The mysterious boy from the Organization now as a name.
If you're interested, I got the idea from some ingredients that are used to make Vermouth

BUT DO NOT TRY TO DRINK IT! IT IS ILLEGAL EVERYWHERE! (I think)
BECAUSE IT IS TOXIC AND WILL HURT YOU!

I DO NOT CONDONE DRINKING IT OR MAKING IT OR DOING ANYTHING WITH
IT SO PLEASE DON'T!

Chapter 31: Blood and Deception

"Kuroba-kun," I heard a voice calling to me. I could have sworn it was the detective's. Too tired to open my eyes, I settled on letting the voice keep calling.

"Damn it, wake up!"

Someone shook me and it hurt. I really hurt. I gasped in a breath and tried to open my eyes to see who was so keen on waking me up. I wanted to keep sleeping.

"Kuroba-kun." My name was accompanied by a contented sigh. I looked up and saw someone in front of me with dark hair and clothes. My brain remembered a boy in black holding a gun.

I let out some sort of noise and tried to back up. I didn't succeed since I was still tied to the wall. Memories came back to me slowly as my vision started to clarify.

"What's wrong?" The voice was so calming, so worried for me, that the image of the young killer soon faded. I was left facing Hakuba who looked like he'd aged several years since the last time I saw him, which couldn't have been that long ago.

His hands were held lightly on my chest, near my shoulders, and he was trembling.

"Hi," I said numbly. The pain in my shoulders was slowly returning now that I remembered it was there.

"You idiot." Hakuba looked from me to Hattori. "Can you get him down?"

"Hah, I think he can get himself down faster unless ya wanna stay here another fifty-six minute and eleven seconds."

"I doubt he's in any shape to be doing that." Hakuba looked me over and I winced when his hand drew lower and touched my collarbone. He moved to unbutton the top of my shirt and I could feel his fingertips press into the area while I shut my eyes and waited for him to stop.

"There's a lot of bruising. I think it's broken."

"Well thanks… I really didn't… need to know." I'd forgotten that I couldn't speak in complete sentences, at least not the way I was hanging.

"Kuroba-kun what's wrong? There's no way that a broken collarbone should hurt you this much."

Oh, trust me detective, it really hurts. I wanted to say to him. I was busy trying to figure out just why he was here.

"Hakuba!" I tried to yell at him but it came out quiet since I didn't get in enough breath beforehand. "What are you… doing here?"

"Getting you out of this place, you idiot."

I heard someone fidgeting with the handcuffs that were holding me in the air.

"Ah, it's on the other side," I heard Hattori grumble. "Any way ya can move yer hand?"

"None." It would really hurt if I tried that. As unfocused as my attention was, I turned back to Hakuba with my initial worry. "What are you… doing here?... If they see you… you're gonna be…" I didn't finish. Why waste breath when I'd gotten my point across?

"I'm counting on being found out. I'd rather you be free and in less pain at that time, in case we have to get out of here quickly."

"I'm gonna move yer hand, ok?" Hattori interrupted. It was my right hand so his twisting wouldn't aggravate the broken bone. I nodded.

By moving my wrist, I had to move my body as well, so that my wrist wouldn't snap with all my weight on it. I clenched my teeth and tasted the metal flavor of blood in my mouth. I hadn't forgotten about the new bullet wound and it had an awful way of keeping itself at the forefront of my mind.

Kudo was in the room as well, though he was standing guard near the door. None of the detectives missed the pain flash across my face. I quickly tried to hide it as pain from my shoulder.

I only partially succeeded. Hattori went back to picking the cuffs and Kudo continued to watch out the door. Hakuba wouldn't take his eyes off me.

"Kuroba, what-" The detective shook his head. "Can I do anything to help?"

"No." I smiled, keeping my mouth closed so he couldn't see the blood. I tried to swallow it. "Just get me… down."

"Workin' on it" Hattori assured me. "I learned how ta pick cuffs long ago. Ever since the incident with Kuzuha I never wanted ta be stuck in them again." I had no idea what he was talking about but I listened. "I'll have ya out in a minute."

I nodded and took time to think while no one was talking to me. The detectives were here which meant they had some sort of plan. They were also fidgety and I could vouch for at least two of them trembling since I could feel Hattori shaking every time he lifted the handcuff to see the keyhole better, which meant their plan was flimsy and they were scared.

"You're an idiot," I informed the detective. All the detectives.

"Well then you shouldn't have rubbed off on me." I heard Hakuba laugh but it was a shallow and small thing. "I couldn't just leave you here."

