A/N: Thank you so much for your patience. I am so sorry for not updating this sooner. I had it almost completely finished and was about to post when we had a loss in my family. I don't want to divulge anyone in my sob story, but I have been helping out as much as I could ever since her illness began and was not able to update this story as often as would have liked. I hope you enjoy this chapter and thanks again for your understanding. I made this one extra long(ish) just for you!
The little girl slouches in a wooden chair listening to a plump hag lecture her about who knows what. Her eyelids feel like little weights are tied to each eyelash as she battles to keep them open.
"Miss Surgo!" the woman exclaims slamming her fist down onto the table, "Have you been listening? The child's eyes snap open. She looks up at the woman, gives her a weak smile, and nods. She then yawns and rests her head back on the desk. "Miss Surgo, if you don't pay attention, then I'm going to have to take away some privileges," the woman threatens.
"What privileges, Mrs. Pellashock?" the little girl mumbles, eyes barely open.
"Field trip privileges," Ms. Pellashock snidely replies.
The girl smirks and without moving her head off the desk she murmurs, "You mean I can get outa the kiddie museum torture trips? I thought I was gonna have-ta bribe ya, brah!" Ms. Pellashock's sharp eyes peer through her reading glasses down at the girl as her face contorts and turns a frustrated shade of scarlet. Her stainless shirt is buttoned up to the top and her posture is impeccable. Ms. Pellashock keeps her hair pulled back to tightly that it pulls at her skin. The kid continues, "I think that you'll need to up your game. Maybe if ya let me go on some of the otha trips for the otha kids, then we might have somethin' to go offa."
"You are not in that program, sweety," she reiterates, "I would send you on the trip if I could, but I can't. You also have not made any progress." The girl's fists clench. She sits up and looks the woman in the eye.
"I didn't do it. Get that into ya head!" she snaps, "I have neva done anything wrong. They tried to hurt me, brah!"
"The first step is for you to admit what you had done. You wanted your bargaining chip right? Well, this is it: If you want out of the museum trips, then you will have to take that step."
"If I lie and say I did then can I go on the trip to Hawaii?" the girl asks.
Ms. Pellashock sighs, "First off, it would not be a lie, second, that is still out of my hands." The girl opens up her mouth to retort, but her jaw tightens and she walks out of the room. She sprints down the hall ignoring Ms. Pellashock's screams. She opens her door and rushes into her room, slamming the door in the process. She paces the floor ranting to herself in pidgen so no one outside would know what she says. Slowly her angry rant turns into a desperate plea to go home. Soon her whole body shakes with tears. She curls up on the ground and reaches under her bed. She pulls a tarnished blade out from in between the frame and the mattress. The girl pulls up her sleeve and looks down at her thin wrist. She takes the blade in her hand and unflinchingly retraces the markings of the day before. The same word every time, every day, for the same reason.
Chin saunters into HQ only to find his cousin lying on the ground for the second day in a row. He rolls his eyes and shakes her awake. Without giving her a chance to fully stand up, he drags her out the door to his car. She groans at the bright sun and tries to cover it up with her hand. He opens the passenger seat door and shoves her inside, stomps around and hops in the driver's seat.
"Why have I become your personal alarm clock?" Chin demands.
She rubs her face and groans, "I don't know, cuz! I'm tired!"
He rolls his eyes and tantalizes, "Well, you can't keep doing this. Two all nighters in a row right after the Draco case closed!" He puts the keys in the ignition and starts up the car.
"Well, I found some valuable information last night!" she retorts, "I know where Hert is." Chin freezes. He looks back over to his cousin. She continues, "Yeah, his boss at the car dealership place told me that there was a warehouse that the company recently foreclosed on. They didn't collect all of the keys yet. He was one of the people who had access. I'd hedge a bet on the fact that he is hiding out there."
Chin raises his eyebrows, smirks, and then asks, "Why didn't you call us?"
She laughs, "I was gonna, but I fell asleep!"
"Get me the address and then text it to the others," he commands. She pulls out her phone and does as instructed. He flicks on the lights and speeds off in the direction of the warehouse.
When they arrive, they park out of the sightline of any windows or paths to be cautious and wait for Steve, Danny, and Grover to show. They put on their tactical gear, strapping on their vests and loading up their guns. When they get there, they sneak up to the door and listen to Steve who gives the commands. As he explains everything, Kono feels her heart pounding loud enough to the point where she fears that others can hear it. She confidently holds her gun close to her chest as she waits for his signal. Their eyes meet. Time to move in. He kicks the door down and the team begins to search the warehouse. As each room is searched a definitive, "Clear!" can be heard from each member. It isn't until she finds the main storage area that she stops in her tracks. Hert is no where to be seen, but a familiar face looms in the middle of the room
"Hey, long time no see!" a familiar voice sings, "Put your gun down and let's talk. We've got a lot of catching up to do." Kono, feeling her body beginning to quiver, purses her lips and tightens the grip on her gun. The figure, her father, completely undaunted by her weapon, walks up to Kono and pushes it aside with two fingers, and in the same motion, brushes a hair out of Kono's face. The hawaiian girl shudders as his skin brushes hers. Kanji takes the weapon from her hands and adds, "I see your listening skills haven't improved. That was always one of your weakest points, Kono."
"What are you doing here?" she weakly asks.
Her father smirks and replies, "The same thing as you, Kaikamahine." With that Kono is led by the hand outside.
The little girl vaguely hears the door open in the distance. Her arm leaked out more than usual. She weakly traces two words in blood on the ground just above where her left arm lays limply. Her vision becomes blotchy as she slowly fades to darkness.
