A/N: a big thank you for the reviews so far. You encouraged me to finish! Only 2 chapters left...

Chapter 8

(Melon Soda and Trouble)

"Those men hanging around the bar have been eying me for the better part of a quarter hour," I inform Komui.

He sips his melon soda, and casually flips through his comic magazine. "Maybe they want to dance. Why don't you go find out what they want then, m'kay?" He waves his hand distractedly, gesturing for me to move away. "Get me another soda, while you're at it."

I pull a face, but of course, with his nose in a book, Komui hardly sees. I make my way to the bar, putting a hand on the counter.

"Lemon water and another melon soda on his bill," I jerk my chin towards Komui, who is all but hidden behind his floppy hat and comic book.

I casually glare at the men eying me. "What? Your attention is getting on my nerves."

"Who paid for a piece of work like you?" the runtiest of them sneers. "You're too skinny to be—"

"That piece of shit isn't owned by any one." Another leers. "He's rented out." The three of them share a laugh.

I cock my head and snort. "I don't care what you think." I scoff and show a flash of teeth. I loosen a knife from its sheath and feel it drop into my hands. I keep my hands low so the bartender can't see. "You're right enough about me not being owned, but the rest?" I tilt the blade just enough to let the three stooges see a flash of dark metal. "Is crap."

I move subtle and fast—enough to look like a blur in the eyes of even trained fighters— probably unnoticed by idiots— and sheathe my knife.

I show them my back for the briefest of seconds, and whirl about with the two drinks in my hands. They finally react to my movement and flinch. I stretch my lips into an approximation of a smile and walk smoothly back to where Komui reads.

"Thank you." He says, not raising an eyebrow.

I don't comment, instead, focusing on getting through the rest of the day.

Coming back to one of the Order's bases is like going home. So says Lenalee, anyways. For me, it's more like going to see my superior for a mission, or, more rarely, to be scolded. Regardless, whenever I walk in, people stop talking, or start whispering.

Today, they whisper. Voices sound around me simultaneously.

"— bribes cost too much—"

"—asking around—"

"—attract too much attention"

I frown, and grind my teeth, trying to remember something I might have done to get the herd talking. Nothing comes to mind. My lips feel like they could be permanently stretched into a scowl.

I walk through the common room, looking for Komui or Lenalee. Even Reever or Johnny might be able to shed some light on my situation, or at least tell me what I was summoned for.

I pause before the door into the hallway, giving the people a final look over before I search the break room, experimental room and practice room. No one I want to talk to is there. I sigh, resigned to walk about the whole building looking around. Komui is almost certainly not in his office, but I'll check there as a last resort.

I've barely made it three meters down the hallway when a white-clothed arm waves at me from behind a vending machine.

I scowl.

"Kanda, here," Komui whispers none-too-quietly.

I close the gap, eying the small space curiously. How did he even fit behind there?

"Let's go to my office," he suggests. "We'll talk on the way." Komui slides out from his hidey-hole, dusting off his lab coat. Wearing that, he's sure to be up to no good.

I shift on one foot awkwardly, waiting for him to say something, but Komui just starts walking.

"You know we pay bribes to keep help certain authorities look the other way concerning your papers, right?"

I nod. Bribes and favors. I don't like where this is going…did one of them ask for a favor that went badly? That might explain the hostile atmosphere.

Komui fishes in his pocket for a pen. Finding one, he smiles. "So, you can talk to Reever. He'll explain." Komui actually pushes me into his office, and turns on his heel, leaving me in the door.

"Eh," Reever clears his throat, frowning and squinting at me from Komui's desk. He flips through files and papers, but sets them back down to meet me at the door.

"Hello Kanda. He say anything useful?"

I shrug. "Something about bribes."

"Ah. Well," Reever sighs. "I'll try to keep this short." He rubs his temple with two fingers absently. "We have a new police officer in our part of town. A greedy one, it looks like

"We already paid your bribe. But he's been asking questions, and digging up people to testify seeing you. And trying to prove that you are a doll, considering you don't have any of the usual identifying tattoos or visible conditioning." He pauses in his rambling explanation. "Except for your hair, I suppose."

I nod slowly, trying to see where he's headed with this. Behind us, the door to the office swings open. Lenalee stands there, and I get the sense that the floor is moving beneath me. Lenalee's face shines like a light is pointed at her.

"Kanda! There you are," she walks briskly, her heels clacking on the floor.

Reever nods to Lenalee, but continues speaking to me. "So, we'll have to have you stay low. Take a few days off," he raises both eyebrows. "Stay out of sight. We don't want the police finding any hard evidence that you've gone solo and thrown off your conditioning—"

Reever's words are like the sounds of water dripping into a deep well, at first the sound echoes and reverberates, but the words keep going, making the sound overlap. Something like white noise fills my head.

Lenalee steps closer, concern in her eyes. She nods in agreement. "…it might tip the scales to make some pig-headed police try to take care of our little home," she might be saying.

Or maybe it wasn't either of them, not Reever or Lenalee. Maybe it was Komui. Or something I heard in the past.

A flash, of color, a face. Alma .

His face grim, no longer smiling. I remember Alma spinning and whirling, mixing in dance moves with lethal martial arts, his clothes dappled with blood.

"Get you out of here, Yu. I'll catch up." He neatly decapitates a trainer, oblivious to the spray of blood. "CROW will be here…you need to go."

Flashes of ice-hot color, snatches of conversation float through my mind. "You saw a ghost?" he laughs, his smile bright and amused. "Do you remember anything else?" His grin widens.

Of course I do. I remember more than anyone, as far as I know. More than Alma, who woke up first.

Reever frowns at me. His lips move.

