Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-gi-oh characters or plot.

CHAPTER THREE

When Serenity woke up, she was in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room. She had a headache, and her mouth felt dry. Panicking, she sat up too quickly, and the room spun, so she put her hands to her temples to try to push the pain back inside. Her wrists were free. Bemused, she held them out in front of her. There were traces of sticky adhesive, but the electrical tape was mostly gone.

Then it hit her. She was in a bed. Looking down, she was relieved to see that her sleep T-shirt was still on. It didn't feel like she'd been assaulted, apart from being tied up, but who knew what Kaiba had in store for her? Not liking that thought, she drew her knees to her chest, and hugged them, laying her head on her knees, and waited for the affects of whatever drug they'd given her to wear off a bit more.

She'd failed Joey, and failed him badly. Kaiba had the gamechip. The one thing she'd promised not to let happen, had happened. And she was very much afraid she was about to fail him again. Kaiba was a monster. She couldn't let him win, but how could she hope to keep Joey's last secret if he started to torture her? She wasn't a trained spy; she was a wuss when it came to pain. Even if Kaiba didn't actually hurt her, if he used truth serum on her, she didn't have the least idea how to fight that.

"I'm going to die here." She faced the truth squarely. Kaiba never intended to let her go free, how could he? She'd seen his face, and not even a multi-millionaire could get out of a kidnapping charge. Not in America anyway. What to do? Escape, if she could, and if not…well, better to die by her own hand than by his. Joey's secret was too important to risk. But how to do it? She'd never contemplated suicide before, and for some reason it was really hard to focus her thoughts. They kept flying away from her like a flock of sparrows.

It was either escape, or die trying. Energized by her goal, she got out of bed, staggered over and tried tapping the walls They were solid, even in the spacious closet, which did NOT contain her suitcase of clothes – an even more ominous sign that he intended to kill her. Why give the victim a change of clothes? She tried the door. It was locked and equipped with one of those cardkey swipes and keypads like they had in a good hotel. That left the window, located over the writing desk on the far wall.

Woozily, she pulled the chair out, and used it to clamber onto the writing desk. The walls were stone, the windowpane cold against her forehead as she leaned into it to look down on an alleyway below. She was up high. The building had to be at least 15 stories tall. Would she die right away when she fell? 15 stories. There was no way anyone could survive that. Was there? Anyhow, with forensic science being what it was today, they'd be able to tell what window she fell from surely. That ought to get Kaiba in trouble. Hah! Try explaining that away Mr. "let's put a fake message on her boss's answering machine". And if she died tonight, that fake message would be scrutinized, and found wanting. She reached down to the window's sill and tried to pull it open. It stuck. It was painted completely shut. Serenity felt like crying. How to get out?

Then she looked over and saw the chair. Poor chair. It would have to go. Like her. Like Joey.

Why was it so difficult to think clearly? Shouldn't she leave a note or something? But addressed to whom? Any note she left incriminating him, Kaiba would tear up, and besides, who would miss her? Her boss at work got along fine without an assistant before she was hired and could easily do without her. Joey had been her only close family. Uncle Henry didn't recognize anyone anymore, and wouldn't miss her. As for loved ones, what loved ones? Her friends back at USC had scattered across the country after graduation, and only she had stayed on for a master's degree. She'd only had one boyfriend in college, and he'd been a grabber. She'd got tired of dodging being mauled every time he got drunk, and broke up with him, telling him she needed to concentrate on school. He'd bounced back nicely and started going out with a cheerleader the next week, who told everyone Serenity was frigid, just because she'd refused to sleep with him.

No, there would be no note.

Slipping off the desk, she leaned against it. She had to get the window open somehow. She grabbed the chair next to her and swung it over the desk. It connected with the window with a satisfying crack, but the glass held. Furious, Serenity swung it again, and again. The glass finally shattered. Dropping the chair, she climbed onto the desk, barely feeling the cuts as her knees pressed into the shards lying there. Even the pain seemed to have fuzzy edges surrounding it, like her thoughts.

