Part 26: Crash and Burn Part II
-oOoOo-
Krad raised his head stiffly from the ground and watched in shock as Satoshi's hybrid tumbled through the guardrail and off the cliff next to the highway. He could have been in that car. So could Satoshi. So would Satoshi, if the angel hadn't pulled the boy out with him.
He was lying on his side on the grassy shoulder of the road. Satoshi lay deathly still alongside him, his back pressed to the angel's chest. Krad's arms were still looped fiercely around the boy's chest and waist.
The blonde's nerves were buzzing from the impact of the rolling dive he'd taken out of the moving car. He groaned and let his cheek rest back against the rocky soil as he took a mental inventory of the damage. His limbs at least felt functional, and he didn't think anything was broken. That didn't stop the sense of growing panic that was blazing through him. He couldn't ignore the warm body he was still clutching against him. Satoshi wasn't moving.
The angel slowly unlatched one of his arms and raised his hand to the boy's throat, pressing his fingers firmly to Satoshi's vein. Krad could hear his own pulse crashing violently in his ears, but the wing host had no rhythm of his own.
The angel stared at the back of Satoshi's head and slowly withdrew his hand. He told himself it wasn't a surprise. The boy had taken two shots to the chest. It would be impossible for a human to survive that much, not to mention the violent jump from the car.
His head spun. Krad turned his gaze stiffly to the pavement beneath him rather than Satoshi. The sound of engines approaching was almost a welcome distraction as it broke into his moment of…whatever this was. The angel raised his eyes to the road, remembering finally that he was still being pursued. The Lexus that had been tailing them pulled to a stop a few yards away. The biker that was responsible for Satoshi's wounds doubled back as well, parking on the opposite shoulder. Krad's senses began to click back on, like the whole world had been on pause. He flung his attention to his pursuers and forced it to stay there. He couldn't afford to be off his guard right now.
A man and a woman stepped out of the car. He recognized Midnight immediately. It took a second longer to recognize Ryuusuke walking next to her with a pistol in his hand. Krad reached down slowly and felt for the gun he'd pocketed from Satoshi's car. His fingers curled around the grip while his pointer found the trigger. The angel hadn't used a gun before, but he at least knew enough to fire it. Unsure of his aim, he waited for them to come closer, like a croc waiting for a gazelle to approach the water. He would only get to surprise them once.
"Well, Krad, you've certainly caused some trouble," Midnight said coldly. "Your friend doesn't look too healthy. Very gallant, that little stunt you pulled. Could it be that boy's fault you're such a lousy pet?"
Krad narrowed his eyes, anger flaring up in him. He gripped the gun and jerked it out, pointing it straight at Ryuusuke. There was no hesitation. He fired at the man's chest. The bullet caught Ryuusuke in the gut and sent him to the ground screaming. The explosion reverberated through Krad's skull.
He turned the barrel on Midnight next. She was staring at Ryuusuke and backing up, about to run back to the car. The motorcyclist was beginning to run toward them from the other side of the street, holding a pistol. Krad scowled at his retreating target, deadly intent glowing in his eyes.
Midnight didn't make it back to the car. Krad's bullet passed through her shoulder, and the next hit the small of her back off-center. She shrieked in pain and tripped to the ground. She convulsed on the pavement and then fell still.
Krad's attention didn't linger on his kill. He spun his focus toward the biker that was running toward them and cast him a feral snarl. He swung his aim in the man's direction, fired, and missed. The biker cocked his own weapon and fired, but Krad was a difficult target lying on the ground. The angel shot again, and hit the man dead in the chest. The goon's body jolted backwards and then landed heavily on the pavement.
The angel jumped stiffly to his feet and walked with murderous deliberation to stand over the groaning man. He took aim from feet above his target, and fired. The man's chest gushed grotesquely through his shirt and onto the asphalt.
It wasn't enough.
