Author's Note: So, I'm in the middle of so many anime right now, I keep crossing plots and storylines and its getting insane! My advice to you, just watch one or two at a time LOL.

There you have it, the best advice you will receive today ;P

Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note, or anything remotely associated with it.

August 4, 2024. 11:51 PM... 20 Days Left...

After our heart to heart, Mello and I had both scooted ourselves to the wall of iron bars that separated us. I leaned against him as much as I could and we held hands through the bars. We were all captives in some crazy man's lair, not getting food or water, I was still in immense physical pain, but just being with Mello made all that go away.

Matt had come around to the near side of his of his cell too so as not to be completely excluded.

We all sat in silence for quite a while before I had the sense to ask, "So... Tell me about these guys. What is all this about?"

Neither of them answered me at first, but then Mello started with, "They're a crime syndicate, something of a parallel to our own," he gestured to Matt and himself. "They asked us to construct a bomb for them. We don't ever ask why but it isn't hard to guess. These guys pride themselves on being political extremists." Mello paused while he gathered his thoughts. "We've done business with them before, they're pretty low. It was going to be a straight deal at the warehouse; the bomb for the money. We brought Matt along specifically to make sure no one was watching us. Turns out there was," Mello shot me a look. "Matt recognized you first after you dropped your glasses."

I thought back to the warehouse and the person who had shouted, tried to get the others to stop shooting. No wonder his voice had been familiar. I looked across Mello to Matt and gave him a smile which he returned.

We were all talking for a little longer and I wasn't really paying attention until Mello's worried voice came over to me a little louder and a little more urgent than it had before.

"Jewel!"

"W-what?" I moaned.

"You've been zoning in and out for a while now. Are you okay?"

I thought about his words, but they weren't making a whole lot of sense. It was like I couldn't focus; I was feeling terribly lightheaded. "Uhm, yeah, sure," I nodded. I sensed that they didn't really believe me, but they continued their conversation anyway. A second later I became really worried about something. "What day is it?" I interrupted. They each gave me a concerned look, like maybe I'd hit my head. "They shot me with a tranquilizer. I was out of it for quite a while. I don't know what day it is," I explained.

I saw in my peripheral Matt checking his watch. "It's the fifth, a little after one AM."

I groaned worriedly.

"What?" Mello asked.

I hadn't had anything to eat or drink for four days. "It's nothing," I answered.

Another non-believing pause before Mello said, "Alright, your turn."

"My turn what?"

"Your turn to tell us how you got caught up in this, besides having been seen with us you know."

"Uh," I tried to concentrate and find my words, "Near," I concluded. "Near wanted us all in on this case for whatever reason. He sent me in to find out what was going on, and to get the bomb."

"Why'd he send you?"

"I don't know. Why not?"

"'Cause it's dangerous."

"Being alive is dangerous. If you're too afraid to die, you end up being too afraid to live."

"Yeah but, you have a kid to take care of, she needs you."

"She's fine. She doesn't 'need' me. She can take care of herself."

"Is that what you told yourself when you dropped her off at Wammy's." The way Mello had said that was more than a little harsh.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked back defensively. Mello didn't respond, but it didn't take me too long to figure it out. "You think I just left her there like your parents left you," I said quietly.

"Why'd you do it?" he asked me earnestly and my heart bled for him. After all these years, after everything that had happened to us, he was still thinking about how he had been abandoned, how he'd been left behind.

"It wasn't like that with us," I explained. "I didn't just leave her. I kept her with me until she was old enough to start going to school. She was already brighter than me, you or Near at her age. It was a given that she should attend Wammy's. It wasn't any different than if I'd chosen to send her to a private school. And besides, she wanted to go herself. I explained to her what it means to be a Wammy's kid and she's okay with that. She always said she wanted to be just like you," I smiled softly at him. "Besides, I was starting work with Near. I'm never home, I have people coming after me too. It wouldn't be fair to drag her into that just yet. If she wants to work with us when she's old enough, that's fine, but not now. And I'm always flying over to visit her."

"You still shouldn't have left her."

"Well isn't that the pot calling the kettle black." I said quietly, but angrily. I stood up to gain the metaphorical high ground. "Speaking of which! Where is she! You said she came here with you!"

