*** Author's Note ***
Wow~ Really really sorry about the wait on this chapter! I know I swore not to make you
wait that long again… But I have been so busy. They fired all the night shift workers at
Subway but me. And it SUCKS! I mean. Sure~ More hours and all but god! I will
practically have all this week off though… because they are training new workers.
Anyway… WOW! 40 reviews! Holy cow! I Love reviews! So write me more.
When I got that last one I was like, "I have no excuse" so I sat up all night three times
in a row to finish this for my loyal readers! Speaking of readers… I think I'll go ahead
with the thank you's! In no particular order… Thank you:
SingingSyd, Blanchefleur Forsythia, Thorfaxdragonkin, & (for some reason, it won't show a name...)
(I'll take out the dashes and the period I guess) [I am a kitty MEOW]
for liking my story I guess lol.
I decided to reread my own story and discovered very quickly that the first and second
chapters are… To put it bluntly… TERRIBLE
I can see why I don't have any more readers than I do. You practically have to choke
through them. After that it's fine though. Ugh. I am totally going to redo those. Or I'll
just talk about it and never do it… Now that sounds more like me… Yeah…
Anyway~! Reviews are food. Remember to feed your author or they will die.
REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW
~Gebrelle
*** End Note ***
"Aw crap!" Nina hissed, trying to lean more to see the time, "what ti-"
"About twenty till seven," her dad cut her off, finishing a line of code before turning to look at her for the first time that day. "Have somewhere to be?" he asked when she stood and danced a bit at the renewed blood flow to her right leg.
"Yeah, I promised to meet Anne at seven," he nodded, and she started to head out when he looked back at his screen.
"Hey, kitten?" he called just as she tried to rush out the door. She stuck her head back in after a second wanting to leave as fast as she could. "Did anyone catch you on the government database Thursday?"
"No it's cool, I had a lookou- Hey!" she covered her mouth. "Why you~"
He never looked away from his computer but she could see the skin by his eyes crinkle and knew he was smiling. "I would recognize my script anywhere. I'm surprised you didn't when you hacked it."
"Then it was you that…"
"Nearly caught you? Yes~" he was amused. He must not have known what she was after on that trip. And he had said 'Government' not 'Police' database…
"I was just poking around. What with elections coming up and all…" He turned around suddenly and fixed a hard look on her, and she just knew he had seen right through her…
"So… Are you democratic or republican?" His serious expression held but she could have passed out in relief. He didn't seem it, but he was very into politics.
"I'm independent, Dad, and I'm in a hurry~" she blew him a kiss and hurried back to her room, her dad yelling something that sounded like "Safe answer" at her back.
She grabbed the things she thought she would need and shoved them into her bag, nearly tripping as she left her room while trying to sling her bag onto her shoulder and pull on her tennis shoes at the same time.
Light followed her silently as she went through all the familiar motions of leaving the house on her motorcycle, and was on her tail as she left the house on her way to the apartment.
When Nina parked her beauty, she had just unlocked the front door when she saw a beat up looking taxi cab drop Anne off through the nearest of the hallways. She pushed the door open a crack to keep from having too many text messages from the sensor. She made eye contact with Light and made a head motion, telling him to go on in, and she was sure he knew that he could have some chips. There was really couldn't be any other point, considering it's not like it mattered where he stood.
Anne grinned when she saw her and skipped over, following her into the living room closely, "Bring food?" she asked, "It's your turn~"
Nina grinned and fished out her disposable phone, that had about twenty different food delivery numbers programmed into it, and held it up, "Chinese sound good?" The blonde giggled and Nina shook her head, fried noodles gave Anne some very un-ladylike gas. "Actually… How about pizza again today…"
Anne collapsed on a beanbag in giggles, holding her sides and trying her hardest to get them under control and failing. Terribly.
Nina rolled her eyes and selected a nearby Domino's, ordering a pizza and bread sticks around Anne's bubbles of random giggles that managed to continue for quite a while before she finally managed to control herself.
She rearranged her beanbag and sat across the coffee table from Anne, pulling out her laptop and flopping the DeathNote on the surface between them, turning her attention to her keyboard. Anne picked up the notebook and flipped through the pages while Nina pecked at her keyboard, setting up decent proxies for the time she was spending at the apartment until the doorbell rang and Anne slid the DeathNote under her seat before paying for the pizza and sitting it on the table, fishing out the DeathNote before flopping back down. Nina set her laptop down in the floor and took a slice of pizza when Anne opened the box.
"So what did you need to talk about anyway?" Anne asked, almost as soon as Nina's mouth was full.
