I'll warn you now: there is some sexual content in this chaptah. Well, kind of.

Don't own Death Note. Leave that to Obata and Ohba. ::worships::

Bea somehow sleeps on the ride back to the warehouse. In spite in Matt's reckless turns and the window being cracked open to let in the chilly morning air, and even though Mello sits only three feet away from her, scowling out the window and skillfully ignoring her existence, Bea sleeps.

The fortune teller returns to her dreams, with her analogies and shifty eyes within that rusted carnival that she just wants to forget, and she wakes up to see that they have pulled over to the side of the road. It is raining so heavily that she cannot see out the window, the virtual opposite to the bleak, soft morning that she had abandoned for slumber, and Matt is not in the car.

A look to her side and she sees that Mello is gone, too.

Bea straightens up so quickly that her head smacks against the side of the window, and she groans and rubs the sore spot as she looks around frantically for the two. They've left me here…they waited until I was asleep and then they pulled over and left me here…wait, no. No, they wouldn't do that, it's pouring outside. If they really wanted to get rid of me they would have just thrown me out of the car and kept driving, not leave me in the backseat…

She leans forward, her head throbbing angrily, and sees that the keys are still in the ignition, leading her to release a heavy sigh of relief as she sits back in the seat. Alright, they wouldn't be stupid enough to leave me with a car and the keys. Now, stop freaking out before you-

Her thoughts are violently disconnected when there is a sudden slam against the window to her left. Flying back in her seat with a scream, she sees the figure of Matt crushed against the surface, his cheek and palms flat against the glass. Just as Bea feels her heart nearly stop, she can make out the image of him backing up and bending down to grin at her through the rain-streaked window before opening the door. He is drenched through his shirt, his hair pasted over his head in a dark heap, and he pulls up his goggles to look her in the eye.

"How's that for acting, baby?" he asks as he reaches out and ruffles a trembling Bea's hair, wetting it with his dripping hand. "Am I up to your level yet?"

Bea clutches her chest, her eyes wired open at the still-present fright of his joke. "You…don't you ever…" She shakes her order off, realizing that Matt's free spirit would go against it anyway regardless of how serious she is about it. "What's going on?" she asks instead. "Why are we pulled over?"

Matt scratches the back of his head and rests his hand on the top of the car, staring off to his side and squinting from the rain. "Just a flat," he says casually. "Pretty shit timing, though. I look like a wet dog and Mel's not talking to anyone but himself, so…"

"He's talking to himself?" Bea repeats. She turns around in her seat to look out the back window, but the sheet of rain is too heavy to see through, so she looks back at Matt with wary concern. "He's not going to…?"

Matt tilts his head for a moment before shaking his head quickly, catching on to her anxiety. "It's just his usual routine of cussing up a hurricane," he says, his voice dropping as he leans closer to Bea. "I told you, he gets pissy when things don't go his way. He's not gonna blow your head off or anything."

"That's not what I was thinking."

That's exactly what I was thinking.

"Yeah, yeah," Matt drones, that lazy smile teasing her again. "If he's gonna blow anyone's head off, it's gonna be mine since I'm slacking. Not really feeling tire changing right now…"

Bea clears her throat and begins to speak, but is cut short when Mello comes into view, storming past Matt with his head bowed low. "You never feel like doing much of anything, Matt," he snaps before whipping open the door to the driver's seat. He looks like a fallen god in the rain, Apollo, a rush of sopping gold atop his head hanging in dripping tendrils over face, and the look in his eyes (they are so blue that they almost sting Bea when she meets them) holds such a rawness that she finds herself recoiling in her seat, breathless.

Matt rolls his eyes and looks over to Mello. "In that case, let me actually do something and drive," he quips. "You know you drive like shit when you're in a mood."

Bea expects an explosion from the soaking young man, but instead Mello simply shoots him a venomous look before sitting before the wheel and slamming the door shut, leaving Matt to wave him off tiredly and walk around to the passenger's side. She closes her door and watches the two, in an odd, watery daze, as Matt toys with his lighter again and Mello rams the key into the ignition. The world around her seems to be nothing more than a picture book as she rests her head back on the seat, feeling her limbs begin to grow heavy.