"You should have." I was all serious. Sure I didn't want to die in this place but I didn't want them to die here trying to save me. "What was the point… of all this then?"

"The point is that we're in a place where decisions can be made and you've still taken everything that was meant for me just like you wanted. If we can all get out alive, then we will."

"And if we can't, we'll all die like dogs," I laughed bitterly. It was a horrible term and I didn't know where it had come from since dogs tended to die just like humans did, even in the past. Maybe it was from when they used to drown puppies or something.

"What happened ta the optimist I've come ta like?" Hattori asked as I felt the cuff release me. The fall to the ground was only a few inches but Hakuba grabbed me under the arms anyway so that I wouldn't hurt myself.

Moving my arms downward hurt almost twice as much as keeping them in the air. The broken bone saw to that. It couldn't have started mending yet but, being in a set position, it was agonizing to move it to a new one.

I could see the detective shudder, not from my weight but from restrained terror. These people could kill us all without batting an eye and I was busy worrying about my temporary pain instead of seeing the others in the room.

Before Hakuba took his hands away, I reached him with my good arm and hugged him. In my arm I could feel him quivering. His head was turned away from me but I knew I'd shocked him enough that, if the shaking was controllable, it would have stopped.

"What are you-?"

"Thank you." I didn't need a lot of breath since Hakuba was right in front of me. It was hesitant, for fear of hurting me, but Hakuba hugged me in return before backing off.

I looked up at Hattori and repeated the same thing. He nodded to me with what should have been a smile. Something must have unnerved them a great deal before they found me.

"I should be saying that to you."

"Huh?"

I turned back to Hakuba when he spoke. It was impossible to miss the anger and frustration that were trying to override his fear of the situation.

The detective had nothing to thank me for. I'd gone against him at every turn, even if it wasfor his own wellbeing. When I'd seen how badly hurting his son had affected Hakuba's father, I had to think about how I was hurting the detective with my own actions. What I was doing may have been protecting him physically but mentally, I wasn't so sure.

"Don't you dare!" Hakuba snapped me out of my thoughts by grabbing onto my shirt which was still unbuttoned halfway. Since it was open, it didn't hurt when he pulled it forward, it just startled me. "Don't you dare look at me like that!"

"Like what?" I didn't even know I was looking at him.

Hakuba's dark eyes meet mine and he remained quiet while he searched for a descent description of how I my expression had angered him. A stray thought made me wonder why he'd kept the contacts in.

"You're looking at me like you fully expected this from the start; as if you anticipated being hurt and locked up here instead of me."

"That's because I did."

I closed my eyes when I spoke, entirely expecting Hakuba to hit me. I knew what speaking the truth to him meant but I didn't prevent me from doing it anyway.

"Why?"

The desperation in his voice made me open my eyes. I was bewildered when Hakuba looked at me with tears running down his face. I'd never seen the detective cry, even when Kane died he'd hidden it from me. He made no attempt to do so now. It showed me how out of his depth he was feeling.

And damn it, I never thought I'd see the stuck up rich kid cry because of me. He was too proud.

"Hakuba." If I could explain it, it may help, or it may just hurt the detective more. "You've been around the murdered… I've been around the murderers… I've been in a lot of… life threatening situations… you haven't… If one of us had to come…. I preferred it to be me."

I took the detective's hand from where he was kneeling in front of me and he watched my eyes instead of my movement. I looked back up at him. "And the difference is here…. You can see… You're afraid." His hand was trembling in mine from everything; fear, tension, emotional pain, and things I could only guess at. My hand was steady. "I'm not afraid."

"There's no way you're not scared too." Hakuba's hand tightened in mine. "You simply hide it better."

For the record, there was very little part of me that was afraid. There was a basic part of me attributed to human nature that wanted to keep me alive until the end, a need for survival. I felt that. But the overwhelming amount of my fear was placed elsewhere.

I smiled.

"Yes Hakuba, I'm afraid." I tightened my grip as well. "I'm afraid that everyone's going to die… and that all our work until now… will be pointless."

"Kuroba, how do you think I would have felt? How do you think anyof us would have felt, if we'd let you die here?" Hakuba searched in the black coat pockets until he came across a small tissue. He wiped the caked on blood off my face and watched me. "How do you think I would have ever forgiven myself if we had found you dead?"

"In time you would have."

"I don't think you fully realize what kind of effect you have on people." Hakuba glanced around the room at the others. "If our places were reversed, which they should have been, and you found me like we've found you… would you have been able to forgive yourself?"