Alma's training was nearly complete, then. He already had the beginnings of the distinctive body-guard tattoos reserved for Doll bodyguards. Beautiful thugs for the upper class.

Lenalee stands before me, her slender arms reaching out to grasp my shoulder. I block her hand, flinching away.

I remember Lenalee, then, crying about some preserved slight in the Order. Vowing to learn as much as she could, to progress through the ranks. "I'll get stronger and smarter than anyone," she vows.

Rever opens the office door, disappearing from my line of vision.

Lenalee stares openly, a young girl dressed in a China dress hovering over me. Me, huddled in a dirty back ally, shivering and wild. I don't remember how I got there.

"How much do you remember?" Alma presses, sidling up close.
We were far away from the training center, but not so far that people didn't recognize us for what we were. An old man crossed the street to avoid walking next to us.

Alma puts his hands on his hips. "Well? Tell me what you remember," he orders, a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. "I've got something good for you,"a flash of the contents in his pockets. Some pills in a plastic bag.

The light is fading, the noise increasing. I don't remember fighting, but my whole body aches. Blood on my hands. My blood all around me…

Something small moves in front of my eyes. A pen light. Komui is moving a pen light while Reever's lips move.

Nearby, Alma lies in a heap next to the garbage. He doesn't move, his eyes stare blankly. His chest and arms look solid red for all the gashes and cuts there.

My stomach trembles, clenches. My mind is in a haze, numb.

Lenalee and Komui, looking at me closely. Komui looks up and down the street, motions for his sister to come closer. They exchange words. I can't make them out.

Even when Lenalee comes right up to me, holding her hand out, I can't make out the words. Don't want to.

My body convulses with pain, my eyes wide and dry. "Bad reaction," Alma had mused. "I wonder if you have a different strain of DNA?" Wondering about my reaction just like he wondered if my preference for soba was genetic.

Lenalee tries again. I don't even blink.

My hands are still red…gleaming and shiny. But no, they're clean now…dirty from gutter water and rain. Slick and clotting on my hands, in my hair, in my mouth.

I close my eyes, willing myself to stop remembering . Live in the present. Forget.

"—never seen him like this. How do—"

"You want me to disappear." My tongue feels thick, my throat gritty. "I'll do it. If you want me, you'll have to find me." I turn my back on both of them, not caring that showing my back to them could be considered a gross insult.

Memories and fragments of speech are on the tip of my mind's eye. The familiar setting seems to blur into the outside, into the street, into my apartment. But I can't stay here, either…

I freeze, wondering where to go.

Anywhere. Nowhere. Somewhere people won't see me, won't look.

I have to find him.

Alma….

(Allen)

Opening doors really shouldn't be hazardous to one's health.

I take my eyes off the handle only to find a pair of knives whizzing toward me. The flight path is dead on, too.

Somehow, I manage to step aside. The knives clang against the rail and the rain-guard— only to reappear in Kanda's capable hands. "Get lost." He growls. Honestly.

That wasn't very polite,Neah muses.

"Excuse me for caring." I snap back. For some reason, my temper gets the better of me when dealing with this guy. He defies my training.

But Kanda's eyes aren't focused. He's staring at me without seeing me. It's...actually kind of disturbing. Something about it puts me on edge.

"Stupid Kanda." I snap my fingers— which doesn't work well with gloves.

He finally seems to register exactly who's standing in the doorway. "Bean sprout." He glowers.

I stiffen. He's...ready to lunge. "Stupid Kanda, am I a guest in your, uh, your place, or not?"

Kanda only narrows his eyes. He motions with the two knives, and inexplicably, they flash. White hot light—

Hmm. I suppose I didn't take Kanda's sword.Neah murmurs, and he shows me a segment of images, a memory of—

"Get the hell out." Kanda's voice is low. There's real force to his words.

Since he can't seem to follow civil gestures, I take a few steps closer, one hand on my hips. "You think you can disappear for so long? We're supposed to—"

"—shut up." He spits. His skin, ordinarily a healthy peach of smooth porcelain, is drained white. There's not a hint of the flu (symptoms or otherwise) in the district, but a hint of sweat glimmers on his brow. I don't know if dolls get sick or not, but he looks ready to snap.

Concern mingles with anger. I try to behave gentlemanly, to show him I'm only here in his interest. "When's the last time you ate?"

"Everything's gone to shit."

"Ok...perhaps you ought to keep to a liquid diet until you're feeling better." I respond slowly.

He only laughs.

I should ignore it. But impatience snatches my tongue and angry words come out.

"Fuck you and your assumptions. The pool should never have spit you out of it if all. you. everdo is repeat the same mistakes!" It surprises me more than Kanda, I think, that.

Silence meets my ears.

I hurriedly grab for something to say to soften the blow— but all I manage is, "Snap out of it." Not exactly the best way to say it.

Kanda grits his teeth. He shakes his head, and his bangs fall into his eyes. "What do you know?" he shoots back, advancing menacingly. He holds the knives loosely, but I know instinctively he's ready to do some kind of damage that I have very little idea how to block.

Cross mostly taught me to swindle, con, and out-maneuver. I can run fast and dodge, but knives...are rather dodgy business. Especially knives that act like swords.

How does he have such a long reach?

Tim goes from my shoulder to flit between us. His motions are cautious, not lazy, and the barest hint of teeth sparks my attention.

"Fine! Have it your way. I'll go." I stick out my chin, edging backwards slowly. "Tell me about it when you're feeling like less of a prick."

The doorknob pokes into my back, and only then do I turn around. Once outside, I realize that I'm not Yu's only visitor today.

A red haired boy with an eye patch stands before me. "You must be Allen. Is Yu in? I think I have some information about something you two were looking into."

thoughts?

dying to know what you think.