matsumoto...'
The black silhouette must have noticed the realization in her eyes because even without seeing his face, she knew that he was now smiling at her. Ran felt how her skin tingled hot and cold as if someone had stopped the blood in her veins. The former chief inspector suddenly moved and raised his hand to put the light from her field of vision. The young woman swallowed and blinked, while dark spots still danced in front of the now clear image of Matsumoto. Her gaze went to the lamp that now illuminated another part of the cool room to be reflected here and there by brightly polished metal surfaces.
The cold shiver that ran down her spine was witness to the moment she figured out where she was. The thought alone was enough to make goosebumps crawl up her skin. Matsumoto's cold voice, however, gave her no more time to think about the consequences of her whereabouts.
"Don't worry my dear, if our friend reacts as expected your suffering will be over quickly."
Ran's eyes grew wide, she knew immediately who he was talking about.
'Shinichi...'
A metallic sound startled her out of her trance-like state. Her mind, still clouded by the chloroform, worked slower than usual. She turned her head to the side to see what Matsumoto was doing next to her, not knowing that she would regret it at that very moment.
The gleaming blade of the scalpel looked unnaturally warm and harmless in the golden light of the lamp.
Too small almost to cause any major damage.
The pleasured grin with which the former chief inspector, the boss of the black organization put the knife on the cutlery table let her breath hitch in her throat.
His gaze flew across the blade to her. Her big, fear-filled eyes met his.
Matsumoto's smile hit her right in the heart, causing it to stop for a beat while another hot tear ran down her cheek, leaving a burning red trail behind.
"You better save that look for him, my love..."
'What?'
Her eyes grew wide, panic pierced her skin with thousand tiny needles, as she finally realized why she was here.
'No, no, no!' She shook her head, feeling the table tremble under her movements while Matsumoto obviously suspected what was going on inside her.
He turned his back to her, tinkering with something as he spoke in a satisfied voice.
"It's no use, he will come, we both know that."
'NO!' A strangled scream tried to escape from her throat, but her attempts to free herself were meaningless, the sound trapped behind the tape.
Matsumoto turned to her. Only now, she recognized the small black cell phone that seemed to be drowning in his large palm while his gaze laid thoughtfully on her.
"You should know better than anyone that he will not hesitate to come." Ran swallowed, but the lump in her throat tightened her throat, while a smile flitted across Matsumoto's thin lips.
"He would do anything for you..."
'No!'
But she knew he was right.
And that's what scared her.
'Please Shinichi, don't listen to him...'
Matsumoto, however, took advantage of the moment, the pleading expression in her eyes, and the tears she shed by thinking of Shinichi.
"Smile, please!"
XXX
"She's gone! Ran has disappeared. Is that precise enough for you?"
He felt the blood flee from his face as each hair on the back of his neck stood up one by one.
'No!'
Sonoko looked at him demandingly and examined him from top to bottom before she continued to talk to him.
"I want to know what you did to make Ran stop answering her cell phone! We had an appointment last night but Ran didn't show up. I thought she was with you, but even today she's not answering any of my calls. She's not at home or at the detective agency, and her father wasn't there because he's still cleaning up your mess along with the rest of the police."
Kudo in front of her, however, did not react, she saw how his face paled while his eyes stared through her. His gaze filled with something she hadn't seen on his face yet,... fear.
Panic would be a better word.
Sonoko swallowed, feeling her own pulse quicken while he just stared at her in silence.
"What happened? Where is she..." she demanded, letting her gaze dart through the room. A mall spark inside her wished that she was here, together with him, forgetting space and time around her and therefore not contacting her. Her eyes wandered to Hattori, who was also staring at her before he directed his restless gaze to Kudo.
She flinched when Kudo's voice reached her ear again, quietly, barely audible as if he didn't want an answer.
"She's not there? She's not with you?"
His dry voice finally brought Sonoko's rage to a halt. The detective's wavering gaze pumped fresh fear through her veins instead.
She felt her eyes begin to burn and slowly shook her head.
Shinichi showed no reaction, seemingly frozen to ice for a moment as his chest rose and fell shallowly and erratically.
His head felt as if a beehive had been planted between his ears after the whole thing had been shaken thoroughly. His thoughts raced along with his heart, which suddenly beat painfully and irregularly while nausea crept up his throat.
It couldn't be...
'Please...'
It was supposed to be over.
"No..."
The word was little more than a hoarse gasp, but the adrenaline it brought helped him to his feet, and before either of the other two could have held him back, he was out the door, cell phone in hand.
