Chapter 3
Kagome ran as fast as she could, holding the hem of her dress up above her ankles to keep from falling on her face. When she gets to the dance floor, she almost isn't able to slow down before running into Sango, Souta, and Inuyasha.
"Guys, I don't have time to explain, but we have to go, now," she exclaims, almost shouting to be heard over the music. "Where are David and Maria?"
"David is dancing with Shelly somewhere, and Maria went to the bathroom; Kagome, what's going on?" Souta asks, grabbing his sister by the hands and trying to calm her down. Kagome yanks her hands from his, grabs his jacket in both hands, and gets in his face.
"We don't have time for this! We need to get out of here right now!" And without waiting for a response from him or anyone else, Kagome starts to try and drag her brother out of the room, knowing that their friends will follow. Souta stops fighting her and starts following her after a few moments. They're almost at the door when someone calls Kagome's name from behind them.
"Go on ahead guys, I'm coming," she insists, pushing them all ahead of her while she turns around and heads back to the voice she'd recognized as David's.
"Where are you guys all going?" He asks when she was close enough to be heard easily.
"We have to go David," she states simply, grabbing his hand and pulling. David resists her, holding her in place.
"What do you mean we have to go? You guys were planning to just leave without me? What the hell Kagome?" David snaps angrily, yanking his hand from hers.
Before Kagome can say a word, a loud whoosh and an unbearable heat surrounds the room. Metal bends and warps, wood snaps and burns all around, turning the laughter and shouting in glee into shrieking and screaming in terror.
Kagome watches in helpless horror as David loses his balance and hits the ground, hard. They reach for each other, she to help, and as her hands grasp his, a calculating, triumphant look crossing his face. Not giving her a moment to change her mind, David yanks Kagome down to the ground, rolls her underneath him and wraps his hands around her neck.
"David?" She manages to choke out before her airway is cut off.
"Shut up!" David snarls down at her. "You were never supposed to leave this room alive. It was supposed to be easy." He begins to look confused as Kagome loses consciousness. "How did you-"
David is cut off as a foot connects with his face and he is thrown off balance, falling off of Kagome's prone form.
"Dick!" Sango manages to cough out before grabbing Kagome under the armpits and dragging her from the room. Souta comes up next to her and scoops Kagome up before turning and following Sango from the room. The group gets to the lobby of the hotel when an immense explosion rocks the whole building, knocking them all off of their feet and sending Kagome flying from her brother's arms. She rolls a few feet and comes to rest at the feet of Miroku.
Coming to a stop, lest he trip on the poor unconscious girl, Miroku looks down at the group and up at the hotel in obvious distress.
"What happened?" He demanded of the conscious trio.
Sango was the first to recover, brown eyes flaring bright as flames as she rose to her feet in her ruined prom dress to glare at Miroku. "You're really asking us? Kagome came and ushered all of us out and by the time we all got here the damn place blew all to hell!"
"Kagome?" Miroku asked, his eyes coming to rest on the young woman at his feet.
"Yes, that's her," Sango stated, moving towards her friend with purpose. "We need to get her to a doctor."
"No," Miroku exclaimed, lifting Kagome gently in his arms. "We need to get her, and all of you, out of here." And without another word, he turned on his heel and started walking briskly into the parking lot, Sango right on his heels. Souta and Inuyasha, who had pulled themselves to their feet during the conversation, followed as well.
"Who the devil are you anyway?" Sango demands of Miroku as he lays Kagome down in the passenger seat of a very creepy van.
"Name's Miroku. But you can call me Miro, beautiful," he says with a wink.
"My best friend is lying unconscious in your creepy kidnapper van with hand marks on her neck and you're hitting on me? Wow, talk about tasteless," Sango scoffs, pushing him aside and curling in the seat with Kagome.
"Never a bad time to flirt with a beautiful woman." Miroku turns to the boys and opens the back of his van for them, which is now empty. "Now, you all wait here. I have to find someone."
Sesshoumaru was very much enjoying being unconscious at the moment. Some part of his mind knew that to wake up would mean a lot of pain, and he'd decided that he'd much rather not. Something digging into his back? So what. A thick liquid running down his face? Who cares!
"Oye!"
Of course, whenever something is that good, another thing has to come along and ruin it. No, Sesshoumaru thought to himself. I'd much rather stay here and dream of that gorgeous girl in the red dress.
"Oye! Damn you Sess, wake up!"
Sesshoumaru groaned, shifting his weight to try to get more comfortable, and then groaned louder at the pain. His skin felt melted and burned, like it was trying to come off of his bones. He tried once again to escape into unconsciousness, but a firm hand closed around his bicep, and his golden eyes snapped open with an inhuman growl, teeth elongating like a tiger's. It took a moment for his eyes to focus on Miroku, looking down at him, and another to realize that it was Miroku's hand on his arm.
