In Charge

Chapter 16 – Hide and Seek

By Threshie

AN: Think I'll once more save most of the talking for the bottom.

Trivia: The title for chapter 15 comes from Mikami's search of the room, as well as from Near finally looking at him and seeing him for what he really is—unstable!

On to the chapter!

Disclaimer: Death Note belongs to Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata.


"Yes?" L's voice was as calm as ever on the other side of the phone.

Mello felt very flighty in comparison, as he said hurriedly, "L, Near called me!"

"What?" The great detective sounded much more attentive suddenly. "How? What did he say?"

"Not much," the blonde frowned, "Said he's locked inside Mikami's place and doesn't know where it is because all the windows are covered up. I'm not sure how he got hold of a phone—he couldn't explain because he had to hang up suddenly."

"...Near is smart enough not to let Mikami catch him attempting to escape," L said after a brief, thoughtful silence. "He would do the same for being caught making a phone call. Mello, the police are skilled but I would have much more confidence in them with you along to head the operation. Would you please go with them to retrieve Near?"

"Huh? You mean you know where he is?!" Mello practically shouted, eyes widening. Beside him, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Matt jump at the sudden increase in volume. I guess I should have expected this—L's the best detective in the world. Even for him, though, that was fast!

"Dr. Lidner gave me his address immediately when I told her that Matt claims he is the one who shot him," L explained mildly, unfazed by his shouting. "From the staff's description of this man, he is intelligent enough to cover his tracks. However, his behavior suggests otherwise...he didn't even consider the security cameras in the room when he shot Matt. After seeing footage of the incident, I'm inclined to think he decided to do this very impulsively."

Footage... Mello felt anger burning in his chest again, imagining Mikami shooting Matt. I'm glad L's doing the technical part of this investigation...I'm not sure I could stand watching a recording of that.

"Having obviously not taken the cameras into consideration, and believing that he has killed Matt, Mikami thinks that there is no evidence connecting him to the crime," L concluded. "He has no reason that he knows of not to return to his own apartment."

Unless he's an idiot, he must know they've linked him to this, Mello thought, making an irritated little sound in the back of his throat, He disappeared from the hospital at the same time as Near and everything! Near...now that I know where Mikami is, I need to get there before he does anything to Near... He didn't like to even think things like that. Nobody deserved what his imagination was coming up with...

"What are you waiting for," he waved his hand in a 'hurry up!' gesture, ignoring the fact that L couldn't see him at the moment, "Give me the address already!"

"Right," L sounded like he was smiling. He read off the address. It was short; probably an apartment. "Mello...please be careful. Mikami is armed, and he obviously doesn't have any qualms about shooting people." Mello glanced at Matt, who was looking tired but stubbornly watching and listening to him anyway. I'm not letting him shoot me, too.

"I will," he answered shortly, "Tell the police to meet me there." Snapping the phone closed, he shoved it into his pocket and turned to Matt. "L found them."

"Y-yeah..." The redhead looked both glad for and apprehensive of the news. He's probably worrying that Mikami's already done something to Near. Ugh...no, I can't think like that! I'll get him before he can do anything!

"I'm gonna go get Near back," the blonde said, adding needlessly, "You stay put, got it?"

Matt smiled half-heartedly at this, nodding. He knew as well as Mello that he couldn't have come along if he wanted to; being told to stay behind was just Mello's way of saying 'it's okay that you can't come—I want you to stay here where it's safe anyway.'

Without another word, the blonde turned and sprinted out the door. Let me be in time...!


I feel ill... Near winced; reaching for the blanket only made his stomach throb worse. Giving up and hugging his arm to his chest again, the white-haired boy reassured himself that he wasn't in any worse shape than he had been when he was placed back into the bed earlier. The medication from the IV has just worn off...this is how I would have felt from the start if they hadn't been giving me anything for the pain.

Surgery wasn't exactly the kindest thing to do to someone's body...the incision and stitches were throbbing, but his whole abdomen felt achy to the touch too. To make matters worse, his left hip was aching from when he had crawled off of the bed and landed on it earlier.

