Scarlet Love

            Chapter Seven:

            Surprising Trail

            By: NightChild

            ***

            Heero ran after the white streak as fast as he could, and he still couldn't catch up with it. 'Kuso!' He had to run faster, but his legs were already thumping against the ground as hard and fast as he could make them, he could feel them starting to tire already, even though a "normal" person wouldn't call what he had just ran "already", because he had just ran nearly three miles. Just as he was about to give up on chasing and start shooting, the white streak that he had been chasing dropped down in front of him, startling him slightly and making him ready his gun with a lightning-quick movement.

            There stood a young Chinese man, dressed in the traditional Chinese garb, in white. The young man smirked. "Hello, Yuy. Don't you know you're in danger?" He watched Heero though onyx eyes, as if bored.

            Heero eyed the young Chinese that now blocked his path. He grunted in reply to the asked question. There was something that hadn't felt right after he fired his gun back at the park, but it was something very slight, and he wasn't sure if he wasn't just imagining it. "Out of my way, Wufei." He ordered through clenched teeth. Getting to a more strategic location was essential to defeating whatever it was that was tracking him.

            The young Chinese man, Wufei, didn't move, didn't even seem to breathe, just stood. "Make me, Yuy." He dropped into a fighting stance, and waited.

            ***

            Duo ran toward a park that he vaguely remembered stumbling through when he had been semi-conscious after his escape, the only reason why he was heading to that park was because it was the only place that he really remembered being at before somehow showing up at Heero's house on that stormy night, just barely more than a week past.

            Somehow managing to remember the exact location of the park, Duo arrived at the park winded and all of his still-healing injuries stinging and pulsing with pain; he was still trying to recover from his torture. Shaking his head to get keep his mind from wandering to the hell that he had lived through, he scanned the park with his violet eyes, looking for Heero. After not seeing him, he decided that walking around would probably be the best idea and started to do just that, keeping an ear out for any sounds of danger.

            As he passed by a tall tree, he noticed something that looked an awful lot like a bullet hole in the tree's trunk. He stopped and then walked closer to the tree to look at the suspicious-looking hole. Sure enough, it was a bullet hole, and it was fresh enough that a small amount of sap still trickled down the trunk of the tree. Duo also noticed that there was a small trail of blood leading along the tree line to a tall outcropping of bushes. He followed the trail, hoping the whole time that it wasn't Heero that was bleeding and that the trail of blood would lead him to Heero, somehow.

            ***

            Heero watched Wufei with measured calmness. If he really were being tracked, he needed to get out of there and to a better location as soon as he could, but Wufei was blocking his only clear path--they were now in a densely-wooded area and the trees were too thick to just leave the path and run though--to anywhere away from the park that he had just ran three miles from. Through gritted teeth he grunted, "I said, get. out. of. my. way."

            Wufei didn't move. "And I said, Yuy, 'make me.'" Heero couldn't go that way, there was a trap laying in wait for him that way, but Heero would never listen, he was too stubborn and still mission-focused to heed any warnings that Wufei would try to give to him. The only alterative was to fight him, hopefully leading him away from the ambush. And so, Wufei rushed forward with a well-aimed punch before Heero could shoot him.

            ***

            AN:

            This chapter is a little longer than the other one; I hope everyone liked it and that they aren't too short or anything. And to answer kaori-chan's question about the cookie, it was chocolate chip ^.^

            Thank you and a glomp each to Jill, violet_eyes, Randalbezerker, Wolfgirl333, Duo-js, and kaori-chan for reviewing!

            Until next time…

            Ja`ne