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A/N: Happy Friday and Merry Christmas (Or whatever you celebrate) to you, my wonderful readers! If you guys have noticed, another Stringaverse story debuted today. That one is about what would have happened if Wo Fat had found Rowan first, so that'll be a fun story. For this chapter, it's all of episode 19. There's not a lot of Rowan in here, but we do have some fun brother-bonding time. So please enjoy this chapter, don't forget to leave a review and I'll see you guys on Monday.

Chapter 376

This had been a trying day.

Kono had found a human trafficking ring, dealing with underaged girls. Particularly 15 and up. Steve was behind her right away, in trying to shut this particular ring down, and as they continued to investigate the angrier both he and Kono go, though everything seemed to have been affecting Kono more than Steve.

This had all started because a nurse friend of Noelani's had a girl she was certain in a bad situation show up in the ER with probably fractured ribs. Noelani had called in a favour, much like Steve had done with Sang Min, but they were more than happy to help out. They definitely wanted to bring the girl, Moani, home.

They had just finished interrogating one of the johns of one of the girls they found left behind in a house they had all been squatting in, when he got the call. A call from Duke, thinking it was something to do with his case, but nope.

It was a report. A report about Rowan.

Rowan running full tilt down a street, being chased by a man in a mask.

Cops had been trying to assist, but she kept dodging them all while avoiding the grasp of the man with a hood up. Duke was currently trying to head them off, but they were going through back streets, hoping over fences, he thought Steve would like to know. Thought Steve would like to come, maybe he could figure out where Rowan was heading, what Rowan was doing, or at the very least flag her down.

Steve was in a right panic.

He left Kono with the john, which was stupid because she kept eyeing him like she wanted to rip his nuts off, and took of in his truck.

Rowan wasn't that far, only seven minutes away, but in those seven minutes he only head that Rowan was still running, and she was managing to appear and disappear. She was jumping. She was jumping and the guy was still catching up to her.

WHAT THE FUCK!

Now he was worried that someone else with void powers had shown up and was after her. Maybe they didn't want to hurt her, maybe they'd want to take her home instead. Back to her own reality.

He was not going to let that happen.

He found Duke's car, and all Duke had to do was point.

Rowan wasn't on the ground anymore, she was jumping across roofs. And sure enough, a man in all black run wear, and, yes, that hood was up, was fucking following right after her.

Son. Of. A. Bitch.

Why the hell didn't Sandy report this to him?

But he knew where she was heading now.

She was heading to the Palace.

She was running to him.

How did she not know that he was already there? He knew when she got panicked she couldn't really use her powers, was she too panicked to use her strings to find him?

To be fair he was too panicked to try and use his own powers to help her, direct a portal to him or something, she had no choice but to chase after her.

Following after Rowan, he watched Rowan jump off a fire escape to the ground. She sort of lost her footing but took off, just as the person chasing her had landed on the ground.

He called her name but Rowan just kept running. He noticed right away that she had headphones in. She was listening to music? That was clearly why she hadn't heard Duke or him calling for her. But seriously, why was she listening to music in the middle of a chase? What… why… was this some kind of work out for her?

Steve followed after her, running after the two who had a good lead on them. He would have thought that he'd be able to catch up, but Rowan was faster than he thought she was. She wasn't faster than him, was she? God she better not be.

As expected, Rowan and her chaser, got to the Palace first. Rowan slid under the metal detectors. Her chaser jumped over the x-ray machine.

Steve was right behind them, badge in one hand, gun in the other. Rowan took the steps two at a time, her chaser too them by three and so did Steve.

She was definitely running for him though.

He got to the main office and found that Rowan had stopped running. God how he had hoped she'd loop back once she realized that no one was in the office at that moment, and bump into him. But he was not that lucky.

No he got in there and she was sparing with the man. Blocking haywire punches, and lashing out herself. It might have been hot if Steve wasn't utterly fucking terrified for her life.

He approached the two of them, not slowly but not quickly. He got to the man just as he threw Rowan back. The tip of his gun hit him right between the shoulder blades

"FREEZE!" Steve shouted and the man in black froze and then raised his hands in defense. Just as Rowan kicked him.

The kick hit him straight in the chest and knocked him into Steve and then together they hit the ground.

"Oh! Con! Con, I'm sorry, I thought you'd blo… Steve? What are you doing here?"

Steve glanced up to his wife, who looked perfectly fine but out of breath.

"What the hell Rowan!" Steve shouted through his heavy breaths.

From the ground Con, who was clearly her chaser, groaned. "Fuck McGarrett, I wouldn't have really hurt her."

