Only the sound of footsteps and the soft padding of Kisame's paw broke the night silence. Itachi did not hesitate or look back, striking deftly through the dark countryside. "Goddamn her." he muttered under his breath; "goddamn her to hell," the words like a chant, marking his stride. The pills held his pain to a low humming at the back of his brain.
Itachi hated this goddamned dirty street in this goddamned place in the middle of nowhere. He hated the houses looming in the distance and the sound of muddy river he could smell even when he couldn't see it, and he hated the dirty peace of snow that were beginning to fall.
He drifted back to the sidewalk in front of the house. The old rage was flowing now, and nothing could stop him from striking back. Cold wind whetted his eyes and his mind whirled as he stomped back and forth in front of the house, the dog turning with him. He was casting about for something to use, anything that would really hurt. Already that woman was still inside, why he didn't kill her was a mystery to him. Yet already he was regretting it.
Anything to ease his anger.
He walked a few paces up the sidewalk and back came back. Then he went towards the garage.
He was gone for about maybe five minutes before he reappeared on the buckling rise of the sidewalk. He uncapped the square tin can of a lawnmower gasoline he carried, tipped it over, and let it gurgle and pour down around the house. When it ran out, he struck a match, dropped it at the top end of the dark streak, and watched the fire shoot and climb toward the door.
Inside the place, the fire roared; but he was hurrying away, ducking between parked cars across the street, ran across the yard, into the alley where he dumped the gas can to the garbage.
He kept running while Kisame ran along next to him. Once he was sure he was far away, he stopped and rested, giving Kisame a pat as he sat down. He wondered how long it would be before any of the neighbors woke up to discover the woman's house on fire and call for help. No sirens wailed in the night and he opened his shirt and removed the papers and pictures he's taken from the lady's house.
Using his flashlight, he studied the snapshot, blown up in frame size, had faded to a bronzy orange. The two woman, the one he'd just hit and the one who'd taken Sakura, were in both the photographs. He immediately folded them, scored them with his thumbnail, and tore them in two.
Then he tore the two halves showing the woman he had killed into little chunks and threw them to the wind like confetti. In the two half-photo he kept, the woman looked younger than she did in real life.
His teeth began to ache from the angry set of his jaw.
From the billfold, he removed the print of Sakura's school picture he had torn from the newspaper, folded it with the two pictures of the woman, and returned all three, in his billfold, to his pocket.
Methodically he flipped through the sheet of papers -most of it yesterday's mail, he guessed. All the envelopes had been opened. He separated them quickly, sorting out the circulars and bills and holding the two envelopes addressed to Riku Haruno. He repeatedly formed the woman's name with his lips: Riku Haruno.
The stack of useless material he tore into small pieces and let them dribble and flutter from his hand as he got up and walked.
The little wad of money he's found after he had broken a vase -five thousand dollars -remained untouched in his jacket's pocket.
Sooner or later, Itachi thought grimly as his hands came down to stroke Kisame, who trotted alongside him, the bitch Riku would come back for her sister and that was where he'd wait.
The sun began to rise and finally the sound of the fire truck wailed softly in the air.
2
Although Riku knew it was illegal, she took her phone and dialed Jenny's cell phone number while driving on the road. I just kidnapped a little girl, she thought, and now I'm driving and talking on my phone at the same time. Oh God help me.
Feeling apprehensive, she listened to the distant telephone ring and ring; then it was picked up.
She gripped the cell phone tight against her ear, but still it was difficult to hear.
"Jenny… hello, Jenny?"
"Hello?" A man's voice, defiantly not Jenny's.
"Toni?" He was Jenny's boyfriend.
"Riku…is that you?"
A little breathless, she said, "Yes, Toni, I-"
"Where are you?"
"I'm on the road, Toni. And the weather's bad-"
"Riku..I've been wondering if you'd call."
"Toni, could I talk to Jenny? Is she there? I've been trying to call. I need to talk to Jenny-"
"Damn you RIKU!" his anger took her by surprise. "You know what you did? It's all because of you…"
The voice paused and she heard short wheezing before Toni was on the line again.
