InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Purity Short: Cacophony ❯ Contemplation ( Chapter 15 )

Cartham pulled the motorcycle into the warehouse and let it roll into the spot, over to the side between the slightly beat up, but still very reliable truck and the wall, making a mental note to give Moe Jamison a call later on since he’d already asked his fellow hunter to come out and set up better security.  There were, of course, locks and even some barebones surveillance cameras set up near the doors, but the system that was in place was pretty old.  Even though he’d rather upgrade everything as soon as possible, it occurred to him that maybe he ought to wait until the secured room for his guns was completed so that he wouldn’t have to ask Moe to come out more than once.

Retrieving the manila envelope from the saddlebag on his bike, Cartham tucked it under his arm as he headed for the stairs.  He’d hooked up his computer in his room for now—at least, until his gun room was completed.  That would be good enough to use as his office, too, especially since he rarely ever actually needed anything of the sort.  About the only times he bothered with computers, really, was when he needed to check his account balances and stuff like that, or if he needed to pull information off of the secured network—or upload information, as the case was this time . . . Then again, Cain had called him later last night and had told him that he’d just realized that his daughter could just as easily bring the papers back with her.  He’d admitted that he hadn’t thought of it sooner, given that keeping Bellaniece out of tai-youkai business had become second nature to him over the years.  It was all good to Cartham, anyway.

To be honest, he had no idea, just what kind of information the small vole-youkai had given him.  The man’s beady black eyes had darted around the area so fast, his pale skin, almost sallow in the yellowish light of the weak porch lamp beside the door . . . He’d invited Cartham in, but only after checking his ID card—a special one that Cain had given him that identified him as a hunter in the service of the North American tai-youkai and something that Cartham rarely ever had to use.

The vole’s tiny house was as nondescript as he himself was: just a collection of slightly grayed walls with wood floors that weren’t really brown nor were they completely gray, either . . . Old but clean furniture in the same kind of blah, drab fabric, a lamp without a shade—just a bare lightbulb, burning in the straight stick of a fixture.  He’d handed over the envelope, chattering under his breath about the relief he felt in doing so.  A nervous sort of weak chuckle, here and there to punctuate it all, and, in the end, Cartham had taken the envelope and left.

By the time he’d finished with the vole, it was almost two in the morning, and he’d considered, getting a hotel room, but that thought had only lingered in his head for a few minutes.  He wasn’t really tired, and, given the way the guy had acted, Cartham had to admit to himself that he was feeling just a little sense of urgency to get the documents back to the relative safety of his home, even if he still had no idea, just what it was.

He let out a deep breath as he stepped onto the landing in front of the apartment door, pausing long enough to press the ‘lockdown’ button on the control panel nearby that secured the outer perimeter of the warehouse.  He couldn’t feel Kelly’s presence, but he knew she also had to work today.  At least, with her position as cashier manager, she only worked until one, maybe two, in the afternoon, and she got every weekend off, too.  Still, he couldn’t say he wasn’t just a little unsettled by the thinner quality in the aura of the place.  Funny, wasn’t it?  She wasn’t loud or anything, and it wasn’t as though she tried to draw attention to herself, but somehow, she still managed to imbue her presence into everything around him, and he wondered briefly if she thought the same things about him, too . . .

Bellaniece was sitting on the sofa, idly scrolling through something on her tablet with a cup of coffee in her other hand.  Dressed in a very pretty green skirt with a light, cream colored sweater, she sat, legs bent before her, feet tucked demurely to her side and under her, and she glanced up at Cartham when he stepped through the door, smiling instantly in greeting.

“Morning,” he mumbled, setting the envelope down long enough to shrug off his jacket, hanging it on the hook beside the door.  He started to pick up the documents again, but stopped, frowning at the packet thoughtfully, tapping the edge against the table.  “You talk to your dad?” he asked since Cain had mentioned that he’d talk to Bellaniece about bringing back the envelope.

She set the tablet aside and started to lift the cup of coffee to her lips.  “I did,” she said.  “This morning.  Is that the file I’m supposed to bring back for him?”

He didn’t answer, but he did step over to hand it to her before moving off to grab himself a cup of coffee, too.

“Kelly said that she’s taking off around noon,” Bellaniece went on, setting the envelope aside, turning on the sofa to watch Cartham instead.

“Aight,” Cartham replied, pulling a stoneware mug out of the cupboard.

She didn’t say anything else until he’d filled his mug and had sat down in the recliner nearby.  He started to reach for the television remote to see what was on the news, but she cleared her throat, drew his attention, and sat up a little straighter as she slipped her mug onto the coffee table.  “So, why did you want to move out here?” she asked without preamble, but her expression was entirely open, friendly, that he didn’t feel at all put off by her candor.

