Well, guys, this chapter was going to be much, much longer, but I decided that I like this ending and that it won't be as choppy if I put the next part in a new chapter. Soooooo, yeah.
I don't own Death Note. (I want Mello's gloves, though. Those things are hot.)
Bea expects nothing less out of her luck. She is blindfolded (again, she had regarded with a bitter groan as Mello had slipped it over her eyes) and Matt is guiding her down a chilly corridor with a hand on her shoulder. In her dark stupor, she can hear the incessant clacking of Mello's boots on the cement floor, and she assumes that he is in front of them, but her senses are once more muddled by not being able to see where the prick is.
"Why do I have to be blindfolded?" Bea mutters to Matt by her side, her voice monotonous and so very done with this charade enacted by the blonde boy in leather.
There is a hesitation, but Matt squeezes her shoulder lightly and sighs. "Well, you see…Mello has this little fetish for cute girls in blindfolds, and I try to tell him that it's freaky as shit, but-"
"What?!" Bea hisses, stopping in her tracks when her stomach gives a violent churn.
She hears Matt hiss out a string of laughter as he coaxes her back into waking. "Damn, I didn't think you'd fall for that so easy, baby. You sure do take things seriously, don't you?"
Bea serves him a guffawed kick to the shin in hopes of striking him, but fails and nearly crashes to the floor as her foot flies out from under her clumsy form. Matt catches her flailing body effortlessly and snorts back another chuckle. "First you nearly go into cardiac arrest, then you pull a mean stunt like that? You ever taken a special effects class, miss?"
Bea answers with a frustrated growl, biting her tongue so as to not erupt in screams. Her mood is rapidly dwindling down into a sweeping fury, and since it is a rare occasion enough that the brunette is angry to begin with, she tries in vain to push away the hot, raw emotion that she does not wish to welcome.
Matt, however, is as carefree and ironic as ever. "I'm telling you, girl, you should really think about becoming an actress, like I said. You'd be huge," he continues casually as he releases another hoarse chuckle. "Hey, I could even be your manager. That'd be pretty sweet."
"Too bad I'm stuck blindfolded and kidnapped, right?" Bea whispers furiously.
That anger again…she is not entirely sure of where it comes from, even now as she blindly sidles down an alien hallway. It is not from Matt, because she knows that he is the only person here that she can invest a shard of trust in, sarcastic and laid-back as he is. She has not had the misfortune to come across the monsters that had tried to assault her when she had first woken up in this place, so this budding, fresh anger would not be from their callused hands, their rancid breath. And Mello-
Yes. She has struck that white-hot chord of rage that has lay untapped for sixteen years within her. She hates Mello. Or with a heart as inexperienced and naïve as Beatrice Magill's, wants to at least tear his golden hair out of his head and shatter his narrow nose with a crush of her fist, but then apologize, because she knows even in the blinding fog of fury, her instinct would force her to.
In a cool gust of wind, Bea realizes that she is now outside; her thoughts disabled her from hearing the sound of any door opening, and she takes a step back in spite of Matt guiding her forward. "W-where are we go-"
"Come on, Bea baby, Mel's gonna shit if you keep stopping like this," Matt muttered into her ear. His warm breath flushed across Bea's neck and she jumped at the close contact, unaware of his close proximity. "What do you think we're gonna do, dump your pretty body into a landfill or something?"
Bea feels her blood chill at the morbid statement, her wild imagination flooding her mind with images of her pale legs sticking out of a dumpster, her neck snapped, chest streaked with blood. She squeezes her eyes shut in spite of the blindfold and clenches her fists to refrain from speaking again. It's not getting you anywhere anyway…
"Look," Matt says quietly into her ear, "I can tell you a little bit, but-"
"Matt."
A hot, raw pang of fear rips through Bea at the sound of Mello's voice, frigid and irate. Matt curses beneath his breath and tightens his grip on Bea's shoulder, leading her onward slowly. "Chill out already, I wasn't gonna tell her anything too important. She's freaking out over here, what do you expect me to do?"
Matt suddenly stops walking, causing Bea to shift so that she stood behind him. The chilled air bites at her bare arms and she wraps them around her chest, rubbing her palms furiously along her skin as she awaits whatever cruel retort Mello is cooking up.
"Fine," Mello says curtly, "then let me lead her."