"Jenny's in the hospital, Riku." his voice was hard.
"Wha-?" Riku was stunned. Jenny? Hospital?
"The night you left, somebody broke here and beat her up -beat her nearly to death, and then set the whole damn house on fire. She's in a coma, Riku, and doctor's say she's not gonna be anything but a goddamn vegetable the rest of her life. Riku? Are you there? Jenny's in the Kohona hospital. Please come back home and see her."
Riku tried to answer but her voice was strangled in her throat. Tears welled up her eyes. A car honked its horn as it zoomed past her, the teenage driver stuck it's finger at her before speeding off. Again and again, tears fell her eyes and she felt a small hand reach out and comfort her, softly stroking her hair. Oh Sakura.
Stiffing a sob, Riku did a U turn and headed back into town.
Jenny, she thought, I never meant to hurt you, God knows, I'm so tired…worn to a frazzle…can't sleep, can't get hold of myself. I'm coming dear, I'm coming, and if I catch that madman, I swear, I'll kill that bastard if it's the last thing I do.
"We're going back home, Sakura." Riku said, stroking the girl's head.
3
Toni hung up and stared into space.
After a few minutes, he quickly unclipped the cell phone and dialed the police.
4
"Do you know this woman?" Itachi asked, leading Kisame toward the store.
The man, the cart man, squinted at him and at the photograph. "Sure. She's all over this morning's newspaper. Kidnapped a little girl, right?"
Itachi nodded. "but do you know her in real life?"
"Sure, she used to tip me over 10 percent whenever I helped her load her groceries. You'd never think a woman like her would do such a thing."
"Is that all?" he pressed on. He had gone through town already asking people if they knew this woman. Most of them were useless bystanders, yet he managed to sneak in some information about her.
She liked spicy, asian food. Afraid of dogs, and disliked beer. Although the information was useless, Itachi liked to get to know his victim before he would kill her.
The news went all over town about the two sisters. Almost everyone knew who they were.
He walked along the snow and down the highway, his head pounding. The sleepless hours of walking were beginning to take their toll. His eyelids drooped and blinked. The road was already deserted. It seemed no one wanted to go out and drive on a cold day. The dull ache throbbed in his temples and his eyes watered until he could hardly see. He squeezed his eyes shut momentarily, blinked, and saw a rusty neon sign appearing in the falling snow.
711. Alongside the store was a gas station. He walked another couple yards before it struck him. What had he seen? There it was, parked at one of the driveway: the minivan!
Still, it startled him.
"That's it!" he croaked. "That's it! That's it!"
Suddenly everything around him grew sharper and his head quit pounding. He walked faster and saw the woman and a girl come out of the store and rushing for the car. Then, clearly, he saw that the girl was Sakura.
"Sakura!" he shouted, "Sakura! Sakura! Sakura!" He rushed inside an empty car with its keys still in tack with Kisame hopping in the back seat, and by instinct, he started the engine and pressed the acceleration pedal on. How he knew how to drive still was blank in his mind, but he'd wonder how he knew another time.
He followed the woman drive in the distance, his car not to far behind. He wanted to surprise her. He wanted her to beg. Uncapping the bottle, he swallowed his pill.
"Hey," he said to Kisame, "do you see what I see?"
5
That awful woman, Riku thought; she'd call the police by now. Back in the gas station, as she went to pay her bills, the lady at the counter pointed her fingers at her and shouted, "Hey! You're that woman from the T.V! And there's the girl! It's you, isn't it!"
Before the girl could say another word, she grasped Sakura's small hands and dashed towards the car.
How awful!
Her heart raced and she could feel the gravity of the danger bearing down on her. She needed some kind of defense, something to restore her equilibrium. Quickly taking her eyes off the roan, she opened the compartment in her car and fumbled through to feel something slick in her hand.
"Is that a gun?"
