Morning light shone into the window that the blinds were carelessly left open last night, and it immediately woke the two adolescents up with a start. It seemed both of them needed a brief second just to remember all that had happened, and then they both settled back down. Heero was the first to get up and reached for his bag that he had packed clothes into for his stay with Duo, which surprisingly his parents allowed him that sort of independence after he had asked.
"I'm going to go see where those cops are before we decide on how to leave." Duo didn't understand why he was feeling so much more alive these last couple of days than he has for the last two years. Maybe it was that adrenaline rush he would get knowing he's deceiving the law, or maybe it was just that he was finally getting to see his old friends again, but he didn't even want to consider Heero being with him an option. "I'll snag some money so we can go buy some breakfast on the way to school, or if you don't want to go I know a couple of places we could go hang out."
Heero's glare answered Duo immediately, and the feeling of nostalgia came over the teenager as he remembered how their friendship used to be. Lately it seemed that their roles had been reversed in the sense that Heero always used to be the cold one while Duo the one who would bend over backwards to gain his trust, and it felt as if things were heading back towards that direction. The only part that might be different, is that Duo wouldn't be always be so willing to do anything to get Heero just to talk with him.
Gregory Sharpe was sitting in the dining room filling out some paperwork while his partner Bennit was no where to be seen. Duo remembered what he had learned last night, and realized Bennit was probably on his way to his father's job. The older man eyed the teenager as he crossed the dining room and headed into the kitchen, Duo grabbed two cokes from the fridge and began to return to his room when Sharpe stopped him.
"It's too early in the morning to be drinking sodas, don't you know that it's unhealthy for you Duo?" The man looked directly into Duo's eyes, looking for some sign of guilt or any other suspicious emotion. "It's especially unhealthy to be drinking two sodas in the morning..."
Duo whipped his head around angrily, and only gave a curt reply. "Fuck you."
The cop didn't say anything after that so Duo hastily made his way up the stairs and away from the man. Heero was already dressed when he opened the door he had even packed all his stuff for school already, but he didn't know what to say when Duo tossed him the soda.
"God that guy gives me the creeps, he just has that way of looking at me that gives me the feeling he must be a pervert or something." The teen shuddered and then opened his soda to drink almost the whole thing with one gulp. "I think you're gonna have to end up leaving now and we'll meet on the way to school. Just don't take the alleys cause I wanna make sure that the man doesn't know my own secret escape route."
Heero said nothing as he opened the door into the hall, after thoroughly making sure that Sharpe wasn't going to pop out of any corner he went toward the study. Using the lattice to drop to the ground and then snuck around the house to the front door, he then proceeded to ring the doorbell and knew Duo wasn't going to be very happy about this spontaneous decision.
Sharpe answered the door and raised an eyebrow at Heero, "And you would be?"
"Heero, I'm a friend of Duo's and I always have to walk him to school to make sure he makes it there." Heero could see why Duo would automatically dislike Sharpe, he did have the look of a pervert about him and being alone with this kind of guy would be anyone's nightmare. If he ever did happen to have the urge to do anything, he would be able to overpower just about anyone.
Duo saw Heero from the middle of the staircase, and then ran upstairs to get ready which only took about two minutes. When he returned to the staircase he could hear Sharpe was giving Heero a really hard time about something, so he decided to use his acting skills to stop the argument.
"Is it already that time Heero? I could've sworn I had another twenty minutes before you'd come by..." He pushed past Sharpe and started to walk down the sidewalk.
Sharpe smirked as he went inside for his paperwork and then came back out with his car keys. "You two won't have to walk today, cause I'll just drive you there myself."
Heero's impassive expression didn't waver in the slightest upon hearing this, and Duo tried hard not to let his temper explode. Neither of the teenagers objected as the were ushered into the back seat of Sharpe's car which truthfully the seat wasn't meant to fit more than one person, but Duo refused to sit up in the passenger seat.
"Are you hungry? I didn't see Duo get any breakfast this morning, and I'm guessing you probably wouldn't have had time either." The older man looked at the teenagers with his mirror as he pulled into a fast food restaurant drive-thru. He ordered them a fattening breakfast making Duo question whether or not Sharpe was just giving him a hard time earlier. "Will you please direct me to your school then Duo?"
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Wufei watched as Duo and Heero emerged from an unfamiliar car, the two were followed by an older man in his late 30's or early 40's in which the years had been unkind to him. The adolescents separated and the man followed Duo, while Heero made a beeline straight for Wufei. "You were right about Duo being in trouble, again, but this time they're really serious."
Wufei led Heero on a walk towards the main building of the school, "So what have the police found that makes them so sure he would kill Katherine?"
