I shook. "Bakura, you found me! Your turn to hide and I'll count!"
His grip tightened and my spine burned. "Cannibal! Is that what you think I am?"
I sighed and wrestled away from him. "Maybe I do. You going to do anything about it?" I was probably gambling with my life here, but I wasn't going to go without answers or a fight.
I saw his mouth open to reply when music rang through the air.

My backpack's, got jets!
I'm Boba, The Fet!

We both turned to my book bag, which rested at the top of the stairs, and bolted for it.
I don't know if it was the adrenaline that made me faster or if Bakura was somehow not as quick as I'd made him out to be, but I was the first to reach my bag, and I ripped my phone out of the side pocket and flipped it open.

Bakura was on me in two seconds. With my good foot, I kicked him down a few stairs and ran into the bathroom, locking the door behind me.

"Hello!" I shouted into the phone. I could hear Bakura jiggling the knob. At best, I had five minutes before he broke the damn door down.
"Violet? Where the hell are you, what's that noise!" It was Yari on the line. I could hear Alison's worried voice in the background. "Alison had me call to check up on you and make sure you got home ok. We're at your house and Fenrir's howling!"

"I'm at Bakura's house! I locked myself in the bathroom; he's trying to open the door!" I replied.
"Violet, seriously, open the door!" Bakura demanded from the other side. I yelled for him to go away and the house was quiet, save for my panting.
"What, the new British kid? Why are you there!" Alison was suddenly on the phone. "Are you hurt! What happened?"

"I'm fine, I broke my heel walking home and Bakura found me. But he's fucking crazy, Alison! He casted my foot then hit the cast with a pipe, then turned off the power in his house and left me in the dark in his fricken' mansion!" I explained. Out of my peripherals I could see a credit card in the crack of the door. I quickly snatched it and threw it in the bathtub. Bakura swore at me and went away again. "He's trying to get in. I don't know what he wants but every time we talk my spine burns! I'm a little frightened..."

"I'll call the police." Alison reassured me, aware of my strange sixth sense, and I told her no. "We don't even know why he's doing what he's doing, Ali. What if it turns out he's just insane or has ADHD? We can't call the cops until we know the full story."

"Violet, do you really wanna wait it out and take that risk? I'll set up my tracer and find the address to his house. Stay on the p- wi- ok?" her voice crackled and I saw lightning outside the bathroom window. We were getting interference from the rain.
"Alison! Alison, can you hear me?" I raised my voice. Bakura returned with another card and I grabbed it. This time we engaged in a tug-of-war before he won and yanked it back out with him.

"Vi—hear me?" Alison stuttered. "Can't tr —call…find you when the storm passes, you need to hang tight until then!" then the phone beeped several times, indicating the call had dropped.
Great, I thought. The door shook violently and Bakura started to kick it. "Leave me alone!" I screamed.

"Violet chill the fuck out," he snipped. "I'm not a cannibal, and I don't wanna hurt you. But if you keep screaming bloody murder the neighbors are going to start making calls, and I'm gonna have to shut you up."
"If you really don't wanna hurt me then you won't break inside!" I challenged. The door stopped rattling and I could hear him sigh in frustration. "If you want my trust then you need to start giving me answers. Straight answers."

Bakura slumped against the door and sat down, his shadow extending across the bathroom tiles. "Can I at least have my credit card back?"
"After you answer my questions." I said.

"Why'd you hit my foot with a pipe?"
"To make sure the cast was sturdy."
"What if it wasn't sturdy?"
"I'd apologize rapidly for breaking your foot even more and build a sturdier cast."
"Why do you even have a pipe?"
"Are all these questions about my pipe?"
"Who has the phone in this situation?"
"I found it in the alley across the street, okay!"
"Okay. Are you a cannibal?"
"No."
"Why is your hair white?"
"Genetics."
"…Pffft…I'm so sure."
"This is my natural hair color! My sister had white hair!"
"'Had' is a past-tense word, suggesting temporariness."
"Then you're just going to have to take my word for it. That's my answer and I'm sticking to it."
"Yeah okay. Just because I don't see any bottles of dye in here doesn't mean I won't find any."

I sighed and leaned against the door. I could feel him on the other side. It was warm, unlike the floor. It was a meat locker in here; I could feel my toes going numb. I fingered Bakura's credit card and my phone rested in my lap as I voiced the most important question, the one that was still bugging me.

"Okay," I drew in a breath. "Now tell me why the games? What was the point of leaving me on your balcony back there? Leaving me in the dark, you doing who knows what while I hid in a liquor cabinet waiting for you to turn the lights back on and find me? That seriously frightened me," I admitted, wrapping my arms around myself.

I waited, but Bakura was silent, to my frustration. I couldn't tell if he was pondering this himself or just didn't feel the need to answer. After about five minutes of continuous silence, I grew angry.

"Fine!" I declared. "Then I'll just stay here until the storm passes. Then I'll call for help and someone will come get me!" In my state of ranting, I shoved his card under the slip of the door and crawled into the bathtub. There I sat, just angrily staring at the door with my arms crossed in front of my chest. Bakura still hadn't said a damn thing.

