Nagira didn't come back.
Amon and Robin stood in line at the airport to check in for their flight. Amon carried the bags, Robin still seemed out of it despite the three hours of sleep she had while they were waiting for Nagira to return. She was drinking a Bepsi, and Amon was relieved to see that she could keep it down. They were both tired. He hoped he would be able to sleep on the plane.
Nagira was missing.
Amon had waited as long as he dared for his brother's return, then dialed Nagira's apartment. Nothing. He didn't answer, but his message was different compared to the last time he had called Amon then tried Nagira's cell, only to get the voice mail message. He hung up without leaving a message—he didn't dare.
They left. Robin was still groggy and slightly feverish, although not, thank God, as blazingly hot has she had been. His shoulder hurt, dammit, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. He was wired with exhaustion and fear, and sick with worry over his brother.
It was bad enough that his parents were dead, that he never got to know his father, that his mother had Awakened and changed, and was killed when her insanity led to mass murder. Fortunately for Amon SOLOMON had taken him in, sheltered him and raised him, become father and mother to him. The only cost was his childhood, which had been blasted away during that one, blood-soaked, night. The only family he had left after that was his brother, and SOLOMON. In then end it was he who betrayed the organization.
Now his brother was missing, and they had to run. He had raided all of his hidden catches of money. He had to hope that it would be enough to tide them over until he found a means of employment.
Light gleamed momentarily off Robin's hair, and Amon found himself comparing the two women; his mother who could barely function toward the end as her Craft consumed her, and Robin, who seemed to become more real. More there with each passing day.
Maybe it was because he was tired.
The line moved forward, and Amon found himself looking at the lady at the counter. He wondered what it would be like to have that kind of job, where screwing up meant you were fired, not killed. Where your fifteen-year-old coworker could go to school and make friends her own age and not lose her innocence. A job where his brother wouldn't disappear because he, Amon, had threatened or angered the wrong people.
Grief and guilt tore at him, but he was used to that. The grief of losing his mother, the awful gut-sucking guilt of shooting Kate and letting Touko get shot. The horrible numbness as he led Robin to the warehouse, like a lamb to slaughter. At the time his mind simply could not deal with the emotions and had stopped sensing them, like burned pain nerves that no longer could transport messages of damage to the brain. He was a damned man—he knew and accepted it. The only thing he could hope for was the chance to do one good thing in his life.
He felt Robin slip her hand under his jacket and wrap her fingers around his belt. He looked down at her and draped his arm around her shoulders. If he could do one good thing…
The line moved forward another step.
His shoulder hurt. He was exhausted. Robin was sick, and he didn't know what they were going to do in the US. He just wanted to get away. It was somewhere else, some alien world in which brothers don't disappear and friends weren't on the other side of SOLOMON's laws.
Amon found himself face-to-face with the woman behind the counter. He handed her the fake IDs he had made weeks before, when he realized that they might need to flee the country. He felt a slight twinge of anxiety as the lady ran the IDs through the computer, but as promised the machine binged happily and the woman accepted the payment for two seats to the US. The next available flight was in four hours.
Security was a breeze—the guards allowed them through while they searched a white-haired old lady. Once through Amon steered the girl to one of the multicultural restaurants, even if she wasn't hungry, he was starving. The restaurant clearly served the American tourists and businessmen. They sat down and Robin looked at her menu blankly before putting her head on the table and closing her eyes.
"Not interested?" Amon asked.
Robin shook her head negatively in response.
He frowned. "You should still try to eat something."
She shrugged. "Soup, I don't care what kind," she answered.
He ordered for both of them, tomato soup for her and something forgettable for him. The food arrived after a few minutes and they ate in silence, Robin consuming the soup with no sign of illness. He hoped that Nagira was right, that it was just dehydration, and that once she had replaced the lost fluids she would be fine.