“Dunno,” he replied, quietly sipping his coffee.  “Guess I just wanted a change of scenery.”

Bellaniece considered his answer for a moment, slowly nodding, her gaze, clouding over slightly as she bit her bottom lip.  “You . . . You didn’t move here for Kelly, then,” she concluded, and to Cartham, she sounded a little . . . disappointed?  Then, she smiled again, but this one seemed a little more on the polite side of things.

Puzzled slightly by her reaction, Cartham frowned.  He wasn’t sure why it would matter to her other than the idea that she was Kelly’s friend, that she cared about Kelly, but before he could say something about it, she uttered a brisk little sigh and stood up, retrieving her coffee cup and heading over to the kitchen.  “Daddy said that you’ve been kind of taking care of Kel like she’s your own daughter,” Bellaniece went on.  “It’s really nice of you, but . . . but do you think that’s such a good idea?”

For some reason, the mention of Cain’s ridiculous assumption that Cartham’s feelings fell more on the fatherly side of things, Cartham grunted and rolled his eyes.  “Fat lot he knows,” he muttered under his breath before stubbornly sucking down the entire cup of coffee and ignoring the scalding heat of it that left his tongue tingling.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing,” Cartham said, hauling himself out of his chair so that he could refill his mug, too.

She shot him a polite smile and moved over to retrieve the creamer from the refrigerator.  “Don’t get me wrong, here, Cartham,” she continued, giving the creamer a good shake.  “I like you.  You seem like a good man—a decent person.  It’s just . . .” She grimaced as she dumped creamer into her mug and put the bottle away again.  “Kelly’s vulnerable right now, you know?  And she . . .” Trailing off, she stuck her claw into her mug and idly swirled the coffee as she considered just what it was that she wanted to say.  “Well, to be honest, I don’t know how she feels about you.”

“Is this really any of your business?” he asked, raising a pointed brow as he took his cup and stomped out of the kitchen again.  Unable to restrain the rise of irritation that Bellaniece had the absolute gall to question his motives, like she honestly believed that Cartham might be just playing with Kelly or some damn thing, it was all he could do to shove his emotions down, lest he choke on them instead.

“Yeah, it is,” Bellaniece insisted, following him back into the living room again, slipping back into her pose on the sofa once more, but she didn’t set the coffee mug aside.

“Actually, I don’t agree,” he shot back tightly, biting off his words before he ended up, saying a hell of a lot more than he already had.

Bellaniece sighed.  “I’m sorry,” she said after a moment.  “I’m not trying to offend you. I just . . . worry about her.  I guess I always have.  Daddy said you talked to her parents before you found her, right?  So, you know, she didn’t come from a happy home—not even a decent one; not really.  But Kel . . . She never says anything about it.  Not ever, and now . . .”  She sighed, made a face, sipped her coffee as she pondered her words.  “It’s just that, since I got here, I’ve seen it.  She’s different.  I don’t mean that she’s different since the fire—I mean, she’s different—more content—happier than I can remember her ever being before, and I . . .” Again, she sighed, shot him an almost apologetic kind of sad smile.  “You’re so, so good for her, Cartham—but . . . But you really could be so very, very bad for her, too.”

“I’m not going to hurt her,” he forced himself to say, forced himself to strive for a more even tone than he might have thought possible.

For some reason, Cartham’s words seemed to bother Bellaniece even more, and he had no idea, why.  Idly pushing her bronze hair back, tucking it behind her ear, she winced, almost seemed to be debating something in her own head.  At last, though, she sighed again, leveled a no-nonsense kind of look at him, and she didn’t look away.  “She was dating this guy a few months before she left Maine; did you know?  She didn’t think he was her mate, I don’t think, but it was good for her—at first.  They dated a while, and she liked him a lot, and then, we were talking one day.  She said that he was going to take her out for Valentine’s Day—make a big deal out of it.  She said . . .” Bellaniece grimaced.  “She said that she thought that it was ‘The Night’.  I was so excited for her, and I never stopped to think . . . But she didn’t call me the next day, which was weird because normally, we talked about everything.  I called her, though, and she . . . She was crying.  She was trying to pretend that she wasn’t, but I could hear it . . . She never said what happened, but I . . . I’m guessing that he saw her scars and freaked out . . . And after that, she stopped calling me, and eventually, she stopped answering the phone when I called her.”  Biting her lip again, gnawing on it with her perfect teeth, Bellaniece sighed again.  “Don’t tell her I told you all this, please,” she said, her voice, taking on a pleading kind of tone.  “She’d be so mad at me if she knew.  I’m only telling you this because . . . Because, as happy as she was back then?  She’s so much happier now, and . . . and I know—I know—it’s because of you.”