Ambushed by the child's voice, Riku flinched and glanced back. Next to her, in the passenger seat, sat Sakura with her eyes wide.
"Can I see it? Can I touch it?" Sakura asked, her voice almost a whisper.
"No." Riku said, and they stared at each other. Licking her lips, she stared back at the road.
"Okay," the girl said, "but you don't have to be mad at me,"
The snow continued to fall as Sakura hummed a low melody. It then struck to her that Sakura had talked.
"SAKURA! You can talk!" Riku exclaimed.
Suddenly, the car jolted.
6
At fifteen feet, he heard her shout inside the car. Now at ten feet through the ice-crust side window, he could see the mottled shape of her head as the car pulled forward. Stop her, he thought, and he opened his car door. Kisame, breaking through the drifts, jumped outside and raced towards the car. Itachi pulled out the blackjack from his pocket, calculated when to jump, and flung himself at the moving car, his arms whipping around. The blackjack exploded on the side glass with a deafening crash.
At the moment of impact, Riku's head whirled away from the inward spew of glass and she pitched across the seat to hide herself and protect Sakura.
My God, what was that?
In that moment she was seized by fear so profound that her heart had wrenched sideways. It took her completely by surprise; she thought someone had shot a bullet. Her hair and her coat caught much of the flying glass, but grains and shivers of it were stuck to her cheek and in her left eyebrow. She was afraid to open her eye.
When the minivan swerved from his blow, the rear fender caught Itachi broadside and knocked him off balance. He spun to his knees and came up, still clutching the blackjack. Again he ran toward the car and the woman inside it, but then another thought hit him and he slowed down his pace.
He could hear the minivan roll away slowly and despite his temptation to run after it, he couldn't. He had another plan in store for her and he licked his cracked lips at the thought. Kisame trotted back to him puzzled. He looked at the car, then back at Itachi and angrily barked, furious at why he had let them go.
Itachi pulled Kisame to him and held the back mouth muffled with his good hand, the unwrapped one, ready to silence him if he started to bark. Already he watched as Riku stopped the car. His face broke into a grin.
7
She felt as if an enormous muscle had been pulled to the point of breaking deep in her breast. Cowering in the front seat, Riku gasped for breath and touched the sharp bits of glass on her face. She wiped and picked enough of them away so that she could open her eyes. Miraculously the already cracked side window in the driver's door held, but she wondered if it was safe to sit up. Yet she had no choice; she couldn't let the car idle along any further.
Taking a deep breath, she pushed herself up from Sakura and sat behind the wheel. Her foot trembled on the brake. She looked down to Sakura. The girl's face was terror-stricken, shocked beyond tears.
"Are you hurt?" she asked Sakura, her own voice hoarse with fright.
"I feel pale." Sakura mumbled, white-faced, and began to sob.
8
Itachi continued to hike down the forest next to the highway. Tugging the dog, he crashed through the snow in a jog, then tripped on a stick.
His grasp releasing the dog as he went to pick himself up.
When he turned back, the dog was now wandering away through the snow.
Keeping his voice low, he tried to call the dog back, "C'mere." he smooched the air with his lips two times. Kisame stopped and raised his head. "Come on, Kisame, c'mere." urging the dog back, Itachi patted his knees furious at how foolish he looked right about now.
But it was no use. Kisame ran back towards the car, his blue, ragged coat working on his long muscle.
"You ahead then, you bastard," he muttered. But he could see that the dog was moving towards the car. It ran after it and Itachi listened hard as the dog barked far off.
9
"Kisame!" Sakura screamed, "Kisame! Kisame! Kisame! It's him! It's him!" she twisted and climbed on the seat, straining to look out. "it's him! It's him! Kisame! It's him!" Her eyes frantic and searching, she pulled the locked knob up with both hands.
The passenger door flew open and Sakura plunged out. She fell in the snow and ran from the car towards him.
"Kisame!"