None of this…makes any sense to me right now…

Not caring if a callous demand is thrown at her, Bea shifts the seatbelt behind her shoulder and lays down in the backseat, her eyelids falling shut. She is not tired; she is simply heavy, the shock of the past hour sinking into her joints like hot tar. She can see Mello's shoulders stiffen as he reaches for the clutch, but surprisingly serves her no icy command to sit up. As he pumps the car into motion with a firm pressing of the gas pedal, Bea lets her mind break down for as long as it needs to and watches the flame of Matt's lighter come to life, die, come to life, die, a morbid clock that is rewound over and over again before her wired eyes.

"Beatrice…it rings of safety. The need for…protection, security."

"I don't know where she gets it from, but the girl is wonderful at the piano…! She surprised us all at Harry's wedding, just eight years old and playing the way she did…"

"Can you fight, Beatrice?"

"You think you can hurt me?"

"He's always so busy with work, he barely even calls home anymore…and of course Bea worries herself sick, the little worry-wort…"

"You really think you can hurt me?"

"…yes."

She is not asleep, but is somehow being woken up.

The cold voice of Mello snaps her out of her daze like a splash of ice water against her face. "Snap out of it," he orders. "We need to get a few things in here."

Bea sits up and ignores his face leering over her like a cryptic mask from the open door of the car. Before asking where they are, she takes a bleary look around and sees that they are in the parking lot of a tired old convenience store, and that the sun is in full bloom over the town. The storm has ended, but she does not know how long she has been under her haze of thought. Nevertheless, she clears her throat and avoids the boy's eyes as she gets out of the car, her joints stiff from the crumpled position she had assumed before. "What time is it?" she asks hoarsely.

And why are we stopping for more things…? Didn't Matt already take care of that before…?

Mello scoffs, ensuring that his gun is secure and concealed in the front of his pants with a pat of his hand. "And what's it to you?"

"I just want to know," Bea responds a notch harder than she had intended. She is too weary to feel remorse, however, and smoothes out her soiled hair with her palm without so much as a frown on Mello's behalf.

"Six o'clock, sugar," Matt calls out from a few feet away with a wave of his hand. He is fiddling with something that he has pulled from his pocket, and with another glance, Bea sees that it is his cell phone. Her mind shifts into high gear at the sight of it. He has a phone…that means that Mello can't be too careful with how I might get a hold of someone outside that warehouse…but he probably won't give me that chance, knowing him, knowing the situation he's gotten me into…oh, damn him!

"Come on," Mello mutters, "we have things to take care of, and we can't be fooling around in here for too long." He runs a hand through his damp hair and gives it a shake, droplets of rain falling to the deaths onto the cement ground. Sending a glance over his shoulder, he asks, "You got me, Matt? No fooling arou-"

"Yeah, yeah, I got you," Matt says with a heavy boredom, crushing the butt of his cigarette beneath his shoe. He meets Bea's eye and shoots her his tell-tale grin. "You got him, Bea? No fooling around."

The sarcasm-dipped statement would normally coax a smile to form about Bea's drooping lips, but her mind is occupied with another inquiry as she turns to Mello. "Wait," she says timidly, "is it really a good idea to have me seen in public when I've probably been reported missing by now? I mean, if someone sees me in here-"

"Don't even bother," Mello interjects. "This is coming from a girl with the family that went M.I.A. instead of tracking you down."

As Bea stands, mouth agape and blood chilling, Mello begins walking away slowly, his horribly beautiful face contorted into something that is not quite a smirk, not quite a frown.

"No one's reported you, Beatrice. You're as missing as you ever were before we got you."

And his voice is like rippling, cruel velvet as Bea is rooted to the ground, stricken, vision going blurry like a hot fog.

Cigarettes. Chocolate. Coffee. Ball-point pens.

Scissors. Dark brown hair dye.

It only takes about four seconds for Bea to get the point as she watches their small parade of items be rung up one by one.

The warehouse, worn and grey and tucked in the rugged outskirts of the city, seems even more ominous than before as Mello drives up to it. Like a frightened puppy peeking out of a kennel cage, Bea bows her head and stares out the window with round, watering eyes (she really wishes she would stop this crying business already, but it is too late to slap it away), and welcomes that familiar sinking feeling dragging her heart down to her toes, useless and dead.

When Matt seemingly spots the darkness in her eyes as she exits the car, he taps her lightly on the shoulder and smiles at her. "Hey, at least Mel let you go without the blindfold on the way back, right?" he tries, shrugging his shoulders carelessly.

How do you do it? How do you follow him the way you do, Matt…?