When she finally got her mouth empty again, she was about to answer when she heard a small chime sound from her laptop. She lifted the lid more to see what was going on just in time to see her whole screen go black except for a square in the middle…
"Hey Kitten, it's Dad again, just wondering if you went out today, would you pick up some cigarettes? I know you usually get them on Wednesday and all, but I'm nearly out. I put this on here so I wouldn't be bothering you if you didn't go out anywhere today. But if you got this, then you are somewhere besides home. So please get those for me on your way home. Please. You know how I get when I've not had my nicotine… Also, Kira says hi. Right Kira? Yes you do. Yes you do~ And so does my new wireless mouse! Look, it has nine buttons! And they have all proven to be very very very very very useful! And so does my new mouse pad. Look! It has Yumi from 'Puni Kami' on it. And it smells like strawberries…"
Her father's hacker message continued on for a few minutes longer but she closed the lid, shutting it up so she could eat. There was no way to close his messages; none of the normal ways worked, and short of removing the battery, there wasn't much else you could do then just listen to it. Thankfully, he normally got his point across first and then rambled afterwards. Anne was just staring at her, pizza hanging from her mouth.
"What?" she asked, "Do I have something on my face?" she teased, pretending to wipe at things she knew were not there.
"Your dad is so funny sometimes…" Anne said with an oddly straight face.
"Funny as in haha? Or funny as in belongs on the funny farm?" Nina asked, a smile pulling at her lips as hard as she tried to keep her composure.
"Both?" She asked, giggling some. Nina nodded and ate more of her pizza, totally in agreement that her dad could sometimes be a hilarious basket case.
"So listen…" she started hesitantly when she finished eating, "The thing I wanted to tell you…" She trailed off hesitantly and watched Anne who watched her. "Well there are a bunch of things really."
Anne chuckled and leaned back, "Naturally."
"We need to do research on some people. Andrew Meeks. Duh. And two others. Your little friend Nathan." Anne had been picking at the hem of her shirt while she listened but her eyes snapped up to Nina's when she mentioned her classmate. "His real name is Nate River…" The girl's brow furrowed as she looked at the carpet with a perplexed look.
Light stiffened beside Nina and she looked at him swiftly, her eyes searching his for what he wasn't telling her. He obviously recognized the name. What did that mean though? Was he from Kira's past? Surely not. He would have only been a boy during the original investigation…
Anne looked up at the two with a confused expression. "Okay, fill in the only one of us who can't see people's names and life spans." Light's lips pulled back into a grin and Nina knew he was thinking about offering Anne the deal again, but the look Nina shot him reminded the death god he had agreed not to bring it back up.
"Apparently Light knows the name Nate River. He is, however, not allowed to share that with us. Or how he knows him… Stupid rules…" Nina growled, flipping through the DeathNote angrily. "Oh and there's the Scott guy I met the other day at the FBI plaza…"
"What were you doing at the FBI plaza!" Anne asked surprised. Nina chuckled remembering that she hadn't had a chance to tell her about her volunteer time.
She took a deep breath and explained everything that had happened, keeping it as short as she could, but still explaining enough that Anne could completely understand the relations between things. When she finished, Anne was ferociously scratching at her nail polish. Something she did when she was connecting dots in her head.
"There was a guy that transferred in at the same time Nathan did. He sounds just like him. In fact… I think his name is Scott… And neither are going by their real names, eh? Sounds really weird…"
Nina nodded in agreement and chanced another look at Light, wondering what had to be going through the god's head, because he was obviously badly troubled by whatever this meant.
"Bleh… back to Andrew then I guess…" Anne reached into her bag and pulled out a manila envelope. "This is everything I could get on him. It's not much… but we know where he is now anyway." She tossed it onto Nina's bag, "You can look at it when you get home I guess…"
Nina looked at her friend, feeling sorry for her. She was obviously confused over everything that had to do with Nate and she watched as the other girl finished off the paint on one thumb, moving to the other.
"We should head back now. How do you spell their names so I can do some research on them?" Nina wrote the boys names down and passed her the paper, watching her fold it tightly and tuck it deeply into her sock.
"I'll judge some names. You go on. I'll have them die spread over three days or so, in case we can't get together soon." She smiled up at Anne as she stood, and it was obvious the other was thankful she didn't have to write any names in it this time. She would get used to it. Everything Nina knew about psychology said she would.
"Okay. Let me use the food phone to call a cab. I'll call another one from mine once I get to the diner." Nina nodded and passed her the disposable phone, pulling her laptop back into her lap.
Anne punched in a number that she had obviously memorized a long time ago and called a cheap cab to pick her up. Nina had helped her pick out where one cab left her and another picked her up, making it so that it was a little harder for Anne's family to track her. Not that they didn't trust her, just that if the cab driver got to running his mouth to show off to one of the aids, he wouldn't be able to rat her out that she had been at the apartment. All he could tell them is something that the family already knew. That he had picked her up at a little diner that had a library a floor above it, where she and Nina supposedly spent their time studying and such.
Anne didn't drive, for many reasons. Mostly, she didn't want to. She really enjoyed being driven around. But there were other reasons. Like her mother… She was very protective over her when it came to some things. She was fine with her daughter riding double on Nina's bike, but she had never allowed her behind the wheel of a golf cart, much less a real car.
At the sound of an impatient horn, Anne slipped out and left Nina alone with her DeathNote and god of chips. Er… Death.