"Oh shut up!" Steve groaned. "Why are you still on the island?"

"No jobs available that interest me," he said with a shrug. He too was panting but not as bad as Steve. "I figured I'd get mami over here back in running shape. I'm assuming, since we ended up here that she was hoping to get you to protect her like Wo does."

That was a very, very smart move. Because if Rowan had sprinted into Five-0 head quarters screaming for Steve, he might have shot at Con too. Hell Steve had chased them there and nearly shot Con in the spine, and might have if he wasn't worried he'd hit Rowan by accident.

Behind them came the thunder of security's boots on the floor and Steve had to stand up to greet them.

"It's okay, false alarm, it's just my wife and her brother," Steve said and all of them craned to look past him, not a single man on security looked impressed at that moment, and Steve totally got it.

He got them out of the office, just as Kono joined them. Steve was too busy lecturing his wife and his brother-in-law.

"Are you shitting me right now?" Steve asked. "Do you have any idea how scared I was?"

"I'm sorry," Rowan said sounding not sorry in the least.

"Did you run here from the house?"

"No, I was out shopping today, all my shit in some random store right now, cause this man showed up and tried to grab me, but I got away and well… he started chasing me."

Con just grinned. "It's fine. I got someone sitting on all your stuff for you. Though not gonna lie I'd love to get a lift back to the shop. My legs is killing me."

Steve shook his head. "God, the two of you, I swear, Rowan, you're giving me grey hair!"

Rowan just waved him off like it didn't matter. And they might have argued more if Kono didn't come up and interrupt them.

"Could I borrow you?" she said and then promptly dragged Rowan away and into her office. Once she got the door shut, Rowan just turned a smile onto her.

"What's up Kono?"

"You know I don't usually do this…" Kono started. "Could I… this case, I want help… your kind of help. I was wondering if you could…"

"Oh sure, Con's right here, he could…"

"No…." "—No?" "… no. No. I want Wo."

"Oh," Rowan said and then nodded. "Sure, I'll uh… I'll see what he's up too and get back to you."

Kono nodded. Then Rowan glanced out to the main room where both Steve and Con were standing there, in a very similar pose. Legs apart, arms crossed over their chests.

"I better go deal with whatever is going on with those two," she said. "I'll keep you posted."

Then Rowan left to get lectured by two of her boys and Kono just smiled. She already felt better, and if Wo Fat was free, she'd feel even better.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

To Kono's great delight, Wo Fat was available.

He was greatly confused as to why Five-0 wanted him, but he agreed to come so that was nice.

He showed up, behind a line of HPD officers, in his casual clothes that day. Jeans and a black t-shirt. And he was smoking.

"How did you get back here?" Kono asked, but Steve said: "You really should stop smoking."

Wo Fat stared at him blankly. "Ro sent me," he said to Kono and then turned around and faced the car that was crashed behind them. Steve had shot at it so it had bullet holes in it. "You in that car when it crashed?"

"No, I'm why it crashed though," Steve said and Wo nodded.

"Ro said you need me for a case, what's up?"

"It's a trafficking ring," Kono said. "Teenagers."

"Luring kids with self-esteem issues is easy with social media now a days, what do you need me for?"

"Well… you work with this kind of stuff…"

"I used to," Wo admitted, shoving one hand in his pocket and taking a long drag on the cigarette. "Ro made me quit."

The both must have been looking at him shocked because they got a defensive: "What," from him.

"My wife made you quit?"

"Yeah, she made me get out of the people trade. I'm officially just a hardware and drugs man now," he said. "What do you want me to do? Suss out transpo lines? They're not using mine… at least… they better not."

"You have a smuggling line in Hawaii still?" Steve asked and Wo Fat glared at him.

Right, he wasn't supposed to talk about business with him.

"Look we caught one of the adults. Not the head guy but the…" "—You got a bottom?" "…yeah…" "—And you want me to flip her?"

"Depends, how quick do you think you could do it?" Kono asked before Steve could say anything.

"Uh… depends…"

"Oh what?"

"On what I'm allowed to do to her."

Jesus they could not leave him alone with that woman.

Right now she was sitting in a HPD car waiting for Steve's interrogation plan. Time was of the essence, so his plan was to use the room the bottom thought the girl was meeting her John in to interrogate her.

"Nothing you'd do to me," Steve answered and Wo rolled his eyes clearly not liking the dig. The reminder that he had tortured Steve more than once and one time while he was with Rowan.

"Who's the kid?" Wo suddenly asked. He hadn't even been looking in her direction. "One of the pimp's girls?"