A nice big hole was in the center of the window now. She leaned through it and looked down, using her palms to push more of the glass away. A faint tinkling sound was all they made when they fell. There was still a lot of glass left at the top and sides of the window, but what did she care? All she had to do was keep leaning forward, and forward, and soon gravity would do the rest. Closer, closer, and…

"No! Don't do it! I won't let you die!"

A small hand was on her ankle. Where had that come from? Shocked, Serenity whipped around to look, and sliced her left arm by the shoulder deeply on the jagged window glass as she turned. Hissing with pain, she saw a small black haired boy in flannel train pajamas reach up around her waist and tug at her. As he moved in, his chest came closer to the glass on the table. She had to stop him before he sliced himself!

She tried to push him aside with her left arm, but it was on fire with pain, and she felt a streamlet of blood falling down her arm inside the sleeve. As she twisted around, she overbalanced and fell backward off the desk, landing partly on the boy, who let out a startled "ouff," so she rolled off him as quickly as she could.

The child sat up, shook his mop of curly black hair out of his eyes, and Serenity found herself looking into Kaiba's ice blue eyes, yet they were not quite the same. These eyes were worried, beseeching. This was not an expression a child should have. Some things were still not very clear in Serenity's thoughts, but that thought had the clarity of an ingrained moral imperative. Something had to be done. He looked like he was about to cry.

"Why did you save me?" she asked the boy softly, unable to think of anything else to distract him.

"That's what knights do, silly," he answered, then looked down, "Sorry, I'm not supposed to call people silly."

"That's alright."

Two men in dark suits rushed into the room with guns drawn, saw the boy, and the guns vanished. They moved in toward Serenity. She shrank back, and the child noticed. He clambered to his feet, put his hands on his hips and stepped in front of her.

"Stay back! I saved her and she's hurt. Go get a doctor now!"

One of the men hesitated, saw the blood on Serenity's arm and knees, and left at a run. "But Mokuba, your brother…" began the other.

"My brother leaves me in charge when he's not here, and you're supposed to protect me. And she's my responsibility now because I saved her so you have to protect her too." The child stuck out his chin stubbornly, and Serenity began to see more of Seto Kaiba in him, as he faced down the bodyguard.

"My orders are to keep her here. Whatever else you want to do with her is your call," the man returned calmly.

Serenity was impressed. The bodyguard knew how to set boundaries yet leave the kid some dignity. She made a mental note to compliment him later on, if she survived. She was beginning to realize that her gash on the shoulder was dropping a lot of blood onto the carpet. Bemused, she watched it drip off her little finger and start to form a puddle.

Why were the edges of her vision going dark?

She started swaying, and things got fuzzy for a moment, or maybe it was more than a moment because the next thing she knew she was lying on a stainless steel kitchen table. The little version of Seto Kaiba stood next to her, holding a tray of instruments for a man she presumed was a doctor, who was stitching up a deep cut on her shoulder.

As he worked he muttered to the boy. "Look at that, see there, Mokuba? You need to keep the edges straight, or she'll have an ugly scar. You never want a pucker affect, just two straight lines, parallel, see?"

Mokuba nodded firmly, his eyes on her wound. She tried to look too, but had to look away. She couldn't stand the sight of blood. They'd torn open her nightshirt sleeve to get to the wound. She wondered if they'd give her back some of her clothes to make up for it, then remembered that they were going to kill her so why would they? As a matter of fact, why were they bothering to sew her up? Were they afraid she'd die of blood loss before they had a chance to interrogate her? The thought made her feel sick.

"Where's Seto Kaiba?" she asked.

"Ah" the doctor turned hard brown eyes on her. "Back to the land of the living I see, Miss. I don't know where Kaiba the elder is, but I must say I'm very glad for Kaiba the younger's help here."

Mokuba, for that was his name, grinned up at the doctor, who turned his hard gaze back on Serenity.

"Now I suggest you lie still young lady, and let me do my job. Leave the questions for later." And with that warning, he got back to work.

