Neo's vision was blurry, and the near complete darkness of the room around her wasn't helping matters. She tried to pick herself up from off the floor, but her legs felt heavy and weak, and they had no desire to function properly at the moment. Her hands tried to feel around for something that could maybe help her pull herself upright, but all she found was more of the hard concrete that comprised the floor that she was halfway sprawled out upon. When she finally did come into contact with something other than the concrete, she reflexively recoiled after placing her palm directly into a puddle of viscous fluid. Now she could feel the wet substance dripping down her wrist, and she tried to shake it off but to very minimal success.
Suddenly she was struck by the peculiar smell invading her nostrils. It was as if somebody had just placed a sheet of metal under her nose; it was the smell of iron, and it got stronger the closer she inhaled towards her hand. If this was what she thought it was, then something horrible had taken place here, but as much as she despised the idea she needed to confirm it first for herself. Tentatively, Neo reached back out towards the puddle where her hand first discovered the liquid that now stained her palm and fingers. She grimaced as she felt the warm ooze once more, but pressed onward to try to determine how much more of it there was. After only a couple seconds of investigation, her worst fears were affirmed, and she felt a cold terror overtaking her.
Why…why was there so much blood?
Her heart was pounding feverishly in her chest, and her eyes had gone an almost translucent white from the fear that now gripped her. This wasn't like before; this wasn't how it had happened. Then she had acted only to defend herself, and she hadn't been passed out on the ground in a dark room. She would never forget what happened then or what she had done, but she had not done this…or at least, she didn't remember doing it. No, that was not possible. There was no chance that she could have done something so heinous and not even have any recollection of it. She was not that…she couldn't be.
Trying to swallow all of these doubts down, Neo forced herself to continue moving across the floor and searching in front of her with her hands to try to find the source of the all the blood. What faint light there was in the room was sneaking in through slits in the walls and roof, coming from the moon up above in the night sky. It reflected somewhat off of the crimson red coating the concrete, making it somewhat easier for Neo to attempt to track down where it was coming from as her vision steadily returned to her.
At last, her fingers brushed against something new, and she froze immediately with the realization of what it must be. Gently she creeped her fingers towards the foreign entity, and there was no mistaking the smoothness of flesh which made it clear that this was a body. It was still warm, she noticed, as she took hold of the person's forearm that she had found and worked her hand up to their wrist. No pulse; though that was hardly surprising considering the sheer quantity of blood that had been deposited all around the relatively fresh corpse. How had she even gotten here? The last thing she remembered…what was the last thing she could remember? She was…she had been at home.
Home.
Neo's tiny frame threw itself into full gear, crawling her way through the pool of blood until she was right on top of the person it had once belonged to so that she could see for herself what had happened. She wanted to scream, but no sound could escape from her lips as they just remained parted in anguish. Her body convulsed and she felt the urge to vomit, but her stomach just churned agonizingly as this discovery sunk in and her mind struggled to process it. Pale moonlight was shining down through the roof at just the right spot to illuminate the tresses of yellow hair and the emptiness of open lilac eyes.
And the open gash that had been carved across Yang Xiao Long's throat.
Neo's eyes shot open and she bolted up into a seated position with a sharp and loud gasp. Her breaths were harsh and ragged as she endeavored to regain her bearings and ascertain where she was. Slowly, her panic began to subside as she looked around and realized that she was home and she was in her own bed; her hands were not drenched in Yang's blood and nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary at all.
Well, save for Ruby, who was standing in front of the closet half-undressed and staring wide-eyed at Neo, still in the position that she landed in after the smaller girl's abrupt awakening scared her half to death and nearly made her jump out of her own skin. Upon realizing the fright that she'd just given Ruby, Neo tilted her head down with embarrassment yet feeling overwhelmingly relieved that what she'd just experienced had been nothing more than a dreadful nightmare.
"N-Neo? Is everything okay?" Ruby finally managed to ask after recovering from her own bit of shock, receiving a bashful nod in response and causing the younger brunette to let out a soft sigh as she walked over and sat down at Neo's bedside. "Let me guess: you had a pretty bad dream, huh?" Neo nodded again and Ruby gave her a kind smile as she reached over and took one of Neo's hands in her grasp. "Do you want to talk about it?"
The words left Ruby's mouth without her even thinking about it, and it was only after she'd finished that she had realized the error in what she'd said. Thankfully for the younger girl, Neo didn't seem to take any offense, and she actually looked up and cracked a smile at the priceless expression of embarrassment on Ruby's face; unable to believe that she had really just said that.
