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"You're a cunning little bitch, I'll give you that." Giriko trailed the knife from Maka's sternum to her navel. "But not smart enough to know not to give out your address. Not that Eibon's secretary was blabbing it out when I went back after chasing you down, but I have my ways." He slid the blade to the side, toying with the entry of one of the wounds he'd already made right above her hip. He'd found that this was one of the most sensitive spots, the trail from hip to armpit, and as long as he kept the stabs shallow, only letting the tip sink a half an inch into her skin, the fun could be prolonged for as long as he liked.
"I will admit I wasn't expecting a whole fucking group, but imagine my happy discovery that you two were on your own in your love nest out here." He toyed with the gash again but decided a new one was in order instead. As he thrust the knife in the curve of her side Giriko watched her face.
Maka did strain against the bandana he'd tied to her mouth, uncontrollable tears urged on by the pain wetting her cheeks, but she refused to let herself scream. That stole a vast majority of his satisfaction and it was the only thing keeping Maka sane at the moment.
"So when is your little boyfriend coming back?" He raised his eyebrows inquisitively and paused as if she could give an answer. "Because I don't wanna rumble with all of you, just you and that little punk. You think you're having a good time? Wait until you see what I've got in store for him. Speaking of…" Giriko stood slowly and disappeared into the hallway.
She let her chin rest on her chest for a moment, forcing long, slow breaths through her nose as she tried to dry up the tears. He's enjoying this. You can't let him enjoy this. The clock on the wall said it was almost eleven and Maka imagined Soul would be home any minute. He's going to use the front door and Giriko just went that way. I know he's going to surprise him and he has that knife. Her head lolled back and her eyes flitted across the kitchen, trying to form some kind of plan. Getting out of the chair was impossible especially since he'd brought along handcuffs, not just simple rope or zip-ties that Soul had actually taught her options to get out of, and her arms were pinned in between the rods at her back.
As she set them on the backdoor, Maka was sure her eyes were playing tricks on her as unblinking red eyes glowed back through the darkness. She didn't know whether to be relieved or terrified and she shot her eyes back quickly to the hallway to ensure Giriko was not on the return. There wasn't even the sound of footsteps so she dared to look back again. This time she was sure that it was Soul, who was very carefully and slowly forming words with his lips: One blink 'no,' two blinks 'yes.'
More than one guy? He mouthed.
Maka gave him one slow blink.
In the kitchen right now?
Another slow blink.
Is he moving around the house?
One blink.
Weapon?
Two blinks as she could almost feel the knife in her gut again.
Gun?
One blink, though, honestly, she couldn't be sure. Crazily her mind searched for a way to signal maybe.
Knife?
Two sure blinks.
Soul broke eye contact with her as he let curses swim across his lips. He finally turned his attention back to her. Make noise. Draw him back.
Maka took a deep inhale through her nose before using her planted feet to turn over the chair. She was careful to go to the opposite side of her wounds but even the minor jostle made her nauseous from the impact. As the floor cooled her cheek, Maka heard the footsteps coming back from the hall. In a minute Giriko was in front of her, kneeling as he shook his head. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
Soul was at the door now and Maka did her best to create as much noise as she could, straining against the gag as she rattled the chair and her cuffs. It did enough to keep Giriko from hearing the knob turn, Soul only opening the door enough for him to get through but that's where their luck stopped. Giriko picked up the movement in the corner of his eye and was turning but couldn't get to his feet fast enough to avoid Soul's swift kick to his face. Giriko's head snapped back and he tumbled across the floor, falling into the slick of Maka's blood he had left behind. The knife clattered next to Maka and she pushed it with her foot towards her hands.
"You motherfucker," Soul let out as a feral bellowed as he jumped on top of Giriko. His fists were flying and he seemed to hold absolutely no regard for the hits that were coming back. Even as a fist hit his gut, the air sucking sickly from his diaphragm, Soul was barely cognizant of it.
Maka watched him wide-eyed as the good parts of Soul seemed to strip away, the control, the love, the rationality. He was simply wild, bathed in some kind of darkness that was threatening to swallow him in his rage. Even as Giriko's punches weakened, Soul continued to barrel into him. When Giriko's hands fell, his eyes rolling back in his head, Soul didn't even seem to notice, sending another solid connection into the man's cheek.
Stop! She wanted to scream but there was no chance so instead, she used the only thing she had, her leg, to kick Soul square in the back, jolting him forward. As his head snapped to his new target, his eyes suddenly softened and a shaky swallow bobbed past his Adam's apple. "Maka…" He left Giriko on the floor and crawled towards her on his hands and knees. His fingers trembled as he struggled to undo the knot that was keeping the gag in her mouth.