Krad fired again, and again, until the round clicked empty under the frantic trilling of his pointer finger. His gold eyes widened with fury. He wanted more bullets. He wanted to focus on the deafening ring in his ears while he fired a perpetual stream of ammunition into this man's corpse. He reached down and scooped up the man's pistol, flinging Satoshi's empty gun aside. He found his grip on the new weapon and fired into the dead goon's face. Gore splashed across the pavement. Without pause, he turned and fired into Midnight's squirming body until the trigger denied him. She stopped moving.
So did Krad. He stood stock-still, his ears thrumming. The bloody corpses lay there, useless, mocking him. They weren't enough. They could never be enough. There was no prize, no sense of reward. He'd gotten his wish. They were all dead: the whore, the goons…
…and the boy.
The boy was dead.
"And when you're all done killing and avenging, then what?"
His hands began to shake.
The answer didn't matter. He would never be done. After hundreds of years of fighting, of existing with no rational goal except to one day be free, he finally had the liberty and the means to take the revenge that was the only thing he could ever remember wanting.
And it seemed like a sick joke, like the most supreme injustice, that it wasn't enough.
It would never be enough.
The gun slipped from his fingers and clattered to the ground.
He turned slowly and forced his eyes to the too-still body, the lifeless blue hair splayed out on the pavement. His stomach gave a warning twist of pain, and he knew he was going to be sick.
The angel curled over and emptied his stomach onto the street. He knew he had to think, that it was imperative that he calm down. Breathless, he swiped at his mouth with an unsteady hand and knelt desperately still on the pavement. Sirens began to sound in the distance. The angel didn't move. He couldn't compose his thoughts, and he couldn't stop shaking.
The sound of a soft groan made him freeze. A familiar pain shuddered into his chest, like an engine choking into gear. Krad doubled over and gagged on the splintering sensation. The boy. As quickly as it had set in, the sensation flashed out like a snuffed candle. Krad leapt to his feet and turned to stare at Satoshi's body. Had he just felt the boy die? He couldn't think of any other explanation.
He stood up and faced the body. His feet tried to pull him in the other direction, but he picked up speed little by little. His shaking hands clenched at his sides as he reached the younger man's side and crouched next to him. The boy looked gray in the face, like he couldn't get enough air, but his expression was knitted with discomfort too real for a corpse.
Tiny shreds of reality began leaking in again as Krad forced himself to look at the boy. Something quietly clicked back on inside the angel. He blinked and studied his former wing host warily. The boy was alive, at least for the moment. There was blood drying down the side of his face from a shallow cut on his head.
Satoshi sucked in a wheezing breath. His eyes drifted open like twin skies and looked up at Krad blearily. It appeared to take several moments for the boy to recognize the features of the one kneeling over him. "Krad?" he murmured hoarsely. His brows furrowed in confusion. "I'm…?" His breathing slipped into a run of short, thin gasps.
"Stop talking," Krad ordered. He was busy assessing the dry holes in Satoshi's shirt, realizing that the cloth wasn't stained. There was no blood. The angel couldn't seem to make himself accept what he saw. He didn't understand. "I saw you shot," he murmured tensely. He could feel his own pulse rioting in his chest.
The boy looked confused by the way he was reacting. "Krad," he wheezed uncertainly, almost comfortingly, "I'm wearing a vest."
Krad glanced to the boy's face and back to his chest, weighing Satoshi's statement against the certainty that a few seconds ago, he'd been sure he felt the boy die, his link dropping apart instantly. "I can't…feel you," he challenged Satoshi, his gold eyes demanding an explanation.
"I'm withholding my end of the link," Satoshi rasped. His breath seemed to hurt him. "The connection's still there. I still feel you."
The look of confusion on the angel's face slowly shifted to realization. He frowned. The boy's mind was closed off, cocooned in its own pain. He was doing it again…employing whatever trick he had used to keep it to himself years ago, when the blonde had ruthlessly drained him far beyond his limits, over and over. Krad bit back the ever-nagging question of 'why?' "Can't you breathe?" he demanded crossly instead.