"We're very different people."

"Oh, but we aren't." Hakuba gave up kneeling and went on my other side where he sat down against the wall. Hattori followed his actions. "Our methods may be different but our goals and ideals are the same. In fact, we're very much alike."

"That's a scary thought." Hakuba continued before I thought of something to say to contradict him.

"You said you were afraid of everyone dying. I'm not thinking about my own life right now either." He laughed. It held real humor. "If I was, do you think I'd be here?"

"Ok, ok, I get your point." I tucked my arm closer to me and noticed that it was hiding my fresh bullet wound. I couldn't be concealing things like that from any of them if they need to know about it.

"Hakuba."

It was funny how fast he turned to me when he heard the inflections in my voice change. I'd have to watch out in the future of how I spoke.

"What is it?"

"Remember how I said that nothing was wrong when you asked me?" He nodded as his expression become more solemn. "Well I was lying."

"I thought you were." Hakuba looked over me again. "Where are you hurt?"

"One of them shot me when they brought me in." I lifted my shirt to look at the bandages. Vermouth had done a good job and it hadn't bled through much. "It's not that bad."

Hattori was the one who reacted first.

"Not that bad? You were shot! Bullets ain't the softest things in the world!"

"Shh!" Kudo shot back at him. The small detective looked out the door again. His eyes visibly widened and he ran over to us to stand next to Hattori. Hakuba waved him over towards him instead and Kudo hesitated before following the unspoken command.

The detective searched systematically through the coat before grabbing one of my spare caps out of an outer pocket. It left me to wonder how much rummaging through my stuff had occurred before I woke up.

Hakuba shoved the cap on Kudo's head and tried to hide the boy behind him without completely blocking him from view. It had nothing to do with Kudo being the one who was most vulnerable to these people, it was more a sheltering instinct for someone younger than him.

"Who's coming?" I asked. Kudo shook his head. He must not have stuck around to see.

We could hear their approach soon after. They weren't rushing. The slow steady movement allowed me to identify three sets of footsteps.

The boy in black tried to come in first but Vermouth gently brushed him aside and stared in the room at us, still under the guise of a man in glasses.

"Well what do we have here?"

Behind her, the third person who'd come with them stood silently on the other side of the wall where they couldn't be seen.

Kudo moved to get a better look from behind Hakuba and Vermouth smiled in satisfaction when she caught his glance.

"How'd they get in?" The boy in black turned towards Vermouth and grinned. "I can play with some of them this time, right?"

"Absinthe, Absinthe, you really must learn to control yourself." Vermouth chided him, her words coming out in a guys voice but said in a woman's tone sounded strange.

I could recognize a man's voice start talking to her but he spoke in a whisper, and I couldn't do more than recognize the lower tones of an older man.

Vermouth turned back to him and whispered something in reply. Absinthe shook his head.

"I don't think we should do that!"

"Shush," Vermouth scolded him. "The grown-ups are talking."

The man whispered something to the boy and his smile turned downright jubilant. He took a gun out of his coat and leveled it at me, since I was in the center of the room. It allowed him an easy shot if any of us moved.

Vermouth turned around with the same smile on her face. I shouldn't have noticed the uneasiness of it with how well she kept it masked but I did.

"Hey," Hattori spoke up. "Ya sure ya wanna go and kill us? Ya already know that someone's been searchin' out yer little hide out here. Kill us and ya'll bring down the whole police force."

"That sounds fun."

The deep voice resonated across the room.

Damn that voice was scary. The hidden man felt authentic enjoyment at the idea of having the police try and catch them. He made the very idea seem laughable.

It was way beyond even the pride that I alluded to as a thief.

"It's not just the police," I spoke up, using the detective's voice so that he would remember not to speak. Kudo wouldn't have come without backup.

"Aw come on. Wouldn't it be fun to chase them around a little while longer?" Vermouth asked the man, attempting to persuade him to her side.

She was trying to help us.

He whispered back his response.

"They haven't seen us" she stressed back at him. There was a gruff laugh. "And we've got what we want. These kids can't do anything to us." Vermouth paused and smiled at him. "Or are you afraid?"

Stiff, jerky movements were made and tension around our three watchers was high. The man told Absinthe something and the boy grinned. Vermouth also went over to him to receive whatever knowledge he wanted to keep secret from the rest of us.

From down here we couldn't hear the sounds of the outside world, probably due to soundproof wall, but it was obvious that the police or FBI had drawn in.

After another curt laugh, the man who had kept himself hidden started to walk away. "Absinthe, teach them a lesson."