As the cloth pressed off her tongue she bit back the whimper, instead letting her voice quake out, "In his right pocket. The key to the cuffs." Soul couldn't answer, simply turning back to the unmoving man and digging into his pocket.
He retrieved the key and came back to her, unlocking the cuffs. "Can you walk?"
"I think," Maka murmured.
"Go, get to the other house now." He was trying to steady her, to get her to her feet when he felt the grab at the back of his shirt. Soul's legs swept out from underneath him and he found himself tumbling back and watching as Giriko used the momentum to jump for Maka. Every last nerve in his body was screaming as he tried to force himself to somehow defy gravity, to stay on his feet and get between the two of them. Instead, he was powerless.
Even though her side ached, even though she wanted to give in to the terror she saw on Soul's face, and even though she felt like she had made a promise to herself that it would never come to this, Maka angled the knife. By the time Giriko noticed he too was no longer in a place to stop his forward motion. She had hoped to make it a cut to his belly but the trajectory was all wrong, the knife sinking right under his ribs, angled upward.
Soul only clattered to the ground for a second before he was scrambling to his feet to pull Giriko off of Maka. There was now a slew of blood across her front but with a new kind of fear, Soul realized it was from the knife in her hands and the gaping wound that had opened just above Giriko's stomach. Soul knew that sickly sound, the gasp for air from a lung filling with blood, and he wished it was a sound that never graced Maka's ears because he could see the way it gripped her, making her eyes turn more white than green.
"Get up," he moved swiftly past Giriko as he struggled for air. He grabbed the knife from between her tight fingers and pulled her up by the arm, getting her to her feet. "Let's go." To his surprise, he didn't have to urge her much more than just that steady hand on her arm. He assumed it was her adrenaline taking over and he was unsure if it was the shock or the blood loss that was making her face pale. They moved across the lawn as fast as Maka could manage.
Soul got the door open, pressing her in first before throwing his eyes over his shoulder. The lights hadn't changed at the cottage and there was no new motion or disturbance but the fear still gripped his heart. He closed the door and locked it behind them, Marie's voice finally filtering through. "What the hell happened?" She was clutching Maka, guiding her out of the hallway and into the living room where Stein was already on his feet. Soul didn't have an answer, just moved through to the backdoor and made sure that it was locked as well. He hazarded a glance back at Maka, finding Stein already attending to her side which he now realized was partly to blame for all of the blood.
He refused to let his feet stop as he climbed the stairs and knocked on Black Star's, Kim's, and finally Kilik's door. The faces seemed a blur to him and only straightened out when Black Star grabbed him by the shoulders. "Check the whole goddamn house," Soul murmured. "Double-check that everything's locked and nothing's out of place. Go."
Feet tumbled down the stairs and Soul forced himself to slow down as he descended because that limp, useless tingle was starting to come to his extremities. No, not now. You're Soul fucking Eater and Maka needs you to keep it together. With a few deep breaths to pass the time he made it to the living room where Stein had laid Maka down. "She needs stitches," Stein's voice was refreshingly dry and analytical. "But I don't think there's major damage."
Soul bit down a moan as he finally let his eyes focus on what Stein called no major damage. It looked like bloody Morse code drawn into her side and Soul felt that oily, vulgar urge to go back and smash Giriko's head in. Instead, he knelt next to her, crowding shoulder to shoulder with Marie as he rested a hand on her cheek. "Maka, hey, you were fucking amazing," he swallowed hard to keep the trembling from his voice. "You just relax. I'm right here."
She nodded silently.
"What happened?" Marie hissed again.
"Fucking Giriko was waiting for her, for me, tortured her while I left her alone." There was no amount of self-control to keep that from warbling in his throat.
Marie was clutching Maka's hand, watching as the blood dried between their joined fingers. "Where is he? What are you going to do?"
Soul slid his cellphone out of his pocket before letting out a bewildered breath that could almost resemble a laugh. "I'm going to call the cops."
Free had settled into the Sheriff's job after a failed time as a detective in the city. He'd hated it, the rigid structure, the imprisonment in a system where you were supposed to be the jailor. So far, the country life had been the opposite, and boy was it fucking boring. The hardest case he'd had so far was a missing cow and that was nothing more than a case of the farmer having one too many beers and miscounting. But at the very least, he was free.
That's why as he entered the small cottage house that he thought had been mostly abandoned these past few years, Free was actually kind of excited and honestly most of his crew looked it at well. Ox was whistling as he categorized each piece of evidence, his counterpart Harvar snapping shots from every angle. His deputy, Mifune, even had probably the closest thing to interest in his eyes that Free had ever seen. "Care to run me through this again?" Free asked as he looked through the scene.