She threw her arms around his ugly face, all her pent-up feeling overflowing, tears running from her eyes. He barked once, gruff and mean, then nuzzled and licked her face. "Oh Kisame!" she gasped against the swipe of his tongue. "Oh Kisame, let's go! Where's Itachi at?" she whispered. "take me, take me."
The dog back-stepped from her and barked. "Take me home," she said. He started to go, swung his head backed, then barked again and pumped away through the snow. She chased after him.
'I'm comin', Kisame. Wait for me!"
10
Immobilized at first by shock and fear, Riku ran out after Sakura, oblivious to everything but retrieving the child. "Sakura, don't! Don't go there!"
She swooped and caught her runaway and it was like holding a wild, screeching cat. All teeth and fingernails, Sakura shrieked and struck out blindly. Riku tried to hold her in a tight clasp.
As they started back to the car, she glimpsed an odd movement in the snow. She looked again and saw a dark snow speckled mass rushing toward her. A wail broke from her lips.
It's that dog!
Swinging Sakura against her hip, she ran for the car. And Kisame hit her like a blast. His teeth snagged her hair and the back collar of her coat. the force of his hurtling body carried them around and lifted her off her feet; Riku could feel the dog hanging her coat, riding with her through the air. They were thrown down like a hard slamming spin. She tried to break her fall with her arm and still holding Sakura; heard her coat tear away as she sprawled across the icy ruts in the drive.
Kisame rolled to his feet once, rending the torn piece of coat like slaughtered meat.
"Oh, Sakura, get up! Try to get in the car!" the dog dropped the piece of fur. Tightening her arm around Sakura, she heaved up. "Get to the car!" she gasped. She knew he was coming, saw the hackles on his back, saw his hindquarters gathering.
Panicked, she stepped to the side and ran, but he was at her, tearing at her, dragging to get her down. She felt he coat ripping on her back as she fell. Sakura squealed when Riku tried to protect her.
"Lemme go!" she yelled. "Lemme go!"
Riku slapped the dog hard across its muzzle, threw her arm up and absorbed the flailing wrench of its jaws. Part of her sleeve was gone. She was struggling with all her might, but he was too fast and too strong, eclipsing her with his hideous weight. The flesh of her ear stung and bled. I'm all in, she thought, I can't stop it, and felt the teeth jab at her body.
With sudden strength, she shoved the dog away and dove inside the car, her hands fumbling for the gun.
When the dog ran to jump on her, she cocked the gun, and let it explode in her hand.
Then it was silent, except when Sakura screamed over and over, "No-o-o-o!"
She knew someone would hear the gunshot and tail after her, so giving the limp dog a guilty kick, shoved it out the car and held Sakura firmly down the seat and sped away.
When Riku glanced at Sakura, her face was tear-strained and her eyes red from crying.
"You killed Kisame." she whispered, and buried her face in her hand.
Kisame? Did the girl know this dog?
11
After the sound of a gunshot, Itachi rushed to the scene only to find the car already had sped off and Kisame lying on the ground, limp.
He walked over to the dog, and lowered down to stroke the animal. Amazingly, the dog was still alive and bent it's head forward to lick Itachi. Other then that, it couldn't move a muscle. It was paralyzed from the head down.
"Good boy." Itachi said.
He didn't know what else to do. The dog was now useless and likely about to die anytime soon.
You bitch.
And the familiar rage surged through him as he watched the car speed off into the distance.
He carried the injured dog aside the road and left him there. As he walked on, he heard Kisame whine behind him, trying to follow him.
Itachi continued walking.
12
They stopped by a hotel on the way. Sakura sat alone in the corner, completely ignoring Riku.
The dog and the lady back at the gas station had proved that it was impossible to return back to Kohona to visit her sister without being recognize.
Her hands felt numb from the gun earlier and she brought it to her face to cry.
"Kisame's dead! He's dead! Kisame's dead!" Sakura had wailed all the way until they reached to the hotel. By then, she had lost her voice and simply sulked quietly then on.
The dog, the poor, poor dog. It had no right to die, even if it half killed her back there. The poor, poor dog. Lying on the street, rotting there for all the people passing by to see.