Satoshi blinked at his tone, his expression full of wary confusion. "You're upset," the boy observed blearily. He studied the angel, probably trying to figure out what could be making the blonde this worked up. Then his blue gaze shifted behind Krad and noticed the carnage on the street for the first time. If it surprised him, he didn't show it. "Did they shoot you?" he asked between gasps, still watching the morbid scene without expression.
"Of course not," the angel growled back.
Krad expected the boy to try to give him some sort of lecture, but Satoshi just smirked, sort of, at Krad's gruesome handiwork. When the police arrived, there would be no good explanation for obliterating the bodies this severely. At the very least, he'd lose his career in law enforcement. Still, his expression betrayed a sense of grim satisfaction. "Could have…gone worse," he strained, closing his eyes.
Shifting his attention away from Krad, Satoshi dragged a hand across the ground and fumbled open the top button of his shirt. His hand immediately moved to the next button and worked at it with less success. His fingers moved clumsily, without focus, while his breath grew gradually shorter. When he finally got the button undone, he moved on to the next, more and more urgent. "Hate getting shot," he muttered in a choked whisper. His hand was trembling almost beyond use, and his color was growing worse.
Krad narrowed his eyes and observed the boy's condition. It took several moments for him to finally realize what was happening. Vest or no vest, Satoshi had taken the full impact of the bullets. He may as well have stood there and let someone swing a hammer into his chest. There was little doubt that his ribs were broken, and with the form-fitting armor around his chest, the swelling was probably forcing itself inward against his lungs. The boy was suffocating.
A week ago, Krad would have laughed. He would have looked on with vindictive satisfaction while his wing host's own armor gradually squeezed him to death.
Instead, Satoshi's suffering provoked restless panic in the angel. He couldn't bring himself to enjoy this. The sense of nameless, irreversible loss he'd felt moments before surged back to him all over again.
It would never be enough.
"Lie on your back," Krad ordered thinly. When Satoshi didn't respond, he leaned forward and clutched the boy's shoulder to do it for him.
"Don't," Satoshi breathed, startled by the angel's touch.
The angel ignored his protest and put his other hand on Satoshi's hip, rolling him flat onto his back. "God I hate you," the boy groaned sharply as the pain flared up in his battered chest. He cast Krad a feral look, but he didn't try to swat the angel away. As if he could succeed in this condition anyway.
Krad ignored the boy's comments. He reached down and yanked Satoshi's shirt open, sending buttons skittering across the pavement. The angel forced back the sour memory of Midnight doing something very similar to Ryuusuke.
He pulled the fabric of Satoshi's shirt aside, revealing the black Kevlar vest that had been concealed underneath. The bullets were still embedded in the fiber over his heart and lung, flattened from the impact. A series of three plastic buckles that attached to vinyl straps held the armor snug against Satoshi's form. Or, in this case, suffocatingly tight. The unyielding fabric barely rose and fell at all with the boy's labored breaths.
Krad reached out slowly, like he was about to defuse a bomb. He could feel electric blue eyes following his hands as he grasped one of the buckles from each end.
The younger man couldn't quite believe that the angel seemed to be helping him. "The sides of the clasp push--"
"I know how to open it," Krad snarled, shifting his fingers around the sides of the buckle and squeezing. It sprung open, and the whole garment shifted slightly. The angel repeated the process with the other two buckles. The vest fell open, releasing its death grip on Satoshi's shattered ribcage. Angry, blackening welts raised the flesh where the shots had landed, but there was no blood. He wasn't going to die.
Satoshi sucked in a long gasp and closed his eyes, drawing breaths as deeply as his ribs would forgive. Krad dropped the Kevlar he'd been holding and drew his hand away from his wing host.
Satoshi glanced up at the angel kneeling next to him. "You could have killed me," he noted breathlessly. None of it made any sense… "You pulled me out of the car," the boy realized, squinting in confusion.