"You ready to let go now?" Miroku asked calmly, if a bit strained. Sesshoumaru assumed that the other man had seen something in his face showing confusion, because his eyes flicked down to his arm where Sesshoumaru had claws latched deep into the tissue.
"Sorry about that." Sesshoumaru had the decency to sound sheepish as he let go of Miroku's arm. The blue eyed man knelt down and draped his friend's arm over his shoulder and half lifted him onto his feet. Sesshoumaru cursed foully in French as he struggled to stand at least partially on his own.
"I've got you," Miroku muttered as the two slowly started working their way outside. To his dismay, Miroku heard sirens and knew that Sesshoumaru did too. "Sesshoumaru, I know how much you hate magic, but it would definitely help us get out of here undetected."
"Do it," Sesshoumaru whispers almost too low for Miroku to hear, but he does, and he immediately starts muttering a spell to keep them from being seen.
"I take you for granted sometimes Miro."
"Hush you, you're delirious."
Sesshoumaru laughs. "I'm trying to thank you, jerk."
"I know," Miroku replies. "That's how I know you're delirious."
At that, Sesshoumaru laughs so hard that he begins to cough. When the coughs subside, he glares over at the side of Miroku's head. "That was just cruel."
Kagome opened her eyes slowly and found that she did not recognize where she was at all. She stiffened and sat up quickly, putting a hand to her aching neck, taking note that she was in a van, and it seemed to be moving. Rolling onto her knees, trying to ignore the pounding in her head, she saw Sango, Inuyasha, and Souta all on the floor of the van, forming a semi-circle at which she was the center. Slightly panicked, she shuffled over to Sango as quietly as possible, covered her mouth, and shook her arm. The older girl woke with a start and raised her hand as if to hit Kagome with it, before seeing who it was hovering over her. Once her eyes focused, they widened and she flung her arms around her friend.
"Feeling better little chasse?" The girls heard from the front of the van. Kagome pulled her one shoe off and held it in her right hand, heel facing away from her, still kneeling on the ground half over Sango, prepared to defend her if need be. The man who'd spoken was Sesshoumaru, looking over his shoulder at them, half amusement and half something she couldn't identify in his gaze.
"I'm fi-" Kagome started to say that she felt fine, but a fit of coughing cut off the lie. When she recovered, she lifted her head and locked gazes with Sesshoumaru, who'd moved swiftly from the front passenger seat to the back seat with a water bottle in one hand and a wet cloth wrapped bundle in the other. He wordlessly opened the water bottle, which cracked loudly as the cap came off for the first time, and handed it to her. The cool water ran down her throat soothingly, and after she slowly finished the whole bottle, Kagome handed it to Sesshoumaru, who traded her for the wrapped bundle, which was cold. She put it on her neck, looked at Sango, and sat back on her heels in silence.
"I'm assuming that you'd like an explanation for why you woke up in a van."
Kagome nodded, not trusting herself to speak again without coughing.
"I thought so," Sesshoumaru sighed. "And it would be a waste of breath to tell you to trust me, right?"
The ice pack that he'd given Kagome then smacked him in the face, and he sighed again, "I'll take that as a no."
"As you should," Sango laughed. "Kagome may be small, but I'm sure she'd find a way to kick your ass."
"Alright, then I'll just tell you everything, ok? Don't interrupt, just let me talk." With a nod from Kagome, Sesshoumaru sat back, looked at Miroku for encouragement and started talking,
"I guess it's easiest for me to start at the beginning. My name is Sesshoumaru Taisho, and I'm about twenty one years old, give or take. Before you ask, I don't know exactly how old I am, and the reason is part of the story. I spent my childhood in France with Greek parents, and I'm what most people would consider a shape changer. My family has the spirit of the great cat shifters in our blood. Because of this, when I was barely out of my childhood, about twelve, my family was killed by sorcerers; I was captured and taken prisoner. They… experimented on me from the time they had me in their clutches, up until Miroku helped me escape about three months ago. I still don't know what they wanted, but Miro thinks they were trying to find out what makes me capable of shifting and removing it somehow. I won't scar you with the details, but suffice it to say that I would have lost my sanity without Miro to help me keep it."
"Ok," Sango interrupted, "but why are you two here?"
"I thought I'd asked you not to interrupt?" Sesshoumaru growled, glaring at Sango. She had the decency to look slightly embarrassed as she mimed zipping her lips. Satisfied, Sesshoumaru continued, "We're here because we learned that the descendants of the alpha dog shifter and the terrible fire shifter were in danger. It's all abuzz in sorcerer circles that the daughter of the first powerful fire shifter fell in love with a sorcerer and that he had her killed after she gave birth to twins almost nineteen years ago. It's said that if the twins showed any signs of being shifters that they would be killed. And according to our… sources, Ariana called in the hit tonight. On you five."