Soon the stitches were done. "Don't get it wet for at least a week. That means no showering without a waterproof covering, wash it in saline solution, and put polysporan on it twice a day until the stitches come out." And with that, the doctor bustled out, leaving Mokuba, Serenity, and a bored looking guard sitting in the kitchen chair, arms crossed, watching.

Serenity sat up on the table, and swung her legs over the edge. Thank goodness the nightshirt was long, coming down to her knees. Though there'd been moments back in her bedroom when she'd felt it hiking up as she'd struggled with Seto Kaiba that caused her a bit of belated embarrassment.

The child was looking at her anxiously. She shivered involuntarily. He looked so like Seto. The coloring, hair and eyes were the same, but while Seto Kaiba's face was all hard planes, this kid's face still had the rounded softness of childhood, and he was a lot shorter. He couldn't be more than seven or eight years old. Kaiba couldn't have been much out of his teens when this child was conceived. Serenity tried to remember how old the multimillionaire was from the articles she'd read. They'd all harped on his youth when he'd taken control of Kaiba International. He must be 30 or so now, about five years older than she was.

"Does it hurt bad?" the kid asked while leaning toward her, and putting his hand unselfconsciously on her knee. It rested on her kneecap next to one of the many band-aids she seemed to have acquired there. If it had been Seto, she would have clocked him one, no matter how much it hurt, but this was a child, and his head barely crested the tabletop.

"No, it's fine."

Actually it was quite numb. Serenity bit her lip. Why was she reassuring a Kaiba? Things were complicated now. At least she seemed to be thinking more clearly. Glancing at her shoulder, she grimaced at the sight of the ugly black stitches. Someone had cut through her nightshirt sleeve from the shoulder to halfway down her arm, and the material was crusted with dried blood, though her skin was clean. The doctor's tender ministrations no doubt.

What kind of a doctor stitched up a kidnap victim without so much as a question? Then it hit her; perhaps he didn't know she was a kidnap victim. She hadn't told him. What if he thought she was some bimbo Seto Kaiba had brought home! Her forehead creased as an expression of horror crossed her face.

She felt a reassuring squeeze on her knee and shifted her focus to the blue-eyed kid. "It will be alright. When it heals it won't look bad at all. Dr. Spencer is the best. He's been our doctor since…well since forever. He says if we took you to the hospital he could have put in staples, but he didn't have any with him." Mokuba sounded almost disappointed. So Spencer was the family doctor, and obviously on call at a moment's notice and probably very discreet. Even if she'd told him the truth it probably wouldn't have made a difference. She waited to see what the kid would do next.

He smiled shyly, and she melted. This kid was going to break hearts when he was older. He was adorable. She had to fight the urge to smile back.

"We should probably put you to bed." He said gravely, going serious. "You're hurt and the best thing for it is rest. That's what Dr. Spencer always says."

The guard at the door immediately stood up and came forward. Serenity cringed, not relishing the thought of being manhandled again. The kid noticed and moved to stand between her and the guard.

"What are you doing?" he demanded to know imperiously.

"Taking her back to her room." The guard stood, expressionlessly, hands folded, as if at ease in the army sense of the term.

"You can't. It's got a broken window, she'll catch her death." What odd expressions the kid used. It was as if he were around older people a lot and picked up on their clichés.

"The window's been taped up, and I'll be in the room to be sure she doesn't try it again," countered the guard.

"No." Mokuba all but stamped his foot. "She doesn't like you, and besides I saved her. She'll stay with me. I'll guard her." Mokuba twisted around to look up at her. "You can stay in my room! It'll be like a sleepover! It'll be fun!"

Serenity opened her mouth to say…she couldn't think of a thing. Helplessly, she let her eyes meet those of the guard, and found herself sharing that exasperated "kids!" look that adults tended to share in situations where children said something wildly improbable.