"Yeah," Kono said.

"You mind if I talk to her?"

"Why?"

Wo Fat just stared at him. "It's important to me, to talk to her."

Kono cocked an eyebrow at him. Wo Fat didn't have regular people emotions, he was cold and calculated unless Rowan was involved, and this girl was a victim of ruthless men that used and sexual abused her. She kind of didn't want him anywhere near her.

"I can ask her if she'd be okay with it."

Kono left them to talk to the girl and then Steve got called over by one of the officers and Wo Fat was left alone until Kono waved him over.

This girl in the back of a cop car just stared up at him with these wide eyes. Similar to Rowan's eyes if her eyes had been brown.

"Can I talk to her alone?" he asked and Kono's eyes narrowed. "It's important… cause you have morals…"

"Fine, but be nice."

See normally the people on Steve's team wouldn't trust him. Something about this one was off, not that he really knew her all that well.

When she was a good distance away, Wo Fat knelt down in front of the girl to seem less threatening and then cleared his throat. He knew that, when it came to young girls in this position, they didn't trust men, they were the ones tormenting them, so he was going to have to seem as unimposing as he could.

"Uh… hello," he said. "Ignore the face, I'm not as bad as it looks."

A lie but it got her to giggle a bit and that was good.

"Hi, she… she said you wanted to talk to me."

"Yes. I do. I need you to tell me what she'd do to you. The bottom I mean. What did she do? To punish you," he said. The girl's eyebrows drew together in confusion. "Everyone has their own brand of corporal punishment, what's her's?"

Hat question seemed to trigger the fear response. She sort of withdrew into herself, as if trying to pull away from him. He made sure not to move, to stay statue still so she didn't think he was attacking her.

After a moment's pause she quietly asked: "Why?"

"Well… cause girls like you, you don't go into court, you don't testify. And people like them, they get away with it and go on to do it to more girls, just like you," he said. "But me. I'm not a cop. As you can kinda tell by the face, I'm a bad guy. Kinda like your boss except I deal with weapons and drugs."

The girl made this half-strangled noise and he put a hand to her leg. It made her jump but he tapped her twice and then removed it.

"The good news is, is I'm on your side today. I promise. I'm here to do good. All you have to do is tell me what she used to do to you, and I'm gonna turn it right back onto her."

"Really?"

"Really."

The girl blinked her eyes. "She… she uses a belt… lashes us. Or she'll lock us in dark rooms and not let us eat or come out… sometimes both."

Mmm, see he didn't have time to starve her, but the belt. The belt he could do.

Wo Fat glanced back to the open door to the motel room and then back to the girl.

"Leather or buckle?"

"Both."

Wow this was a real bitch they were working with. Not that he hadn't seen worse, he totally had. When he first started out, he worked with a pimp that would slice up the girl's feet so they couldn't run. That man eventually graduated to hobbling girls, but they weren't that attractive when they were limping around on broken ankles.

Yeah, that girl hadn't been that physically damaged, but there was definitely going to be mental trauma there. Maybe he could help with that.

He turned what Rowan called his dangerous smile onto the girl he was kneeling in front of. "Wanna watch?"

And she did.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

He started first by putting the girl into the motel room.

Steve and Kono were distracted, so he grabbed the bottom and took her into the room too. He threw her onto the bed and just left her there.

Then he locked the door.

Then he dead bolted it.

Then he put a chair under the knob.

He went back to the bed where the bottom was sitting glaring at him and then went about taking his belt off.

Fear alit in her eyes and he just smiled. She was thinking of something else. Something carnal. But Wo's women were always willing, and that wasn't what he had in mind. Didn't mean he didn't like tormenting her, letting her think that he might was good exercise for her heart.

"I heard all about what you'd do to your girls," he said. "Now it's your turn to see what it's like."

She cringed, she tried to shy away from it, but Wo Fat lashed out with a that belt, letting the buckle hit skin. There was a way it sounded, a certain way the vibrations felt travelling up his arm when it tore into her flesh that had him smiling.

She screamed. She asked what he wanted. But he just kept hitting, until he was out of breath and his shoulder kind of hurt.

He was getting old, and Con's stab to the shoulder had done some internal damage that was taking forever to heal. He took a break to try and rotate the stiffness out of his shoulder.

Steve was rattling the door handle.

The girl was staring at the woman writhing and crying, sobbing asking what he wanted from her. Going through a list of things she could give him, including an address, but Wo fat didn't care about that.