"Yes sir!"

I moved my hands back in time to allow the bullet an unhindered path to my stomach. I screamed. It would have gone through my arm anyway and I'd rather lessen the range of injury.

Hakuba almost growled as he moved to stand in front of me so that I couldn't be shot again. Absinthe grinned at his new target. Besides blocking me from view, he had stood up, making it easier to be hurt.

I heard two shots, warranting a pained noise with each, and I tried to pull the detective down. Little droplets of blood splattered the wall behind me.

"Idiot! Get down!" I kept his voice, getting the words out through gritted teeth.

"I'm fine." Hakuba fell to one knee beside me and kept Kudo out of sight. "They aren't trying… to kill us."

Absinthe leveled the gun at Hattori next, who just smiled at him from his sitting place next to me.

"Havin' fun huh?"

"What could be more fun than this?"

Hattori was shot in the leg, which he'd kept up to protect his internal organs and another bullet hit him just below the wrist, scarping the skin instead of entering his body. Instead of screaming, air just rushed out of his lungs as he choked back on the noise.

"Can I play with them a little more?" He asked Vermouth. "I promise I won't kill them."

"No Absinthe, you've done enough." She pulled out a gun of her own holster before shooting the boy in the head without warning. His smile didn't have time to fade before he died, slumping over sideways onto the floor. "We're through here."

Vermouth looked outside the door to make sure no one was snooping around.

"Why'd you do that?" I asked her. I surprised more than just the woman when I spoke.

"We don't leave loose ends, little bird. Since you've all seen his face, there was no way for me to have let you go without him dying."

"I've seen your face."

"Yes but no one knows that. If you want to announce it and get yourself killed, go ahead. This will take care of any favors I owe to you so keep that in mind if you want to play rabbit for the werewolves in the future."

"Vermouth what are you playing at?" Kudo asked her. "You've never been this helpful before."

"I've stopped you from being killed as well cool guy." She smiled at Kudo with a hint of mischief. "Just because you don't see something doesn't mean it hasn't happened. You'd better get out of here before Gin comes back."

He nodded and Hakuba moved to help me up. I pushed him away and saw the large amount of blood running down his left arm. He'd gotten shot in the shoulder and somewhere below his elbow, making it impossible for him to move the limb.

"Helping me will… only hurt me" I explained. If anyone moved my arm again I was sure I was going to pass out.

"Are you okay to walk?"

"I'm fine," I said almost incoherently.

"Oh yes, you're just at the peak of physical wellness." It made me smile to hear the detective talk sarcastically.

"Hey, I said I was fine. I never claimed to be perfect."

I got up as slowly as I could. I was bleeding a lot from both stomach wounds and knew I wouldn't make it far. The pain in my ankle was hidden beneath all my new pains so it didn't trouble me when I walked over to the dead boy.

I took my fingers and wiped the blood off on my clothes before using them to close his eyes. People weren't born acting like that and I pitied him as much as my anger would let me. Shooting me was not how you got on my good side.

"You're a sentimental fool, you know that?" Vermouth told me. She hadn't left.

"You say that like it's… a bad thing."

"It is."

"Maybe it is for you," I told her, "but without having the capacity to… feel for others, I wouldn't be able… to enjoy their company either."

"You're just like your father."

All emotion and pain I was feeling turned to tense, solid, masks when I faced her.

"That one was as compliment" she laughed easily. "It took me a while but I remembered where I'd seen you before. You couldn't have been more than six at the time so it's no surprise that you forgot me. You were a one-trick magician at the time but the flower you gave me was still pretty. Even back then you gave me a black one."

"What?" I didn't remember meeting Vermouth before. I was too tired and exhausted to try and think back on all the things that had happened when I was a kid. The fact that I knew her was quickly overshadowed by something else she had said.

"You knew my dad?"

"Yes, and he was a sentimental fool just like you. It's the reason I've come to like the two of you. There's another person here who cares too much about the lives of murders like me. It's a shame you're not on the same side."

My eyes flashed to Kudo but I turned back to face her. Hakuba was at on my left and offered me his good hand. I took it so that I didn't have to be on my knees anymore. It hurt getting up and Hattori moved to help me as well. Once standing I was fine on my own.

"You should get out of here then." I looked away from her.

"Why, do I scare you?"

"No." A part of me felt traitorous at what I was about to do but I had a soft spot for females, an even softer one for someone who had just saved our lives, in her own roundabout way. "Kudo-kun's not stupid. He would have signaled whatever backup he had the second we…" I had to pause and wipe off some of the blood on my mouth since it was making it hard to talk, "we're alone with you. They'll be coming any minute."

