Like a Cloud in the Wind

By Meganes Ultimate Fangirl

Chapter 5 – The Fun Stuff/Hands-Free

– Kyoya –

"Absolutely not," Layne objected thoroughly. I just stared at Koharu. Her cousin was in danger and she was wanting to put herself in much of the same danger?

"But Uncle Lay–."

"No, buts. I won't have you disappearing too. Your father would have my head if I allowed you to go out looking for her," he replied sternly.

"I want to help!" she declared stubbornly, stomping her foot, "It's just because I'm a girl isn't it? I bet if it were Pierce, Tate, or Yuigo you'd let them! I bet Kyoya wouldn't mind the help either." She glanced at me. I nodded in agreement. And it would also be nice to have the help of someone who wouldn't be glaring at and blaming me for Kaydence's disappearance 24/7. Honestly, I blamed myself enough as it was. "See? Even he agrees."

"It's his fault she's missing in the first place," he growled in a low voice. I let out a loud sigh.

"If she wants to help and put herself in danger willingly, I say let her. It might teach her a lesson or two," I said with impatience. "And she is right. I wouldn't mind the help from someone who doesn't glare at me 24/7." This just earned me a glare from Layne as Felicity entered the room.

"How are things in here?" she asked, sounding slightly apprehensive. Like she sensed the tension in the room. Her hands found a place on Layne's shoulders, squeezing them lightly.

"Just fine, dearest," Layne said, staring at me with hard eyes. I stared straight back fearlessly. He looked at Koharu again. "You won't be bloody helping, Koharu."

She stomped her foot and opened her mouth to say something but Pierce beat her to the pitch. "Sitting here arguing over this isn't going to find Kaydence any faster! Dad, just let her help him. Maybe Kyoya's right and it'll teach her a lesson!"

Layne sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Even my own children are turning against me," he muttered, barely loud enough for it to be audible. "Fine," he added a little louder, "But if you get yourself taken, too, you'll have no one to blame but yourself." He pointed a finger at his niece pointedly.

"I'm home!" someone called from the front door. Tate bounded into the room a minute later. When he saw the gathering in the living room he froze. "Something wrong?"

Layne shook his head and threw his hands in the air while Felicity grilled Tate. "Where the bloody hell have you been?" she demanded. Layne excused himself and went up the strairs, probably to his bedroom.

"Uhh. Out with Arisa," he murmured, looking at her strangely.

"Kaydence is missing and you're getting home at all hours of the night! Good God!" She too threw her hands in the air and followed her husband. Tate glanced at Pierce.

"I came at a bad time didn't I?" he asked. I nodded while Pierce shrugged. "So... what happened, exactly?"

Koharu rolled her eyes at him. "Oh nothing, Tate. Your best friend has just been kidnapped by an escaped convict and his brother," she said scathingly, her voice laced with sarcasm. I smirked. This news didn't seem to shock him much, however.

"But then, why did Felicity just about bite my head off?"

"She's worried, naturally," Pierce cut in, "She's more paranoid than she used to be too. I mean, honestly, she was paranoid enough before. Dad is too."

"It's only eight," Tate deadpanned. Pierce shrugged and turned on his heel to retreat up the stairs. Tate's eyes fell on me. "And what are you doing here?" He didn't seem very happy to see me. Though, he rarely was. He seemed to hold an undying hate for me, even before Kaydence had disappeared.

"I was just leaving," I stated smoothly, closing my laptop and pushing it back into it's bag. I pulled the bag over my shoulder and stood.

"Same," Koharu muttered. I glanced at her briefly, nodding.

"Good," Tate said rather coldly. Koharu made a face at him before taking my arm and leading me toward the front door.

"He's such a jerk," she said under her breath when we were outside. "Always has been. Dunno how Kaydence ever put up with him. Care to give me a ride again?" Her face turned into a grin that I couldn't say no to. I shrugged.

"I was just going to walk home."

"Haven't you learned anything from Kaydence's disappearance?" she scoffed lightly. "Walking home late at night is dangerous."

I rolled my eyes. "One, it's eight, which is about 4 hours earlier than it was when Kaydence was captured. Two, I live about 1000 yards that way," I replied, pointing in the direction of my house. She gapped at me for a moment before regaining her composture once more.