The hallways of the hospital were crowded, strange figures looked at him questioningly while his mind scanned the crowd for her face. His heart was racing, while his mind suffocated in his panic. Shinichi suddenly felt how the world around him start to spin. Colorful sparks danced before his eyes, and nausea increased with every breath.
If the FBI hadn't noticed anything, it could only mean one thing... Ran was still here.
In the hospital.
But where?
He heard the protest of a nurse critically observing his fear-filled features, while he still searched for her face, and typed Akai's number into the cell phone.
Maybe she was just avoiding Sonoko, maybe she really needed some time for herself... if so, at least the FBI should know where she was.
His feet still wouldn't obey his wobbly knees, he stumbled, just managed to catch himself, and leaned against the bare wall of the hospital hallway while the world around him spun.
The thunderous dial tone rang in his ear, bringing the throbbing headache back to his temples. Before he could reach the FBI agent, a hand tapped carefully on his shoulder, causing him to angrily turn to the troublemaker. He noticed Hattori coming toward him before he returned his attention to the young woman before him.
"What?!"
The slender nurse standing in front of him flinched, put one strand of her red hair behind her ear, and swallowed before she dared to ask him a question.
"You... you are Kudo-san, aren't you?"
But Shinichi's eyes grew big, she's got to be kidding him.
"I really don't have time for this sh-"
But the young girl once again gathered all her courage and cut him off, her voice trembling, but something told her that she could not simply let him get rid of her.
"I- this was deposited for you, Kudo-san."
She showed him a white envelope with his name written on it in curved lettering.
For Kudo Shinichi, from the English Hof
The black ink had eaten deep into the paper.
Shinichi swallowed, felt a cold hand wrap around his throat, and squeeze until he thought he couldn't breathe.
The allusion to Sherlock Holmes would not have been necessary, because he would have recognized his writing anyway. After all, it was the same cocky curved letters that had been burned into the bourbon label to destroy Ran.
'Please, no…'
Panic rose inside of him, pumped further into his body with each beat of his heart. The dial tone from his cell phone hammered against his ears one last time before a voice replaced it.
"Akai."
Shinichi's lips formed a sentence without him noticing, his own voice scratched in his ears, was rough and hardly understandable.
"He got Ran..."
XXX
Heiji had managed to lead him back to his room.
Towed him was probably more accurate because since Shinichi knew that Matsumoto had to be in the hospital, he wanted nothing more than to turn the place upside down. Only when Heiji reminded him a bit rudely of the letter and made it clear to him that they wouldn't find Ran if he lost his mind, now of all times, had he come back to reality.
The memories of the way from the hallway to his room were nothing but bits and pieces, just like his conversation with Akai. But he remembered the silence that followed his statement until he heard the agent's voice in his ears.
"We're on our way."
It seemed like it took Akai an eternity to arrive. Of course, Sonoko had not been persuaded to leave after she'd seen in what condition the already pale detective had come back into the room. She threw questions and accusations at him, to which Shinichi responded with a blank look before he began to slip out of his pajamas to put on the clothes his parents had gotten him.
He slipped the dark blue jacket over his shirt and stepped into the matching pants without answering Sonoko's questions or noticing the sudden blush on her cheeks as he suddenly changed in front of her. Heiji, on the other hand, heard her loud and clear.
"This is all your fault, Kudo! If it wasn't for you then-" But when Sonoko took a breath to continue to speak, the police officer from Osaka interrupted her. He took her by the arm that was raised in wild gesticulation and stopped her with a little pressure on her wrist. The corporate heiress stared at him angrily, but Heiji knew this look, had long been immune to it, and shook his head with a bitter expression.
This was neither the right place nor the right time to act like this.
His gaze went to Kudo, who sat quietly, much too quietly on his hospital bed, staring at the small black cell phone that had been waiting for him in the white envelope. Heiji felt Sonoko's tense muscles relax as he followed her gaze. He loosened his grip as he saw the first tears fill her pale green eyes until she turned away from them, or rather from Shinichi, and looked to the window to send a pleading prayer into the dark gray sky above Tokyo.
Heiji's eyes followed her briefly. Sonoko quivered, but her body language made it clear that she would not leave the room so quickly.
The commissioner sighed, ran his hand through his hair, and only now realized that his own fingertips had begun to tremble.
His gaze fell on the neatly labeled envelope lying next to his colleague on the bed. They had found nothing but the cell phone inside it, no note, no nothing.