"She called your stupid brother before we left. He came and picked her up before these Neanderthals," he stood and gestured towards the steel door, "came after me. She's safe."

I breathed out, relieved. "So then, Near knows something's up? Is he going to get us out of here?"

"Why are you asking me? He's your brother."

"You can be so stubborn sometimes!"

"Well isn't that the pot calling the kettle black!"

Mello and I glared at each other for a good minute before my legs gave out and I collapsed in a heap on the floor.

I started coming around again when I heard angry shouts coming from Mello's cell.

"That wasn't the deal! The deal was you let her go!"

"Oh, we'll let her go. We'll let her go when we verify your information. In fact, when we have the bomb and the money, we'll let all of you go."

"She needs to be let out now! You're going to kill her!"

"You should have thought about that before you waited so long to tell us. And in fact," I heard a clinking of iron bars, "she's going to be our little insurance policy when we go in there!"

I felt a cold, hard, hand latch on around my ankle. My eyes hammered open in panic and a startled shriek escaped my throat. "Mello!" I cried and instinctively reached out towards him, but no luck. I kicked out wildly with my free foot as I felt myself being dragged out of my cage.

"Let her go now! You'll pay for this!"

I looked up to the front of Matt's and Mello's cells and saw frantic and angry expressions on their faces. I clawed futilely at the cement floor. I tried grabbing onto various iron bars as I passed them, but ended up crying out in pain as the wrenching motion tore at my aching arms. "Mello!" I called weakly one last time before the steel door slammed shut between us.

"W-what's going on?" I asked fearfully.

"Mello told us where to find our bomb and our money," the boss told me. "My men are going to take you along to make sure we don't run into any resistance."

But, Mello doesn't know where the bomb or the money are... "Where are they?"

"Don't play dumb. We know your organization has them."

Mello! What did you do?

I was half dragged, half pushed through the dark city streets as I attempted to come up with a plan. What was Mello's game? Telling these guys that the bomb and the money were at, what was he thinking? He was going to cause a lot of problems for Near and the rest of us.

About thirty seconds later I finally clued into the fact that we were going the wrong way.

"Where are we going?" I asked them.

"We're going to your organizations headquarters. I thought we made that perfectly clear," the one who was holding onto me said.

There were four of them altogether. Greasy ponytail guy and the boss had elected to stay at their own base. Of the ones who I was with, there was the one who was more or less carrying me, as I had little, if no strength left to stand on my own, and three others. They had huge muscles and tattoos like the ones I had seen before them... and they all smelled. Three of the four were packing handguns, and the fourth had a rifle. Wherever we ended up, I was sure someone was going to end up dead. And yet, at the same time I couldn't wait to get wherever we were on our way to. All I wanted to do was sit down.

Five minutes later we ended up in a sketchy part of town nowhere near where we were supposed to be. I figured Mello must have given them these directions, but why? Didn't he realise that when they got here and found no bomb and no money that they would be really pissed off? Was Mello hoping and counting on me to have escaped by then?

"You guys are pretty low tech huh?" the one asked me, seeing a rundown office building in front of us.

I didn't say anything; I didn't know what to say.

We let ourselves into the front lobby. It was a small but open room, with a large desk at the back of the space. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this.

There was nobody around.

There was no secretary behind the desk, no people sitting in uncomfortable chairs waiting to be served. I mean, I know it was the middle of the night, but still... and the doors were open.

Then it hit me and I breathed a sigh of relief. Of course!

"Where is everybody?" the one holding me demanded.

There were two doors on either side of the secretary's desk. Which one should I lead them through? I checked quickly around the room for some sort of subtle indication left behind, some sort of clue to tell me which one.

Missing secretary.

I was the secretary, I was the one who would direct these men.

'Right this way,' I would say.

Right this way.

Right.

"To the right. The door at the back."

They pushed me over and I stumbled a couple feet, this time on purpose though. I would get a couple steps in front of them. A couple steps was all I needed.

With my heart pounding in anticipation I forced myself forward and opened the door.

