I think this was my favourite chapter to write. It turned out kind of smexy. Plus, it reminded me that this is essentially a MelloxOC fic. :D

BEGIN THE ANGST! FINALLY!

Don't own Death Note.

None of the usual cars are in the stone driveway of Bea's home. The gate is locked shut, securing the three-story home within it like a bird in a cage, and the heavy drapes beyond the glass of the tall windows are drawn dismally closed.

Bea looks upon what was once her home in absolute defeat.

It's…it's not right…no, there has to be someone in there…there'd be no reason for the place to be completely empty like this…

Matt grabs hold of the top of the fence, spanning about a foot taller than his height. "It's not too tall to climb over," he observes with the butt of his cigarette dangling from his mouth. He pinches it free from his lips and exhales a small plume of smoke. "Mel can climb over first and then I'll help the little lady get over before I go. Sound sexy to you, man?"

Mello, however, has already taken on the task of climbing up the iron fence and swinging his legs over to the other side, landing like a cat, completely soundless. He shoots a bored look back at his companion, whom shrugs and throws the cigarette stub to the ground. Bea twists her lips into a scowl but distracts it with toying with a piece of hair that hangs out of order from the other strands. Her disbelief of the situation has not lessened in the slightest; instead, it is increasing with every second she is forced to be near the young man that put her in it in the first place, whom is currently scoffing at her from the other side of the fence.

"Get her over, Matt," Mello mutters before turning to face the lavish house with his arms crossed over his chest.

Bea catches Matt rolling his eyes as he flicks his lighter open and closed, the quick lick of a flame choked when the lid snapped down over it. "Someone's being a shit because they ran out of chocolate," he says beneath his breath.

Bea gives him a bewildered look. "What?"

Matt shakes his head in response, his grinning playing about his face now that she has addressed him. "Ah, forget it," he breathes out. "You ready to go ally-oop over the big ominous gate?"

Even though she is backing away from him, not liking where this is going in the least, he gives a little chuckle and hoists her up effortlessly from the ground, earning a startled yelp from her lips. He smells of tobacco and boy, the scent similar to an autumn campfire where the teenagers smoke and talk about sex until the moon erodes. Bea briefly debates in her mind whether or not this is a pleasant smell before he speaks again.

"Alright, princess, you ready?"

"N-no…!"

"Sweet."

He boosts her up suddenly, his hands beneath the soles of her shoes, and with a rush of both adrenaline and anxiety, Bea flails her hands out to catch onto the top of the fence, in which is dotted respectively with rounded grey peaks. Her eyes latch onto Mello's, whom is looking up at her with a droll sort of agitation up and over his shoulder.

For a moment, Bea amuses herself with the fact that she is above the ground while he has to look up at her, but the sudden feeling of Matt giving her an extra boost to launch her over the fence drags her out of the thought. Without thinking, she releases a wail of shock as she feels herself falling down to the ground, and prays she does not land on anything that will leave her bruised or paralyzed, when the exact opposite happens.

Mello has caught her. She is no longer falling to her doom (although the drop had only been a little over six feet), and she is pressed horribly against the object of her utmost contempt as if they are lovers, or even just casual friends, or anything besides enemies. Just to see if he is glaring at her as usual, she turns her head to look at him.

It is at this exact moment that Bea realizes that he is quite striking. Disgustingly so, in fact. He is a form of stunning that Bea never longs to touch, because it is so cold and distant that she could never see there be anything but that fact that he is indeed striking. It is a loveless sort of attractive, and she doubts that Mello knows this himself for a second, but remembers that he is a cocky little bastard and amends that notion quickly.

But she is thrown off by how sudden this observation is. He has hopped straight out of a glossy glamour magazine with his cheekbones and scowling lips and stupidly untidy hair and knocked Bea off the ledge of saying anything to him. Not that she had planned on it to begin with; he would only respond with either another ferocious tug of her hair or a series of curses and insults that would leave her seeing red.