I wonder if Mikami is making me suffer on purpose...? If he was, it wasn't going to work. He didn't relish being in pain, but he had too firm a grip on his actions to let it get to him. I wonder why he has brought me here, he thought flatly for what felt like the hundredth time. Why steal me away and hide me here? Perhaps his mind is so unstable that he doesn't even know, himself...

It seemed awfully planned for something spontaneous, though. There was medical equipment there and everything... Then again, Mikami was a nurse—he had easy access to medical equipment due to his job, and could easily have brought some home with him.

Why he would go to so much effort to make the atmosphere match a hospital's was another mystery. He seems to be trying to care for me as if we are still at the hospital...he must be delusional to not recognize that his own home isn't his workplace. Unless he knows and somehow has convinced himself that if he acts likes we are at the hospital, I will believe him...?

How tiring... He stared dully at the ceiling, giving up on that train of thought for now. It didn't matter, anyway. Whatever Mikami wanted him for, Near's goal was the same: not to let him go through with it.

Forget his motives or how he got me here--I must focus on the present, he decided. If Mello managed to trace my call, he may already be on his way here...I shouldn't rely on that, though. I need a plan for what to do...what am I able to do?

Making a run for it wasn't an option—even if the doors had been unlocked and Mikami wouldn't have stopped him, his current physical condition would have. Staying put wasn't an option, either. With his mental illness, there is no telling what he may do to me. Besides, I don't want to stay here with him. He closed his eyes, trying not to pay any attention to the fact that his breathing sounded shaky. That was because each breath hurt...

...I wish that Matt was here.

It was an unreasonable thought. Matt was dead, and wishing that he was there didn't change anything...but Near was exhausted. His grip on his emotions, on separating logic from his own desires, was slipping... I...must think of a way to escape Mikami. If Matt was here, he would only...be in danger. No, Matt isn't able to be in danger anymore—he is dead. Matt is dead. He wanted badly to curl into a ball, hide under the blanket, and forget about everything had happened in the past few days. Moving hurt too much to attempt it, though...

So he lay there, stomach throbbing hotly, breathes coming shallowly and shakily, and waited. He couldn't do anything but wait right now...

Try as he might, he couldn't keep his thoughts from drifting back to Matt. For a few days...I had a friend. Probably the only friend I will ever have... Certainly the only friend he would ever have if he didn't make it out of this alive. Pain wasn't enough to kill him, though; Mikami would have to help things along if he wanted to kill Near. Kill me, care for me...I still can't tell what he intends to do.

The sound of the door opening roused him from a pain-hazed half-sleep some time later. Footsteps made their way over to his bedside.

"As I thought," he heard Mikami murmur softly. Too tired to muster up much reaction, Near ignored him...until he felt a hand on his arm. Wh-what...? Opening his eyes, he looked up at Mikami wearily. The tall man had what looked like a very large rubber band in one hand, and Near's right wrist gripped gently in the other.

Exhausted as he was, the white-haired boy forced himself to ask, "Wh-what are you doing...?" The words came out flat; he was simply too tired to put any emphasis behind them. If there was anything in that sentence that will make him explode and go psychotic, so be it. I am too tired to argue at this point... He had kept from speaking until now in case he said something that might make Mikami's unstable mind tilt toward the violent side as it had with Matt, but he wasn't just going to lie there when the man obviously planned to do something to him...

"I have to put a needle in your arm so that I can give you something for the pain," the nurse explained, speaking much more nicely than he had done in the hospital. It was unnerving unto itself for him to be so gentle, even if that wasn't necessarily a symptom of mental illness...

Rolling Near's sleeve up to his elbow, he slipped the white-haired boy's hand through the band and rolled it up onto his arm until it felt impossibly tight. Reaching out of Near's view, somewhere up behind the head of the bed, he retrieved a slender needle and murmured, "Please hold still; this will only hurt for a moment."

Needle...IV, Near acknowledged vaguely, eyes falling heavily closed again. How do I know he is only putting pain medication into it...? He was too tired not to hold still, though.