She follows the duo of kidnappers into the warehouse through a large steel door, in which Mello has unlocked and quickly seals shut again upon their entrance. That same cold corridor, the same metallic sound of Mello's boots clacking against the cement floor, the same dread that consumes Bea's mind as she follows it mindlessly. It is all the same as before, except she is weaker and filled to the brim with unbelievable information as to just why the hell she is here. She had left alarmed and clueless, and has returned weighed down and stunned out of words.

Your father left you. Your father left you. You whole family left you.

She knows he is lying.

Or, at least, hopes he is lying.

Matt and Mello begin talking quietly, which Bea picks up with a vague interest. It gives her something else to listen to besides the rushing in her ears.

"It's not gonna take long for someone to report her, Mel," Matt explains softly. "She's a cute girl, she probably had a bunch of friends and shit that are going to be wondering sooner or later where she is."

"I said they no one had reported her yet," Mello responds, his voice hushed for once. "That's why we got this." He raises the plastic bag in his hands that contains their purchases and sends a fleeting glance back to Bea, to which she counters with a blank stare. "Hey," he says, a notch louder than before, "what school do you attend?"

Her voice is a dull monotone, as lifeless as the stare she gives him. "Agoura Hills Academy for Girls."

"An all girls school," Matt breathes out dreamily. "Damn…"

Mello ignores his comment and gives a sharp little nod in Bea's direction, then mutters something to his comrade that she does not pick up. She does not care all too much to pick it up anyway; her mind is hazy and cluttered with strings of words and sounds that do not connect, instead floating around taking up space without contributing anything to her mood except a pulsating darkness, and one cold, quivering realization: This is all his fault.

Bea cannot be bothered wondering what the commotion outside the door of her prison is all about. She knows, however, that there is much yelling, laughing, clanking, the familiar sounds of cursing and the tabs of beer cans snapping off, as if there is a party that she has not been invited to (thank god, she briefly thinks).

Above all else, though, she hears Mello's footsteps approaching the door, and she braces herself for whatever lethal news he has for her.

There is a chocolate bar hanging from his mouth; this is the first thing she notices when he opens the heavy door. The second thing is that instead of looking hostile, he just looks bored, perhaps even tired as he heaves a sigh behind his mouthful of chocolate. She will not ask what is wrong. Such a question with him is practically elementary. If she is to ask anything, it should be what is right, since the wrong seems to constantly outweigh it, thus making it the underdog of his rampant emotions.

Matt is not with him. Bea has a disheartening image of him cracking open a beer with the others outside the door, grinning and cracking jibes, but decides against it and shakes the thought off.

She is trying to find something to think about besides how long Mello is staring at her, not speaking a word.

What's he…? He just comes in here and…god, he makes less and less sense every time I see him…

He is taking too long to speak, so Bea does it for him. "Mello?" she asks, masking her impatience with soft inquiry.

Something sparks in those eyes, then falls flat again as he releases another sigh, biting off the corner of his chocolate coarsely. "I suppose you want to get a shower by now, don't you," he says monotonously.

Bea feels her stomach give a lurch. Oh, she does not like this mood he is in, not one bit; this dry, cold demeanor that is nothing like his usual fire, nothing like the bawdy, vulgar arrogance that she never thought she would wish would rear its ugly head in him again. Just when she has grown used to that Mello, this one appears, throwing off all of her expectations and flinging itself right in her face in an effort to force her to understand him again. The very thought of having to comb through more mannerisms of his makes her dizzy, like sifting through sand for gold or digging for diamonds, trying to find something good hidden in there.

"Well?" he cuts in. "Why are you being so quiet all of a sudden? Answer me."

She will have to take her chances, she decides as she toys with a strand of her now-greasy hair. "Yeah," she responds, "yeah, I guess that would make me feel better."

She hears him snort, and has a feeling that that Mello is returning with gusto. "Feel better," he repeats, mocking her.

For some unreasonable reason, Bea snaps her head up, her mood shifting at such an impossibly quick rate that she has succeeded in alarming herself. She knows that she has managed to startle Mello, even if just for a moment, because she sees his eyes widen minutely before they return to their prior indifferent state, this time narrowed a fraction. "Whatever," he mutters, "just get up and follow me."

"As usual," Bea mumbles bitterly beneath her breath as she stands up.

Mello's glare is searing (as usual again, she notes) when he pushes open the door, looking at her over his shoulder. "Watch it," he hisses. "I don't intend on dealing with your little comments right now, got it? You're lucky I'm letting you do this much."