He watched the girl as he caught his breath. She was wide eyed but not in a fearful kind of way. In fact, he sort of recognized the look on her face.

A longing sort of blood-thirsty mile-long stare.

"You wanna try?" he asked her. She turned to him surprised. "It'll be cathartic, I swear."

She headed to him quickly and behind her the door began to creak. It was a pretty strong door if Steve hadn't gotten through it yet. But maybe he wasn't trying.

She took the belt from him and he showed it how to wrap it around her hands so it was still long enough to do damage, but she wouldn't lose her grip.

And then he just let her have it.

By the time Steve got the door down, the girl had managed to do irreparable damage to the woman's back all while screaming: "How do you like it?!" at her.

The woman kept screaming something back at them, 1245 Kaiaka. He had no idea what it was, so to him, it didn't really matter.

Steve and Kono came into the room, Steve got to the girl, stopped her from hitting the bottom further, he pulled the belt away from her, and then pushed her towards Kono. That meant all of his focus could be on Wo Fat, and he could tell that he was rightly very fucking mad at him.

"What the hell kind of interrogation technique is this?"

"Interrogation?"

"Yes!" Steve shouted. "You were supposed to break her, so we could get information."

A silent oh dawned on Wo's face as he remembered his true purpose here. He had kind of forgotten it.

"Right… I was supposed to ask her questions…"

"What the hell is the matter with you?"

"Nothing, I just got a little caught up…"

"In what?!"

"Revenge."

"What the… why the hell would you want revenge? They haven't done anything to you!"

Steve had clearly walked in on the girl wailing on the bottom, he wasn't sure how Steve had gotten confused.

"Well… me doing it was supposed to be poetic justice. To turn her own cruelty back onto her. But uh… letting little miss over there do it was the revenge part."

"Okay… but why?" Steve shouted and Wo Fat shrugged.

"I unno, to help? It is cathartic," he said and then he turned to the girl. "There, do you feel a bit better."

She nodded and Kono went about dragging her out of the room while Steve handed him the belt back.

He took a long look at the woman on the bed who seemed to be dry heaving. Rivers of blood streamed from her back, her arms, and her head. He wasn't sure if he or the girl had hit her head. The woman had tried to curl up into a ball to get away from the belt.

It hadn't helped her though.

"How the hell am I supposed to interrogate her now?" Steve asked. "How could you forget to ask questions?"

Wo just shrugged and Steve scowled at him. "I know you know how to do this. You did it to me."

"Yeah, but I didn't really care about that. When she wakes up, she'll be terrified. Tell her I was a dad of one of the girls or something. You threaten to leave her alone with me again she'll tell you anything you want."

"This is time sensitive Wo!" Steve cried. "How am I going to find the girls now?"

"Oh, uh… well she was shouting an address at me, would that help?"

Steve glared at him. This dry, terribly frustrated, about-to-strangle-him kind of glare.

"Yes Wo. Yes, that would help."

"Alright, she said 1245 Kaiaka."

And then Steve was leaving. He figured his job done, but Kono wanted him to come. Guess she figured he'd treat the pimp the same way.

And he would. If he got there before Steve did.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Steve had put Wo Fat in Kevlar, and let him pick his own weapon out of Five-0's armoury. He gave him Kevlar because if Wo got shot on Steve's watch, she'd never forgave him. He gave him one of Five-0's guns because he didn't want to have to explain how a random criminal was working with him and killing people.

Then he made Wo Fat stay by him because Steve couldn't trust him not to run off and cause issues.

Steve broke down the door, and then sent Wo Fat in first. But that meant that Wo Fat found the guy who looked like a junkie first.

He didn't tell him to freeze, he didn't tell him to get down, the man saw him got up, and Wo Fat shot him three times. Once in each shoulder and one center-mass.

"Wo!" Steve growled but the man turned to him surprised.

"What? What did I... I thought you wanted me here to kill people!"

"I wanted your help, was that guy even armed?"

"It's my policy to shoot first and find out later."

And that was why Wo Fat was not a cop, and probably never would be.

Steve shook his head. "Will you just help me find the girls?"

They went back to searching the rooms and then found a locked door. Steve kicked that one in and found them. All four girls. Including the girl who started all of this. Moani.

They all went in to soothe them, to calm them down and confirm who they were. All except Wo Fat, who clearly didn't care about the girls.

There was no sign of their pimp, Emilio, except for the tattoo of a cursive E with a crown that was on each girl, like a brand. The actual guy, however. Gone. Coward.

They were in there for maybe thirty seconds before Wo Fat called out: "Hey uh… is your guy about 5"9, white, with brown boyband hair?"