Cartham ground his teeth together as Kelly’s voice—Kelly’s words—echoed in his mind.  The look on her face, the absolute misery that delineated her very aura . . . and those words . . .

“I . . . I look like Frankenstein . . . Like a weird, patchwork quilt or something.  They said the scars would fade eventually, but . . . Yeah, sure.  Just give it another . . . hundred years, right . . .?  And until then, everyone who sees them thinks I’m some kind of sideshow freak, like I did it to myself or . . .”

And even if that was what she’d thought before, for someone to reinforce this belief of hers in such a cruel way?  Especially if . . . Deliberately cutting off his own thoughts, he quickly slipped the mug onto the table before he crushed it in his hands without meaning to.

“Who is he?” Cartham growled.

Bellaniece let out a deep breath, gave a quick shake of her head, as though she hadn’t heard him at all.  “I . . . I shouldn’t have told you any of that,” she blurted, color rising in her cheeks.  “It’s . . . It’s not your problem, and—”

“What’s this guy’s name?” he demanded, ignoring her claims that she shouldn’t talk more.

She blinked, seemed confused for a few moments.  “His name . . .?”

“Yeah, this little bastard she was dating.  What’s his goddamn name?”

“It doesn’t matter.  She—”

“It does matter!” Cartham growled.  “If this guy made her feel bad, just because she has a few scars, then I’m going to make sure that he thinks twice about being a jackass to anyone, ever again—if he gets an ‘ever again’—give him some goddamn scars of his own . . .”

She shook her head again, looked like she was about to tell him to stop being ridiculous.  “It’s not important!  What is, is that—” she said, and, as she looked at him, her eyes widened slowly.  “Oh, you . . . You do . . .” Fingers fluttering against her lips as she trailed off, as she continued to stare at him, Bellaniece seemed to believe that she’d just figured it all out.

And the smile that spread over her features was brilliant, intense, and positively luminous.

Kelly leaned forward to nab one of the take-out boxes of plain, white rice before settling back on the sofa once more.  Feet drawn up, she opened the box and dug out a huge bite without looking away from the movie on television.

Sitting on the floor at one end of the coffee table, Cartham said nothing as he picked through the beef and pea pods, and, out of the corner of her eyes, she saw him, fishing out the hunks of meat.

“You’d better not be leaving those peas,” Kelly warned though her gaze hadn’t strayed, even for a moment.

Beside her, Bellaniece giggled and fed Kelly a hunk of chicken from the container she was holding.  She was shockingly good with the chopsticks—not surprising, really, given that Japan was officially her home these days.  Kelly hadn’t even bothered, grabbing one of the plastic sporks that the Chinese restaurant had packed in their bags.

Cartham didn’t argue with her, and she repressed the urge to smile when he grudgingly scooped out a bite, complete with a pea pod, and stuffed it into his mouth.

“You’d think that you just took away his favorite toy,” Bellaniece remarked, nodding in Cartham’s direction.

Kelly glanced over at him, and rolled her eyes as he met her gaze, slowly digging another bite out of the box and making an exaggerated show of getting a pea pod in it, too.  “You’re as bad as she is,” she said, jerking her head toward Bellaniece.

“I can’t help it.  I like meat,” Bellaniece burbled around a mouthful of food.

Kelly snorted and stabbed her fork into the box in Bellaniece’s hands.  “That’s what she said.”

Bellaniece groaned, then giggled.  “Okay, switch,” she commanded, leaning over Kelly to offer Cartham the chicken.

“No, thanks,” he said.  “I don’t share food.”

Kelly shook her head.  “Yes, you do,” she reminded him.  “Well, drinks, anyway.”

Cartham leaned back against the recliner, mostly to keep his food out of Bellaniece’s reach.  “Not anymore,” he told her.  “Besides, the Legacy-of-Cain over there?  She should keep her germs to herself.”

Bellaniece sat back, but her eyes seemed to sparkle even more.  “I’m the Legacy-of—O-O-Oh, I get it!  That’s really clever, Cartham!”

He grunted.

Kelly made a face.  “You know, I got that for me,” she said, gesturing at the box in Cartham’s hand.  “I got you the shrimp.”

“That’s okay,” he told her between bites.  “I’m good.”