He suddenly lost his appetite. God, Nagira. Somehow, without thinking about it, he had made another decision. He had decided that his own brother was not as important to him as Robin. He felt like he had betrayed his brother by leaving the country, rather than staying to find him. Amon looked across the table to the girl. Despite the guilt and shame at leaving his own brother to whatever destiny Fate had in store for him, he still felt like he was doing the right thing. God help him.
It almost didn't matter. Nagira was still gone.
Being a school teacher meant that Mrs. Smith had plenty of time during the summer to travel the world, and yearly trips to see the relatives kept her Japanese fresh. She sat in coach and tried to read her Beatrice Small novel, but she was distracted by her seat-mates. On her left in the center seat was a girl who couldn't have been older than fourteen or fifteen. It wasn't that the girl was noisy or intrusive, quite the opposite. The girl had fallen asleep when she had sat down. Before she had fallen asleep Mrs. Smith had noticed the glassy look of her eyes, perhaps drugs the woman thought with disapproval. Mrs. Smith had certainly smoked a few joints during her hippie years, but the things children were doing these days were far beyond anything she had ever done, even as a college student. Really, it was their parents' fault.
There was a rather intimidating man who looked, excitingly enough, like the hero in Love or Die, sitting on the other side of the girl. Mrs. Smith supposed they might be together, although why a young girl would be with such a dangerous-looking man was anyone's guess. Lurid tales of innocent young women seduced away from friends and family by dangerous older men danced her in head. She frowned, those tales were all very well and good Romance Land—but not in real life.
The meal cart came by and the man woke the girl up so she could eat. Mrs. Smith put down her book and concentrated on her food. Despite the stereotype airline food wasn't really that bad. She had read somewhere that the reason why it wasn't as flavorful as food elsewhere was because of the dry air up here, which carried fewer odors. Less smell equaled less taste.
From the corner of her eye Mrs. Smith watched the pair. The girl just picked at her food, occasionally taking a bite, and then stopping. The woman wondered if she was anorexic, she certainly looked ill and thin enough. The man had wolfed his down, and was now watching the girl impassively. He said something to her that Mrs. Smith didn't quite catch, despite her command of Japanese. The girl sighed, and took a larger bite, and then another and another, slowly working her way through the meal.
Mrs. Smith must have been staring too intently, because the pair suddenly turned and looked straight at her. They said nothing, simply gave her a look that told her she snooping where she didn't belong.
She pulled her book up close to her nose and started reading furiously, Lord Ryan and Annette the chambermaid were suddenly so much more interesting.
Really, she thought, I should have brought along a Nora Roberts novel. I never meet odd people when I read Nora Roberts.
In the end she should have known better, Doujima later thought. She should have known better than to trust SOLOMON (but wasn't her father in the upper council? Shouldn't one trust one's father?). She should have known better than to take their word for anything.
After the fall of the Factory she had talked to the head of the task force. Charlie had been most helpful, promising, in that sweet, smooth way of his (and oh, she had fallen for it at the time. She always did. He was that kind of man) that none of the people who had participated in the STN-J's raid on the facility would be punished for it. He had promised that the STN-J was safe for retaliation from SOLOMON. And she had believed him.
Too bad she had forgotten that Nagira wasn't a member of the STN-J. Now he was missing and it was all her fault. Well, hers and Amon's, and possibly Robin's. If it wasn't for them then Nagira would never have gone.
Doujima stared at the broken panes and busted door of Nagira's apartment. The manager had called the police when she heard the break in, but the police didn't come until quite some time afterwards. That, alone, was enough to tell Doujima that SOLOMON was involved, and not one of the many shady characters the lawyer probably dealt with on a regular basis. It was a good thing that she was the one in the office at the time the call came in. Michael was spending his first night of freedom in years at Sakaki's place, where the boys were probably staying up all night playing video games. She didn't know how to tell the others that a third person in their party was missing, and after the operation as well.
To make matters worse she was starting to think in italics. Talk about lame.
Idly she picked up bits and pieces of things, before dropping them again. There wasn't any point, really. SOLOMON does a good job of covering its tracks. No, if there was any way to find out what had happened to Nagira it wouldn't be through physical evidence. She would have to use her much-vaunted contacts, even if those contacts had failed her.
