Author's Notes:

I figured I should give you guys fair warning for the next few chapters, so here goes: there will be torture. A lot of torture. And it will be explicit (not sexually explicit, but explicit in a way that might make you cringe if you're squeamish). But it's important to the plot, so you should probably read it anyway. And besides, torturing Syaoran is fun.

Side note: I am not a sociopath.

Chapter Forty-Five

The playroom. His heart started pounding, making the bruise on his head throb. He shifted, the movement pulling at his restraints. Six bands of metal encircled his arms, two around his wrists, two around his elbows, and two around his upper arms, each one linked to a sturdy loop embedded in the wall. If it had been only his wrists, he might have been able to free himself, but as it was, he couldn't even bend his elbows.

"Oh, don't look so fidgety," Cassie said, rising from her crouch and walking over to the table nearby. There, she picked up a hairbrush and pulled her hair into a ponytail. "You really ought to be glad I'm down here and not Jet. He can get so rough with people he doesn't like." She half-turned, her milky skin seeming to glow under the fluorescents. Steel whispered against steel as she drew something across the table, and he winced, head aching. "Don't like that?" Cassie asked, scraping whatever it was over the tabletop again.

Syaoran's hand twitched toward his head, but jerked to a halt because of the manacles. He looked down, frustrated. She's right. I'm not going to be able to get out of these on my own. I have to trick them somehow. His good eye rolled back up to her face. "I have to go to the bathroom," he told her.

"Don't lie to me, Syaoran."

He flinched at his name.

"I told you I've done this before. Do you think I'm so naïve? If you really have to go, I'll get you a bucket."

Anger surged through his veins at her flippant tone. He shoved it down. It would do him no good here, not yet. "You shouldn't do this," he said. The longer he could stall, the less opportunity she would have to harm him before Fai or Kurogane tracked him down. "My friends know I'm missing. They'll be looking for me."

"You're not about to tell me I'll never get away with this, are you? Because I hate clichés."

He glared at her.

"Hmm. You're a quiet one." She turned away and picked something up from the desk before walking toward him. "It makes me wonder what your screams will sound like."

He clamped his mouth shut, resolving not to scream. Judging by her smirk, she was confident she'd be able to make him. "You know," she said, crouching next to him, "there are nerve endings under your fingernails. Sensitive ones. Not surprising really—if you'd ever broken a nail, you'd know."

He said nothing.

She sighed. "Well, I think a demonstration will be much more effective than an explanation. Kids learn from experience, after all." She brought one hand forward to reveal the pliers she'd brought over from the desk. With deft hands, she unlocked the band around his right wrist, manipulating his hand until she could get a firm grip on it. His arm twitched, but the rest of the chains held firm.

"Hold still. Trust me, you don't want to make this any harder on yourself."

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

She rolled her eyes and brought the pliers closer to his fingertips. Syaoran pressed his back against the wall, the chains going slack. Cassie twisted his wrist and used her leverage to hold him in position. "This will sting, but don't move, all right?"

"You're sick."

"Actually, I just got over a cold, so I'm not sick anymore." The tips of the pliers closed around the fingernail on his index finger, and Syaoran braced himself. I won't scream. I won't scream. I won't—

She ripped his nail off, shredding the vulnerable flesh underneath. His body jerked, coiling into a ball as he buried his face in his knees. Those hurt, too, probably from when Jet had kicked them during their confrontation. But the worst pain, worse even than his head injury, radiated up his arm and wracked his body like a lightning bolt. His breath came in ragged gasps, but he didn't scream, didn't even whimper. If anything, his throat was too tight for him to get a scream out.

"Huh," the woman said, surprised. "They usually start screaming after that. I suppose we'll have to keep going."

Syaoran writhed against the restraints, hiding his arm behind his back so she couldn't reach his hand. A moment later, the pliers jabbed at his ribs, like a bird's beak. He flinched, straining against the chains.

"Hold your hand out, please," Cassie said, in the same silky voice she'd used to command her friends in the alley. He shook his head, and her voice turned dark. "Fine then. I'll take your eye instead." She moved the pliers to his swollen eyelid and prodded at the bruise. A soft whimper escaped his throat as she tried to pry his eyelid open with her thumb. As it slid open, he thrust his arm out in offering. She giggled. "Smart move, Syaoran. You're such a quick study."