"I guess I'll be mooching a ride off someone else then," she muttered, looking slightly disappointed.

"I can still give you a ride. You just need to walk the 1000 yards to my house with me first." I smirked as she rolled her eyes. She was a very interesting person. More open then Kaydence, as well. Why I kept catching myself comparing her to Kaydence though, I had no clue. Maybe it was because they were cousins. But, even before I knew that little fact I had compared the two of them. I wrote it off as unimportant in my head and pushed it backwards in my mind's mental thought organizer. "I can't seem to understand how you're a commoner when your cousin's part of a very powerful and influential family from England," I said quietly. She glanced over at me, looking weary.

"Dad was adopted into Felicity's family?" she asked sheepishly. I didn't believe that for a second, but accepted it as an answer for now. I would have to look into it later when she was safely home.

I nodded with fake understanding as we lasped into silence.

– Kaydence –

I was woken up by kicks in the side. Starting with being very light and patient but quickly escalating to annoyed, hard ones. I glared up at whoever it was. Whoever the servant was who was kicking me was going to get a hard-ass bloody lecture and their job ripped away from them. It took me a moment to realize that the person I was staring up at was not, in fact, a servant of my household, but a man. A man with a slender build, dark red hair that almost looked like it was brown, and teal eyes made of ice. And he wasn't alone either. Another man was with him. This one had flaming red hair and these incredibly dark eyes. He was heavier and shorter than the first, too.

Arthur and Alrod. The Ass Duo. My sleepy-still-half-asleep mind supplied. Suddenly the events from earlier sprang back. I was being held captive. In storage room, God only knew where. These two bloody thugs had kidnapped me and caused me bodily harm. Kyoya was (hopefully) looking for me and I had no clue how long I had been here.

"What do you want?" I asked sleepily but angrily. Weren't they the ones that had wanted me to sleep more earlier?

"Get up," Ass Numero Uno said clearly, voice ringing with venom.

"I'd rather not, thanks," I spat back, obviously forgetting my previous promise to myself to keep my damn mouth shut. I soon found myself being yanked up by the wrists violently. I cried out as my shoulders were seemingly ripped from their sockets. I was set on my feet a moment later, gasping from the agony happening in my shoulders and wrists at that current moment. "Bloody hell," I mumbled, leaning over for a moment. They hardly let me rest before yanking me out the door and down a brightly lit hallway. I squinted, trying to see exactly where we were going. Jesus, and I had thought that the storage room's lighting had been bright. "Where the hell are you taking me?" I demanded hotly.

"You're pretty demanding for someone that could be killed any day now," Arthur retorted with an angry snort. I felt the blood drain from my face. I really didn't want to die, thanks. I pretended that an invisible zipper was drawn over my mouth, locked it, and threw away the key. "That's more like it," he grumbled, sounding like he had just woken up himself. I tried concentrating on where they were taking me and what we were passing. We didn't get that far down the hall before we came to a halt in front of a door with a dirty women's bathroom sign.

Now I knew what they were doing. And I realized that I really needed to take a piss. Alrod's pocket knife cut through the rope and, again, sliced my hand. I winced when I felt the sharp edge cut into my flesh. Time to rip some clothing again.

"You have 20 minutes to take a piss and shower. We'll be standing outside the door and there aren't any windows so don't bother trying to run," Alrod muttered, sounding very much like he'd rather be in the bathroom with me. I shivered. The creep. I nodded wearily as a grimy t-shirt and oversized sweatpants were placed in my damaged hands with a towel on top. 'At least they keep their prisoners fresh,' I thought sarcastically as I was shoved ungracefully through the swinging door.

I sighed and looked around. The tiled floor was old and cracked. A single shower stall was in the corner with a very thin, rather see-through curtain drawn in front of it. Next to the shower was a shelf and hook that I presumed were supposed to be for my clothes and towel, though the shelf seemed to be balanced haphazardly on cracked bases. A row of walled-in stalls were against the left wall, only one of which actually had a door still on it's hinges. The one sink's white (or at least I think it was originally white) porcelain was strained with brown and green spots. The entire bathroom had a defined layer of grim over every single surface.

To say the least, it was disgusting. And to top it off, Alrod was right. There were no windows. Wasn't that frustrating?