Mokuba grabbed her leg, which was dangling off the table, and clung to it. "I'm in charge, and I say she stays with me." He said firmly, then ruined the effect he was going for by continuing. "Please? Please can she stay with me? My bedroom doesn't have windows. I'll protect her, I promise!"

The guard gave a muffled sigh, stepped back and began talking into his hand, or rather some kind of microphone concealed in his hand.

In a minute, another guard showed up, took a long, hard look at her, and said, "Alright. She stays in Mokuba's room. There's no egress aside from the door, and you stay on that."

Then he left. With very little choice, Serenity slipped off the kitchen table, and allowed Mokuba to take her by the right hand, and pull her out of the kitchen, past the guard who followed closely. The child led her to an interior door down a corridor, prattling all the while about how wonderful Dr. Spencer was. On his door was a keypad. Mokuba punched the code in too fast for her to read, and still talking, hauled her into the room. As she glanced back, she saw the guard take up his position across the hall. Their eyes met briefly, and she knew he'd have no problem taking her down if she ever managed to get out of Mokuba's room.

She took a breath and surveyed Mokuba's room.

It didn't look the room of a spoiled rich kid. It was good sized, with room to play in the center, but it wasn't overly large. The walls were painted dark blue, and the ceiling looked like stars were painted onto it. A twin bed with a blue and green tartan coverlet was against the far wall. To her left was a bookcase, and what looked to be a toy chest with a large bedraggled teddy bear sitting on top, next to a pile of toy cars. To her right were 2 doorways to a bathroom and closet, she presumed. In between them was a writing desk, child sized, with a mirror and bookshelf over it. On the walls were posters of Minoan game tournaments. Mokuba saw her looking at them.

"Those are the tournaments my brother placed in. He came this close" he pinched his thumb and forefinger almost together "to winning last year. My brother is the best player in the whole world. Well, almost best," he amended.

Serenity smiled sadly. Joey had been at many of those same tournaments. She remembered the emails he'd sent, and the postcards. They'd loved getting postcards from vacationing friends from exotic places when they were kids, and Joey had kept up the practice. She had to blink to keep from crying again. She couldn't afford to cry.

"You're really tired." said Mokuba critically, and began pushing her toward the bed. "Lie down!" he ordered.

Serenity sat down with a thump that jarred her shoulder. The anesthetic was definitely beginning to wear off and it was starting to ache. "But this is your bed."

"I'll sleep on the floor! That way if a dragon comes, I can jump up and protect you." He ran to the toy chest, shoved the lid up, causing the teddy to be squished against the wall, and took out a plastic King Arthur sword, brandishing it grandly.

Serenity wanted to cry. The only dragon in this place was Seto Kaiba. She swallowed. "Does your dad know you have that sword?" she asked lamely.

"Oh, my dad's dead." He said matter-of-factly, shutting the toy box lid, and putting the teddy bear firmly back in the center.

"Then Seto is…?"

"Seto's my brother. My dad and mom died in a car accident when I was a baby."

"I'm so sorry." Serenity said automatically, beginning to remember more of what the article had said of Seto Kaiba's background. If it mentioned that Seto had a little brother, it must have been a very brief reference. Actually, since the most information she'd been able to find on him was in obscure back issues of gaming magazines the articles tended to focus on his skill in gaming, secondarily on his business acumen, and only lastly on personal information. Reading between the lines, she'd got the impression that Seto Kaiba refused to answer questions about his personal life.

"It's OK." Mokuba came and sat by her on the bed. "I don't remember them, so I'm not sad. But don't tell Seto." He looked anxious. "He'd feel bad because he does remember them. He tells me about them sometimes, but it's like hearing a story mostly." He slipped off the bed and onto the floor. "Go to sleep now." He ordered.

"What about you? Don't you want a sleeping bag? Or a pillow?" Was this kid really going to sleep on the floor?

"Nope! Knights don't need pillows." Mokuba said scornfully.

What to do? Serenity wasn't used to being around children. She couldn't just let the kid sleep on the floor. He'd catch pneumonia or something. She had to think fast.