Bea immediately snaps her head up, her eyes wild beneath her blindfold at the violent burst of both shock and disdain at his words, and as her mind begins to spin a plait of protestations and bitter threats that she knows she could never act out, Matt speaks instead. "Shit, man, you're acting like that'll calm her down or something. Just let me do it."
The hard clacking of boots against cement. Bea will grow so sickeningly used to that sound, she realizes, and she instinctively takes another step back at the sound of Mello growing closer. "You're just like her," Mello snarls, "taking this entire fucking thing as a joke."
Bea yelps as she feels Mello yank her into his grip, holding her relentlessly by the collar of her T-shirt. Her lips form a shaky "no", but the syllable is choked in her throat, crumpling up and dying out. "Let's go," he grumbles impatiently by her ear.
She can hear Matt muttering something irate beneath his breath with a click of his lighter, and she takes comfort in the fact that he is at least nearby, but it is canceled out cruelly with the sensation of Mello's harsh nails digging into her shoulder, his touch cold and like a steel claw as he leads her to a place unknown.
Matt is driving. Bea only knows this much because no new voices have reached her ears, Mello's hand is still clamped hatefully over her shoulder, and she is being driven away in a chilly car with her hands clasped on her lap.
"You know you can take your demon grip off her now, Mel, don't you?" Matt asks dryly from the driver's seat.
He makes a sharp turn and Bea, taken off guard, feels her weight shift heavily to the other side of the backseat and slam into Mello, whom makes an enraged sound in the back of his throat as he shoves her off of him. He says nothing in response to Matt, instead curses beneath his breath and does not return his hold of her shoulder, much to Bea's relief.
"It probably wouldn't hurt too much to take off that blindfold, too," Matt continues casually. "We're way past the warehouse anyway."
"There's nothing for her to see, Matt," Mello snaps.
"Then what's the harm in letting her off a little easy, Mel?"
Bea waits in a tense silence as Mello huffs out a quick, sharp breath. She prepares for a strike of sorts upon her face, or another shove, perhaps a series of obsenities just for the hell of it, but is surprised when he yanks the blindfold off her face. As if taking her first breath after being underwater, she looks around, bewildered, and sees her captor staring out the window grumpily into the early morning, Matt driving in the front seat, the street vacant of cars yet looming with a canopy of dying trees. A ghost town, complete with near-death foliage and not-quite-night sky. Four in the morning, she spots on the chronometer in the front of the car.
Yet she looks out the window with the wonder of a small child, propping her chin up on her hand, and tries to forget the fact that she is in a car with a young man that could potentially kill her and another that calls her "baby" and "princess", even though she has known him for less than a week. None of this exists when she lightly cracks open the window, closes her eyes, breathes in the scent of life outside the buzzing car.
But when she turns her head and sees that Mello's eyes are torrid upon her again, she remembers.
They park in a place that Bea knows better than to trust; an alley.
"Don't ask questions," Mello says the second that Bea opens her mouth. "We can't park in front of the house, so we're walking. Get out."
Bea bites her tongue and watches him get out of the car. She reaches for the door, but it is suddenly opened from the outside courtesy of Matt. He serves her a crooked grin and gives a small bow, but the charm of the moment is ruined when Mello begins speaking again.
"Don't make any scenes and don't bring attention to yourself," he explains gravely. He puts his leather gloves back on his hands, hiding the bruised knuckles that Bea has not noticed until now, and keeps his crystal eyes on her. "And when we get to the house, don't make a sound. I'll make sure you won't make another sound again if you even try. Got it?"
Do I have any other choice than to get it?
Nevertheless, Bea nods, still biting hard upon her tongue, the muscle screaming around the harsh clamping of her teeth. A soft touch on her back and she whips around, startled.
Matt stands behind her, lighting a cigarette with a goofy grin on his face. He truly is handsome, Bea notes even in the darkness, but she wishes she could see his eyes instead of those grotesque orange plastic lenses of his goggles. Still, she gives him a slight smile, her mood wrecked by the dismal air around her and Mello's threat, but his touch trails down to in between her shoulderblades as he walks away. "Come on, ma petite fleur," he croons, beckoning her with a wave of his arm. He takes a cool puff of his cigarette and grins over his shoulder at her. "Or do you want me to hold your hand this time, too?"
"Shut up, Matt," Mello barks with a whip of his head. He looks back at Bea, cold and restless, as Matt chuckles and gazes up at the sky. "Get up here. This isn't your chance to run off, Beatrice."