"Is it the polite thing to do to thank your kidnapper, then?"

It leaves her mouth before she can swallow it back down into the recesses of her other unspoken thoughts, and yet the remorse does not greet her like it normally does. Instead, she feels that raw energy pump its life into her system again, just as it had when she had attempted to slap him before, and increases a tenfold when she meets that gaze again.

And that smirk, that dark, looming curl of his lips, has painted itself onto his face with an elegance that is, in short, both breathtaking and abysmal. Yet Bea does not waver; while on the inside, her stomach drops again, her heart stalls for a chilling second, her exterior is solid, unyielding.

As Mello turns back around and leads her down the cold corridor for the third time, she finds that she is beginning to like this side of herself. It makes life much easier when you are not afraid of your own potential.

Why isn't he leaving?

"Mello?"

"What."

He can't honestly be serious.

The bathroom is surprisingly clean for the rest of the state of the warehouse. There is no bathtub, instead only a single-stall shower with a panel of sliding glass for the door, and although the walls are slightly grimy and the tiling could use a washing, Bea is pleasantly stunned to not find forgotten corpses in the medicine cabinet, heads of enemies and bones of god-knows-what in the sink drawers.

But Mello is not leaving. In fact, he has come into the bathroom with her instead of waiting outside and has closed the door, pinning them both in a disturbingly tight room that only three people at the most could squeeze into. He looks at her with that slow-burning irritation as she presses her back against the glass door of the shower, trying to make sense of why he is not letting her be.

"I need to…get a shower?" she repeats slowly, as if it has slipped the boy's mind completely.

"I'm not stopping you," Mello retorts with an unreadable look on his face. He leans against the door of the bathroom and crosses his arms over his chest, hair falling over his eyes. "What are waiting for?"

He's…he's mocking me…

Bea's eyes widen in disbelief as she looks around the bathroom, perhaps trying to spot a hidden camera catching her candid confusion at this boy's actions. "What am I waiting for…?" she breathes out. "I'm waiting for you, Mello."

Mello cocks a hidden eyebrow, challenging her.

"You said I could get a shower," Bea states firmly.

"So?"

"And that means that I should be in here alone. To shower. Like you said I could."

At this, Mello takes a step forward, to which Bea reacts to by flattening herself closer to the shower door. "If you think that I trust you enough to leave you in here by yourself," he explains darkly, "you're out of your fucking mind." He flings his arm upwards, gesturing to a window that Bea has not noticed until now. "I guess you're going to pretend that you didn't think you could crawl out of that if you were left alone in here, right? Shit, how stupid do you think I am, Beatrice?"

"I didn't even see that-"

"Don't even try," Mello interrupts. "I'm not in here for an opportunity, Beatrice. That's why I'm in here instead of Matt, or instead of one of my other guys that would tear you to pieces at the drop of a hat."

"He's not a monster. If he was, he would have taken you and-"

"You can talk about your own friend like that?" Bea whispers, feeling that rushing faintness returning to her. She can feel the contempt radiating from one of them, or both, but at the moment she does not give a damn who is providing it. "Do you think you're that much better than him?"

"It's not a matter of being better than him, Beatrice," Mello snaps. That Mello is back with full force (Bea is almost relieved to find; she knows how to counter him now). "He has no priorities. He has no sense of what's important until I lay it out for him. Don't jump to your own little conclusions about what he is."

Bea feels her heart flare at his comment and presses her palms against the glass door until her knuckles go white. "He's kind to me," she says between her teeth. "And I trust him more than-"

"More than you trust me?" Mello says behind a poisonous smirk. Bea is rooted to the spot, biting her tongue and shooting daggers with her gaze. That raw energy spikes when his smirk turns into a full-fledged grin, cracking upon his face in a way that is not beautiful, but baffling. "Go ahead, say it. I want to hear you say it. Who do you trust more, Beatrice? Hmm?"

That cold fire is leaping from his eyes and binding her to the door, frozen, her heartbeat thrashing against her ribcage violently. While the scream erupting in her chest bubbles and nearly chokes her, never releasing itself, Mello is leaning in closer to her like a golden demon, washed in a prince's pride and a thief's dangerous smile. "What's the matter?" he croons. "Can't say it, can you?"

What are trying to get out of me?! And…and why can't I bring myself to say anything back to you?!