He is not handsome like Matt. In a syrupy romance novel that Bea once snuck out of her aunt's room to read, she had seen and learned the word "smoldering" for the first time. With a hateful biting of her bottom lip as he emotionlessly sets her on her feet, she drops this word under the slot labeled "Mello", in which also has the words "cruel", "kidnapper" and "never, no matter under what circumstance, trust this person with your life".

Of course, her duo of kidnappers contains a skilled lockpicker. It is such a cliché that Bea has to stifle a manic laugh.

Matt is singing softly to himself as he searches for the tumbler within the front door's lock, his only tool an odd metal pin with numerous other pins skewering out of it, and his goggles are atop his head now. In a way, Bea is relieved to see his eyes again (they remind her of seaglass, green and foggy after being swept up from the tide), yet equally disturbed to know that this is her house they are trying to break into.

Judging by the grin that cracks on Matt's face, he has found the tumbler successfully. Bea does her usual routine of standing by, mouth agape, eyes wide and alarmed as he swings open the front door and peers his auburn head into the living room. When Bea tries to follow him in, Mello's arm shoots out and stops her short. "Stay back," he orders.

But this is my…!

"I know this is your house," Mello growls, stealing away her boiling thought without having to ask. "But don't be stupid and just assume that no one is in there armed."

Bea knows better than to ask questions, since she has annoyed him well enough by now, but the idea of another stranger (or worse yet, a member of her family) waiting for an intruder and prepared with a fully-loaded weapon inside her own home makes her stomach lurch. Matt leans back and glances over his shoulder at Mello. He gives him a little nod, but reaches into his jacket and pulls out exactly what Bea has been fearing: a sleek, gleaming silver Deagle. The gun is immaculate and looks out of place with the boy, yet he cocks it with an efficiency that tells Bea he has used it before. She would not like to imagine what he has used it on; the idea makes her wipe her clammy palms off on her thighs, growing nervous.

"Mel, I suggest you get your pretty one out, too." Matt takes a step into the house and brushes his hair out of his eyes before pulling the goggles back over them. "Can't let our lovely lady getting beat up again."

Bea feels a scarlet glaze heat her cheeks at his words, but it cools when Mello scowls and pulls out his own gun. She watches in trepidation as he glances at her bitterly out the corner of his eye, cocking it in the same fashion as Matt had. "Don't get in the way," he tells her. He turns his back to her and holds his gun down by his side.

"Just stay behind me, baby," Matt whispers back to Bea. "I used to always want to be the hero of the story."

And I bet Mello always wanted to be the villain, Bea thinks as she walks up the porch to stand behind Matt, smelling that campfire scent again as 4:30 in the morning approaches.

The tears come in a sort of queasy charge once she gets to her room with Matt by her side. Her bed is unmade, just as she left it, and the wonderfully familiar smell of cotton and jasmine soap brings a fresh bout of nostalgia to sweep across Bea's fragile mind.

Matt is occupied in idly snooping through her closet, gliding his fingertips along the array of pastel skirts and sweaters. "Damn, you sure have it better off than I did. You guys are loaded…"

Bea barely hears him through her own distractions; the creamy white comforter crumpled at the end of her bed, the fine layer of dust laying atop the bureau, the almost indistinguishable dent in the wall just above the bed's headboard from when they had rearranged her furniture. It is all so real before her that if Matt was not behind her with a gun in his grip, she could forget that any of this is happening at all.

"Hey, sorry to rush you and all, but you really need to get some stuff together before Big Mean Mello comes up and beheads us, you know?" Matt rifles lightly through her wardrobe again before moving to sit on her bed, laying back and resting his free hand on his stomach. "And you sure do have a shit load of clothes, by the way."

There is a second where Bea just looks at him, wondering where this boy comes from, why he associates with such people like Mello at all, what he wants out of life, but her energy is too depleted to question him as she numbly searches for a bag to throw clothes into. As Matt continues talking, she finds a canvas tote that she picks up before walking to her bureau.

"Weird how no one else is in here, though," Matt says casually. "You'd think that at least one person would be on the lookout in case of something like this, don't you think?"