"Mokuba. I appreciate you guarding me, but couldn't you do it a little closer to me? I'm scared," she lied. Mokuba's room was probably the safest place to be in the whole building. Even a monster like Seto Kaiba wouldn't kill her in his own little brother's room. She squirmed back, pulling her feet under the covers, and making a "U" shape with her body to make room for the child. "If you sit here on the edge of the bed I'd feel a lot safer."

Mokuba's head popped up over the edge of the mattress, and regarded the space she'd made. "Well…" he began doubtfully.

"Just until I fall asleep, and then you can go back to guarding me from the floor."

"OK" Mokuba scooted up onto the bed, his back to her, and laid his plastic sword across his knees as he sat. "Just until you sleep," his tone making it politely clear that he was only doing it because she was a silly girl.

It only took about 10 minutes before Mokuba began to nod off. Serenity didn't dare move to even turn off the light switch by the bed. Eventually, he leaned back against her. The sword fell to the carpet, and he naturally curled up into a little ball against her stomach and slept. When she was sure he was really asleep, she pulled the coverlet over him, wincing at the pain emanating from the stitches in her left shoulder. It seemed easiest just to let her wounded arm stay over him when she'd covered him, so she did.

An hour passed. It was now 1:00 in the morning by the clock on Mokuba's bedside table. The pain in her shoulder kept her awake, otherwise it was oddly comfortable, if unfamiliar, to have a child curled up against her.

Was this how it felt to be a mother? This wave of protectiveness? Even his unruly mop of black hair, which seemed to want to get into her nose and mouth, smelled of clean child. She wondered how it would feel to have a child of her own, then quickly banished that thought. She was way too busy at her job to think of dating. Her boss kept her odd hours at the office whenever he had a major project going on, which was all the time. She'd kept expecting things to settle down, but even after almost two years it never did. Besides, she probably wasn't going to get out of this one alive.

The door opened quietly, and a second later she was looking up into the coldly furious eyes of Seto Kaiba. He glanced quickly at the huddled form of his brother next to her, and kept his voice low.

"You put my brother in danger. You'll pay for that."

Serenity got mad, gloriously, freeingly, angry. "In danger?" she hissed quietly "I got this" she jerked her chin at the stitches on her shoulder "because I let him pull me out of that window. Besides, I'm not the murderer here. I don't go around kidnapping people. In short, Mr. high and mighty Seto Kaiba, I'm not you!"

Kaiba growled deep in his throat, then wheeled about and stalked out without a word, shutting the door silently behind him.

Serenity began to shake in reaction, not sure whether to laugh or cry. She'd just vanquished the dragon, temporarily it was true, but she hadn't even had to use Mokuba's sword.

o-o-o

"Angus, how far along are you on the message?" Seto was on his cellphone the minute he stepped out of his brother's room.

"Nearly doon." Seto knew Angus must be getting tired. His Scottish accent thickened considerably.

"I want redundancy on this. It has to appear that she flew to L.A. tonight, tomorrow at the latest. If someone checks on it later, I need there to be proof."

"Not a problem."

Seto disconnected and went to his bedroom to pace. When he'd left the studio, Angus and one of his technical security advisors had still been hard at work on blending together words and phrases from the Wheeler girl's taped phone conversations to make a coherent, seamless recording saying she'd gone to L.A. for a week or two.

Seto had no way of knowing whether or not Serenity Wheeler had any vacation time left, but he thought she might. She was the sort of earnest young worker who forgot to take vacations. Still, if her company became suspicious, they might just call airlines to find out if she'd really gone or if she'd lied. If she didn't turn up after two weeks, there'd be some sort of investigation, and Seto needed the trail to lead to Los Angeles, and away from him.

The girl could not be allowed to mess up his plans.

A/N: Just to be clear, suicide is never a good option. Serenity's thought processes were completely off-kilter due to the sedatives she was given, otherwise she'd never have tried such a thing. I've made Mokuba younger than he is in the anime series, so expect childishness, since he's still just a child.

Reviewers:

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