"So this is the man that Talpa's daughter is engaged to?"
Ryo groggily opened his eyes to hear a cold voice ask. He tried to move but found that his right arm was chained to the wall. The man who had voiced the question turned to face him when he heard the sound of rattling chains.
"You're awake." He said speaking the obvious. Ryo gazed up at the man who was holding him captive. "I'm glad. I didn't want to wait for you to finally come around." The man said.
Ryo was fully conscious now and tried to stand up. "Where am I? Who are you?" Ryo demanded. The man looked at him and smiled.
"I am Lord Seriyu." He said smiling as he bowed sardonically. "And you are Ryo of the Wildfire, correct?"
"So what if I am." Ryo said. Seriyu smiled. "I see, you have guts, I'll have to remember that." He said with a laugh. With that he turned to his followers. "I'll be back later today to perform the… 'procedure' he's still to weak right now, but he should be fine by tonight." Having said that Seriyu swept out of the room, tailed by the remaining men in the room. Ryo looked around at the modestly furnished room he was in. 'What is going on here?' he thought as he set about to think of a way to escape.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*
Sakura walked back to the city after following the thieves for almost an hour.
She had eventually lost them, but recovered the stolen money. She had just
returned the money to the banker when Cale came up behind her.
"Did you catch them?" he asked.
Sakura shook her head no. "No, they back tracked on me and I lost sight of them, but I recovered the money." She added brightly.
"Yeah me too." Cale said.
"You want to know something weird?" Sakura asked Cale. "It seemed to me like they weren't interested in the money at all. They just dropped it and kept on running."
"They guys I was following did that too." Cale said energetically.
"I don't think that this was a real robbery at all." Sakura said. "It might have been a distraction to get us out of the way."
"From where? Or who?" Cale asked as realization to what Sakura was thinking dawned on him. "The house. Somebody must want to capture someone at the house."
"But who?" Sakura asked thinking hard.
"Alanna maybe? Or Mia or any of the other. Whoever it is, we need to get back to the house and make sure everyone is okay." Cale said starting off in that direction.
"Wait!" Sakura called halting Cale in his tracks. He turned to look her.
"What?" he asked.
"What about Ryo? He hasn't come back yet." Sakura said.
Cale shrugged. "He's a big boy, Sakura. He can take care of himself."
"I know, but when he comes back and we aren't here he's not going to know where we went." She informed him.
"I think he's smart enough to figure out that we went back the house, but if it bugs you that much we can leave a note or something with the banker and the police chief." Cale said. Sakura nodded in agreement as the talked to the banker then headed off toward the house to see if anything was amiss.