Bea opens the top drawer and grabs a handful of underclothes, her eyes on the wall as she throws them into the bag. "I don't know where they went," she says in a soft monotone.

The squeak of the bed tells Bea that Matt has sat up, stood up off the bed. "Hey," he says quietly, his footsteps approaching her, "I, uh…yeah, I know I'm not all too great at making things better, but…"

"Then tell me," Bea whispers as she squeezes her eyes shut, bowing her head. "Tell me why I'm with you and Mello. Tell me why my father is all that he asks me about."

She turns around to face him now, a quick, whipping action that seems to surprise him, judging by the way he backs up, shoulders stiffening. "And tell me why you insist on helping him all he wants when you won't even let me know a single thing every time I ask!"

This is new. She is angry with Matt. She is furious with him.

No…no, that is not quite right. She is angry at only the thought of Matt, because when he slowly reaches up to his goggles and pulls them off his eyes, resting them on his forehead, it softens the searing edges of her frustration until it is just a dull thudding in her chest. He is looking at her with a sort of sympathy that is not quite conventional, but seems sincere enough to suffice. "Mello and I have history," he says quietly. "I've known him since I was a kid, back when I was poor as shit and not too well off. Black and blue from the head down. I didn't just meet him yesterday. I can't turn on him like a rat, not like other people probably would."

Bea stares at him with a swelling in her chest that is not exactly guilt, but not exactly understanding either. It is something that is triggered by that look on his face that she has not seen until now, that look of loyalty battling with instinct to tell her what she needs to know.

"I can't," Matt repeats, shrugging his shoulders and fishing his free hand into his pocket. "And he's doing this…he's doing this for a reason. He's not a monster. If he was, he would have taken you and twisted you up until you couldn't move anymore." Their eyes meet again. Bea is swept under his words, soaking them in quietly but not entirely trusting them. His voice is lower now, hushed, his eyes shifting to the floor. "If you knew where all this money your father made to get this house, you'd never believe me anyway."

"Then what's the harm in telling me?" Bea asks weakly. "If I don't believe it, then you lose nothing."

The look on Matt's face tells her that she has made a point, but he does not meet her eyes again. "Leave that part to Mello," he mutters. "It's better that he does it. I'd only fuck it up."

"No," Bea objects quickly, reaching out to him. She grazes his shoulder as he turns away, pulling his attention back to her reluctantly. "You don't know that. You don't know if you'd mess anything up."

"I know a lot, Bea," Matt says, his tone oddly dark for his normally lazy disposition. It causes Bea's hand to drop from his shoulder, looking upon him with both hurt and incredulity that he still has a wall put up against her questions. No matter how many times she beats against it, it will not crumble, and she is left on the other side of it, staring up and wondering if it will ever come down for her.

So she resorts to turning around and trying to find her calm as she gathers more clothes for her bag. Her hands give her away completely, though; they tremble and grow cold in her sweeping of emotions that dominate her mind, yet somehow she manages to fill the bag with her necessities without a single glance back to him.

They meet up with Mello in the kitchen ten minutes later. The blonde is bent over and rooting through the cabinets feverishly, his gun sticking out of the back pocket of his black jeans. Bea stops in her tracks as Matt snorts out a laugh and strolls leisurely over to where his comrade stands. "You know, gluttony is one of the seven sins. People go to hell for it every day," he quips with a dripping sarcasm.

Mello shoots an annoyed glance over his shoulder at him, but goes back to ruffling through the cabinet. "Don't pull that with me, Matt," he mumbles. "You don't believe in that anyway."

As Matt shrugs and lights another cigarette, Bea spots something dangling from Mello's neck. A strand of red beads, the gleaming cross-pendant grazing his abdomen. A…rosary?

Why she is so taken back that this boy, so full of seething hatred for seemingly everything that moves, wears a rosary…she prefers to not think about it, and follows her own advice in wondering what the hell he is doing in her kitchen, tearing through her cabinets like an animal.

"Do they have any?" Matt asks Mello, looking up at the ceiling as he exhales a glorious curl of smoke.

Any what…?