Flipping open her phone, she started dialing.
It was, strangely enough, the pervious day. Somewhere in the flight they had crossed the International Date Line, and time had slipped backwards. The exhaustion that had lifted slightly during the flight had returned at full force. The plane had finally landed…somewhere. Robin wasn't quite certain where they were, and she didn't much care. Later she could worry about things like where they were and what they were going to do.
Sometime, on this day, Robin had incinerated everything that was between them and freedom. If she closed her eyes she could see herself, burning through the tunnel step by step, feeling everything that made her her slip away, until there was nearly nothing left. She had an odd feeling that if the hall beyond the metal door had not been clear, and she had needed to keep burning, then she would have been lost. Her personality would have burned away like the chaff in a wheat field after harvest. She would have been nothing. A void.
They were standing inside a cheap motel while Amon spoke with the old man at the desk. Robin was too tired to try to make her English work well enough to understand what the men were saying. It didn't matter.
A moment later the man handed Amon a couple of keycards for the room and gestured toward the hall, before turning back to his magazine. Amon didn't even turn to look at her—he simply trudged down the hall trailing her in his wake. The moment he entered the room he crossed directly to one of the beds and flopped on it face down—not bothering to even turn off the lights. Robin stood at the door and stared at the room blankly. There was nothing here, just cheap furniture.
Without conscious thought she drifted into the room, the door closing on it's own behind her. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest and throbbing in her temples, like it was some savage beast trying to get out. She was tired, and yet was far to keyed up to sleep. She touched the TV and the empty bed, fingers trailing along the comforter, before going to the bathroom, hoping that a nice long soak was what she needed. A moment after she turned the water on in the tub she turned it off again, frustration boiling beneath the surface of her mind. She didn't know what she wanted.
By their own motivation her feet drifted out of the bathroom again, to find that Amon was still in the position he had lain down in. Her feet walked across the room and took her with them, and a moment later she found herself sitting on the bed next to him, one hand on his back.
"Amon?" she said softly, hoping not to wake him if he was asleep, but still wanting to talk to him if he wasn't.
"Yes?" His voice was somewhat muffled by the pillow.
"What happened to Nagira?"
The ex-Hunter turned his head to look at her, charcoal eyes meeting green. Robin thought she saw a flicker of emotion in their dark depths, pain or fear or grief. She wasn't sure which. He sighed deeply, his back under her hand rising and falling.
"I don't know," he said.
"Oh." The girl tried to think for a moment, but found herself staring at the wall. "Oh," she repeated. She bit her lip. "If you didn't know where he was, then why did we leave Japan?" she asked finally.
"It was too dangerous for us to stay."
"But what if Nagira needs us?" she asked plaintively. "If he's missing then there's something wrong!"
"And do what, exactly?" he answered. "We're both exhausted. I'm hurt, and we don't know what's wrong with you. Nagira's an adult and a lawyer, he's going to have to take care of himself. He would not thank me for letting you get killed." He breathed in deeply again, and let it out in one shuddering whuff of air. "We can't do anything for him."
Robin was silent. She wanted to argue, and knew it was stupid. The time for argument was long past. They were here now (wherever here was) and couldn't go back.
She was too tired to argue, any ways.
"Robin, go to bed."
She nodded mutely, flicked the switch near the head of the bed off, and curled up next to him, her back pressed against his side, and then shifted around—trying to find a more comfortable position.
"Robin?"
"Hmm?"
"The other bed is empty," he pointed out mildly.
She stilled. "Do you want me to leave?"
"Heh. You should," he said.
She sighed, disappointment washing over her, and stood up. The room tilted crazily around her, causing her to sit down abruptly on the bed again.
"Robin?" Amon prompted.
"I'm sorry…I'm dizzy."
He grunted in reply and then there was silence for several minutes while Robin waited for the world to stop spinning. The sheets rustled and a moment later Amon appeared at her shoulder. She smiled at him shakily, and then remembered that he couldn't see her in the dark.