But inside, I was scared. I was scared of his answer to my last question. And one more question still remained.

What did he want with me? Why couldn't he leave me sleep, or offer me a normal tour, or something psychos don't do?

The minutes ticked by, then became half an hour. Then an hour. I was slowly freezing to the tub, and I could see my breath, inhales and exhales. All the anger and adrenaline had left me a while back, and I glanced at the door; I wondered if Bakura was still there, leaning against the door, warming it.

Slowly, I crawled onto the floor and shuffled over to the large rectangle of wood that separated me from him, and gently as I could, pressed my fingertips against it.

It was warm. Bakura hadn't left. A curious wording of thought popped into my head as I lay back against the door.
Bakura hadn't left my side. The way I thought it…it was almost like he purposely stayed to keep the door warm for me…

But that was silly. I shook my head and brushed my hair over my shoulders, checking the time on my phone. The clock read 12 AM.
Suddenly aware of how late it was, my eyes drooped a little, and I yawned.

"You're still alive. I figured your tits would've frozen off by now," Bakura muttered from the other side, making me shriek. "I have blankets and heat out here. And yes, this is a bribe."

"No." I said, stubborn. "I want my question answered. Why did you go all theatrical psycho on me and leave me in the dark like that? You made me generate theories like you were a molester who moved to different cities to lure women to your place so you could sell their organs. Then I thought you were a rapist murderer. Then a cannibal. I get ancy in dark spaces, man. It doesn't help that you have to have the weirdest hair color I've ever seen on a man, either."

Bakura chuckled. "You ramble a lot when you're frightened. Leave's a lot of room for opportunity."
"I'm not frightened!" I defended, lightly hitting the door. "I'm independent. And what do you mean; I leave a lot of room for opportunity?"

Then I figured it out. While I'd been chattering on about my theories, Bakura had silently been sliding his card back through the door. I watched in horror as the door gave away with a gentle 'click', and swung open, revealing a smirking alabaster man looking down at my shuddering form.
Defeated, I looked down at my lap as he merely lifted me off the ground and turned in the direction of the guest room I'd been initially placed in. The sudden warmth made me shiver and yawn again.

When we re-entered, I immediately noticed he'd moved things around. In that hour of silence, he had temporarily left his post by the bathroom door and placed my bag in the chair by the bed. A small space heater sat by the closet and the bed had been remade, a heating pad underneath the covers. The sight made me appreciative, and almost made me forget why I wanted to be as far away from Bakura as possible.

He stood over the bed and casually let me fall into the mattress, before sitting on the edge himself. While I sat up and adjusted myself, waiting for my veins to defrost, I looked him over again.
He caught me looking and grinned dumbly. "Relishing in what you've spotted, Love?" he mocked, abusing the power of his accent. I told him he wished and crossed my legs as best I could. I idly ran my fingers along the cast as the silence between us dragged through.

"Thank you," I finally said, gesturing around the room. "I suppose your behavior earlier was necessary. I talked shit at you."
Bakura shook his head. "It was rash. But it probably wouldn't have happened had I not decided to toy with you and make you run around my house in the dark." He sighed, sounding defeated himself, and laid back in the covers, staring at the ceiling. "I only did it to get back at you for being ungrateful to my aid."
"Oh..." I mini face-palmed and slumped forward. "Sorry. But you did strip me."
"I'm not getting into this conversation again. We already established the reasons why you're in my nightwear."
"Did we, old chap?"
"That's racist. I'm telling on you."
"Who'll you tell genius? It's your house. It's not even like I'm abusing you on my property." I laughed and curled up under the covers.
"I'll tell the government. Of Texas. In the Canadian Republic. On the German borders."
"Hey, I'm Texan. And your geography is very questionable."
"Learn something new every day, don't we?" teased the male, standing and shutting off the lamp near my head, casting the room in darkness. "Like the fact that we're odd enough to switch from hostile bathroom forts to tattle-tailing, accent-abusing jokes."

"Bakura?" I said. He stopped and lowered his arm to rest beside my face. We were now shrouded in darkness, the only light coming from the open door leading out to the balcony. The albino, though I couldn't see his face, was looking down at me, silent. His hair draped down and lay overtop my own black locks. "Thank you for saving me tonight. I owe you a lot."

He chuckled. I imagined tired, brown eyes and a half smirk- half smile on his face. "You don't owe me anything. How can you expect to pay me back when you're my breakfast tomorrow?"

He straightened and lingered for a second more, before turning his back to me and exiting the room, closing the door with a soft 'click'. I lay under the covers, staring at the door with my eyes wide open. After a minute, I heard him bursting into laughter as he made his way down the stairs. I rolled my eyes and pulled the covers over my head.
He wasn't going to eat me.
…Right?

I told you I was coming back. :3

Miss me? I missed you guys!

And about six more chapters are coming up. That's how much I wrote while my internet was out.