Ironically enough, her answer hits her when Mello emerges with a single item in his hand that she was not expecting him to be searching for: a chocolate bar, already unwrapping it devilishly. He is muttering something that sounds remotely like, "I was about to fire a fucking bullet into something if they didn't…"

Matt is chuckling quietly to himself, but Bea watches in a confused awe as Mello leans against the counter, tips his head back and bites the corner of the chocolate off with a hard snap. He releases a groan of satisfaction before chewing the candy and downing it. Bea swears his eyes roll to the back of his head when he takes another bite, a reaction that she is unsure of whether to look away from or watch and wonder what drawls out such a result from him. Besides, it is just chocolate…

"Rest of the house is empty," Mello says through another mouthful. His head is still lolling lazily back, but his shoulders are slumped forward, as if the chocolate has drained the energy out of him. "Fucking empty."

"Well, better than if someone actually showed up," Matt responds. "Not really in the carnage mood right now."

Bea's eyes have caught sight of something interesting yet maddening at the same time: a faint trail of darker blonde hair spanning down from Mello's navel, exposed as he arches his back to crack a stiff vertebrae. She does not want to look at it, but it is like a train crash, one that she cannot tear her eyes away from because it as disheartening and awful as it is, it is interesting, and the dark side of her is drawn to things that she knows she should avoid.

The train crash is gone. Mello has straightened his back, standing up fully as he strides over to look out the window with a bored expression on his disgustingly striking face, still eating his chocolate bar with the luxury of a prince.

"He's not a monster. If he was, he would have taken you and twisted you up intil you couldn't move anymore."

Bea drops her bag quietly to the floor and slides down the wall to sit on the floor, closing her eyes and resting her head on her knees.

"Leave that part to Mello. It's better that he does it…"

And how the hell would it be better, Matt? You didn't tell me that…maybe because you don't even know why. Maybe I'm expecting too much out of you…no, but you can't be just like him, surely…you can't be-

In a rush of sound and a harsh tug on her shirt, Bea is suddenly yanked up from the floor by Matt and collected in his arms in a little bundle. She releases a petrified scream when she catches sight of a group of three strangers, clad in all black and pointing their guns at Matt and Mello. "Get him down!" one of them orders, jerking their head in Matt's direction, but the addressed boy is sprinting away with Bea curled against his chest, high off of adrenaline.

"Matt, get her out of here!" Mello hollers from behind the counter, his eyes bright and wild upon the band of strangers that are preparing to fire. In the flurry of movement, Bea briefly sees him aiming his gun at the assailants with a grace that defies the situation at hand, but Matt flings open the front door and flits down the steps into the faint light of five in the morning. Bea struggles for him to free her, the intense burst of energy coursing through her legs now, but Matt holds her tighter against him as they make a break for the fence.

The sound of gunshots pierces her eardrums, and Bea feels a thick surge of nausea rise in her throat. "W-what about-"

"Sorry, babe, but you're gonna have an ugly landing when I get you over this fence," Matt interrupts, his voice hoarse and breathy from the stretch he has been sprinting.

"I don't care, what about Mello?" she orders with a strength that she does not expect to leave her lips.

As Matt sets her down on the ground before the fence, he stuffs his own gun into his pocket and gives her a sardonic glance of his green eyes. "Thought you didn't give a damn about Mello, huh?"

Bea lets him pick her up again and hike her up the fence again, lets her hands grip onto the rounded peaks atop each column, lets her legs swing around without so much as a second's hesitation, feels the sharp stinging to her ankles when she lands and topples over. Standing up quickly to see Matt scuttling over the fence like a cat before dropping down, she brushes her palms off on her sweatpants and mutters, "I don't."

A few minutes after the two start the journey back to the car, Bea hears another pair of footsteps come from behind them. Matt catches onto them as well and whips around at the same time that Bea does.

Mello, pale-faced and slinking out of the faint fog of the early morning, his gloved hand shaking with its grip of the gun. In his other hand, the plastic bag of clothes that Bea had left behind in the panic.