Just this useless piece of plastic that was blocked by a pin number.
However, before Heiji could address his friend about it, the door of his sickroom opened again and let five people pass through.
Agents Akai and Starling entered the room, followed by Sato and Takagi who tried not to stare too obviously at Shinichi. But the one who caught his eye was the massive figure of Megure-keishi. His chest rose and fell frantically, straining the button of his coat. The serious looks of the two detectives coated the chief inspector's tongue with a bitter taste.
"So it's true..."
The detective of the West looked at his colleague and waited until Shinichi nodded.
Megure's eyes scanned the young man on the bed carefully. The former high school student's features had become harder, even more so than his father's. The chief inspector swallowed, recognizing all too well the bitterness in the detective's features.
Shinichi sighed before showing him the cell phone and the envelope the nurse had handed him. The young woman was waiting for them in the next room. They had removed the man from the FBI who was supposed to guard the entrance. After all, there was no reason to keep an eye on the people coming in and out now.
"She's gone and this was just handed to me and even though we don't know what he's trying to tell us yet, I think the message is clear." The detective's bitter voice not only sent a shiver down Megure's spine, even Sonoko, who had been trying to ignore what was happening behind her back, now turned around to them.
Megure, however, looked at Shinichi for a long time. The feeling that crept up in him was the nostalgia that you feel when you meet an old friend again, whom you hardly recognize after all this time.
Because that's what Shinichi was at the moment, not recognizable.
The aging chief inspector swallowed, ran his hand under his hat, and scratched the scar under his hair with his index finger.
"Shinichi, Kudo-kun..., I-I'm sorry. I had no idea-" But the detective stopped his voice, rough with pity, with a shake of his head. Shinichi swallowed before looking up at Megure again, noticing the black shadows the past days and weeks had carved into the chief detective's face.
"You couldn't have known, Megure-keishi. None of us knew." Megure gasped, but Shinichi didn't let him continue, instead took the cell phone back in his hand.
"This is not about guilt..." But the thought alone made him pause again.
'It's about Ran.' Shinichi bit his lips and clenched his hands into fists until his knuckles stood out white. Akai's cool voice broke his silence.
"Kudo is right."
The FBI agent's calm eyes flew over their former protégé, and Jodie nodded as well, letting him hand her the phone.
She thoughtfully put her finger to her chin before looking up at her colleague.
"It would be best if we took it to the lab." Akai merely gazed at the empty number fields with a shake of his head. "There's no time for that."
His eyes fell back on Shinichi, who looked back at him piercingly.
"I take it you already have an idea?" He saw the detective swallow before breaking eye contact with a barely noticeable nod. Without a word, Akai held the cell phone under Shinichi's nose in a prompting manner until he hesitantly took it again.
Heiji sensed the tension between the two men, but said nothing, instead watched Shinichi at his side. The pale detective next to him remained motionless and continued to gaze at his own reflection staring back at him blankly from the black display.
Only when a hand came to rest on his shoulder and Heiji spoke to him, Shinichi was forced back to reality.
"Kudo?"
Shinichi flinched under his fingers, the muscles around his jaw tightening before he began to speak. The controlled certainty that usually lay in his voice when he was faced with a riddle completely absent.
"What- what if I'm wrong..." His friend's voice was little more than a whisper, causing Heiji's eyebrow to move upward. He could feel the others looking at the detective in surprise as well. Heiji, however, swallowed, he understood where Shinichi's sudden doubt came from.
This was not just any case, this was about Ran.
The Osakan ran his hand through his hair and shook his head before he too looked back at the cell phone in Kudo's hands.
"Then you're wrong. We have three tries, Kudo." He swallowed and nodded to his friend.
"So try it..."
Shinichi closed his eyes, his breathing shaking as he tried to control his thoughts. So many times she had been in danger. He had solved puzzles and defused bombs to save her, but this time it was different, this time he was afraid of what he might see if he solved the puzzle.
He activated the cell phone and letters ran across the display, forming a short sentence - threatening and demanding at the same time.
Please enter the PIN of the SIM card. You have 3 attempts.
'It's our only chance.'
Heiji watched as Shinichi's trembling fingertips haltingly moved over the cell phone, tapping an all too familiar number into the four-digit input field of the display.
His index finger hovered briefly before confirming the APTX's number, "4869."
A shrill beep sounded the ominous message that flickered across the cell phone shortly after it caused the adrenaline to spike in his body.
Wrong PIN code. You have 2 more attempts.
