I recently ran away to visit some of my family and friends and while on this trip one of my longest friendships sat me down and basically slapped the shit out of me for quitting these stories. So in the hopes of ever being invited back into her household, I'm updating.

Thank you to the people that still encouraged me even when they were disappointed.

Chapter 31

The rank smell of rotting meat and fresh, sweltering fruit rotting away in plastic clogged my nose, coating my tongue and throat.

"Little girl~" I had heard that voice before, heard it rising melodically into the air like a question that already had an answer. Feet shuffled just outside of the narrow line of vision I had behind the massive bulk of the garbage can. In return, I skirted a bit deeper into my hiding space, the rough brick scratching through the threadbare constraints of my shirt.

I was back behind the garbage can again, scared, half-rabid with hunger and… and alone. My hand groped around the cramp space, clanging uncomfortably against the metal siding, elbows ramming into the brick wall at my back. Minoru - where was Minoru? My heart picked up, beating erratically against my ribcage. Panic tightened my throat as I lurched to the side, hands crawling along the surfaces around me like insects trying to find a way into another room. Where the hell-?

Hot, moist breath dampened the shell of my ear. "Little girls should come out when they're told to."

Breath puffed out of my lips on a short gasp, my whole body lurching upright as the feel of hands tightening around my biceps jolted me from the nightmare. It wasn't real. Sweat dribbled down my nape, something hot and itchy making me scrub a hand along my ear. It wasn't real. My stomach tightened, turning like a washer starting slowly, sweaters and jeans flipping lazily. It wasn't real.

"Her abilities do that," a lazy voice drawled from my right, making me whip around, a glare tightening my face at the casual sprawl of the red-heads body against the large sitting bench at the back of the bus. His eyes glimmered golden and sharp in the low light, eyes drifting along my pale, sweaty form like a serpent catching sight of an appetizing mouse. "Her brand of healing comes with such delicious side-effects." His nose wrinkled in a teasing smile. "What did you dream about?"

My teeth bared at the obvious enjoyment in his voice, his teeth glinting in a mirror of my own - like two animals meeting in an empty room, starved and lacking in any social grace. I didn't know how anyone accepted business from the likes of us - how they would ever let us on a bus with the likes of children and the elderly, all of them crowded farther up the bus as if even they sensed the subtle danger of having us so near.

My lisp curled farther back from my canines. "What did you dream of?"

Some light that I hadn't noticed in his eyes before flickered and died, a dull almost empty hunk of the brilliant gold taking over. He didn't say anything for a moment, his smile staying oddly in place like a machine that wasn't able to stop anymore, crashing through everything around it. Not for the first time, I mused on the quiet flickers of his expressions, the gentle tells that even he wasn't completely immune to. Someone who knew him very well would be able to press all his buttons. My stomach sank at the prospect that that might quickly be becoming me.

"I dreamed of being starved and beaten and then tossed to the side of the road like a bag of trash." His words jarred me, slapped me in the face so hard that I stilled, my snarl slipping. He was staring at me… He was smiling… but there was something almost savage about that expression like he was forcing the dull edge of a blade into his abdomen just to feel the flare of pain. His eyes burned feverishly over at me, his smile a feral little thing, all teeth and gums and thin pupils. He purred the next words, "You're turn."

I felt like my guts had been ripped out, suddenly and without mercy. His words jarred me, emptied me in a way that only something close to home could have. Because we were too similar. In him, I could sense the growing darkness that was beginning to eat away at whatever sugary core my brothers had fostered inside of me. I was becoming a monster. And I didn't know if I wanted to stop it.

"No."

He was on me before I could even blink, his teeth bared and feral as a few ladies in the front gasped. I could sense their shock at my nape, feeling the whispering of concerned patrons. They wouldn't come closer though. Humans rarely swam too far out to see without a safety net.

His hand circled my throat, the tip of his nails digging into the vulnerable skin of my throat. A silent thrill like the moment before you fell from a place that would surely wound you coursed through my body, heady. His whole body loomed above me, his shoulders hunched, head dipped so that darkness crept along the planes of his face, his eyes shining pinpricks of golden light. He looked like he could devour me whole in the moment, a sort of rabid tension making the muscles in his arms bulge, thick veins pulsing along his throat and forearms.

Do it, a small voice whispered and I felt my body sway forward, the sharp edges of his nails drawing blood. Kill me.

"I could end your life right here," he whispered. Do it. "No one would stop me."