Her heart skips a beat, slows, and picks up again at the awful sound of him using her name. It does not hold the same endearment that Matt would have used, instead twisting and coiling into the unadulterated sound of loathing and distaste once it had slithered from his tongue. But he is looking at her with an impatience that she lacks the energy to test, and quickly shuffles up to the pair with her eyes avoiding both of them. She knows better than to be reminded of Matt's charm and Mello's hate in one collective rush, and walks between the two as the sky darkens and greys above their heads.
The city around them is bleak and rusted with age, and while it looks faintly familiar, Bea's mind is too wrapped around the fact that both boys' shoulders keep brushing into hers, sandwiching her between the two, and whether or not it is intentional, it is unnerving.
She hears Mello sigh as they come to a stop. "You forgot the jacket, didn't you, Matt."
"Aw, shit," Matt mutters as he flicks his ashes onto the sidewalk. "Guess I'll be back in a sec."
He's leaving me here with him…?
Indeed, he is, because Mello remains still with Bea at his side as Matt strolls away, one hand in his back pocket.
Do I say something…? No, I shouldn't do that, he'd only snap at me in the end…just stand here and count the seconds until he gets back. One…two…three…
"I can tell you this much," Mello suddenly says. His tone is hushed, but not gentle, which comes as no surprise for Bea. "We're taking you to your house."
Bea nearly chokes on her own breath as she turns to face him, but is held back by Mello's arm when he beats her to it. She is pressed back against the wall, but the shock has not eroded from her just yet. "Y-you're taking me back?" she breathes out, staring at him in disbelief. "I…I don't really know what to say, but-"
"We're not leaving you there." Mello's eyes sear into her with a quick turn of his head, and the intensity of his stare is still as heavy and relentless even when she can barely make it out. "The only reason we're taking you is to get a few things and to see if anyone is back. Don't get your hopes up."
The rush of happiness that made its debut in Bea's chest is quickly strangled until it withers back down into a dark swell of hatred for the boy before her. She says nothing as she watches him with a storm in her eyes.
"We're also trying to jog your memory of who was in the house before my group came for you," he continues. He looks back straight ahead, his gaze obscured by the thick shield of unwashed golden hair that hangs past his jawline. Bea stares at it with a contempt that both enthralls and frightens her. "Don't expect to be there long. If you can't give us any information, we're leaving once you get some things together. You should be thankful we're letting you do that much."
"Thankful?" Bea mouths to herself through furious lips. She presses her palms against the brick wall behind her to hold back from tearing either her hair out or Mello's.
And you're already angry again…
Mello begins to speak again, but Bea hears Matt returning from the sound of leisurely footsteps approaching. "Back in action," he says as he waves the jacket once in the air.
Bea is too enraged to even feel relief at his return; she will be going home, but only for a short time before being whisked away by her heartless captor and his green-eyed crooner, and god knows for how much longer…and this anger, this fine frenzy of rage that she cannot fight off or ignore that comes with each glance towards Mello. Fucking Mello, fucking fucking Mello that shows nothing but hate no matter who he looks at, or who he is talking to, but Bea in particular, whom has done nothing but simply ask him why. Why she is here. Why she is away from home, being raped with questions about her father that she has nothing to respond with. Why he is such a mighty, overbearing little-
Matt is touching her again.
He has taken her gently by the shoulder so that she turns around, and is resting the jacket around her and smoothing it out along her shoulderblades. Bea stiffens, still washed in her own vehemence, because her eyes are not leaving Mello's profile.
"Don't get your hopes up."
"You alright, princess?" Matt asks her softly.
Mello begins walking again. "Let's go already, we're wasting time."
Bea's eyes are glued onto his back, and she hopes he feels the heat from her gaze, her disgust unfolding and blossoming like a putrid, black flower. There is no erasing it now; it has bloomed nicely into a bona fide abhorrence that she does not want to fight off anymore. He has pushed her past her limits of kindness, her quiet dispositon wiped clean off her plate.
No, princess is not alright. Princess finally feels the hate that her father always warned her about the world. Princess gets it, Mello, and she wants you to know that she hates you. I am no princess. But I hate you, Mello. I hate you.
By the way, Matt speaks French. Lol. He calls Bea "my little flower", just because I thought it would be kind of cute.
And I realize that this will soon turn into a love triangle…but those are much more fun anyway.
Reviews are appreciated!