Hattori next to him uttered a silent curse, but Shinichi pressed his lips together while his eyes lingered on the number of remaining attempts.
'That would have been too easy anyway…' He swallowed, then looked up at the waiting crowd in the room.
"The APTX is out, so we need a different four-digit code."
An oppressive silence returned to the room, even Sonoko seemed to be able to pull herself together enough to think along with the others. Shinichi cursed, feeling his heart hammering in his throat.
They were wasting valuable time, they needed the right code and they needed it now.
"Maybe a date?"
Immediately, the eyes of those present turned to commissioner Sato, who met their gazes and continued to speak. But the words got stuck in her throat. The officer took a deep breath and felt her husband's hand gently touch hers before she continued.
"We know that he wants you to break this code. So maybe it's a date, some day or year that connects you to the organization?" Shinichi swallowed before nodding. Of course, there was such a day, just the thought of it made goosebumps run down his spine, but before he could name the date someone beat him to it.
"January 13th." Shinichi flinched, then looked up again at Megure, whose gaze slid out the window, as if the events from over ten years were replayed there.
"I didn't know it was you back then, but I remember my first case with Edogawa Conan pretty well." The brown eyes of the chief inspector moved back to the detective and for a short moment, the little boy merged with him again. But the image disappeared when he began to speak.
"Alright..." Shinichi waited for a reaction, for someone to stop him, but silence remained around him.
"...Let's give it a try."
He typed the doom-filled day into the display and felt the memories fill his stomach with ice cubes.
A good sign.
Because such a date could actually have been chosen by the boss.
His finger hesitated again.
The numbers 1301 glowed angrily at him before he confirmed the entry.
Beep!
'No!'
With a pounding heart, the detective watched as the confirmation of the shrill sound followed on the display.
Wrong PIN code. You have 1 more try.
The tension in the room was rising.
Now, the last calmness left the bones of the officers while they discussed further possibilities and Heiji also cursed before he gave Jodie at his side a sharp look and asked how long it would take to disassemble this pile of plastic.
Only Akai's gaze met Shinichi's own. They had only one chance left.
In synch, the eyes of the two wandered to the small faded label, which, besides the cell phone and envelope, was the only thing they still held in their hands from the boss of the black organization.
The label of a whiskey bottle from 1996.
Just a piece of paper that had drowned her world in darkness.
'Ran.'
The detective swallowed, but his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as he watched Akai pick up the label and turn it back and forth between his fingers before handing it to him. "Let's try it."
The agent's cool voice also drew the attention of the others again, causing his colleague's eyebrows to rise.
"What? You can't be serious, Shuichi. This is supposed to be our last shot?" The detective and the FBI agent exchanged a quick glance and Jodie felt goosebumps crawling down her spine. It had been a long time since she had seen the two of them together like this.
Her partner looked at her before shrugging his shoulders dismissively.
"Why not? If we didn't get anywhere with Kudo's death-"
Shinichi finished the sentence for him. "-then maybe with Conan's."
Shinichi felt the cold creeping back under his skin, clogging his vessels and making his heart beat faster. Heiji, along with the other officers, had fallen silent, while Jodie gave them a pitying look, realizing for the first time why Shinichi had been so upset about her lie.
She had declared him dead, even though he wasn't.
Shinichi, however, bit his lips and searched for Akai's green eyes, but the agent refused to look at him.
The year on the bourbon label was far more than the one emblazoned on Conan's tombstone.
1996.
It was the year the organization found out they were still alive, the year everything got out of hand, the year he fled to America. It was the year that Haibara Ai died.
Miyano Shiho.
Shinichi swallowed, raised his eyes again to Akai who only stared at the cell phone in his hand before the detective's gaze slid to the small dictaphone still lying on his nightstand.
'Haibara…'
He bit his lips, shook his head, and turned his gaze back to the phone, feeling the eyes of the others on him as he typed in the four numbers.
Shinichi exhaled long and slow.
The warning text from the cell phone burned into his retinas and fed the lump in his throat until it was thick and round, and made it difficult for him to breathe.
The boss had left them this note. It just had to be it.
It had to be the right code. They did not have another try. It had to work.
'Please…'
He closed his eyes and pressed enter.
Beep!
Wrong Pin Code!
Hey everyone,
sorry for being so late - I still have to finish the next chapter too (don´t worry it will be much longer than this one) after that we only have the epilogue left.
Thank you for your reviews and messages!
And of course a big thanks again to my Beta Tobina.
I wish you all a nice day,
Till next time,
Shelling