I didn't say anything for a moment, feeling light-headed from the rush of wanting something. And knowing that he wouldn't do it. Not at this moment. Hisoka was the sort to play with his food but not like this. Not with threats. And more than that, he enjoyed a fight. I knew far more than anyone else that whatever I was right now, it was the farthest thing from a challenge. A spark of envy and jealousy lit in my belly, burning warm and insistent, pushing at the icy edges of my thoughts earlier. I needed to get stronger.

"You've invested a bit too much to kill me off now," I murmured and his canines snapped down at me. The people up front had started to whisper more insistently, goading each other into action. The bus gave a jolt as we went over gravel.

"Treasure becomes trash in an instant in life," he sneered. "That's how things are."

I couldn't help the burst of petulance. "You seem to have an awful big chip on your shoulder."

A low growl reverberated from the depths of his belly, traveling up and expelling on a dangerous breath. He looked… his hand tightened to the point of pain on my throat, making it hard to draw in more than a sip of air. He wanted to so bad… I grinned, watching as he released me on a foul curse, his hands clenching and unclenching at his side. He was a rolling storm, a violent wave crashing against a peaceful shore, watching violence and only getting passive sand in return. I could see how it drove him crazy, how badly he wanted to shed some blood.

And just like that… it passed. He sat down with a flourish, whatever wayward emotions of discontent put neatly back inside of him. His leg crossed neatly over the other, a careful hand propping his chin up as he stared across the aisle at me. A playful smile curled his lips. But I could see the violence just there, just at the edge of his irises, churning away.

It was hard to pretend like I wasn't delighted. "You have an absolutely awful temper."

A muscle in his jaw twitched, his smiling growing wider. "You do have to cut me some slack, pet. It puts me in a bad mood to constantly have to think about another persons well being. And getting whacked around all for your benefit has made me particularly... agitated."

My mind drifted, caught off guard by the reminder.

Eimear hobbling toward me, her eyes scanning over me.

Watching her warily as she crouched, her eyes darting from my hair to my nose to my knees before finally meeting mine again. "

Time for you to go to sleep, girlie."

Cold seeped into my skin, making it hard to draw in a solid breath, my eyes jumping all around the tiny bus until they landed on where Minoru was curled, his body tightly balled. His flank rose gently, the crimson swirls along his body seeming dimmer than before. He was fast asleep, completely dead to the world.

"He was out for a little bit when Eimear put you under," Hisoka murmured, his eyes following mine. There was a calculation to his gaze as he watched my bear sleep. He would surely remember that fact. "Then he suddenly woke up after the surgery. Followed blindly along with whatever I told him - seems like a rather big flaw, don't you think, mousie?"

I didn't think so at all.

My mind jumped through a series of mental hoops. There was a reason that he had fallen asleep and then woken. My mind jumped back to the night when my brothers and I had been on the run. We had all pulled watch shifts. Even Minoru. My finger tapped at the mental bench beneath me, staring at the rise and fall of the great bear's side.

It had to do with the type of sleep I had been in - how deep, how dead to the world. There were different stages of sleep. Imori had always given us weird little facts like that so even an uneducated slob like me knew that much. Maybe the Minoru's functionality depended on how deeply I was asleep - how much of my body was wakeful enough to pump nen to him.

As for Minoru following everything that Hisoka said… my eyes slid to the man, his face eyes alight with amusement. The jury was still out on whether he had been going along with anything anyone said or… My stomach sank, the weight of my thoughts tugging the edges of my lips down. Perhaps the person giving the orders did matter.

I wanted to change subjects as quickly as possible. "Where are we going?" Cool eyes darted over me, strands of wayward red hair curling a bit around his ears. Odd. He always seemed to be blissfully unaffected by daily life, his exterior carefully maintained. Now that I was looking at him a bit more closely he did look… rumpled. As if he hadn't slept all night. "You didn't sleep."

Something like surprise ticked across his face, softening the playful mask he usually kept on. He stared at me in a moment of stunned silence before forcing his gaze away. "I don't like to remain in the same place where Eimear performs her work. She uses a lot of nen and some people… well, moths are attracted to open flames."

My skin crawled at the image, my lifeless body sprawled across the ground newly opened and operated on, completely defenseless. I didn't doubt that Hisoka was deadly but after seeing the chunks of nen that Eimear had gnawed off of his body… A shiver snapped up my spine, tickling my nape. And for some reason, I didn't have particular faith that Eimear would stick around to help us.

"As for your second question," he drawled, grinning lazily over at me. "You're in for a treat, pet. We're going to meet someone who might even be able to kill me." His eyes flashed. "And who would definitely be able to kill you."

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