"Uhh…let's just go ahead and forget I said that, okay? Anyway, just remember that yeah, bad dreams might suck big time, but they can't hurt you in the real world! Here you've got plenty of people around who care about you and won't let anything bad happen to you; got it?" Neo nodded again and couldn't help but feel touched by the sincerity in her friend's words, it being more than evident that Ruby meant everything that she just said and would do everything in her power to keep her safe. "Good! That's what my dad always told me when I was little and I'd have a bad dream. Glad to know it works on adults too." Ruby remarked with a playful, little laugh as she stood back up and went to resume getting dressed for class as she had been before Neo had awoken.
Meanwhile, the silent girl's gaze drifted over towards the wall as she became lost in her own thoughts. She didn't doubt what Ruby had just said for even a second, believing fully in the dedication that she, Yang, and the others would have to protecting her, but they couldn't possibly realize the potential danger that they might be in by going to such lengths for her. Neo was fully aware however, and it began to sink in that the longer she stayed in this house, the more and more she was exposing them to such a threat. The gruesome nightmare that she had just experienced certainly was helping to serve as a reminder of this as well.
She had been living here for nearly a week now, and while so far she hadn't noticed any signs of her pursuer, she knew that Emerald Sustrai would not have just given up the chase. It was possible that the hunt had been called off, but she severely doubted that Roman would give up so easily on finding her either. If Emerald had somehow lost trail of her completely, it would be a minor miracle; meaning that odds were best that the green-haired tracker was simply lurking and digging to try to smoke her out. It wasn't as if Neo expected Emerald to barge down the front door and drag her out by force; that simply wasn't the way that she operated. But if she knew where she was, then she was certainly planning something; and if she didn't know yet, then it was only going to be a matter of time unless Neo simply never went outside again.
Weighing her options, Neo found herself with little in the way of positive choices. She could either continue to stay here and possibly put all of her newfound friends whom she cherished deeply at risk, or she could go back to running away and hoping she can stay at least a step or two ahead of Emerald and whomever else Roman may have hired to bring her back to him. If only she could get Weiss to outbid Roman for Emerald's services and tell her to simply go home.
Frankly though, Neo was tired of running. She had finally found a place where she felt like she could belong and be happy, and she shouldn't have to throw that away. Maybe it was selfish of her to think that way, but sitting there in Yang's bed which she was still being allowed to use, Neo came to a decision. Her mind made up, she leaned down over the edge of the mattress and grabbed the tablet which sat up against one of the legs of the bed. It had used to belong to Weiss, but since she had recently upgraded to the latest model, she was more than happy to give her old version to Neo so that the mute could have something easy to write with whenever she needed to be heard.
And this was a message that everybody in the house needed to hear.
"Hang on Rubes, run that by me again?" Yang asked through her phone while struggling to keep it pressed against her ear at the same time that she was using both of her hands to dig through her purse, trying to find the keys to her Jeep as she stood there in the parking garage next to the vehicle in question. She'd had to wake up and leave the house early for one of her classes today, but with that finished she had hoped to go out and run some errands since she had time before her next class was scheduled to begin. Her request to have her younger sister repeat herself was met first and foremost with a sigh of annoyance.
"Neo told me that we need to watch out for a girl with dark skin, green hair, and red eyes; she's the one who's looking for her. She said that she's dangerous and that if we ever see her, we should stay away and call the police. Her name is Emerald Sustrai, and Neo says she's been hired to take her back home." Ruby reiterated as Yang listened on the other end of the line very intently this time, feeling her blood staring to boil at the thought of some lowlife-for-hire trying to drag Neo back to a place where she can get abused and mistreated some more. The idea of a person being able to live with doing something so heartless was almost incomprehensible to her.
"The police will be the least of her worries if I get my hands on this girl. If she thinks she can just grab Neo and take her back to that place to get abused some more, she's got another thing coming." Yang was seething, and Ruby could tell just how bad it was without even being there to see the fierce expression on the older girl's face, or the way her fists were clenched so tightly that her knuckles were going white.
"Yang, don't do anything stupid, okay? You know how hotheaded you can get sometimes." Ruby had plenty of memories of her big sis getting into trouble all the way back since when they were little for picking fights with other kids at school or in the neighborhood. One time when Ruby was in the third grade, she was getting picked on by a classmate of hers named Cardin. Yang, a fifth-grader at the time, found out about it and subsequently found Cardin on the playground one day during recess. It took two teachers to be able to pull her off of the woefully outmatched boy and keep her restrained until she finally calmed down. On the plus side, she helped knock out the last of Cardin's baby teeth.
"What, so now I'm stupid for wanting to protect someone that I care about from someone that's trying to hurt her?" Yang was still so incensed by the mere notion of someone attempting to forcibly abduct Neo that she snapped at Ruby through the phone at the suggestion that she would be in the wrong by doing something which Yang only saw as a necessary means of protection.