"So I've been told," he muttered as the pliers closed around another nail. He closed his eyes and braced himself for the pain.

Kurogane stared at the television screen, flipping through the channels as he searched for something less depressing than the evening news. The pork bun sat on his shoulder, poking the side of his neck. The ninja ignored her, determined to find a decent channel among the five-hundred options. But somewhere around channel three-hundred-fifty, the constant poking became too much. He batted the white creature away with one hand. "Would you stop that?"

Mokona bounced against the cement floor as if she was filled with air instead of the normal things a body was filled with. Which, Kurogane thought, was entirely possible, given that she was also full of weapons, food, traveling supplies, and clothing. "Kurogane was sad, so Mokona wanted to cheer him up."

"I'm not sad."

The creature's ears flattened against her back. Kurogane felt a twinge of guilt, then buried it behind his irritation. "What makes you think I'd be sad?"

"Mokona can tell when someone's sad. It's one of Mokona's one-hundred-and-eight special techniques."

He snorted. "I've had a lot on my mind. Don't worry about it."

"Mokona thinks Kurogane should talk about it. Mokona also worries because Kurogane hasn't lost his temper for a long time."

He looked away, not saying anything. Because the last few times he'd lost his temper, he'd been alone with the boy, and he couldn't exactly explain everything that had happened between them to the white pork bun. The creature was an incorrigible gossip. And wouldn't you say something, if the kid was with someone else? he thought to himself. Wouldn't you assume the worst?

He sighed and rested one hand atop Mokona's head. "There's nothing much to talk about. This place is depressing, that's all."

The pork bun shook its head. "Mokona thinks there's something else."

"There's nothing else," he snapped, picking the thing up by the ears and dropping it onto the floor. This time, rather than pushing the issue, the creature hopped around the living room and plopped down on the opposite side of the couch, not saying a word. The apartment fell silent except for the garbled muttering of the actors on TV.

Ten minutes later, the front door flew open, hitting the wall as it swung wide. Kurogane jumped to his feet, grabbing Souhi from where she sat at the edge of the couch. The magician stood in the doorway, eyes wide, skin pale as rice paper. "Did Syaoran-kun come back here?"

Come back? he thought, alarmed. "He's not with you?"

Fai shook his head. "I lost him."

"Lost—how do you lose a person?"

The wizard said nothing, striding over to the kid's bedroom and flinging the door open, as if he really believed the kid could have made it to his bedroom unnoticed. When the room proved empty, he turned back to Kurogane. "We were in the bookstore. I walked away for thirty seconds, and he disappeared."

Kurogane's fingers tightened around Souhi's hilt. "It's a bookstore. How hard could it possibly be to—"

"I know, but when I finally figured out where he went . . ." He trailed off as Kurogane caught the significance of the words. Because if Fai knew where the kid had gone, but hadn't found him, that could only mean something bad had happened.

"Mage," he said, his voice deadly quiet. "Where is he?"

"I'm not sure. I know he headed out through one of the bookstore's back doors, into the alley. I tried to track his scent, but I don't know how. I lost it as soon as I hit the sidewalk. He could be anywhere in the city."

Kurogane groaned and slammed his fist into the wall. The sheetrock fractured around his knuckles. "Damn it!"

"That's not all."

He turned toward the mage and grabbed him by the front of the shirt. Shock crossed the man's face, and his single remaining eye went wide. "What else?" he demanded, gripping Fai's shirt so tightly he could hear the fibers shredding apart.

Fai closed his eyes, as if searching for his resolve. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, broken. "I also found blood. Syaoran's blood, in the alley outside the bookstore."

The words struck him like a punch to the gut. He released the mage's collar and turned away, holding onto the edge of the couch to stabilize himself. No, he thought. Not the kid. I can't lose the kid.

"Kurogane . . . What are we going to do?"

He released the couch and stalked over to the coat rack, forcing his arms through the sleeves of his jacket. "What do you think we're going to do, idiot? We're going to find him." He opened the door and lifted his head to glare at the vampire. "If you think you can manage that."

Fai grimaced, but said nothing as they walked out the door.