He lifts his arm up and presses his palm against the glass, just two inches away from Bea's head, but his stare is so fixed upon her that she finds it difficult to breathe, to move, to break. When he leans in closer, his face leering before her so close that their lips are nearly brushing, she turns her head, wired eyes never leaving his for a second. "Let me ask you something," he breathes against her cheek, his breath warm and coaxing a trepid shiver from the paralyzed girl. "What if I was one of those other guys out there, Beatrice? What do you think I'd be doing to you right now?"

"S-stop it," Bea forces out raggedly.

"Not before you answer me. I want to know what you think, Beatrice. What do you think I'd be doing right now?"

Bea turns her head a fraction to him, her teeth gritted so hard that her jaw aches. The smile is gone, but the look in his eyes is nothing less than smoking, something scarlet and beating behind the blue. She clenches her fists by her sides and prepares to swing if needed. "Why are you being like this?" she whispers hatefully. "I don't have anything to say to y-"

In a flash, Mello grabs her hands and pins them above her head, lips hovering over the pulse of her neck. When she releases a yelp and tries to flail herself free from his grasp, he squeezes her rebandaged wrists tightly and slams them into the shower door harshly, earning a fresh bout of pain to spring forth from the damaged nerves. "Would it be this, Beatrice?" he coos against her neck. His lips are cold against her heated skin, and the sensation causes her to squirm against him in hopes of pushing him off. The position that his legs are against hers, however, has pinned her roughly to the door, rendering her muscles tense and her jaw clenched as her blood chills and boils over again.

You're a monster…you're a fucking monster…

"And you're trembling, too," Mello observes with a mocking interest. "Do you know what they would think of that out there, Beatrice?" He releases one of her hands and clasps it with atop her other, reaching down to turn her face to his. His face is practically flooring, but the added mixture of both fear and adrenaline somehow heightens that fact, and Bea feels something rising in her chest, hot and horrid and preparing to cry out.

"Now, then," he murmurs, voice dropping an octave. "Have you thought of something yet?"

Her chest is heaving so heavily that she has to hold her breath to stall it, but that molten expression on his face forces a breath to expel from her nose as she tries to turn her head away from him again. His hand on her jaw keeps her staring straight at him. "Y-you…you're a coward," she growls. She relishes that dark shift in his eyes; she has pierced his cold, unforgiving exterior with this simple accusation. "To have to…h-have to prove yourself by doing something like this, going against your own word."

The darkness. Such a cold, quaking tide fanning over her entire body, all coming from his ever-deepening glare.

"Y-you said it yourself, Mello," she whispers. "You're not here for an…a-an opportunity, but you're still trying to prove some point you have by pretending you are. You-"

He suddenly clamps down hard on the trembling pair of hands he is gripping and peers closely at her. Whatever is rising in Bea's chest freezes over. Whatever is freezing over in Mello's eyes rises.

You want your answer that badly? You'd rape me. If you were just like "them" you'd strip me down and rape me. And I sure hope you can read fucking minds, because this is all you're getting out of me.

Seconds pass, shivering and merciless.

You can't force me to trust you, because you don't trust me at all, just like you said. You can't make me believe that you're not a monster when you're holding me like this.

And just like that, he releases her. Bea takes in a whooping breath of air, her lungs feeling empty and shrunken, and watches that bitter cloud fall over Mello's face. Somehow, a hateful smirk remains on those perfectly pursed lips. "You're not as much of a dumbass as I thought, Beatrice," he mumbles, a light purr in comparison to his characteristic cursing and booming.

Bea watches him still, expecting another assault to launch out of nowhere. Even so, Mello bids her a final shadowed (satisfied?) glance before turning his back to her and crossing his arms over his chest. "Get your shower already. I'm giving you five minutes. You'd better use them while you have them."

The storm in her blood does not leave her, though. This is all too easy, too submissive for him to just leave her to her business after such a performance.

Should I even bother questioning him?

She knows she should do the complete opposite. Like he said, use it while she has it. In her own terms, it is the quiet after the hurricane he had sent flurrying towards her, pinning her hands above her head like a -

Get that out of your head. Right now.

Use it while she has it. She does exactly that as she scurries into the shower, throwing her discarded clothing over the door before turning on the hot water.

She watches his back the entire time.

Don't worry, guys. Mello did all of this for a reason, including his comment about Matt. He's not that much of a dick, not even in this story. ;)

Oh, and the hair-dye part...yep, exactly what you're thinking (hopefully, lol). Bea's going to make a little 180 coming up very soon.

But expect more heavy-laced angst in the next chapter. Zozozozo.