– Kyoya –

The only things that came up when I searched for Koharu Yoshiiva werethree old women and a cat. Definitely not a 15-year-old girl. I frowned and changed the search to Kaydence Malronda. Instantly two middle aged women and a picture of a 6-year-old girl appeared. I clicked on the 6-year-old and found that it was actually Kaydence's page, the picture just hadn't been updated in 10 years. There was no missing child's report and no mention of any extended family, not even grandparents. Just who her parents were, her siblings, her birthday, her weight, and her height.

My frown deepened considerably. I clicked on the link that would lead to Layne's page. The picture was also older – by about five years. The situation was the same as Kaydence's page was. Layne had no listed siblings so I clicked on Felicity, remembering what Koharu had said about being related to Kaydence through Felicity.

This is where it got weird.

Felicity had no listed parents. Just her children – plus Tate, her husband, and a brother by the name of Yamato. When Yamato came up he was listed as a Veddette. He had a ton of adopted children and a few blood-related ones but none of them went by the name of Koharu. Linked to Yamato was a woman with bright green eyes like Kaydence and black curly hair. Her name? Kyoko Yoshiiva. I guessed that she was Koharu's mother. But then that would mean that Yamato Veddette was her father. Yet, there was no record at all of Koharu even existing under either of them.

Where the hell had this girl come from? She obviously had some connection to the Malronda family but it was like her entire history had been erased, perhaps to hide something.

All I knew was that Koharu Yoshiiva wasn't who she said she was. And she was definitely no commoner. She definitely was living with her mother, though there was no written proof that Koharu Yoshiiva or Koharu Veddette existed.

I shook my head and pushed it aside. I had to focus on looking for Kaydence. No getting distracted by a girl faking her identity. I couldn't use my computer to search for anything else that would lead me to her location besides people. Her disappearance site hadn't come up with any evidence other than the hair clip.

All that was left to do was start bringing in people who knew the Smires brothers.

I pulled up their records again and started taking down names. This would have to wait until tomorrow, and I'd take Koharu with me.

– Kaydence –

I felt clean all up until the point that I put the oversized clothing on. Then I just felt disgusting. The pants were about three sizes too big for my petite form and the shirt went down to my bloody knees. I guessed that wearing the old clothes of a guy who's fat and about 5 foot 11 when you're only 5 foot 5 was a bit of a stretch.

There was a loud knock on the door while I was tying off a makeshift belt that I had ripped out of the dress I had previously been wearing and that was now just about ruined. I emerged from the bathroom feeling silly wearing these clothes. I was carrying the dress, my shawl, and Kyoya's jacket – that I had discovered, with a sick feeling in my stomach, I still had around me when I was stripping to get in the shower. "Not so much of a princess now, are you?" Arthur sneered lightly. I rolled my eyes. That stupid nickname. Where the hell did anyone get the idea that I was a princess in the first place?

They pushed me back down the hall toward the storage room where I was being held. When I glanced inside I realized that it had been cleaned out of all the metal shelves that had been in there previously. That definitely meant something. I was shoved back in unceremoniously. A tray was set on the floor with more stale bread, moldy cheese, and cloudy water before the door was slammed shut without a word.

I slid down the wall next to the door, nibbling tentatively on the bread and once again not even daring to touch the cheese that was overridden with green fuzz. This was absolute bullshit. I would probably be dying of malnutrition or something retarded by the end of the month – if I was actually held here that long. I took a swig of the water, spluttering when I found fuzz in it. Gross. Just bloody gross.

When I finished the three slices of stiff bread I sat there and hit my head repeatedly on the wall I was propped up against. The Ass Duo's voices were coming from outside.

"How long until you think that Ohtori kid Boss was talking about will locate her?" a deep voice that I recognized immediately as Alrod's asked.

There was a slight pause while Arthur thought about it. "I dunno. Depends on if he's really as smart as Boss thinks he is, which I doubt." Another pause. "Could be anywhere from two days to fives years or more." Alrod snickered lightly. "But you know what Boss said. 'Soon as he gets wind that Ohtori's even close we move her and if he shows up before we can, we kill him."