"By accident," Krad growled.
Satoshi's blue eyes drifted to the angel's bright amber and stuck there. What the hell was going on? In the midst of his own thoughts, he could feel the angel's pulse pounding crazily, like he'd been dealt some sort of devastating blow. "Krad…calm down," he said quietly, "You're going to give us both a heart attack."
A hot flash of frustration glowed in the angel's eyes. "I am calm," he seethed.
The sirens in the distance were growing closer.
"Fine," Satoshi finally said to avoid an argument. Krad's behavior was too confusing make sense of right now. He began sitting up, cringing at the movement. "You need to go."
"What happened to needing to 'keep me under control'?" Krad jabbed.
Satoshi cast him a stern look. "My options are limited," he said coldly, pushing up to his feet. He wavered slightly as his legs regained their confidence. "It'll be hard enough explaining all this." He gestured with an arm across the crashed vehicles and carnage and began walking stiffly to retrieve the gun Krad had dropped on the ground. He picked it up and threw it over the cliff. "You need to get lost."
"Maybe I'd rather watch you squirm," Krad snorted.
"You just missed your chance for that, didn't you?" Satoshi frowned and faced him. The stricken expression he found on the angel's face threw him even further off guard. He squinted at Krad in confusion. "I don't know if you're trying to 'wait for the right time' to kill me, or what," he said firmly, "but whatever's going on in that messed-up brain of yours, you need to go away. Now. If they find you, they will go after you. Do you get that? They won't stop. They will hunt you down until they catch you, and then they'll lock you away. They'll try to figure out how you tick. The world will watch in bald curiosity while you slowly lose your mind."
Krad gave a cold smirk in response to this theory. "And how is that different from your own plans?" he scoffed.
The boy shook his head in frustration. "It would never have worked the way I had planned," he said coldly. He tried to keep the disappointment out of his eyes. What had he been thinking? That he and Krad could coexist in some kind of healthy relationship? This was a being who admitted to torturing him just for 'entertainment.' It spoke to his own desperation that he'd even considered such a thing.
The sirens wailed closer. There was no more time to think about it.
"Go, now!" he shouted at the angel. When Krad just crossed his arms and smirked at how worked up he was getting, Satoshi shoved him backward. "This isn't a joke, you bastard!" he snarled. The blonde lost about a foot of ground to the unexpected impact, but he showed no sign of backing down. Satoshi scowled and drew his arms back to go at the angel again.
Krad instinctively threw his hand forward into the boy's unprotected chest, knocking him backward. The relatively light hit stopped the younger man's momentum easily, perhaps a little too effectively. Satoshi staggered backward, overwhelmed with pain, and dropped to his knees. The boy wrapped his arms around his throbbing chest and stayed still. "Bastard," he hissed, throwing a frustrated fist down into the pavement. The impact made him shudder.
Krad froze stock-still and stared at the boy. He pulled his hand back against his body where it couldn't do any more damage and took a cautious step toward him. "Satoshi-"
"I don't want them after you," Satoshi's low voice stopped him. "Do you even get that?" The younger man looked up at him with cold blue eyes that were guarded, impenetrable. It was a look that said he was ready to fight, but didn't really expect to win. All the anger and hope and honest human emotion that the wing host had shown him earlier that day were gone now, confiscated and preserved under a wall of ice. It was a look Satoshi had worn often, before. Krad noted without much satisfaction that it had taken him less than an hour to push the boy back to that desperate, defensive edge.
The angel approached the boy slowly, earning a warning glare from his former wing host. He crouched next to Satoshi.
The moment he got close, a hard fist lashed out and punched him in the jaw. "I said to go, you bastard," Satoshi growled.
Krad tensed at the impact, but he didn't return the blow or even meet the boy's eyes. He just took a deep breath and pulled off the coat Satoshi had loaned him. His wings stretched up freely from his shoulders. "We're both going," he said.