Amon placed a hand on her shoulder, and then touched her brow. "Jesus. It hasn't gone away, has it?" he said, and then continued before she had a chance respond, "We're going to have to find you a doctor tomorrow."
"I'm sorry."
"I just wish I knew what was wrong with you."
After several more minutes of silence Robin finally felt strong enough to try standing again. This time the world did not tilt and everything seemed stable. She lay down in the empty bed, feeling oddly drained and cold.
Twelve hours later Doujima was walking a back street close enough to what remained of the Factory for her informant to sneak out, but far enough away that she wouldn't be caught. The STN-J was in a rather odd position, as Hunters who had been directly under Zaizen's control they were being viewed with suspicion. However, when they invaded the Factory they placed themselves clearly on SOLOMON's side when it came to their boss. Unfortunately they had to go rogue to do so, which gave SOLOMON even more reason to view them with suspicion. SOLOMON was walking around them on eggshells, all the while keeping a careful eye on them.
One of the rescue crew appeared out of the shadows as she approached his hiding spot. It was Eustace, a man from the heart of London. She had met him years before at a dinner her father had held. He had been the only one willing to indulge the young daughter of the Mr. Doujima with a game of chess, and hadn't been to badly put out when she had soundly trounced him. She wondered vaguely if he would have time for a game or two before he left Japan, it was so hard to find good players these days.
She was only thinking about chess because she didn't want to think about what could be happening to Nagira.
"Hey Eustace." Doujima gave him her best smile—the one fake one that her friends had never seen.
"Ah, Yurika! I was wondering when you were going to pay me a visit. You thinking about playing a game or two?"
"Maybe later," she said, leaning back against the brick wall of the alley. "Listen, I need a favor, can you help me out?"
Immediately the man sobered—all traces of amusement leaving his face. Bingo, something's up. Doujima thought with satisfaction.
"What kind of favor?" he asked warily.
"A…friend of mine helped us the other night. He got out all right, in fact he was with me the entire time. The problem is he's missing, and his apartment's been tossed."
"Huh." The man looked away from her, watching the street. Doujima shifted nervously... If someone caught them… or if Eustace decided that his friendship with her weren't as important as his superior's orders… Well, she could be in some danger.
That's the way it was. If Zaizen had caught her spying he would have killed her, too. SOLOMON and its child organizations were like that.
Eustace shifted uneasily. "I can't tell you much, mostly because I don't know much myself, but the scuttlebutt has it that your buddy is in a lot of trouble."
"I guessed that," Doujima said sourly.
"Well, rumor has it that the two Hunters who died the other night left a few signs behind them that might indicate that they aren't as dead as some in SOLOMON would want. I hear that he's collateral."
Shit. "Any idea where they're holding him?"
"I haven't a clue, lady." The man shook his head sadly and shrugged. "As I said it's just a rumor."
"Oh. Thanks, I guess." It was worse than she thought, rumors were getting around but she was out of circulation. That…was not good. It meant that she, as well as the rest of the STN-J were under suspicion. Likely because she was the one who had that reported Amon and Robin were dead. If they had left signs that said otherwise…
Well, she hopped that if they had any sense they would stay dead. Although sense was a bit much to expect out of the pair.
"I guess that means that game is off."
Doujima shrugged, whether they had a chance to play would depend entirely on if she could fine Nagira soon, or not. Until he was located she was going to spend every spare minute she had to find him.
They stood there a moment, two dark shadows in the alleyway, before fading away.
A strange beeping and the sound of water dripping into a coffee pot pulled Amon out of the odd, restless, sleep he had. Last night had been the first time in more then a year that Amon had shared a room with someone other then his goldfish, and he wasn't sure he liked it. Touko had always left before falling asleep, telling him that the last thing they needed was to move in together, but then he hadn't exactly encouraged her, either.
It was much easier keeping his distance, in the end.