I'd barely gotten it open half a foot when a strong, firm arm grabbed my wrist and violently yanked me through the rest of the way. I fell onto the linoleum floor and crashed into a wall as deafening barrage of gunfire erupted behind me.

When all went silent I felt two strong arms hoist me to my feet.

"No!" I struggled and whined for a moment until I realised who it was. "Gevanni. What are you doing here?"

"What am I doing here? I'm saving you."

I looked around and saw seven men from the organization including Near who was sitting casually in a corner.

"Mommy?" I heard a tiny voice from a darkened area.

I turned in Gevanni's arms and saw half of a tiny, pale face peeking out from behind an open doorway.

"Michelle!" I cried, and tears of joy filled my eyes. I had no sooner scooped her into my arms however, when everything faded to black.

I woke up in my own bed with Gevanni, Near and my princess standing and starring worriedly over me. I made a move to sit up and found that my muscles were much less stiff and sore than they had been. On the whole I felt almost back to perfect health. I noticed a tangle of wires and tubes to my side and discovered that I had an IV in my arm and bags of clear fluids hanging on a stand above my head.

"Okay, someone explain to me in three sentences or less, what happened."

"We met Mello at the airport and he told us you had been kidnapped so he concocted a plan," Gevanni started, "We took the kid and Matt and Mello let themselves be captured so that they could believably lead your captors into a trap set by the rest of us."

Two sentences, not bad.

"Okay, cool, sounds good. So what's the plan for getting Mello and Matt out now?" Near and Gevanni shared an awkward glance. "Whaaaat?" I asked.

"Mello insisted that he didn't need our help to get out. That he and Matt could take care of themselves."

"IDIOTS! And you just agreed to that?" I shouted. The sudden outburst rocking my, less than par self, for a bit of a loop.

"What did you want us to do? He was quite adamant about it."

"Well, we're going in after them," I said flatly.

"Uh, no. We're not," Gevanni said back and I shot him a death glare.

"Excuse me?"

"Mello and Matt are members of a crime syndicate themselves don't forget. If we help them out now it would be quite counterproductive."

"EXCUSE ME!" I threw my covers back and pulled the needle out of my arm.

"What are you doing?" Gevanni asked, urgency rising in his voice.

"I'm going after them dumbass. They just saved my life! They've been my best friends for forever and you want me just to abandon them?" I thought back to Mello and his earlier reference to Wammy's and being left by the two people he cared more about than anything. "No, I'm not going to do that."

"Well understand that our hands are tied with this Jewel. We can't help you!"

"I don't care. I'm not asking for your help. I'm going in after them."

"Jewel, I think we need to talk about this first. I don't like the idea of my fianc-"

"And I don't like the idea of the two people I just got back in my life being lost again!" I shouted.

"I'm going with you mommy!" a small voice said to me from the other side of the room.

I looked down at the golden hair child and laughed, "You've developed a sense of humour eh?"

"Mommy! I want to come! I want to help you."

"I respect that hun, but this is just a little too dangerous for you."

"Uncle Near let me come with him when we went to save you."

"Uncle Near is an idiot," I explained.

"Where else would you have had me keep her?" Near asked defensively. "The frequency of which your bloodline, myself excluded, gets kidnapped, is just absurd. I wasn't about to leave her alone for a minute."

"So getting kidnapped is bad, but being in the middle of a gunfight, that's just peachy," I muttered sarcastically. I turned back to my little girl, "You stay with Uncle Near and Gevanni and make sure they don't get kidnapped alright?" I said it like an exasperated boss would, at having to coax their employees to do the simplest task. "Now! All of you out! Someone make me a sandwich! NO! TWO sandwiches! And whatever else is in the fridge! I'm taking a shower and going in!"

"Bu-"

"The first one who argues with me gets a time out! And I don't care how old you are!" I stormed into my washroom and stripped down for a shower.

The hot water felt so good on my skin, but I couldn't waste time revelling in the awesomeness that was a shower. When I got out I dried off, tied my hair back in a braid, and got dressed all in black. My steel toed shoes I slipped on my feet and my brass knuckled and switch blade I dropped into my pockets. I also made sure to take my own personal firearm from the desk. I checked the clip.

Fully loaded.

Never assume.