Strong arms found their grip under his legs and back, so carefully that it was difficult to believe, and lifted him up.
The boy's eyes went wide as he found himself hoisted up against the angel's chest. He thought about punching him again, but his ribs begged him to hold still. "Put me down," he snapped, knowing full well he couldn't fight the angel right now. Nor could he even begin to understand what the blonde was up to.
Krad ignored him and stretched his wings experimentally. He beat the powerful, feathered limbs in a strong downward motion that pulled them steadily upward.
"Krad, you can't fly. You're still recovering," Satoshi warned, his hands gripping the angel's arm in protest as if he could tug himself back to the ground.
"Don't tell me what my body can handle," Krad snapped. He banked left and took them over the edge of the cliffside, where he could dive to pick up more speed.
Satoshi wrestled in the angel's arms as they surged down toward the sea. "Someone needs to explain this to the police," he shouted over the wind.
Krad's grip tightened. "If they find you there, you'll be held responsible."
Satoshi frowned and said nothing. He knew it was true. He also knew that a little jail time would be nothing to him compared to what the angel would go through if he was pegged for this. He had to ask himself, why not? Why not let the authorities take Krad off his hands? It scared him that he didn't know. "I'm a cop, and Midnight's a known menace. They won't press full charges against me."
"Stop talking. You're giving me a migraine," Krad sighed.
A questioning silence wedged itself between them as the wind rushed around their forms. They soon ascended back up over the shore and began to soar inland, over the east side of the city.
"Where are you going?" Satoshi finally asked.
"Your house," Krad answered flatly.
Satoshi's lips flattened into a mirthless smirk as he realized where Krad meant. "I don't live there anymore. Everyone died, or did you forget?" he said coldly.
The angel paused. "Where, then?" he pushed.
"I don't trust you."
"You can also fall," Krad offered.
Satoshi wondered what the angel was trying to do. He was almost too tired to care. "The west side. Near Niwa's place," the boy said, knowing full well he shouldn't tell Krad where he lived. Maybe the shock from the accident was finally setting in, or maybe it was just a survival instinct that said not to fight with someone who was holding him 30 stories above the ground.
Krad said nothing, but his wings shifted slightly, and their direction changed. The angel was seriously taking him home.
"I don't understand you," Satoshi muttered.
Krad just looked straight ahead and seemed to be concentrating on something else.
The boy was too exhausted to argue further. He tried to stay focused on the buildings scrolling by underneath them and told himself there really wasn't much he could do until Krad decided to let him down. Besides, he was hopelessly tired. Krad's body was much warmer than Satoshi's felt, and the temptation to melt into that sensation and sleep was stronger than he would think possible in these circumstances.
They'd gone about half way when a strangely damp sensation drew Satoshi's eyes to the angel's left arm, which was supporting his knees. The clumsy bandage on Krad's palm was thoroughly soaked, and thin trails of blood were dripping down the blonde's wrist toward his elbow. "Krad!" Satoshi's gut twisted at the obviously excruciating wound. Something wasn't right. He cast the angel a suspicious look. "Doesn't that hurt?" he demanded.
"Slightly," the angel muttered, sounding distracted.
"Why don't I feel it?" Satoshi demanded warily.
"Experimenting," Krad strained.
The boy's eyes widened. "You're trying to block me."
"A little more than trying," the angel clarified stiffly.
"If you're trying to protect me--"
"Experimenting," Krad asserted again.
"Knock it off. You're not used to masking your link. It will drain you," the boy warned. Satoshi couldn't really believe it. Krad had never once succeeded in restraining his aura, or perhaps he'd just never tried. But of all the times for him to try, this wasn't the one Satoshi would have picked. His confidence that the angel was strong enough to fly was unjustified if he couldn't feel the warning signs of fatigue in the blonde. "Krad, listen to me. If you're tired, land while you can. You're still drained from earlier. You'll get us both killed."
"I know what I'm capable of," Krad snarled.
