Chapter 17

'So... how are you feeling?'

'Like myself,' Tristan felt his face pull into an uncertain expression, 'although I'm not sure that's such a good thing right now.'

'What do you mean?' Kaiba narrowed his gaze.

'Téa,' Tristan gritted his teeth, 'she saw me... like that and I think she's going to cause problems for us.'

'Is there any way of keeping her quiet?'

'She left a while ago, so she's probably done more than enough damage by now,' he gave a disgusted sigh. 'You know she's convinced herself you're abusing me somehow.'

'You don't think she would tell people that, do you?' Kaiba sounded agitated.

'I don't think there's any way of stopping her,' Tristan folded his arms, 'not at this point. We're going to need to do some damage control and quickly,' he shifted his gaze away. 'So I was thinking I should go see my parents, since that's where she's likely to start.'

'Hmm.'

'What is it?' Tristan met his gaze.

'Nothing,' he turned away.

'No, I can tell from your tone it's something. So, what? You think I'm just making this up as an excuse to tell my parents about my latest problem in what's stacking up to be a very long list?'

'That's not it.'

'Then what is it?'

'I told you, it's nothing.'

'Why don't I believe you?' Tristan grabbed hold of Kaiba's shoulders and forced him to meet his gaze. 'Why don't you want me talking to my parents?'

'Because they trusted me to look out for you and I failed,' Kaiba pulled away from him. 'Just like I failed to keep Mokuba safe from whatever that hell future did to him. I don't like failure and I sure as hell don't like other people knowing about it.'

'So this is all about ego for you,' Tristan rolled his eyes, 'I should have known. But would you rather my parents only had Téa's warped little viewpoint on this situation? Would you rather they took me away from you?'

Almost as soon as he'd said the words he wished he hadn't. The meaning behind them edged too close to overstepping the boundaries of their friendship. Inside Tristan willed Kaiba to ignore them or at least say something. Instead all he got was a prolonged silence.

'I guess I should go now,' Tristan made his way towards the door, 'the longer I put it off, the harder it's going to be.'

'Tristan...'

'Don't worry; I'll be back in time to put Mokuba to bed.'

'That's not what I was going to say.'

'Then what were you going to say,' Tristan glanced back towards him.

'I...' Kaiba hesitated and shook his head. 'It doesn't matter.'

'Funny,' Tristan coughed out a laugh, 'I thought only I was allowed to use that phrase.'

For a long time Ahna and Mai had just talked about their encounters with Joey and what Covo had seen. Neither of them had really wanted to believe it was true, but the longer they talked, the more things started adding up. But even so the odd, distant behaviour had come on too suddenly for this to be anything but a recent development. On top of that she just knew there was no way Joey would do something like this to her; not whilst she was pregnant. It couldn't be true. It just couldn't.

Ahna had eventually left a couple of hours after the doctors had run their final tests for the day, leaving Mai to drift in and out of unhappy consciousness. During those couple of hours another girl had been moved into the bed next to her and the curtains pulled across. As Mai lay there in a state halfway between consciousness and sleep, she heard two of the nurse gossiping.

'So do they know who she is yet?'

'No.'

'Shame, she's quite a pretty little thing.'

'Probably be left with that one scar though. Mostly bruising, fortunately.'

'Does anyone know what happened yet?'

'Well the guy who phoned it in said she was attacked, but after saying where she was, he hung up.'

'Probably didn't want to get involved.'

'Yeah, probably, either that or he was the one who did it.'

'Only complete and utter psychos phone their own crimes in. My guess is it was probably some gang and the good Samaritan was afraid of repercussions.'

'Who'd have thought we'd start getting gang attacks to this level in Domino.'

'I know. And they had the nerve to rob her too. No purse. No ID. It's going to make tracking down the parents pretty hard.'

'Yeah, it will.'

'Still, she got off better than that girl a few months back.'

'Oh yeah. She'll be grateful of that when she wakes up, I'm sure.'

'You know, I've got a daughter about her age.'

'You should warn her to be careful when she goes out then.'

'Oh she knows.'

'Still, it only takes being in the wrong place at the wrong time and everybody's capable of that.'

There was something lulling about the nurses' idle voices and Mai began to feel herself drifting off again.

'She's such a pretty little thing.'

'So was the other girl. In fact the two look a lot alike.'

'You're right, they do. Hey maybe we really have a psycho on our hands. Like a serial killer in training or something. A potential killer with a fetish for brunettes...'

There was no space too small for a picture to fit. That's what he'd discovered. It didn't matter if the drawing was crude and inaccurate. That wasn't the point. The point was to get these images out of his head and weaken the monster's control on him. He had to weaken the monster's control on him so he could remember what he'd been told. The vital piece of information which would send the monster away forever. If got rid of the monster then he wouldn't become the monster and then... then he would be okay again. Then he could be around people again.

Nightmarish images clawed at the space behind his eyes. It felt as though they wanted to break out as much as he wanted to get rid of them. He didn't know if that was a good thing or not, but he didn't really care. Baby monsters didn't have to care about why they were doing what they were doing; they just had to do it. They had to do it and hope it didn't turn them into an adult monster in the process.

A crawling shudder ran up and down his spine as he heard the door open behind him.

'What do you want now,' he growled out the words, not wanting to turn round.

'It's time for you to go to bed.'

'Are you sure; seems to me like I've only just woken up.'

'I guess time has no meaning for you in here,' his intruder gave a nervous laugh, 'then again today did just fly by. So... busy day was it? I can see at least four new drawings today.'

'Congratulations,' he felt his lips curl into a snarl, 'I see your powers of observation are better than your memory.'

'You still haven't told me what it all means.'

'A mindless fool like you wouldn't understand.'

'Mokuba...!'

'Leave me alone.'

'I can't. I told you, it's time for you to go to bed.'

'And you need to put me to bed, do you? Like I'm some little kid who can't do anything for themselves.'

'Yes actually.'

'Get out,' he gritted his teeth.

'Not till you're in bed. You need to get some sleep.'

'Don't tell me what I need,' he flick summoned an energy ball into his hand, 'you have no idea what I need.'

'But I want to know. I want to know how I can help you. So talk to me. Tell me what you need.'

'What I need you can't give me.'

'You don't know that.'

'Oh, I do. I know it all too well. I know a lot of things all too well. You should remember that. Then again, why am I talking to you about remembering anything? It's a good day for you if you wake up knowing your own name.'

'Mokuba...'

'I thought I told you to leave me alone,' he tossed the energy ball over his shoulder, not really caring whether or not it hit anything.

'Not till you're in bed.'

'I'll go to bed when I'm ready.'

'Which is code for never,' his intruder was starting to sound angry now, 'don't you think your brother and I have cottoned onto your games by now? It's late and my day has been far from stress free, so please do me a favour and go to bed.'

'Fine, but don't think I'm happy about this.'

'I don't need you to be happy about it. I just need you to sleep.'