"That's not what I meant Yang…" The response from Ruby was rather docile, stung by her older sibling's unexpected harshness but still trying to get her to take a few deep breaths and think things through.
"Well it's what you said! I don't know what you plan on doing, but I'm not going to stand around and do nothing if I see someone who's trying to hurt my friends!" A moment or two after she said that, Yang seemed to realize that she wasn't alone in the parking garage. She looked up and noticed that she was on the receiving end of a handful of stares from others who were going to and from their vehicles; their attention having been captured by the rising volume of the buxom blonde's voice. She wanted to shift her focus to them now and ask them just what the hell they thought they were looking at, but it would only serve to get her even more angry and riled up by doing so.
"…I have to go now Ruby. We can talk more about it when I get home." With that terse statement, Yang hung up and pocketed her phone before her sister could even say anything else. With the conversation now over, everyone else around on this level of the garage quickly went back to what they had been doing before, and Yang was thankful for the removal of their eyes from upon her. She could feel her cheeks burning red in a mixture of frustration and embarrassment, but at least now she could get into her Jeep and take a moment to try to regain her composure while sitting in the driver's seat.
First and foremost, she knew that she was going to have to apologize to Ruby once she got home for being such a dick to her just now. Her sister was only trying to look out for her, and her response was to practically shout at her as if Ruby was the one being unreasonable. After that, she figured she should probably try to talk to Neo and find out more about this Emerald girl if she could. From the sound of things, she's a professional when it comes to this kind of work, and should not be taken lightly. Yang, quite obviously, was never one to back down from a fight, but if this girl posed as much danger to Neo as she'd been led to believe, then perhaps it would be best to avoid a direct confrontation with her.
A heavy sigh escaped from Yang's lips and she slumped back in her seat while trying not to let herself become overwhelmed by all of this. Neo hadn't done anything wrong…it wasn't fair for her to be treated like a lost pet that needed to be returned to its owner. She didn't deserve that and she certainly didn't deserve whatever horrible punishments would likely be waiting for her upon her return at the hands of her abuser. Still, this was just all the more motivation for Yang to steel herself and resolve not to let anyone lay a finger on Neo without getting through her first. She was going to protect her no matter what, and with that in mind as her goal, Yang's plans suddenly found themselves changed.
She still started up her Jeep and prepared to leave campus in order to take care of some things, but she suspected that she might not be making it back to school in time for her other class later in the day. With a small shrug, she supposed that she could afford to take the absence this time; it wasn't as if she had a sterling record of attendance anyway.
Emerald hated waiting.
The idea of simply being idle while her quarry was nearly within her grasp was a sickening one to her, and it made her feel so powerless when she knew better than to think like that. It didn't help matters either that she felt she had already been on this job for far too long, and had honestly even contemplated packing it in and returning home once or twice so far at different points along the way. Ultimately she had opted not to so as not to take the hit to her reputation or to lose out on Roman's money, but she was already decidedly disgruntled by the way Neo had managed to avoid ensnarement for so long.
The tracker had assumed that when Cinder called the other day to inform her that one of her men had sighted Neo, things would be on their way to getting wrapped up quite soon. Unfortunately, things were not destined to go so smoothly. Emerald had personally gone on a handful of occasions to scope out the residence where Neo was supposedly hiding based off the intel from Cinder's man, but she had failed to spot even a trace of her target any of those times and thus had no way of knowing for sure whether or not the information was any good.
She didn't doubt Cinder's word on this, but it was something that she needed to confirm with her own eyes as well. Her line of work did not allow for errors, and plowing ahead so foolishly would only result in likely disaster for her. So while she sat by herself at a small table inside of a coffee house just a few blocks away from Neo's purported hiding place, gazing out the glass window and stirring a spoon around in her drink with the tip of her finger, she began to consider ways in which she could be a little more aggressive in her reconnaissance.
The oldest trick in the book would simply be to walk up and knock on the front door with some complete lie that could be used to get inside of the house. She could go with something along the lines of her being out for a bike ride and desperately needing to make use of someone's restroom; as rudimentary as it was there would be a decent enough chance of success. This strategy worked best however when she was pursuing a target who had no idea who she was, something which obviously would not be true of Neo. The runt knew her well, and being identified by her without a definitive plan of capture would just create a mess; especially if it was within the confines of the home belonging to the people that were harboring her there.