Satoshi fell silent and stared at the angel's bleeding hand. "Why are you trying to help me? I could have handled the police."
"I'm just getting you out of my way."
"You could have just left me at the scene like I told—"
"You didn't do anything wrong, so stop fussing over it," Krad snapped.
Satoshi tensed up instinctively at the angel's anger, but after a moment, his own outrage took over. "It's not as if it was your fault, either," he said. "She should never have tried to touch you."
Krad's expression stiffened. Satoshi watched him closely. Their link offered him nothing as far as what the angel was thinking. "Krad…did Midnight actually…I mean, what--?"
"We aren't discussing this," Krad ordered, glowering palely at the rooftops below them.
They flew on for a minute more before Satoshi began to sense the faintest tremble in the angel's arms. They were very close to the apartment now, but even without their link, he could tell Krad was losing it.
"Krad, stop blocking me," Satoshi warned, "You're wasting energy. You'll burn out."
"Shut up," Krad said flatly as he pressed on. His arm muscles gave an unwilling shudder. "If you want to be useful, hold on," he ordered.
"To you? You have to be kidding." Part of Satoshi thought the angel was out of his mind, and part of him thought he understood exactly what Krad was doing. Whatever had happened with Midnight, it was clear that the angel's own body had become an enemy to him there. Krad was waging a war against the limits of the mortal form he'd waited so long to obtain.
Considering that he didn't have much choice in the matter, Satoshi freed his arms and wrapped them around the angel's neck. His ribs twisted painfully with the movement. Satoshi groaned into the angel's skin, but he held tight.
"Which one?" Krad demanded as they flew over Daisuke's home and proceeded west across the city.
"To the right. The one with the huge antennae on top." Satoshi tugged himself up closer to Krad's neck and breathed in the heat of his skin as he stared at the ground below them. There was something distinctly male about the angel's scent. It was effortlessly alluring, strong. Satoshi deliberately twisted his chest to stop himself from thinking whatever came beyond that observation.
It was too late. The feeling had been there, if only for a moment. Oh god... The boy gritted his teeth and tried not to think at all. He had to be delirious.
Krad's expression tightened with concentration as he descended toward the roof Satoshi had indicated. He began losing altitude faster than ideal, and he might have missed the roof entirely and hit the side of the building if a solid thrust of his wings hadn't lifted them just high enough for a shaky landing on the edge of the brick-lined surface. Satoshi immediately let go of his neck and stumbled to put distance between himself and the blonde.
When he was beyond the angel's reach, he wheeled on Krad. "Bet you're pretty pleased with yourself," he snapped.
The angel looked white as a sheet. "I got us here," Krad murmured, shaking his head like he couldn't focus. "Didn't I?"
"Who said I wanted to be taken anywhere by you? You've got more than one screw loose. Next time you want to pull a stubborn, psychotic stunt like that,—"
He cut off when he noticed Krad's weight drifting backwards toward the edge of the building. The angel's eyes were glassy and dull. Satoshi had seen that look on Dark too many times that week to not know what it meant.
"Hey!" The boy launched forward and grabbed Krad by the arm, tugging him back toward safety before he could fall straight off the roof. The angel sagged forward against Satoshi's form. The boy staggered under the collapsing blonde's weight and then just stood there in shock.
Krad's labored breath brushed down the back of Satoshi's neck. "Damn," the angel muttered almost inaudibly. A penetrating sense of utter exhaustion swollen with pain splintered into the boy's mind as the Krad's carefully forged mental barriers crumbled apart. Satoshi recognized the sensation. He'd known it was coming. What he wasn't prepared for was the emotion that came behind it. He was used to Krad's anger, the hatred, the cold animosity. But this was different. He'd never, ever felt the angel so scared.
What had him so upset? Was it just the burnout?
There wasn't much time to theorize, because the angel's chaotic mind fell abruptly silent. Satoshi braced himself under the weight of the collapsing angel and listened as Krad's troubled breathing flattened out. The blonde's chin sank onto Satoshi's shoulder.