"Either they don't actually have any, or they're really secretive now... either way I wasn't able to find out what evidence they have. I actually don't think they have anything, or else they aren't sure whether the evidence is reliable and they sent men to figure it out by look through Duo's house, his father's workplace, and the school." Heero was still watching Duo in the distance as the young man made it as difficult as possible for Sharpe to follow him.
"Your feelings never did die away did they? Honestly I don't see how you could love such an idiot..." Wufei earned himself a death glare as Heero finally looked him in the face for the first time. Wufei didn't relent just because of that though, "I'm sure he feels the same way, and you'd see that if you just stopped holding onto your pride and spoke to him."
"It isn't just a matter of my pride Wufei, I'm not going to force such emotions on Duo when it's plain to see they would only burden him." Heero pushed his way through the crowd of dawdling teenagers who would find any reason to stay away from class.
"I knew that love was blind, but I didn't know it made you stupid." The Chinese teen sighed as he knew there were other matters that needed his attention, and yet he knew none of them would be finished by the end of that day so he chose to just follow his more emotionally challenged friend into a sea of teenagers.
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Duo had managed to lose Sharpe in one of the school's many hallways, and made his way toward the roof. There would be the only place he'd be able to contemplate everything, and perhaps figure out exactly what the police had found and why they refused to tell anyone. He wondered about his dream suddenly and how it happened right before he got arrested, and how strange a coincidence it was.
As he quietly pushed the door open to the roof, he could see ominous storm clouds making their way towards his city. The teenager considered it a good thing too, because he loved the rain. He loved the feeling of being sober, not in the sense he was drunk all the time, but in the sense that the rain always brought him down to earth and helped him calm down in a time of panic such as now.
Yet he suddenly felt weak as if he hadn't slept in weeks and was reaching the point he could no longer stay awake. That was when he heard the footsteps of someone coming up behind him, but it seemed his reaction time was slower than normal as the person had already shoved him of the edge of the roof before he really realized. He grabbed the railing, but slipped and began a very long drop down to the ground below. That's when he heard the voice again, the man who had called him and haunted him... he had come to kill Duo, but what for?
The teenager had been born with a strong sense of survival and already his adrenaline was kicking into high gear as he tried desperately to reach for something to slow his descent. Suddenly his left arm smashed into a large branch from one of the taller trees on school grounds, and Duo managed to grab onto another tree branch directly below the one he had most like broken his arm on.
His amethyst eyes dared to look down and he saw he only had about ten feet left to drop, but he would take any risks on breaking anything else and managed somehow to climb down very slowly and painfully. Looking back up at the roof, he had fallen from a three story building and Duo cursed going to one of the taller schools in his district. The man was no longer there, not that Duo really expected any different, but he had always pictured that person to probably stick around and double-check his work.
"Fuck!" Duo cringed with the intensity of the pain as his adrenaline began to wear off, leaving nothing but raw nerves to scream at him now. "God damn, I need to get some fucking pain killers!"
Duo didn't really care whether or not Sharpe found him or not now, but Duo knew that he would be questioned about the injured arm, so he had no choice but to try and get through the day as normally as possible. As soon as he got home though, he was going to be doing everything he could to find out who the hell that guy is.
----
Heero had made a quick call to his parents to reassure them that he would be at Duo's house again that night, unsurprisingly they didn't mind since he always did well at school. As he began to walk towards the alleys though, Duo called out to stop him.
"Hey Heero, wanna come help me do some homework?" Duo tried to grin like it was an every day sort of thing, but Heero could tell there was something else Duo needed to tell him. Sharpe came walking up behind the two teenagers, and Duo got a slightly desperate look on his face. "Please? I really just don't understand any of the shit they talk about in these classes."
"Fine, but this time you have to swear you won't be distracted by anything on TV." Heero walked alongside Duo and the two of them went to Sharpe's car, and got in hurriedly. Before Sharpe was all the way in the car Heero whispered, "Are you going to tell me what the hell's really going on?"
Duo silently nodded, and winced as he was forced to use his left hand to buckle his seatbelt. Unfortunately Sharpe's car had the annoying alarm if anybody in the car wasn't wearing their seatbelt, but they didn't expect much less from a cop.
Heero kept his mouth shut until they got back to Duo's house, but as soon as the two of them got into the teenager's room he started asking questions.
"What the fuck did you do to your arm?" Heero could now see it in plain view, and it was extremely swollen and their were huge contusions where the bones most likely had broken.
"I was..." Duo had trouble talking as Heero was feeling along his arm to find exactly where the break was. "... pushed off the... roof."
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Been a while since I've updated, right? Well I've already began writing chapter 8 so I'll make sure to finish and post up soon. I hope ya'll are enjoying it.
Please R & R.
Shari Maxwell