The sharp jab of the needle was the last thing that he remembered.


Mello leapt off of the motorcycle before the police cruisers behind him even had a chance to stop. Uniformed men scrambled out of the vehicles, hurrying to catch up as the blonde sprinted for the door. The building ahead of him was squat and shoddy; its three stories were broken into cramped apartments, tiny balconies of bare metal tubing hanging out from each one that wasn't on the ground floor.

Near's in here somewhere...somewhere with curtains. He frowned; none of the apartments could have been large enough inside to match the white-haired boy's description. He had said it was a large house. Nothing about this place could be described as "large"...

According to the numbers in the address L had given him, Mikami's apartment was on the second floor.

"Hurry up!" The blonde shouted at the police, who were only now coming inside the door. That creep could be doing who-knows-what to Near! If anything like that happened to Near, he knew that Matt would never forgive himself for not being there to prevent it. If not for Near's sake, he was going to stop Mikami for the redhead's.

Seeing that the cops were picking up their pace, the blonde turned and started up the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time. They soon emerged on the second floor, which was possibly even more run-down than the ground floor had been. Obviously this was a lower-class place where crimes occurred often; the doors all had multiple locks on them.

The commotion that a leather-clad teen leading a dozen police officers around should have caused was strangely absent, though; the tenants, if there were any, stayed inside their homes, and the hallways were eerily silent save for the team's footsteps.

The door to Mikami's apartment looked inconspicuous enough; it was plain and wooden, with a peephole built in at eye-height, a not-so-shiny doorknob and slightly peeling brown paint.

This isn't right, Mello thought, as one of the cops set to work picking the lock—with Near as a possible hostage, they weren't going to announce their presence until they had to. It's not like the place Near described at all—even though I can only see the outside and he's only seen the inside, this can't be right!

"Police—freeze!" The cops filtered into the place single-file, guns drawn and held at the ready. Mello felt a sinking feeling, as he stepped inside and saw that the place was immaculate—and empty.

I knew it—dammit! This is where L said to check—does this mean he was wrong? That didn't seem possible...no, he couldn't blame L. There was barely any information to go on—that was the problem.

The team did a quick sweep of the apartment, but Mello already knew that it was empty. There wasn't even any furniture inside—it was as if someone had rented it just for show. Maybe that's exactly what he did... He punched the wall beside the door, startling the cops. Ignoring both their reactions and the resulting stinging in his knuckles, he thought angrily, Who am I kidding?! For all I know they could be in a hotel suite—or another damned city!

"What should we do now, sir?" one of the cops spoke up cautiously; for such a delicate-statured person, Mello could still manage to be intimidating when he was angry. L had sent orders for them to listen to what he said, though, so they had to speak to him...

Gritting his teeth, the blonde said tightly, "Two of you go question the manager of this place about who rents this apartment. Ask how long since they've been here." Without wasting his time telling the rest of them to stand by, he headed outside, pulling out his cell phone on the way. Punching the button to speed-dial L, he waited impatiently while it rang. Come on, come on...! This didn't work—tell me what else to do!

"Mello," L acknowledged by way of greeting.

"L!" The blonde hissed back, barely able to contain his frustration enough to keep from shouting. "There's nobody here—it's empty!" He wasn't angry with L; more with himself for being unable to do anything more to help the situation. I'm sure L's already checked everything he could possibly dig up on Mikami...what else? What else can be done?

"...How odd. I was 70 percent certain that this was the more likely of the two possibilities." L sounded bemused now...but not too surprised.

"You mean there's another place to check besides here?" Mello demanded, frustrated. Why didn't he tell me all of the information before sending me off? "Where?!"

"Not another place," the great detective corrected, sighing, "Another theory. Only two seemed reasonably probable—the one you tried to follow and this one. All of the statements from Mikami's coworkers and employers suggest he is a responsible, hard-working and intelligent individual. He does things perfectly, they say. His crime was not performed perfectly at all, though..."