More sounds of someone up and about, padding barefoot around the room in a futile effort to be silent. Amon rolled over and glared bleary-eyed at the source of the noise. It was Robin, up and active in the early morning light, he realized with annoyance.
"I take it you're feeling better," he said sourly. Robin jumped slightly at the sound of his voice and gave him a guilty look.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up."
He continued to glare at her as she prepared her coffee. Robin, as always, seemed to be able to brush off any discomfort or embarrassment she had, even though Amon knew damn well that last night was probably the first night in her life that she spent in the same room with a man. Hell, last night she was willing to sleep in the same bed as a man.
It certainly wasn't what he had expected for a girl raised in a convent.
She poured in some non-dairy creamer that the motel had provided and stirred in some sugar, presumably to mask the taste of cheap coffee. Amon found himself watching the slender curve of her back, at some point she had taken off her heavy dress, only in her undershirt and slip. Noticing his gaze Robin held the coffee pot out inquiringly. Rather then explain himself he shrugged and let her pour him a cup. He took it from her and set it down next to the clock on the night stand, before getting up.
"What do you plan on doing today?" she asked.
He shrugged, "Find clothing, get the things we're wearing laundered." He looked at her sharply, "Find a doctor." Robin's brows drew together in annoyance at that last statement.
"I'm fine, really." He continued to watch her, which only seemed to annoy her further.
"Really." It was a statement of disbelief, not a question. Robin huffed slightly and glared at him.
"I feel fine," she said, taking great care to pronounce every syllable clearly. Despite the situation, his worries over the girl and his brother, it was still all Amon could do not to laugh. He was fairly certain that Robin would incinerate him on the spot if he erupted in her face, however.
Perhaps Robin read his thoughts. Her eyes narrowed dangerously at him. "Why don't you see a doctor, you were shot."
He snorted. "Then perhaps we should both go." Before she could argue further he stood up and entered the bathroom, firmly shutting the door against any indignant reply.
The sound of silence.
Dripping water echoed through empty halls. Some skittered in the dark, some small and fearful hunting the giant cockroaches that lived in Tokyo's underground; both hunter and hunted, predator and prey.
Just like he was.
Nagira leaned back against a concrete wall and squeezed his eyes shut against the oppressive dark. Open or shut, it made no difference, there was no light in this Hell hole. He hoped his brother and the kid had been able to escape. He didn't want to think about what could be happening to them if they hadn't.
The air was full of moisture and a hint of something foul. Nagira thought he might be underground somewhere, a basement of a complex, or a forgotten off-shoot of the subway system.
He hated the dark. As a child he'd been terrified of the dark and the things in it, terrified of the cellar and his closet. It was better then being terrified of the man who his mother said was his father, who had never hurt or threatened him in any way, but had an air of menace around him. Years later Nagira wondered just how his mother had been attracted to him. Lucky Amon, to barely have any memory of their father. Nagira had grown out of his fear of the dark, just as he had nearly forgotten his fear of the man. In any case, it was never truly dark in the city. He'd thought that old fear was forgotten, but now Nagira was discovering that it wasn't forgotten, merely put aside for a time such as this.
"Hello?" he called into the dark, hoping to hear something, anything, that might indicate that he wasn't the only human down here. He strained his ears—even one of his captors would have been welcome.
Nothing, only the faint scrabbling of rats and the distant sound of dripping water.
He stood, discovering that he wasn't tied up, and paced, trailing his fingers along the wall. He came to a corner and continued along the new wall until he touched metal, not concrete. Bars. A cell?
As a lawyer Nagira had seen the insides of jails and prisons while visiting clients or interviewing witnesses. Jails and prisons were always well-lit so that the guards could easily observe the prisoners. This was no Tokyo prison he was familiar with. He was completely alone.
Nagira stood, holding the bars of his cage, listening to the sounds of silence.
A/N Thank's to everyone who reviewed, and sorry about the wait. I'll try to do better, although the next chapter might take a bit of time to write. I'm doing a challenge over at Harry's conserning a pre-series story, and the parents of a certain Fire-Witch we all know and love. Wish me luck!