She had to bury it. As absurd as it may have sounded to go back and bury the dog that nearly ate her, she knew it was the right thing to do. And it might get Sakura to talk to her again.
"Sakura, you wait here while I go back and bury the dog, alright?"
No answer.
She outside and started the car.
13
The dog's body lied by the side, as if someone had kindly carried it away from the road to prevent it from being run over. Of course, it was already died, and after Riku had buried the body, she wondered who was kind enough to carry him aside. It was dark when she had finished.
As she drove off the highway, she noticed a boy walking by alone, huddled down in his jacket -so shrunken within she couldn't tell if he was even looking her way. Just herself and that solitary boy on this lonely street. She wondered if maybe she should wave him, and decided not to. But she ought to do something.
"You're so nice sometimes," Jenny had said before. "If only everyone was like you."
Such a cruel night to be walking alone, apparently with no one to turn to. The driving snow fell in a hard slant. Maybe she would offer to buy him a cup of coffee. Do kids like coffee?
She remembered she had a box of cocoa among the remaining groceries in the trunk.
She passed the boy. Then she glanced back at him in her rear-view mirror, she could see that he stopped walking and shivered in the cold.
She stopped the car, slipped the gear to reverse, and eased back toward him. He slid into the frame of her side window. Leaning across the seat, she rolled the passenger window partway down and looked at him.
"Where are you heading?" she asked him.
He shuddered. "Dunno." he said. The snow blew between them. She could see he was thirteen, maybe fourteen, and his clothes were ragged and soiled. Snow had collected thickly on his cap, his eyebrows and shoulders; he was shaking with cold.
"You live around here?"
When he spoke, he was shivering so hard she couldn't understand him. In the dim light from the street, she could see that his nose was running and his teeth were chattering.
"You shouldn't be out in this," she said. "How long have you been out here?"
"While," he said finally with some difficulty, the wind draining his voice away. With his hands shoved into his jacket pockets, he seemed to be trying to move in one place to keep warm.
He was a little taller than the roof of her minivan and he leaned toward the window to try to answer her, then straightened again.
"Why don't you get in here for a minute, anyhow? At least get along enough to warm up a little."
He said, "Okay," and quickly reached for the door handle.
She turned the headlights off and flipped the heater knob as high as it would go. "Roll the window up," she told the boy, and he complied.
He tried to hold himself still and could not, so that his chattering breaths came in sudden noisy burst, he was all huddled up, trembling in his jacket. Across the expanse of upholstery, she could feel him shake in his seat. She asked him what his name was and thought he said "Bud."
"What?" she said. "Bud? Is that it?"
He nodded a couple of times very fast. "Yeah," he whispered. The streetlight was skimpy inside the car, yet she tried to examine him closely. The only word to describe him at that moment was handsome. He was simply handsome. Every angle of his face was prefect and she suddenly felt embarrassed for checking a kid out.
'How'd you end up here?"
He ran his hand under his nose. "I just did-" he took a deep breath- "That's all." He looked at her suddenly, almost angrily, and with a swipe of the same hand he scrubbed tears in his eyes.
"Do you have a place for the night?" she asked him quietly.
But he wouldn't answer, wouldn't look at her now, as if, even at his young age, the tears exposed some vulnerable part of him and he felt cheaper and weaker for it.
At least she thought and it made her heart break.
'What're you going to do?"
He shrugged. Finally, he said, "I'll just -I don't know. I'll wait till I catch a ride."
A car came down the hill, casting misty yellow beans through the minivan. For a fraction of a second, Riku's heart leaped.
Police? No.
She took a deep breath. "You can't go back out there. You're just a kid. Nobody'll pass though here tonight, not in this kind of weather. You better come with me."
Dimly, against the sound of the wiper blades, the boy heard her say, "You'll get to meet my little girl," and Itachi turned his face away toward the window and smiled.
Damn, busted my ass trying to save a kitty on a tree. The beast leaped out of my grasp and I lost balance and fell.