"What does all of that mean?!" Mello snapped, frustrated. If he was in a calmer state of mind he would have immediately felt bad for talking to his mentor in such a tone, but right now the things that kept going through his mind were that Near was in the hands of someone who was quite possibly perverted, and that Matt was trusting him to go save the white-haired boy in his stead. We're wasting time! I need another place to go—tell me where to go, L!

"My other theory is that he is mentally unstable, which explains his inconsistent behavior," L answered mildly, nonplussed by the outburst.

Hearing that made Mello's racing thoughts halt abruptly.

Insane?

"Oh, he's sick, all right," the blonde said darkly, wondering if this was L's idea of a joke, "Matt said he had a thing for Near." Well, it wasn't exactly what Matt had said, but it was how Mello had interpreted it... Where did he get any evidence pointing to insanity, anyway?

"...Thinking about things like that will only distract us from the task of retrieving him." The voice on the other end of the line sounded troubled despite his words—and serious, despite the odd theory he'd just thrown onto the table.

There must be some logic behind him coming to this conclusion. I can't think like him—how can he think of Near and not think of what could be happening to him? Every second we waste...

"Mello, please check your phone for the record of Near's call," L interrupted his thoughts, sounding a bit anxious himself. "What is the number that he called from?"

Number? There wasn't any...oh! I got sent to that address so fast, I forgot that I was going to ask him about this!

"Is there any way to trace the location of restricted calls?" Mello asked quickly; the question answered L's as well as a statement might have, and wasted less time.

"As long as it isn't specially encrypted like mine—which, for the number of any phone a nurse like Mikami may have, is highly unlikely," the detective answered, just as quickly. The conversation was rapid—each of them knew the conclusion that they were coming to without having to discuss it. "Mello--"

"I know, I know," the blonde said, already heading for the stairs, "I'll be right there!"

--End Chapter 16


AN: The story's winding down now. This is a transition-type chapter, so I apologize if it was a bit boring compared to the others. Things happened in it...but since Near and Matt are both so tired, Mello's running the show at the moment. No offense to him, of course. LOL.

I struggled to write this chapter, which is why it didn't get posted as fast as the others. Unlike my usual style of sitting down and writing it as it looks finalized, for this chapter I stayed up 'til 3:00 AM and wrote it out, so since I was sleepy while typing my wording wasn't as good and it was like a rough draft, thus I had to go over it about a dozen times. (Siiigh) If there are errors in here, it's because I've looked over it too many times to notice them anymore. You know what I'm talking about? The other trouble is that I'm writing about geniuses, and am not a genius myself, so if L and Mello aren't as brilliant as they should be, it's my fault not theirs. LOL.

Anyway...the meaning behind this chapter's title is probably pretty obvious by now. It's a very search-filled, back-and-forth feeling chapter. Poor Matt barely got to even be in it... (Sweatdrop) What do you think, guys—is Mikami a pedo or not? Does Mello care about Near or not? Are they going to find Near in time? I wonder what Matt thinks of all of this...

Okay, that's enough author's blah-blah for one chapter. Stay tuned for chapter 17!

-Threshie


In Charge Akugi! Volume 16

Akugi #61

Mello: "L found them."

Matt: (Smiles faintly) "Y-yeah..." (Twitch) Is this really the only word of dialogue I get this chapter? Whatever happened to this story starring me, anyway?

Akugi #62

Near: (Trying to think of ways to escape) ...I wish that Matt was here. Then he could give me a piggyback ride out of here.

Akugi #63

Narrator:He punched the wall beside the door, startling the cops.

Mello: "ARGH!" (punches wall again...punches hole in wall...tears pieces of wall off...)

Cops: o_o; "S...sir?" (Afraid to speak for fear they'll join the wall in being broken up)

Akugi #64

L: "My other theory is that he is mentally unstable, which explains his inconsistent behavior."

Mello: "Oh, he's sick, all right—he thinks Near's attractive. I mean, come on, with Matt around he decides to hit on Near? He must have a few screws loose!"

L: "..."