Letting out a longsuffering breath, Kelly traded the rice for the box of sweet and sour shrimp along with a crispy, golden, crab rangoon.  “I thought you loved shrimp,” she mused, poking around to find the bite she wanted.

Cartham shrugged and leaned over to nab the remote control.  “I’m an equal opportunity meat eater,” he said.  “Gross, is that broccoli?”

Bellaniece shook her head.  “It’s cauliflower,” she told him.  “Broccoli’s green.”

He didn’t look impressed as he clicked the remote to bring up the channel guide.  “And both are really disgusting,” he replied.

“Oh, wait!  The Loving Way,” Kelly exclaimed, jabbing her fork in the direction of the television.  “We can rent that!”

Before Cartham could try to talk her out of it, Bellaniece made a face. “It’s not that good,” she said.

“When did you see it?”

Turning her attention back to her food once more, Bellaniece shrugged.  “Ryomaru rented it a couple weeks ago,” she said simply.

“Did Nezumi want to see it?”

Bellaniece shook her head.  “Nope.  She hates chick flicks.  Ryomaru’s the one who loves them.”

“. . . Wow.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Cartham grunted.  “And he’s Sesshoumaru’s top hunter?  Does he wear dresses out on his jobs?”

Bellaniece winked at him, that impish smile of hers, back on her face.  “He could.  I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in his hunting gear or whatever you guys wear, so it’s possible.”

Cartham snorted.  Loudly.  And then, he switched the channel to WWE wrestling, much to the girls’ collective, groaning dismay.

“You know this is all fake, right?” Kelly pointed out dryly.

“It’s scripted,” he corrected.  “It still takes training and skill.”

Bellaniece slowly shook her head.  “Training and skill, and—oh, look, he’s wearing a tutu—a pink tutu.”

“Yeah, it’s apparently your brother-in-law, getting ready to go out on a job,” Cartham shot back.

“He’s such a smartass,” Bellaniece said in an aside to Kelly.  “I really like him.”

Kelly sighed, but said nothing.

“Oh, eww!” Bellaniece exclaimed when the one that was wearing a bunch of black, studded leather flipped the tutu-wearer off of the top of a turnbuckle.  The movement caused the tutu to rise up, exposing what really could only be called pantaloons . . . “There are pups in that audience!  They don’t need to see that!”

Kelly giggled despite her own distaste.  “He’s got to stuff his pants.”

“Why are you looking at his crotch?” Cartham grumbled.

“You chose the wrasslin,” Kelly pointed out calmly.  “If they’re going to show off their junk, then it’s not like I can help what I see.”

“Nah, he’s just wearing a really generous cup,” Bellaniece decided.  “I mean, as tight as those bloomers are—”

Cartham sighed.  “Tights,” he corrected in a rather exasperated tone, sounding just a little put upon.

“Because calling them tights makes them sound so much manlier,” Bellaniece shot back pleasantly.  “Anyway, if he wasn’t wearing a cup, then you’d definitely see outlines.”

“I get that you’re trying to make me change the channel, but I just sat through three hours of Titanic,” he pointed out reasonably.

Kelly giggled.  “I’ll never let go, Cartham . . .”

He grunted and rolled his eyes, but said nothing else.

Cartham blinked, his head, jerking back when the envelope suddenly appeared directly under his nose between his face and the tablet that he’d been reading the news on.  Satisfied that she’d gotten his attention, Bellaniece let the envelope fall onto the tablet as she casually moved past him and sat on the sofa.

Kelly had gone upstairs to take a shower, and he’d thought that Bellaniece had gone to bed, too.  No such luck, it seemed, and he slowly, hesitantly set the tablet aside and picked up the envelope.

Kelly’s name was written on the front, but that was it, and he frowned at Bellaniece, starting to set it aside, but she shrugged and rolled a hand, indicating that she thought he ought to open it anyway.  “It’s not for me,” he said, which Bellaniece already knew.

“Yeah, I know.  It’s an invitation to her work’s Christmas gala in a couple weeks,” she told him.  “Sounds like a lot of fun, really—dancing, dinner, gambling for charity . . .”

“Okay,” he said, still not very comfortable with the idea of reading her mail, regardless of what it was.  “She’s never mentioned it.”

“She says she’s not going,” Bellaniece replied simply.

He was coming to realize fairly quickly that women, in general, really didn’t make any sense.  “Then, why are you showing it to me?” he asked, tapping the edge of the envelope on the arm of the chair.  “Does she know you’re showing it to me?”

“Of course, she doesn’t, and because I think she’d have fun,” Bellaniece said in a tone that indicated that he ought to have realized as much.