There is an odd mixture of relief, anger, disbelief, and acute numbness as Bea follows Matt in walking towards him, meeting him halfway. Relief because it had not been him that was shot, anger because it had not been him that was shot, disbelief that he had remembered the bag, and the numbness because if Mello has made it out of the house without so much as a scratch, it means that he had to have shot someone in order to escape.

But who were they…? Was it him that fired those gunshots, or did he just run…?

"Damn, and just when I was about to buy the roses for your grave, man." Matt claps his hand upon Mello's shoulder, but the boy shrugs him off, a shifty look to his cold blue eyes. "Hey, you alright, Mel?" Matt asks.

When Mello's anomalous gaze falls upon Bea, she immediately takes a step back, preparing to hear a long, angry ramble about how this scenerio is entirely her fault and that he should just shoot her dead while he has the chance, but instead, Mello simply throws her the plastic bag and stalks off ahead of her and Matt.

She sees that his hands are still trembling, twitching as he replaces his gun in his back pocket.

Is he…scared?

When Mello passes by the alley that the car is parked in, Matt calls up to him, "Hey, man, the car is this way-"

"I'm bringing the girl with me," Mello responds sharply. "You take the car and stock up on a few things with the money I gave you. Meet us on the corner of 24th Street in about 45 minutes, got it?"

Without further questioning, Matt gives him a brief nod before turning up the collar of his jacket and heading off for the car down the alley, leaving a suddenly floored and wide-eyed Bea with the young man that may have just shot three men.

And he is staring at her with that atypical look to his eyes again, as if he finds her both repulsive and interesting at the same time. Still, it is a chilling glare that she has not yet been able to shake off each time it is set on her, and she follows suit in glancing down at her hands to ease the tension.

"Did you know any of those guys back there?"

She still does not look up. "No," she says, barely above a whisper, "none of them."

"Are you lying?"

There is a storm in her eyes when she lifts her head to look at him straight in the eye, even if just for a moment. She sees Mello purse his lips and harden his gaze upon her before turning away and beckoning her to follow with a jerk of his head. "Alright, then," he mutters. "Let's take a walk."

"What?" she blurts out. It is such a casual statement that it does not belong coming from him. "With you?"

Mello keeps his back to her, but she sees his shoulders stiffen. "Is there some sort of issue with that, girl?"

Would he truly care if there was? Bea knows that he would not, and bites upon her bottom lip as she catches up with him. "Fine," she mumbles.

Their walk is silent but tense; she can feel it wrapping around her throat each time she tries to clear it or distract herself. The occasional, searching glances she sends over to him bring her nothing but that horrid reminder that no matter how cruel he comes off, there is still no denying the fact that the way that the bleak sunlight of morning tints his skin, he is a stunning piece of work. His eyes are narrowed, as usual, but glow a bright cerulean when the light hits them, and his jawline is almost feminine, but still holds a strong edge that is unquestionably masculine when he clenches the muscles around it in agitation.

When suddenly, he speaks.

"I'm not going to be light with you on this," he says. "If you want to know why you're here so badly, I'm not going to beat around it, alright? You're getting it straight."

He has her attention immediately.

"Your father used to work for me."

Bea feels something rise in her throat and she hacks out a cough, nearly choking on her own shock. "M-my father-"

"Don't talk," Mello orders, "or else I'm not telling you shit."

And in spite of the bubbling questions and frustrated scream that begs to be let loose, Bea pins her lips shut and listens.

"Your father," Mello continues, "had some business going with my group back at the warehouse. He was in charge of getting some information in regards to…to something that we've been trying to get a hold of for a very long time. Something that I need."

N-no…not my father…he worked at a loan company, not with Mello and that awful gang of men back there…he must be lying, or joking, or-

"But then he quit on us without telling anyone," Mello explains, his tone considerably darker. "He quit on us at a time where I need all the useful people I can get. My whole reputation depends on this, everything. And just when I thought we were close to getting what I need, he decided to leave. That's where you come into play."

He looks at her now, narrow-eyed, heavy. Bea cannot look away; as Mello speaks of reputations and her father and gangs, she has her mind spinning a wheel of questions that she keeps track of as he slowly answers them.

