Sorry for the wait, but I got to spend ten fun-filled days in the hospital and ever since my muse has gone south for the summer.
The usual stuff, don't own and I'm so broke I can't afford to pay attention so it would be a waste of your time.
HOLDING OUT FOR A HEERO
"I did it, I killed him," Duo repeated, rocking back and forth on the floor. He unconsciously rubbed his arms, like they were cold and he needed to warm them up. "I'm free. Never will anyone ever hurt me again."
"Duo," Quatre said, sinking to the floor next to the braided boy. "Duo, can you hear me?"
"Hey, Kitty-cat-Quatre, how ya doin'?"
"I'm fine and you?"
"I've never been better. I got myself free from Roger and from Owen." Duo gave him a sweet, almost childlike smile.
"What did you do to your foster father?" Quatre asked, his voice raising an octave.
"Not foster father, Kitty-cat. The dumb bastard is my real father. We've had paternity tests and whatever else done. He just couldn't believe that a little runt like me could have come from him."
"Did you kill him too?"
"Nope, just shot the fucker in his nutsack and left him to bleed out all over the floor. Oh, wait, I put pressure on it and he'd almost stopped bleeding by the time I got off the phone with the cops. O.J. was hiding up under his bed. For some reason the dumb jackass is now afraid of me. Of me, Quatre." He looked at the two boys still standing. "Hey, Trowa, how the hell are ya? And who's this? One of your friends?"
"He's Heero Yuy and in our class also."
"Yeah, he's the one that your dingy sister, Relena is always chasing after." Duo held up one blood-covered hand to the new person in his circle. "You have my condolences."
"Hn," Heero said, being his normal, talkative self.
"He don't say much, do he, Quatre?"
"No, but we love him anyway."
"Does Trowa know how you feel about the new guy?" Duo asked his voice dropping into a confidential tone.
"Shut up, baka," Heero growled at him.
Duo shrank away from the gruff voice and huddled against Quatre's side. "Sorry," he mumbled.
Quatre's arms went around the boy cowering at his side and he flashed Heero a look of utter disgust. The distant sound of sirens brought his attention to their surroundings. He motioned to Trowa and his boyfriend sank to his knees beside their injured companion and Quatre pulled his cell phone and hit speed dial.
"Father?" Quatre said, walking a short distance from the group. "I've got a rather large problem." He listened to his father for a little and shook his head in disapproval. "Look I know what you think you know is the correct thing, but you've been deceived and one of my friends has suffered for your lack of attention to details. Please forgive me for being rude, but I'm rather upset right now."
Trowa could hear the low rumble of Mr. Winner's voice, but he was too far away to catch any of the words. The sirens were getting closer and it wouldn't be long before the police came charging into the apartment like avenging heroes. He looked up at Quatre with a look of 'hurry before we're toast' and the little blonde gave him an encouraging smile.
"Just call off the police, Father and we'll bring the attacker to you and you can decide if he's truly responsible for his actions today." He stopped talking and listened to what was being said on the other end of the line. "Yes, I know that one person was maimed and another killed, but seeing as they were torturing the person who did it to them... I would call that just desserts, wouldn't you?" He listened again. "I know that you have a lot of pull with the D.A. and the police department here, as they are really just your private security force. Well, the police and not the District Attorney, however I happen to know that the D.A. is up for re-election this year and if he doesn't have Winner support there's a very good chance that he will lose the election and primary both. All you need to do is exert your patron's muscles and he will listen to what's going on. Believe me, Father you don't want the public to get a hold of the information that Duo's got. It won't look good for Winner Industries, INC and might even bring down a federal investigation." Quatre smiled as his words hit home and he knew that his father was his to command. "Thank you, sir. We'll take him out the back way while you make all the arrangements."
Quatre clicked the phone shut and looked at the other two. "We are to take him, immediately to my father's office and from there he'll decide what's to happen to Duo." He held up his hand to forestall any questions or remarks. "We can discuss this in the limo, right now we need to get out of here before the police get in and take our friend away. Heero, do you know any secret or barely used passageways in this building?"
"There's an old access hall that runs through the middle of the building. And before you ask, it's not on any of the blueprints, I've looked. It runs to the building next door and from there we should be able to escape to your car. Is your old man sending it?"
"Rashid should be here in the next twenty minutes or so. And all we really need to do is to stay out of sight until my father makes his calls. In the time it'll take us to get to the other building and into the car, things should calm down." Quatre kneeled next to Duo and gently cupped his face in his hand. "Duo, you need to come with us, okay?"
"If you say so, Kitty-cat," Duo said in a childlike voice.
"I do. Now, come on and let's get you out of this place." He looked around and saw the dead man's trench coat hanging on a coat rack near the door. "Let's put that on him and we can sneak him out that way. At least his bloody clothes will be hidden from the nosey neighbors."
"Good idea," Trowa said, grabbing the coat and flinging over the slender shoulders of his friend. "Heero, let's go."
Heero stood there, his emotions in a tangle. The sight of the braided baka in such distress brought up feelings that he wasn't ready to face. Granted, he had dated Relena and that had gone absolutely nowhere. The dingy blonde left him feeling hunted and trapped, but this boy (the one that no one wanted or cared about) left him feeling like someone had opened his head, put a spoon in and given it a good stir. He turned away to get his body back under control. A few deep breaths and thoughts of cleaning the latrines at summer camp convinced his groin to settle back into its normal position.