Then there was always the option of doing a little breaking and entering to gather information, even if it did carry a much greater risk with it. Generally, Emerald preferred to avoid unnecessary risks during jobs as much as possible, but her hand was being somewhat forced here. If Neo had truly found a place where she could shut herself in and wait Emerald out, then the mint-haired hunter was going to need to resort to more extreme measures to turn the heat back up. From what she had noticed on her trips to scope out the house though, it appeared as though there were several people living there, and this would increase the chances of her getting caught and possibly even apprehended by a drastic margin.
It struck Emerald then, just as she was beginning to grow discouraged by the predicament she was in, that it could be possible for her to make use of these options without placing herself in direct danger after all. If she were to make arrangements with Cinder to borrow one of her underlings to do the dirty work instead, it could end up serving to take the load off of her shoulders by a significant amount. Cinder wouldn't agree to such a thing out of the kindness of her heart of course, but Roman was forking up enough lien for this that she could afford to split off a share for the raven-haired crime boss in addition to what she'd already be paying for the initial tip to Neo's whereabouts.
For the first time possibly in the last couple of days, Emerald found a smile on her face in the reflection of the window. She fished a couple of bills out of her wallet and placed them down on the table as she stood up and started walking out of the coffee house to head back out onto the blustery and busy streets of Vale, but with renewed confidence this time at the odds of progress being made. The wayward youths that Cinder had under her thumb were not averse to getting their hands dirty, and for Emerald she felt that might just be exactly the kind of person that she needed right about now.
The holographic screen lit up in a flash as Ruby once again popped open her scroll to check the time, finding that only two minutes had passed since she last went to verify it. The young brunette couldn't keep herself from letting out a sigh carrying a mix of anxiety and annoyance within it while she sat upon one of the couches in the living room, her legs curled up at her side and one of her feet tapping impatiently against the cushions.
"Maybe you should try to take a few deep breaths Ruby; you're probably getting worked up over nothing." Blake said to her from where she was lounging out across the other couch in the room, her friend's uneasiness not having gone unnoticed even while she was attempting to read one of her novels.
"It's been over and hour since she was supposed to be home, and I haven't heard anything from her since she hung up on me this morning. I have every right to be worried!" Ruby retorted, finding it difficult to be calm considering that she had no idea where her older sister was at the moment. Ordinarily it wouldn't have been something that Ruby would have been concerned by very much at all, but after what Yang had been saying earlier on the phone, she was quite fearful that she may have gone off and done something reckless that got herself in big trouble.
"I understand, but you have to remember that it's Yang we're talking about here. And yes, she has a bit of a temper, but she isn't an idiot." Blake replied, trying to show Ruby that she sympathized with where she was coming from while at the same time convincing her friend that she could afford to relax a little. "Besides, what could Yang possibly even do? It's not like she knows where to find this Emerald girl anyway." She'd also been informed – just as Weiss had – of what Neo had communicated to Ruby regarding her pursuer.
"I just wish she would answer her scroll…I've called her and sent her at least a dozen messages! Ignoring them is just rude!" Ruby huffed and Blake had to giggle slightly at the cuteness of the smaller girl's indignant expression. She knew that Ruby would never think of her the same way that she thought of Yang, but Blake had come to see Ruby as the younger sister that she never had. Her upbringing had been tumultuous, and she had always wished for a sibling she could have relied on and bonded with while she was growing up. It was perhaps a little later than she would have liked, but Blake felt that now she had that little sister figure in her life in the form of Ruby.
It was only another few minutes that had passed in relative quiet save for the television, before the front door to the house was unlocked and pushed open by the blonde-haired person of interest who entered from the dusky outdoors.
"Yang!" The exclamation was almost instantaneous as Ruby hopped up from the couch and dashed over to throw her arms around her sister in a tight embrace, able now to let all of her worry dissipate and instead just be happy to have Yang safely home. "You had me so worried about you…"
"Sorry Rubes. I wasn't doing it to be a dick…I just had some stuff to go do and it was just easier for me to take care of it by myself." Yang replied feeling bad about having ignored Ruby all day, and doubly so now after learning just how stressed out she must have been because of it. Still, it was a heartwarming moment, and Yang couldn't help but smile a bit as she ruffled her sister's black-and-red hair lovingly until Ruby was satisfied and she pulled away.
"Why couldn't you just let me know you were okay? And what were you even doing anyway? I was scared that you were going to get yourself hurt doing something dangerous!" Ruby pressed, still wanting some answers out of her absentee sibling now that she was here, with Blake watching with interest herself from the couch as well.
"I wasn't doing anything dangerous…I was just trying to track down Emerald, that's all." Yang stated as she looked away and scratched the back of her head, not needing to see Ruby's disbelief or Blake shaking her head to know that it's exactly what they were doing.