My face paled. Kyoya was putting himself in danger for this. These men were going to kill him if he got here in time. I wouldn't let that happen. Even if he did find me, he wouldn't be the one to take the bullet. He didn't deserve it. The Ass Duo was still laughing when the door opened. I was expecting to have my hands yanked behind me and tied again but they just took the tray and left in a flurry of cackling.

So that's why the room had been cleared while I was showering.

– Kyoya –

"Hey Kyoya!"

"Koharu," I acknowledged with a nod of my head in her direction without looking up from my furious typing. I was, once again, conducting searches. But also keeping tabs on the club's profit at the same time. Multitasking was a very useful skill.

"I was thinking that I could come over to your place after school?" she said tentatively.

"Actually, I have something else planned for us." She gave me a questioning look. "Interegation."

"Ohh. The fun stuff. Make it a date." She said date so casually I almost did a double-take. "Uhh, I mean... I'll be there?" she ended sheepishly. I waved my hand and rolled my eyes, telling her that I knew what she meant. "I'll bring a multitude of techniques as well." Her eyes glinted. Dangerous woman. She was going to get high off adrenaline at the rate she was going. Something in the back of my mind nagged at me to interegate her about her true identity, but I gave it a nice big shove to shut it up. Kaydence had to be their first priority.

"I was actually going to leave the interegating to my secret police and take notes," I stated with a raised eyebrow. She scoffed lightly. "Koharu, if whoever kidnapped Kaydence finds out what we're doing they could take it upon themselves to kill us. Even if you jumped on the bandwagon, precautions still need to be placed." She rolled her eyes but nodded in agreement reluctantly. "My car, after club, got it?"

"Aye, aye sir!" she saluted sarcastically, reminding me again of her incredible similarity to Kaydence.

–

"So, who's this?" Koharu whispered to me as we stood behind the one-way glass, looking into the interegation room. One of my secret police's chief interegators was drilling information out of a middle-aged woman who was about 35-years-old. This was the third interegation we had sat in on since we got out of school. I checked my watch tiredly. Almost 11 PM. We'd already been through Mrs. Smires and a family friend.

"Kiyoko Hizuna, Alrod's supposed girlfriend. She might just be his ex from the way she's been reacting though. Or she could be holding back to protect him. Either way, we'll get something," I muttered back to her.

"I told you," Kiyoko said angrily, "I broke up with the bastard because he was tried to violate my best friend." She didn't look like a very happy, or pretty, woman at the moment. And she wasn't all that beautiful to start with either.

"He never violated you?"

"No! What the hell is this all about?" she demanded. I smirked against my self-control. She had quite an issue with her temper control. Then her face shown with a kind of realization. "He hurt someone didn't he? Did he rape her? Kill her? Snap like his brother?"

The officer glanced toward the glass before replying, "I cannot withhold that information."

She glared at him. Like she was trying to figure out all the different ways she could put the chief in as much pain as possible. "Then what is your reason for holding me?"

"We aren't holding you. We merely need answers," he stated calmly. Kiyoko gave a sigh. "Now, when is the last time you were in contact with either of the Smires brothers?"

She folded her hands in front of her, bowing her head slightly. "Alrod was a nice guy before his brother corrupted him into kidnapping that girl. Before it was just him stealing to provide for himself. Just trying to get by. Soon after the kidnapping I found out he also violated Akami." She paused to shake her head and run a shaky hand through her hair. "After the kidnapping, Alrod became a different person. He started carrying weapons, doing drugs, all sorts of shit that I didn't want to be a part of. Along with violating my best friend that gave me more than enough reason to break up with him."

"So, you haven't been in contact with him since you left him?"

She shrugged. "He called countless times, trying to convince me that I needed him. He always left messages. I never returned his calls."

"And Arthur?"

She was quiet. Incredibly, suspiciously quiet. "No. I haven't talked to Arthur since 6 months before he murdered his wife."

"Did either of them ever mention hiding places? Like secret lairs or anything?"

At this she looked kind of surprised, but had an answer. "There was an old run down cabin in a campground just outside of Iwaki. Alrod used to talk about taking me away on a vacation there some day." I saw Koharu's eyes shoot to my face out of the corner of my eye. This was the first time that this question had produced any results. I let myself smirk a bit.

"Patience Koharu," I murmured, "We'll locate the cabin first. Then we can storm the place." I picked my phone out of my pocket and called the chief interegator.