Kudo eyed me darkly but I ignored him. Vermouth took his action to mean that everything I said had been true.

"Thank you. I guess I'll be getting out of here then." she waved before going down the hall the way Gin had gone. "I'm not worried about the cops who are outside but if the cool guy's friends are coming, I don't want to stick around."

"Why did you tell her that? We could have gotten one of them!" Kudo yelled from a few feet below me.

"Because it wouldn't have done anything except get her killed, and others killed when the… organization tried to stop her. I think enough people have died already."

"Kuroba-kun she's a murderer," Hakuba breathed. "Do you think she would have lifted a finger to help you if we hadn't come? She would have watched you die."

"I know that." The room drew in and out of focus and I swayed even as I held onto the detective's arm. "Can we just say I'm an idiot and leave it at that for now?"

"For now," he agreed, "but we're going to get back to it later."

"Right."

Hakuba led me to the door as if I were blind, tugging my arm to get me to move in the right direction.

"Kuroba-kun are you sure you can walk?"

"No, I'm not. The second we get outside I'm passing out so if you keep going, I'm hoping to make it there."

The hallways were long and my focus constantly shifted until I was no longer aware how much time had passed.

"Kuroba!" I looked up and noticed I was leaning against one of the walls and had stopped the group. Hakuba looked at me with unrestrained concern. "We're almost there so stay with me."

"Right." I nodded, following him indiscriminately.

When we got to an elevator I took the time to notice that we were in the basement of some building.

After the ground floor button was hit, the jerky start of the lift made me lose the thin line of balance I had going and Hakuba half-caught me and lowered me to the ground.

"Be ready to get up when we stop" he told me. I nodded again.

We stopped.

"Damn it."

I used Hakuba to get back up and Hattori got on my other side. Between the two of them holding me up, I looked like a drunk.

"Ah!" I heard a woman scream. The detectives tugged me along past the desk where two female secretaries were.

I looked down at the blood we were all covered in.

"Crazy guy here snuck in a paint ball gun. Turns out my old man sent me here ta pick him up so he'd stop causing trouble. Took me a while ta catch him but I got everything cleaned up."

Right. Great cover story on Hattori's part and he'd even thought of it quickly. There was no need to worry anyone until the police came in and sorted everything out.

The flashing lights were visible outside the glass doors.

How in the world had Vermouth and the other man gotten me in without anyone noticing? I wondered briefly. There must have been another exit.

"Ouch," I mumbled. I took a look at my hands and wiped one off on my – no, Hakuba's – coat before taking out the contacts. "How can you keep them... in so long?" I asked the detective.

"I can't take them out" he laughed. "I tried to do it several times but I only irritated my eyes further."

"Heh."

Hattori pushed the door open with his shoulder and I saw how much he was sweating. He had to put weight on his leg in order to move forward unless he wanted to hop and, since he was helping me, he couldn't do that.

I'd never been so happy to see so many cop cars.

"How'd they get here?" Hakuba asked.

"Me."

All three detectives turned to look in my direction.

"When did ya call the cops?"

"I didn't call them, I called the Inspector. I was a little vague on the details but… I told him to get as many cars as he could here at," I thought, "I don't know. I said about seven hours after I called. I don't know when they got here. I sent them the location the same way I did with you but with this."

I flipped a small metal piece about the size of a quarter into my hand and dropped it on the floor. I didn't want to keep the tracking chip on me or it would raise questions I couldn't answer.

I watched the night start to fade as dawn came.

"You do realize that now we're going to have to explain everything to them." Hakuba sighed. "I don't think I'm up for that."

"Neither am I," I agreed before letting myself fall to the ground with both detectives still trying to hold onto my arms.

"Kaito-kun?"

Footsteps ran over to us and I felt someone pick me up. They were warm compared to my body and I got comfortable in their arms. It had been a long time since someone had held me like that. "What happened?"

"A lot." I could hear the exhaustion in the detective's voice.

"Hakuba-kun?" Nakamori asked. "Is that you?"

"How I wish it wasn't."

"What's with-? Never mind that! You can explain it to me after! Is anyone else hurt?"

"There are a lot people hurt, yours truly included. I don't know…"

There was a pause in Hakuba's sentence and I opened my eyes to make sure he was okay. If I had enough strength to remain conscious, I could do that much.