"Hn," he responded to Trowa and he headed out the door, taking the lead.
Quatre helped Duo to his feet and cried out as the braided boy's legs refused to hold his weight. Heero turned back into the room, grabbed the baka and swung him up into his arms. Duo fought with him for a few moments and then collapsed against him. Trowa and Quatre fell in behind them and Heero began to lead them out of the building to safety.
Zayeed Winner waited for his son and the young man that had caused so many problems to arrive. Quatre hadn't been wrong before. No one could be right all the time but his son had an annoying habit of being correct in most cases. The older man paced the room, impatiently, waiting for the boys to arrive. How many of them there would be, he didn't know. But he was expecting at least Trowa Barton to join the party. There was something strange about the relationship between Quatre and his best friend. That was a problem for another day, right now he had a murderer to interview and an attempted murder and a homicide to solve. The rattle of the doorknob caused him to whirl around and face whoever was coming in.
Quatre stepped through the door follow by the Barton boy and Heero Yuy. In Yuy's arms was a beaten and battered boy that Winner recognized as Reid's foster son. The fragile chestnut-haired boy lay lifeless against the Yuy boy's chest.
"What the hell is going on?" he snapped, looking at his son.
"This is Duo Maxwell..."
"Yes, I know of Mr. Maxwell, his foster father has told me all about the problems this young man has caused him," Zayeed interrupted, impatiently.
"No, you know what Owen Reid wants you to know. Duo has told us something different and it matches with his current condition," Quatre snapped at his father, losing his temper. It had been a very rough day and he really didn't have time for idiots. His nerves were stretched to the very limit and it was all he could do to keep from breaking down. In that apartment, today was the first time that Quatre had seen a dead body, outside of a funeral home and it left a very bad taste in his mouth. But then, seeing Duo's injuries and matching them with what he and Trowa had seen back in October; it really pissed him off.
"Alright, Quatre tell me what you know," his father responded to the anger in his son's voice.
"About two months ago, Trowa and I noticed that Duo was covered in bruises and that he was seriously injured. After a few things happened, he ended up in the hospital with a punctured lung and other wounds. While we were visiting, the man that ended up dead showed up and it was obvious that Duo was terrified of him. And when we found him today Duo informed us that Owen Reid wasn't his foster father."
"He's not?" Zayeed asked, confusion written on his face.
"No, sir," Duo croaked from Heero's arms. "He's my biological father, but he won't claim me; says I'm too weak and scrawny, not like my half-brother." Tears threatened to fall from his eyes and his voice broke on the last syllable.
"Well, if he's your father, why do you whore yourself out?"
"Because, that's what my father wants." Duo looked at him from the dubious safety of Heero's arms. "The men that I sleep with are ones who do business with Winner Industries and the only way that they will stay with your company is to be wined and dined and fucked by the sex of their choice. Most of them only want to pretend that they're fucking their kids; whether it's a boy or a girl."
"There's a girl?" Zayeed asked, sitting down heavily.
"Yeah, her mom's the woman who used to clean our house. She's illegal and her daughter was born here in the States and the only way that she can stay with her child is to rent her out by the hour for Owen."
"WHAT!"
"You heard me. Besides, that isn't the worst thing that he's done."
"What could be worse than that?"
"The night we buried my mother, he crawled into my bed and raped me," Duo said, turning his face into Heero's chest. "And he's been doing it every night since. He gave me to Roger Muscat as a toy, knowing that he wanted to kill me. And he did it all in the name of Winner Industries. Aren'tcha proud?"
"Not really. Do you have any proof of these allegations?"
"In his desk at the office, in the right-hand drawer there's a date book with all of my and her appointments in it. Other than that, you'll have to question him about it." Duo fell quiet and his body sagged in the support of Heero's arms. "You can ask O.J. if you want, but he's not all that intelligent and he knows that Owen will kick his ass if he says anything. But if you make it like you're gonna treat me like our father did, he'll tell you everything." He gave his questioner a sad, sweet smile. "I guess that it helps to know your enemy's weakness."
Zayeed Winner sat down heavily, not believing what he heard. The man that he had personally recruited, while he helped the business to grow and stay solvent, did it on the innocent backs of children. He wished that he could go back into his shell of ignorance, but it was too late for that. Like Pandora, he couldn't return the evil back to its box and he had to decide what he was going to do with the heinous knowledge. He couldn't, in good faith, go back to allowing children to use their bodies to get the things that the company needed. Now he understood how Reid had kept some of their less dependable accounts on the books. He had thought that it was just a case of a silver-tongue, but no Winner Industries had unknowingly supported white slavery and the corruption of minors.
"I guess that I have no choice but to interrogate your older brother," Zayeed said, putting his head in his hands. "Is there anything else you need to tell me?"
"Well," Quatre answered, moving to block his father's sight. Right now wouldn't be a good time to lay on the guilt. The feelings emanating from his father were ones that there wasn't really time to interpret. "You still need to talk to the District Attorney about Duo and we need to decide where we're going to keep him."
"I hadn't given it much thought," Zayeed said, looking at his son. "Do you have any thoughts on the matter?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. He can stay with us and you'll become his real foster parent." Quatre gave his father a cheeky grin and then turned his attention back to Heero and Duo. The braided boy's eyes were closed and his breathing shallow, but steady. "Heero?"
"I think he's asleep," Heero grunted, pulling the limp form closer.