"You did what?! What do you mean you were trying to find Emerald?! Were you just going up and down every shady street and corner in the city?!" Ruby asked with incredulity after she had just managed to convince herself to calm down and that Yang wouldn't possibly do anything as foolish as that.
"Of course not! It's not like I didn't have a plan…I only had to go to one sketchy place to take care of everything, and they already know me there anyway." The clarification from Yang came with another small grin, though she was putting on for herself as much as she was for the others, considering just how much she despised that place. Meanwhile, the wheels were turning in Ruby's head trying to determine the exact location being referred to, and when it clicked she was appropriately appalled.
"Don't tell me…Junior's club?! You can't be serious!" It was something close to outrage that Ruby was feeling at this particular moment, unable to believe that her older sister would ever willfully go back to that place after her past experiences there.
It had been about a year and a half ago; after Yang had gotten into a traffic accident, their dad made her pay back the money for the repairs if she wanted to be able to keep driving the Jeep that he had given her. The carefree spirit that she was, Yang wasn't so keen on getting an ordinary part-time job such as waiting tables or something of the sort, but her eye was caught by a flyer for a nightclub downtown which was looking to hire new dancers. With her body and her way with people, she figured it'd be easy money, and it was.
What it was mostly not, however, was pleasant. Yang spent two months working at the club and dancing there a few nights each week, and rare were the nights where she could get through a shift without getting harassed or groped by a rowdy patron who was then promptly escorted out by one of the club's bouncers. She wasn't dancing nude either, though it wasn't uncommon for her to finish a routine in nothing but pasties and a G-string. Still, the amount she got paid to do it enabled her to pay off the damages far more quickly than any other gig would have that she could have gotten while still balancing her school schedule.
"It's not like I wanted to go there, but Junior knows the city better than just about anyone else, and he was the only person I could think of that might be able to help us out." Yang explained, giving her reasons for meeting with said proprietor at his club to try to enlist his assistance in tracking down Emerald Sustrai before she could do anything to Neo.
"Help how?" Blake asked with curiosity as to where exactly Yang's thought process had led her, even temporarily shutting her book in order to devote her full attention.
"Junior's got a whole bunch of guys working for him; bouncers, bodyguards, dancers, you know what I'm saying right? Plus he's got enough connections that he's got eyes and ears all around the city. All it takes is word from him and there'll be people scoping out the streets for Emerald all over the place." Yang felt like it was a pretty good idea that she had come up with to get Junior and his crew on the lookout for the green-haired girl, and she could tell from the look on her face that Ruby was begrudgingly inclined to agree.
"As long as you just aren't working there again…then I guess I can agree to let this slide." Ruby ultimately conceded with a sigh that conveyed that she was still not entirely pleased by this. "But next time you tell us about it first, Miss Xiao Long! Or you'll be in huge trouble!" She added trying to sound fierce but only getting an amused laugh out of her big sis who was quick to wrap her up in another hug.
"Of course I will! Sorry again for making you guys worry about me so much. How about I make dinner to make up for it?" Yang offered with a smile while Ruby struggled to remove herself due to being smothered in her sister's ample chest and finding it difficult to breathe.
"How could I possibly pass up such a generous offer? Plus now this means I don't have to cook tonight, so please do be my guest." Blake smiled back as she reopened her novel and picked back up where she left off, content with how everything seems to have turned out and admittedly looking forward to Yang's home-cooking again, which had been popping up on the kitchen table much more frequently ever since Neo took up residence with them.
Speaking of whom, Neo had heard all the commotion when Yang had walked in the door and had since been listening in on things from the top of the steps. Simultaneously she felt guilty for putting such burdens on all of her new friends, as well as deeply touched by the lengths that they're willing to go to for her sake when it would be so much easier for them to kick her out so as not to complicate their own lives. This meant that no matter what, she knew that she couldn't allow any kind of misfortune to befall them because of her.
Neo made this a promise to herself, and one that she wasn't going to be permitted to break. She didn't want it to come to a point where she had to take action, but if it did then she was going to be prepared. No more running, no more hiding, and no more living a life that could hardly be called a life at all. Emerald wasn't going to catch her and she certainly wasn't going to return her to that place; not while Neo was still breathing.
If Emerald was going to try to take this life and this happiness away from her, then she was going to do it over one of their dead bodies.
A/N: Thanks again to everyone who's finished this chapter and is continuing to support this fic! Your follows, favorites, and your reviews mean so much and they really help attract others to the story as well! If you haven't yet either, feel free to check out another fic I posted recently, "Professor Fall", though be warned in advance that it is a bit...*ahem*...NSFW. Until next time, thanks for reading!