"Yeah," Steve called back. "Why?"

"He's uh… he's hoping the fence into the neighbour's backyard."

Steve poked his head out of the room to see that Wo Fat was standing in the doorway of a different room that must have had a window.

"Can you see him from the window right now?" Steve asked.

Already he and Kono were moving, as he was going past he saw a flash of light blue denim disappearing behind bushes. Right so that was their pimp cutting his losses.

"Wo!" Steve shouted. "Why did you go after him?"

"Oh what? Now I'm running down bad guys? I'm usually on the other end of this."

Steve grabbed the back of Wo's Kevlar and dragged him away with him. "Oh, just come on. And you're staying with me, so I can keep an eye on you."

Wo Fat rolled his eyes, shrugged Steve's grip off of him, but followed after him as requested.

Steve and Wo ran off to one side of the house, both hoping over the low stone fence without a single issue. Kono went down the other, specifically the side of the house that Emilio disappeared behind.

Kono headed through the back yard, couldn't see him and then doubled back. But she didn't fully leave. She waited and sure enough once she was out of sight, she heard someone drop to the ground.

She knew it. He had been hiding.

Kono rounded that wall with her gun up.

"Freeze!"

The man did as he was told. Turning to face her and dropping the knife.

No.

No.

She was not letting him get away with this so easily.

"Pick it up."

He looked at the knife, looked back to her and then shook his head.

"Do it!" she ordered. "Come on. You like hurting girls, don't you? I'm a girl."

He knelt down slowly and picked up the knife like she had told him too. Once he had it in his hands, once he was standing again, Kono took the clip out of her gun and then threw the ammo and the gun both to the side.

He'd be going up against her with a weapon, but she was just going to beat him with her own two hands.

He smirked like he thought this was going to be easy. Yeah, he was going to be in for a nasty surprise.

He faked her out a few times, pretending to lunge with the knife. They were circling each other. She backed away a bit each time, just to be safe, but when he actually did lunge the first time, she was ready.

Her lunged and she hit his wrist, stopping the lunge all together. When that didn't work, he tried again but with more power about it. She blocked the stab and then slapped him across the face with enough power to send him spiralling away from her.

Yeah, he didn't like that.

He did it again, lunging low, hoping to stab her in the center of her gravity, to throw her off, but Kono blocked that one too and then punched him this time.

Then he tried to slice, arm up high he tried to bring it down on her. She aside stepped, watched him careen forward and then kicked him in the stomach sending him back again.

When he lunged at her again, this time she grabbed his arm, elbowed him in the face and then brought that arm down onto her knee. Which took him down to the ground, crying out in pain. She kicked him so he fell over and the stood over top of him, waiting for the next move.

When he got up, she could tell she had done damage to his arm because he was sort of cradling it to himself. The knife switched hands and he lunged again. She did the same maneuver. Blocked, then head but him, then kicked him, right in the nuts.

That put him down on the ground for good. But she wasn't done with him yet. He was still holding the knife after all.

She only had to nudge him with her boot for him to topple over onto his back. Then she slowly got on her knees beside him, held down the hand that had the knife in it, and then just started punching him.

She got three hits in before she just let go of that arm she had been holding down, no longer caring about the knife and continued to hit him.

One hand and then the other. Just punching him. Over and over and over.

"Kono!" she heard Steve cry and when she looked up, Wo Fat was just standing there watching her, having probably been there for a while, just letting her wail on the man.

"Wow," was all he said as she got up off of him and Steve came towards them.

Wo Fat looked down to the man at her feet and then back to Steve. "I didn't do this."

Steve sighed. "Yes, Wo, I know."

"Alright, just making sure," he said.

"He had a knife," she said to Steve and the man just shrugged, clearly not caring.

When she looked up, Steve was working on picking the semi-unconscious man up, and Wo Fat was just smiling at her, in this amused sort of way. And with the way light seemed to hit him he seemed softer, kinder than she was used to. This was the Wo that Rowan knew. This was the Wo that she loved.

"I'd've just shot him," he said ruining the moment. "I like your way better. Utter humiliation. He will not live this down. Nice."

Kono smiled right back at him. "We make a good team," she said offering him a hand to shake.

He stared at it a bit before hesitantly taking it. "No offence, but I'd like to avoid collaborations with you people from now on. You guys are gonna ruin my rep."

But even with his words, even though her hand was in agony, Kono felt better. She felt maybe a little bit like Wo did with that belt. Like she had just served the best kind of justice.

And now, now she was going to spend the rest of her energy helping those girls.