Okay, sorry for the wait. Either I'm apathetic, or I had to much school work, but it took me a while to write the chapter, let alone update. Sorry, hope people are still reading it. That you all for being so patient with me on this thing, I love writing it and I know there are some of you that love reading it, so I'm trying my best here. O.o;
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Kai slowly inched towards the woman responsible. His goal? Obtain her attention long enough for the others to form a decent plan. Of course, it would only be a matter of moments before she turned around with a plan of her own, so he would have to act fast. He reached his destination, obtaining rug-burned knees in the process, and leaned towards her a little more, wondering whether or not to nudge the back of her leg to get her attention. After a pause, he did, carefully prodding her calf and causing her to turn around and look down at him with an interested glare.
"So, I missed your name the last time around. What was it?" He asked calmly, hoping that he wouldn't give away his plan. She smiled.
"I'm only going to tell my little sweetie over there. Whether or not you want to ease drop is your choice." She said sweetly, smiling. Kai returned the smile, but his look was strained and fake.
"Alright then, on that note… Why do you care so much about him? He's not a good blader, and he's short." Kai stated curiously. The woman's expression darkened a fraction.
"Small, helpless… My ideal victim. Had he sent another, maybe the victim would have been someone else."
"'He'?"
"Oh, you poor little fool. I've gotten your hopes up, haven't I? That two is also my style, in a sense…"
Kai narrowed his eyes. "So… 'he' hires you, and you do his bidding, like hit men?"
She sighed. "I suppose. Now if you don't mind," She looked up to the rest of the hostages in the room. "It's about time I set the master plan to action, no?" She looked towards some of the guards standing around the room and nodded. As if it were their signal, they stepped forwards, pulling Kevin off the bed.
"Aggh! Rei!" Kevin cried startled and horrified as the two men carried him out of the room. Rei was at his feet in a heartbeat, but another guard pushed him back to the ground roughly. A gun was pressed against his forehead and he sat still, glaring towards the door helplessly. Two more guards motioned for the girls to stand up by using their own guns. Hilary and Emily were shaking slightly, but walked out of the room without resistance. Kai swept his anxious glance around the room. All that were left were Rei, Michael, Eddy, Steven, Max, Kenny, Rei, Tyson, and himself. Kai found it a little odd that out of the entire White Tiger team, Rei was the only member left in the room.
"Don't worry about them. The girls will be just fine and as for Kevin… My boss would like to meet him." The room fell eerily still.
"Somehow, that's not comforting." Rei seethed through clenched teeth, his glare refocusing on the woman. She merely smiled.
"Not my doing. If it were up to me, honey, I would keep him for myself."
"You psycho bitch, let us go!" Tyson cried, squirming uncomfortably under the aim of the many guns all aiming on him at the outburst. The woman's smile widened.
"Ah, first time you've spoken up. Don't you worry your arrogant little head, the boss won't do anything to really hurt him."
Kai narrowed his eyes. He needed to find Kevin, not to save him, but to get to the man behind this all.
-x-x-x-
"Sit down there, and stay quiet." A large woman barked, pointing her gun towards the bed closest to the window of an empty room. Hilary and Emily complied without complaint, both sitting down on the edge of the bed numbly. They expected to be held as hostages so that the boys in the other room wouldn't do anything stupid unless they wanted the two girls to get shot, but instead, the woman tossed a phone over to them. Hilary caught it and stared down at it.
"You two are the contacts. You tell the police what you're told to tell them, and nothing else unless we say you can. Any funny moves and it won't bode well for either of you." The woman grunted. Both the girls nodded, and the room fell silent.
Emily gazed out the window sorrowfully, down at the red and blue lights far below. The lights flashed slightly, and lit up the sides of the buildings around them, suggesting that there were a lot of police vehicles below.
This was getting out of hand fast.
-x-x-x-
Gary sighed, wondering how loud to make the volume on the iPod. Deciding that full volume would be better then nothing, he turned it up and pushed play before tossing it silently across the hall into the hotel room diagonally from their own. It went unnoticed by the guards, as Gary strained to hear both the iPod and the hushed conversation the two men in the hallway were having.
'Stay home and eat all the freaken' chips, Kip!' The hushed murmur of the iPod was hard to make out, but it was distinctive and sounded much like someone was talking in the room across the hall. The conversation between the two guards abruptly stopped, and Gary rationed his breaths so that they could not be heard.
"Show yourself!" A voice called from outside the door. It was alarmingly close and Gary sank back into the shadows even more, startled by how silently the men had moved.
'This is pretty much the worst video ever made!' The voice on the iPod cried. By this point, the men were close enough to know it wasn't an actual person.
"It's just an iPod… How did it get there?" The men exchanged a glance before turning towards the room in which Gary were hiding. Silently, the crept forwards, not knowing what lay before them in the dark room. Only four steps into the room, Gary stepped behind them, blocking their exit, and reached forwards, pinching the sides of their necks in such a way that the two fell over, unconscious, without a noise. Gary smiled to himself.
Two down, God knows how many more to go.