Mifune flipped through his notebook and sped off the details. "Guy surprises the girl, tortures her, boyfriend comes home, fight ensues, girl actually ends up stabbing the guy. He'll live, but he's in pretty bad shape - she punctured a lung and boyfriend didn't go easy either."
"What kind of torture are we talking?" Free raised an eyebrow.
"Go see for yourself: she's at the main house."
Free stared at the blood on the floor again, measuring the likelihood of whether or not that all came from one person. Definitely not, and both should be in bad shape from the looks of it. "EMS didn't take her?"
"Refused. Apparently the Dad's a doctor. He's stitching her up as we speak."
"Well, I'll be damned," Free whistled as he turned back towards the hall. "Just make sure everything's done up right here. I'll check on the victims." He plodded heavily to the door, pleased to be back in the night air and away from the sickly iron smell of blood. He crossed the lawn to the main house and knocked on the door.
No one exactly answered, just a blond woman calling from the bottom of the stairs, a child in her arms. "Come in, officer."
"Sheriff Free, ma'am." He tried to smile jovially but it wasn't received well. "Can I ask who you are?"
"Marie, my daughter, Shelley," she repositioned the young girl in her arms, "And my son, Soul, is the boyfriend."
"Think I could have a word with him? And the girl-"
"Maka," Marie corrected. "And what more do you need from the two of them? They've had a long night. Your deputy already got their statements."
"Just checking all the boxes, ma'am. I promise it'll be short." I'm just getting a look at them. This looks open and shut, maniac breaking into a house and attacking a girl, but I need to see it.
"They're in the living room," Marie motioned to the right. "But if you're not out of this house in fifteen minutes-"
"More than enough time for me," Free threw up his hands innocently. He would have tipped his hat at her if he had one, she seemed like the kind of lady that you had to do that for, but all he could offer was a soft nod as he walked through the entryway and into the living room. There was a younger man with stark white hair sitting on the couch, a young woman's head in his lap. As he was smoothing through her hair, an older man, just maybe old enough to be the father in this situation, was stitching away at the girl's side.
Free had seen a lot in his lifetime, but the array of wounds above the girl's hip just screamed cruelty. This wasn't just some case of a random attack, this was pure satisfaction. Whoever that guy was, he wanted her to hurt and he had made that happen in one of the worse ways Free had seen. "Soul?"
"That's me," the younger man sounded kind of weak and as he brought his eyes up to meet Free he could see why.
"I'm Sheriff Free. I just wanted to see if there was more we could do for you two."
"You carted Giriko away. That's enough. Just make sure that asshole gets charges to match what he did to her."
"Soul," the young woman murmured painfully.
He hushed her gently, his fingers on the move to placate any more cries. "It's alright, Maka."
But now Free was more interested than ever, "You knew the guy - Giriko?"
Soul seemed to hesitate, eyeing Free first before releasing what was definitely just a tidbit of information. "We work in the same business."
"Same boss?" Free raised an eyebrow.
"No, just same circles." Soul thought again before giving in and letting the rest fall off his tongue, "We recently won a lucrative contract that him and his boss, Arachne, were itching to keep."
"You could tell him about Monday," Maka murmured.
Soul sucked his teeth before shaking his head. "And, yeah, this isn't the first time. Check with the city cops. He followed her to my Mom's, Marie's house Monday."
"So he attacks you twice in one week? Why didn't the city grab him on Monday?" Free found himself inching closer.
"You know anything about the city?" Soul's frown was deep and only expanded as Free shook his head. "Arachne's powerful, has pull from all sides and I'm sorry I don't have faith in anyone in the uniform trying to take her down."
Technically, that wasn't new information to Free. He knew he probably shouldn't lie to this kid, but people are more liable to tell you something if they think you know nothing. "So why bother to call now?"
That derailed the young man and he paused to take a look at the woman's face. It was a tender moment, and Free almost felt embarrassed to watch it as if the love there was too much for just anyone to be looking at. "He could have killed her tonight and I'm supposed to be… we're just trying to live out here, Sheriff. We want a normal life so that means I can't do everything on my own anymore."
Do it on your own, huh? Free casually looked the man up and down, letting the pattern of ink settle in his mind. He nodded slowly, the picture coming together in his mind. "We'll be in touch, Soul. In the meantime, I'm going to have my deputy station himself around the area. Not that I don't think y'all can manage on your own, but let's call it me trying to get you to have a little more faith in the uniform."
Soul only offered a quick nod, leaving Free shuffle his feet until he assumed he wasn't wanted. He thanked Marie again on his way out before heading back out into the fall air. The sky was just starting to edge towards pink, the sun soon on its way, and Free was excited for the new day. Life in the country wasn't going to be so boring after all.