“If she said she’s not going, then I’d guess she doesn’t want to,” he pointed out.

Bellaniece rolled her eyes.  “It’s my guess that it’s not that she doesn’t want to go.  My best bet is that she just doesn’t want to mess around with trying to find something to wear and all of that.  It makes perfect sense, if you think about it.”

He frowned at her since he wasn’t really inclined to agree.  “Your logic is entirely lost on me,” he told her.

Again, she sighed, shook her head as though she thought he was just being dumb.  “Are you really trying to say you’ve never noticed?  How everything she owns is designed to cover her entirely from the neck down?  And do you know how hard it would be to find an evening dress or whatever that would do the same thing?”

That earned her a rather dark look.  “That’s stupid,” he insisted, giving his head a little shake.  “She just wears what’s comfortable, and—”

“Does she?” Bellaniece challenged mildly.  “Doesn’t it get really warm here, especially in the summer?  But she doesn’t even own a pair of shorts—not even a short-sleeved tee-shirt.  She’s covering herself up.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he scoffed.  “She doesn’t need to.”

Bellaniece sighed, and her tone was almost placating.  “I know that, and you know that, and even Kelly probably realizes it, too, on some level, but her scarring—”

“There’s not a damn thing wrong with her,” he growled, his temper, dangerously close to igniting.  “Not a damn thing, and if you’re her friend—her best friend—then you need to—”

“I never said it was logical,” Bellaniece cut in coldly, narrowing those sapphire eyes in a way that reminded Cartham of her father.  “If you remember what I told you earlier, then you’d know, right?  Those scars are deeper than they look—to her, at least.  To her, they’re deeper than bone, and they’re ugly, and that’s all she sees, and isn’t her perception of them more important than anyone else’s?  So, yes, it’s great that you’re standing up for her.  I get it, and I love you for that, more than you know.  But what you see; what I see . . . It pales in comparison to what she sees.”

He shook his head.  What Bellaniece said made perfect sense, even if he hated the idea that it did.  “That’s beside the point, isn’t it?” he finally said, setting the invitation aside and scowling at the tai-youkai’s daughter.  “Listen, if she isn’t comfortable, going to this thing, then—”

“But I’m going to help you,” Bellaniece interrupted.

Why, oh, why did he feel like he was walking, right into some kind of weird trap . . .? “Help me, what?” he asked against his better judgement.

“I’ll help you find something that will cover her so she won’t be self-conscious, but that’s also guaranteed to make her feel as beautiful as she is.”  Biting her lip, she crossed her arms over her chest, seemed to be considering something pretty deeply.  “Unless you don’t want to take her, that is . . . Am I reading you wrong, Cartham?”

“Reading me?”

She nodded slowly, almost methodically.  “You loaned her money to get settled when Daddy was more than willing to do that.  You kept coming around to check on her, even after Daddy stopped asking you to do it.  You moved here—moved her in with you, and you really didn’t have to do that, considering you even bought her a gun, and you’re teaching her how to use it . . . And I could be reading you entirely wrong, sure.  After all, I just met you, and it’s not like I knew you before to have any real basis of comparison . . .” She trailed off for a moment, seemed to be pondering things.  Then, she shook her head.  “Daddy said that you have fatherly feelings about her, but that’s not quite right, is it?”

“I . . .”

She sighed.  “You don’t have to tell me anything.  I really just want to help her, and if helping you help her is the best way to do it, then so be it.  Because something about the two of you . . . You’ve healed her more than I’ve ever been able to, and I’m all right with that.  Kelly’s my focus here.”

He pondered that.  In truth, he didn’t really know what to say about that, anyway.  His feelings, when it came to Kelly Hendricks . . . Well, he couldn’t explain them, couldn’t put words to it.  Every day, she grew dearer to him, and every day, he could feel the bond between them, growing stronger.   But to put a label on it?  It wasn’t really something he could do, no . . .

“For what it’s worth, if Kelly loves someone, then she loves them completely, flaws and all,” Bellaniece mused quietly.  “If she loves someone, then there’s nothing she won’t do for them.  If she loves someone, then they’ll be one of the luckiest people in the world.”

“Why’s that?” he couldn’t help asking, and yet, dreading her answer, at the same time.

To his surprise, a rather impish smile surfaced on Bellaniece’s pretty face, and she winked at him.  “Because I love anyone she loves,” she replied simply, “and if I love someone, then I’ll absolutely go out of my way to help him.”

Cartham stifled a sigh.

For some reason, Bellaniece’s words sounded more like an omen than an actual promise, didn’t it . . .?