Wonderful. Now he had an unconscious supernatural being passed out in his arms. He seriously considered throwing the blonde back over the edge.
Instead, Satoshi crouched enough to hoist the angel up over his shoulder. He groaned at the added weight on his chest and turned very carefully toward the fire escape. Ever so slowly, he began making his way toward his level, cursing under his breath as he went.
-oOooOOOooOo-
"No, he's still not answering," Riku explained into the phone with a frown. She leaned on one crutch for support as she pulled the curtain sideways to look out on the street for the hundredth time that afternoon. She took a deep breath as she held her cell phone to her ear with the other hand, listening to her sister's worried voice. "Of course. The moment I hear something," she reassured. "Risa, if you want to, it's okay to call off the stakeout and come back here—" She broke off and listened for another moment. "I understand. Just don't overwork yourself. Worrying yourself sick won't get any of them back…Okay…I'm here if you need me…right…make sure you take shifts with Hattori so you can get some sleep…I will…I will. Later."
She sighed as she closed her phone and pushed it into her back pocket.
"Do you think they're okay?" Jirou asked her quietly. He was sitting on the couch with his good knee drawn up to his chest. His bad leg was spread out on the footrest with an ice pack wrapped around his injury. Riku had to hand it to the kid for being so stoic, but she knew he would probably be much better off with the medicine they could be giving him at the hospital. She pragmatically told herself that if Satoshi didn't come back, she would have to do something about the boy. What if he didn't come back?
"There's a good chance at least one of them is okay. The question is which one," she muttered in response to the boy's question. Maybe it was callous, but the kid had lost his chance for her sympathy when he first turned up worried about Krad. She just couldn't justify that, even in a naïve pipsqueak. Especially not when her friend could be in serious danger because of the angel. There was just no way to forgive Krad for the damage he'd done to their lives, especially to Satoshi's. With Daisuke and Satoshi both missing and her ankle broken, maybe she was growing jaded.
They both glanced tensely across the room as an urgent knock sounded at the door.
"No, don't move your leg," Riku ordered the boy as he began scrambling forward. She halted him with a firm palm and made her way rapidly to the door. "Who is it?" she called, leaning her ear close to the door.
"It's me," Satoshi's voice came through the doorframe. He sounded out of breath.
"Thank God!" Riku's face melted with relief and she undid the bolt and threw the door open.
And stared.
Satoshi followed her gaze tensely and waited while she took in the whole image, starting with the shirtless torso propped over his shoulder and ending with the massive white wings that hung wide behind him. Her brown eyes returned to his, bright with confusion.
Satoshi straightened as much as his blazing ribs would forgive and tried to catch his breath as Riku just stared and Jiro limped up behind her.
.
"I found him."
-o0o0ooOOOoo0o0o-
To be continued.
-oOoOo-
Wooo you guys are awesome! So sorry for the long update time! That was a long time to leave poor Satoshi shot in the chest… The next few chapters will probably come out shorter and more frequently, rather than these huge epic chapters spaced months apart.
I was asked a while back to draw Krad's expression when he first realized what he was actually getting himself into with "Angel" at the sleazy hotel. I'll stick that up on maiysokat dot deviantart dot com. There's also a direct link on my profile here : ) Also! TheLurkerOnline awesomely sketched out his rendition of our friendly neighborhood veterinarian, so I'll stick a link in the profile for that as well!
Thank you guys so much for your reviews and feedback!!! I am completely flattered that people are enjoying it and I absolutely love hearing what you think! It is a wonderful guide for me as to what I'm doing right (and should therefore do more of) and also for what I should adjust for future chapters. I'm noticing a pattern that I get behind schedule and then can't do my shout outs the way I want, but I will try to come up with some other way to repay you guys for keeping me going! Perhaps suggestive fan art… I dunno, but something!
-Kat