Kanji leads Kono to his blue rental car. He opens the door for her to get in, but she shuts it and looks him straight in the eyes. Confused he asks, "Kono, what are you..?"
"What are you doing, Kanji?" she counters. When she uses his first name his eyes grow wide and he opens his mouth to retort, but no words seem to come out. She snatches her gun out of his hand and puts it back into her holster. She then continues, "Why were you in that warehouse?"
He just stares at her for a moment, but eventually stammers, "I am trying to find your mother, Kono. I figured that would be self-explanatory."
"If you want to find my mother, then I'm sorry, but you're a couple years too late," she caustically replies.
"You know what I mean," he growls. His warn, wan face from the Colorado cool contrasts her youthful, tan skin, but the resemblance is unmistakable. Their chocolate eyes exchange identical, icy stares, while their stubborn expressions mirror one another. "Why couldn't you ever listen, Kaikamahine? We could've been so happy there, but you just couldn't behave."
"She's not my mother, and I would have never been happy there!" Kono snaps. Without warning, his hand collides with her face. Only shocked for a moment, she grabs his wrist and cuffs it. "Assaulting an officer," she taunts, "that's a felony, you know." As she shoves him away from the car she sees her reflection in the window. A red outline of his hand begins to form on the side of her cheek.
A sharp, repetitive tone slowly brings the girl back to consciousness. She listens to it for a little bit without opening her eyes. Under her fingers she feels a soft, clean sheet, and she hears muffled voices arguing in the background. Slowly, she opens her eyes letting the bright, white light in. She blinks several times to let her eyes adjust, then the girl looks around. Her eyes trace the IV line running down into her arm. They follow the line up to a bag containing a familiar red liquid and then back down into her flesh. Her stomach churns at the sheer amount of the blood. She then looks down at her other arm and notices that a bandage carefully wraps around her wrist and hand. Her fingertips brush the material just long enough for her to feel a small sting from the wounds underneath. She calmly sits in the hospital bed for a minute doing nothing but stare at the bandage with a blank face.
"Keiki?" a quiet voice asks shakily. The girl looks up and her eyes lock with her father's. Her face remains emotionless, staring back like a drone. Only her eyes give away the exhaustion and the sadness. Kanji stumbles forward and rests his hand on her shoulder. She flinches away, but still looks up at him. "How are you? It's been awhile, hasn't it?" She remains silent. He sighs, and then continues in his cheery tone, "There has been a recent addition to our family. I was going to tell you later, but I guess now is as good a time as any. Come on in, Irene!" He turns and greets his wife who holds a newborn in her arms. It has light skin and dusty blonde hair. He looks nothing like his father except for the eyes. The eyes that both her and her "brother" share. She understands why her father never came. He was working on an upgrade. A child to be proud of.
Irene keeps her eyes trained on her child with pride as she coos, "His name is Kaipo. Isn't that just precious? It means sweetheart. I think that it is perfect!"
"Kaipo?" the child whispers. She gazes up at the family painfully, then she looks down at her wrist.
Chin pokes his head outside of the building and sees Kono guiding a man with his hands cuffed behind his back away from what he assumes to be the man's car. His eyes rest on the red wealt on her cheek and grow wide and he sprints towards her.
"Cuz! What is going on?" he demanded, "What did he do?"
She shrugs, "Assaulted an officer. Should I book'em?"
"Let's see how much he knows about Logan Hert, then we'll consider it. For now, let's just take a picture as evidence," he replies as he pulls out his phone to take a snapshot of the red mark. Then they pull him towards Chin's car and force him in the backseat. Kono slumps in the passenger's seat while Chin goes to explain to the others what happened. She closes her eyes so she can't see the guys glancing back at her with a mixture of pity and worry plastered on their faces.
Kanji starts, "Kaika…"
"Don't call me that!" Kono snaps, "You don't get to call me that. You made it pretty clear when you threw me away that I am not a daughter to you."
The old man sighs, "Kono, do you still hang out with Amy? You were really close as kids. I was just curious if…"
"No," she interrupts for a second time, "I haven't seen her in years. Mom and I moved to Oahu after I came back, so I never reconnected with her or any of my other friends. The last time I saw almost all of them was at Kelly's tenth birthday party." She looks down at her phone, checking the time and then asks, "Can we just not talk?"
"Kono…" he whines.
"Please," she begs.
He nods his head and then mutters, "Fine, but we will talk eventually."
The girl looks up at the ceiling of her room in the hospital, fighting back tears and loosing. She tries to wipe her face with her left hand but flinches in pain when she attempts to lift it off the bed. The child slouches back onto the hospital bed in defeat. The tears flow like a river down her cheeks. Her mind begins to wander and rests on a dark though. This lasts only for a moment though, because the door to her room opens up and a familiar face waddles into the room.
"I am sorry. You were right. You never belonged in the program. For Pete's sake you never belonged in this school! I was too worried with a phoney report and the other children to see it." The child looks up and sees Mrs. Pellashock standing in front of her. She wipes some of the tears from the girl's face and continues, "I believe what you say; not because of what you did. That was terrifying. I believe what you say because of what I heard your step-brothers say. They were talking about using you as a punching bag and tying you up with a jump rope and leaving you outside. Did that really happen?"
The girl nods and mumbles, "Yeah, it did." Mrs. Pellashock closes her eyes tightly and puts her hand over her mouth in disgust. "It was during the summer, so it wasn't that bad. If it was during the winter I would have been turned into a Surgo-sickle!" the child jokes. She then looks up at the woman and asks her, "If you didn't believe me until you heard the guys in the hallway, then why did you come?"
The woman looks her in the eyes and answers, "I wanted you to know that I got your message."