"You say you can't remember barely anything before you woke up at the warehouse. That tells me that your father knew this was going to happen, that we were going to take the initiative to collect you in order to get to him."

He leads her around a bend in the sidewalk, walking slightly faster now. Bea follows close beside him, looking around them for anyone to overhear. The street is empty, however, and she tunes into him again.

"So they blanked out your memory before we came for you so that you wouldn't tell us anything about where they went. It was all for their safety, not yours, because not even his own daughter knows where he went off to." He sends her a dirty look, the muscles of his jaw taut. "Which means neither do I."

She has nothing to say in response to such a blunt statement, but the shock of what she is hearing aids in that as well. My father…he left me when he knew that they were going to kidnap me? This can't be right…I already told myself not to trust anything Mello says, and this is no different…but if he was lying, then how do I explain no one in my family being in my house?

"But I can't very well drop you off somewhere and get rid of you," Mello breathes out. "That wouldn't help us at all. I don't know how long it'll take for your memory to come back, if it even will at all, but if it does, then you may be some use to us in finding your father."

"Some use to you?" Bea repeats, stunned by his word choice. She does not plan this question; it simply floats out of her mouth as her hands begin to shake. "Is that what this is all about?"

That hurricane-like flash has returned to Mello's glare. "Don't start complaining. You begged and pleaded me to tell you what was going on, and that's how it is, period. There's no pretty way for me to word it for you. You're here because your father fucked up something that my entire name depends o-"

Before she can control it, Bea's hand flies out in a flurry of white-hot rage, preparing to strike that cocky, beautiful face until it is a hot, raw scarlet. Just before it meets his cheek, Mello catches it by the wrist and gives it a harsh, painful squeeze. This fresh burst of pressure against her wrist drags her out of her infuriated stupor, and she looks at him with that same dull, thudding afterglow of diluted anger.

And he is smiling at her.

No…that's not a smile…

It is a dark, cruel smirk, one that shadows over his entire face with its gravity, with that one corner of his mouth curled up like a devious cat. His hair falls like a dirty, ragged curtain over one eye, but the other is glittering upon her as he releases a huff of a laugh.

"You think you can hurt me?" he asks softly. "Do you really think you can hurt me?"

She is growing numb from her fingers up to elbow, and even though she desperately tries to wriggle away, his grip is like an iron bracket around her wrist. Their eyes are locked, the receiving end of the grip beginning to waver on her feet from that dreadful smirk, because even in the midst of being terrified of what he is going to do to her in the next few seconds, she still is left to acknowledge that he is fucking glorious in the light.

"You never will," Mello hisses out, that one blue eye completely hooking her in its hold. "You don't know who I am. You don't know what I'm capable of doing, Beatrice."

Stop saying my name.

It happens again: she speaks without thinking.

"And you don't know me," she whispers, trying to hide the tremor in her voice. If she is going to talk to this boy, she is going to be strong about it, no matter how much she wishes to bow her head and forget.

That smirk is washed off Mello's face so quickly that Bea gives a start, quickly containing herself so as to not appear weak next to this beast.

"He's not a monster."

No, but he's at least a demon…

Mello suddenly throws her hand to the side, turning sharply on his heel. "Follow if you want. I don't give a shit anymore." To add to the effect of his words, he waves her off with his hand as he slinks away. "I was stupid to think you'd be any use to us in the first place."

His words do not quite sting as much as Bea expects them to (if it is possible to become used to cruelty, she thinks she has succeeded in doing so), and she watches him with the aftermath of the swelling of energy that had erupted within her chest once she finally spoke to him. She has challenged him, and he has walked away.

She can almost feel a smile blossoming as she begins trailing behind him, a few feet's distance between them, and decides that she refuses to make his job that easy for him.

Oh, helloooooo angst. ::waves::

Little side note, I know the summary says that Mello saves Bea's life and that's when the big wheel starts turning, but this isn't exactly it, lol. Think of this as a precursor to that.

Reviews are greatly appreciated!