He was fine. He was kneeling down near Kudo and discussing what they should do about the whole situation. Hakuba nodded and Kudo got on the phone.

"Kaito-kun." I felt Nakamori shake me and I turned to look at him. The guy wasn't a spring chicken anymore but there wasn't any strain in his arms from keeping me in the air. Adrenaline was a funny thing. "Are you awake?"

"Little," I said sleepily, blinking to keep my eyes open. Now that I was safe I felt bone deep exhaustion run through my body.

"Okay, you're going to be fine. I'm going to-" I watched as he looked at the men around him as if he were searching for one of them in particular. The Inspector's eyes were soft when they looked down at me and I smiled sluggishly in return. "I'm going to take you to the hospital myself."

"'Kay."

"Christ you're bleeding a lot." Nakamori trudged me over to his car and I could tell that Hakuba was following us. Kudo had to remain behind and Hattori wavered on making a decision on whom to follow. He was moved out of my sight before he made up his mind so I didn't know where he went.

"Is he going to be all right until we get there?" Hakuba asked. He was near my head so I couldn't see him.

"How long ago did he get shot?"

The detective, for the first time, was unsure of the time. That worried me.

"Maybe – ah – maybe fifteen minutes ago or a little longer than that."

"Why the hell did you wait so long?" I felt his hands tighten but he took care not to hurt me. "I don't know if–"

I looked back up to meet his eyes but the movement was hard and my head felt heavy. Nakamori was already at his car and Hakuba opened the back door so that they could lie me down. When I was pressed against the seat I could feel that my clothes were just soaked in my blood.

"Hakuba-kun, stay in the back and keep pressure on the wound. Wait a -!" I felt a cold breeze as the detective was drawn away from the side of the door. There was the sound of clothing being ripped. "Your wound's pretty bad too. Try and keep this arm away so that your blood doesn't mix or it might make him sick. God knows he doesn't need that right now."

"I know. Ah!" Hakuba made a noise as something hurt him and I heard cloth rubbing against cloth.

"Hurry and get in!"

As the detective hurried in the car, he tried to force himself into the tiny space between the back seat and the front seat without sitting. The door closed as Nakamori's opened and I felt as the detective pushed his hand onto my stomach.

It really, really hurt.

"Sorry," He apologized to me. I breathed in and out quicker than I had been before. It felt like he was shoving a knife into my gut. "Deal with the pain until we get there."

I tried hard not to twitch at ever motion the car made but it also made the detective's hand move. It got to the point where darkness and pain mixed into one behind my closed eyes.

"Wake up!"

I felt the detective push harder and blood that had been slowly seeping out of my mouth came in a gush and I had to lean over to spit it out.

"Stay awake damn it! If you fall asleep now you won't be waking back up!"

Acknowledging him in any way was out of the question so I just let my head rest sideways and forced my eyes to stay open.

"We're almost there, all right? Just stay awake a little longer."

I looked at Hakuba and, damn it, he was crying again. He never made any outward sound and his voice only shook in the slightest but there were obvious tears in his eyes.

"You can't… get rid… of me… that... easily." Not the best vote of confidence but more than remaining quiet and coughing up blood would give him.

"Right, you can't die yet."

Hakuba smiled at me. As tired and hurt and bleeding and so-beyond-conscious as I was, I smiled back.

In a few minutes the police car pulled up and Hakuba moved out of the way so the Inspector could get me out of the back seat. I fell naturally into the grooves of his arms and let my eyes close, just for a moment.

When he had me out I opened them again so Hakuba wouldn't find more creative ways of keeping me awake. I was surprised when I saw Hattori first. The Osakan was right next to the Inspector as they rushed me in through the doors. I couldn't see the detective.

"This way sir," I heard a woman tell him as soon as he walked in. Then I saw Hakuba with her. All of us were hurried into a room and I was put onto one of those movable beds.

"Can I sleep… now?" I asked the detective with a smile.

"Only if there's no way for you to stay awake."

I fully looked at the detective now. His left sleeve had been ripped and my jacket was tied around his waist. Good, if he's thinking he should make sure that no one touches that, too much evidence. Hakuba had two patches where cloth had been torn off and tied around his arm to stop what they could of his own blood flow. HIs right sleeve and hand were covered in blood from where he must have been touching me. He looked anxious and tired but there was a new determination there and a hesitant connection to the detective I knew I wouldn't be able to get rid of.

I saw Hattori leaning angrily against a wall as a nurse went over to him.

"None," I smiled and let my eyes close slowly so I wouldn't have to be awake as the doctors did what they had to do with me.