-x-x-x-
The support cast was un-velcroed and pulled roughly from Kevin's healing leg. The boy groaned and tried to pull away from the two men, but it was no use. Once the cast was off, the men lifted him up again and carried him into another area of the extra large hotel room. The room they entered seemed to be the washroom, and the two men literally threw Kevin into the shower stall, turning on the water to the coldest temperature they could, and broke the handle off so that it couldn't be adjusted again. Then, to prevent Kevin from getting out, they barricaded the glass shower door with a decorative washstand that stood in the corner of the room.
Unable to push the door open or turn the water off, Kevin was left to sit in a huddle under the freezing water. It soaked through his clothes instantly, and in only moments he was shaking. His leg burned in pain, but the stall was far too small for him to stretch it out, and his only option was to sit there with his leg bent.
Clenching his teeth, Kevin took a breath and called out, hoping someone would hear him.
"Let me out!" He yelled, but nothing happened.
"Please, someone!" Silence, spare the sound of the ice water pouring from the shower head and cascading down on the neko-jin.
"GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE!" He yelled, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to lean away from the water. On the third try, however, someone did reply. The door to the fancy bathroom opened up, and Kevin could make out a figure through the wet translucent glass. The men in the doorway paused a moment, before reaching down and flushing the toilet. The already freezing water grew colder.
"Shut up, sweetheart." The man's voice mocked bitterly before the figure turned and slammed the door shut behind him.
-x-x-x-
"Why were you snooping around the police station, anyways?" Mariah asked as she, Lee, and Ripple made their way down an ally.
"I'm on probation. I had to check in with my probation cop."
"But you helped save us, doesn't that count?" Lee asked, eyes narrowing.
"Yeah, it did. It kept me outta da can." Ripple stated bitterly. Mariah and Lee exchanged an uneasy glance.
"What… did you do, exactly?" Lee asked slowly, slowing his pace. Mariah also slowed down before stopping completely next to Lee. Ripple turned to face them.
"Nothin'. I just got into a bit of a fight, dats all."
"With… Who…"
"…" Ripple looked at them with a mix of unease and irritation. "A fuzz, 'eit? Now lets go." The group started walking again, a few moments of silence being passed between them before Mariah got the nerve to speak up again.
"You mean a cop, right?" She asked slowly. Ripple sighed. The stupidity of these people was getting to him.
"Yeah, donchoo watch da tube? The fuzz, the feds, the cops… They're all police guys."
"Right, sure… I follow." Lee said, rolling his eyes, hoping that all New Yorkers didn't talk like that. Surely, someone in this city had to be smart.
Smart enough to save their friends, at least.
-x-x-x-
Eddie stared at the floor. The logical part of his mind had left long ago, along with the rational, leaving him with a blank slate. His best guess for this was that it was fear, or stress, or both, but whatever the reason it wasn't helping his current situation.
Questions flowed through his mind, though they were muffled. Where was Tala, hadn't he flown out? Why did Emily and Hilary have to leave the room? Where the hell were Mariah and Lee, and why was Gary forgotten? It seemed to Eddie that after all this time, he was the only one to realize that the largest, oldest blader out of all the teams was missing from the group. Had he been out of the hotel as well, or maybe he had gotten away?
Or maybe he was dead?
"Hey… Ed…" The tall basketball player looked slowly to his left, to find Steven leaning towards him.
"There are four of them. Think we can take 'em?" He whispered. So Steven was getting a little desperate.
"No, you idiot. They could shoot Em if we do something stupid." The football player sighed and nodded, knowing that Eddie was right. The two gazed into space worridly, wondering what had become of the only female member on their team. Michael, who was sitting in front of them next to Max, sighed.
"How do you plan on pulling this one off?" He asked the woman, who sat in a chair before them all, typing away on an iBook. She looked up curiously and gave that cheery smile, sending shivers down the hostage's spines.
"Oh, this one is much more planned out. You'll see." She looked back down to her work for a moment before glancing up at them again.
"Rei, wipe that glare off your face. Kevin will be alright, so long as he doesn't mouth off to the boss… Which I doubt he will."
Michael averted his glance to the neko-jin sitting besides the bed. Rei didn't lighten his expression at all however. The announcement only seemed to darken it.
"Why can you just leave him alone? He's been through enough." Rei growled. The thought of Kevin going through anything else that could potentially get him killed mad Rei feel like doing something stupid. Like diving at the woman and strangling her until her neck bled. What made it worse, was her reply.
"Dear… You're ignorance is amusing. Obviously, we're only doing these things to him to spit you. When you are angered, Rei, you resemble that of a stupid animal. Your rage controls you, and you know it."
Rei faltered. He had always had an anger issue. The good thing about it was that it was hard to make Rei angry. But when someone almost kill one of his friends, only to put them through the same hell again? Of course he would get mad.
And in turn, do something stupid.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
xChewy; :sigh of relief: Sorry for the long wait. I guess I just didn't have the time to update.
Kai; We've established that before the chapter.
xChewy; Suck it, you wet blanket. I'm a very apathetic person.
Kevin; I'm c-cold…
xChewy; :huggles him to keep him warm: That's okay, those mean men will let you out soon.
Eddie: Yay, cameo!
xChewy; Goodness… You stole RES's word… o.o;