When I came into the kitchen, everything was as I had specified. There were two sandwiches, fully loaded with lettuce, onions, cheese, tomatoes, and a pickle. And there was an assortment of vegetarian cuisine everywhere. The three who had been here, were gone.

I ate the majority of what was laid out, drank a litre of vitamin water and, fully fuelled, left on my mission.

I found my way easily back to the bad guys' lair. All I had to do was look for the dumpiest building in New York... That, and backtrack from the abandoned office building that my brother had used for his ambush.

It was still dark out, but a fine line of light blue sky was making its way up the horizon. I would have to make this fast. A stealth approach, an In-and-Out was always easier in the dark. I didn't want to go in blind though; a hasty amount of time was dedicated to a half-assed surveillance attempt.

When I was sure the coast was clear, I let myself inside.

I listened closely inside the door and heard nothing. Surely some sort of word, or conclusions had been drawn about the surprise attack on this man's group. They had to be expecting that myself, or at the very least, someone else would be coming to free the two that had been left behind.

I crept into rooms and though hallways and grew more and more worried every time I came across an unoccupied space. Where was everybody?

Finally I came to a long hallway with an open door at the end and a light burning behind it.

Inside I found only one man. 'The Boss.'

I raised my gun.

"I wouldn't pull that trigger Jewel; not just yet."

"Why not?"

"Because, I have something to show you." The boss got up from his seat. "Please follow me my dear."

The whole thing screamed 'Trap!' inside I was even screaming at myself to pull the trigger; just shoot him in the back and be done with it. But I complied.

The boss led me through a short corridor to a closed door. He motioned for me to go in ahead of him. I didn't like that idea, of him being behind me. But I complied.

Words cannot accurately describe what met me when I opened that door.

A feeling of immense hopelessness washed over me as I took in the scene. Before me, were seven people; five of them were thugs, and two of them meant the world to me.

"This isn't happening!" I moaned. "This isn't happening."

"Oh, but it is my dear. You and your friends have dealt in bad faith, and now, someone is going to pay for it."

Two muscle bound Neanderthals were holding a furious Mello at one corner of the room and another was holding my precious daughter at the other. One man stood poised at Mello with a gun to his head, another stood at my precious daughter with a gun to her head.

My beautiful little girl; my little girl with her petite frame, her shining hair and her azure eyes was being held by the scum of the Earth and had a gun to her head. Her captivating eyes were filled with terror and fear.

"Mommy!" my daughter's lilting cry met my ears.

I made a move to run for her but a fat, grimy hand grabbed my platinum braid, holding me where I was.

"We found that pretty little thing snooping around outside. She looks kind of like you doesn't she? You should have taught her not to trespass."

"Baby!" I cried, "Don't worry, I'm going to get you out of here! I promise."

"Oh dear me, dear me," the boss said, his hand still wrapped around my hair. "You should not be making promises you might not be able to keep."

I locked eyes with Mello in hopes to silently understand what had happened here, what had gone so wrong. Then I realised, someone was missing. "Where's Matt?" I asked frantically.

"The funny looking redhead? He escaped the coward. He got away and left this friend to die here. It's a shame really, but he'll have to live with that guilt." I felt the boss shrug behind me. "And oh, by the way, I'll be taking your gun now. We wouldn't want anybody to get shot by accident now would we?"

I had no choice. If there had only been one gunman I could have taken him out. But there were two. By the time I shot one, the other would have killed someone very special to me. I handed over my piece to the boss and he released my hair.

"Now then, as you are the last to join the party, the choice is yours."

"The choice is mine?" I asked, not understanding.

"Yes, the choice. The choice of which one of the two before you will die."

"WHAT!" I cried, and the boss latched onto my hair again, for fear I should act rashly.

"YOU CHOOSE WHICH ONE WILL DIE!" he demanded.

"No! Why!

"You betrayed us Jewel. You and your party acted deceptively. You're lucky I'm only going to kill one of them!"

"NO! PLEASE!" I begged, tears forming in my eyes.

"Which one dies Jewel!"

Author's Note: D': OMG NO! What's she going to do! Who's she going to choose!

Oh, btw, last chapter to get your votes in for my age ;P There's prizes people, PRIZES :D