"Anywhere else?" he asked, pulling out his ringing cellphone. He answered it wordlessly.

"No. That was all."

"That's enough," I said softly into the phone in my hand, "She's free to go." I snapped it shut immediately afterward and motioned to Koharu to follow me. She did while Chief dismissed Kiyoko. I paused at the door, waiting for the Chief and Miss Hizuna to get down the hall and around the corner. We couldn't take any chances. If she knew who was behind the interegation and she was working with the Smires, then she could very easily tell them. I highly doubted that she was with them though.

I slipped out of the room with Koharu on my tail, out the back entrance to the waiting car where my computer was waiting for us to find the cabin that had been mentioned. "Kyoya," she said softly.

"Yes?" I replied, looking up at her while my laptop booted up.

"What'll we do if she's dead when we get there?"

I stayed silent, unsure of the answer myself. What would we do? I didn't think that I wanted to know the answer to that question. "We'll figure it out," I murmured, her hand gripping my arm as I started searching. Though I was normally uncomfortable with that kind of close contact, I let her, understanding her fear. "Oh hell," I muttered as about 200 results for cabins near Iwaki showed up on the screen. "And that's just including listed ones." Koharu stared at the screen and groaned.

"Are we going to have to storm all of those?"

"No," I started slowly, "Just the older, unoccupied ones."

"And how many of those are there?"

I skimmed through the list quickly. About one in every 4 were built before 1940. About half of those were listed as unoccupied. That was just the first page too. Not to mention the ones that were unlisted, which it was more likely to be one of those. I did the math quickly. "About 25. But it's more likely that she'll be in one of the unlisted ones. I doubt whoever hired these guys is stupid enough to choose a listed hiding place." She nodded once, her face grim. I sighed. "Don't worry. We'll find her."

"I hope so," she murmured.

– Kaydence –

I decided that I hated my life when I received my fifteenth meal of stale bread and moldy cheese. Sure it was something, but I was still half starving. I never touched the cheese and 3 slices of stale bread every 8 hours or so just wasn't that filling. My stomach grumbled constantly and I was still bored to death. I guessed that it had been close to a week since I had been brought to this godforsaken place.

I stared at the blank walls, once more trying to figure out how to get out of here. I had to remind myself again that I had no weapons, there were no windows, the door was locked, I had nothing to pick it with, and they had a gun.

I had long since gone through Kyoya's coat pockets and only found lint and a pen. Both of which were completely useless unless I wanted to leave a message behind. The cuts on my hands were half-scabbed and almost green with infection. I couldn't even touch them with the lightest touch I could possibly muster without almost shrieking in pain.

I hadn't slept in at least two days, between the hunger and blistering pain in my hands.

I was losing hope slowly. Very slowly I was losing hope that I would be found. And everyday I thought about that kiss I'd bestowed upon Kyoya.

– Kyoya –

This was just getting tedious. Tedious and annoying. In the course of a week, the police had stormed the 25 suspected cabins plus two unlisted ones. None of which had come up with anything. Koharu was scourging old maps across the room while I searched online with satelite images.

I hated this, being unable to locate something that should be so easy to find. I scrolled the image up closer to a clump of trees. Nothing, just like the last hour. I moved it to the left the tiniest bit. Something caught my eye. Through the trees, I could roughly make out what could be a dirt road. I sharpened the image.

It was a dirt road. I followed it with my eyes, having to move up a bit before it reached the end. I stared at it, zooming in. "Koharu!" I called across the room. She looked behind her at me while I kept my eyes fixed on the screen. I waved her over. When she was standing behind me, looking over the screen she gasped lightly.

A white van was parked, barely noticable through the shrubs. Near it was a wooden cabin with the roof half rotted. It looked like it could have been used for group camping trips at one point before it had started rotting. I zoomed in on it more. I somehow doubted that she would be kept where she could see outside. There had to be a basement of some sort. It might even have been built underneath the building prior to the kidnapping. "Oh my God," Koharu whispered.

"I think we just found Kaydence."

–

A/N: Kudos to KageNoNeko, thearistocrat, Illogical Human, TwilightFever-FutureCullen, and Koharu Veddette!

You think it's exciting now? Just you wait.