InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 8: Vendetta ❯ Ears ( Chapter 36 )

~~Chapter 36~~

~Ears~

 

-=0=-

 

 

Kurt rubbed his arms and pulled his coat a little tighter as he leaned against the side of the building, waiting for the gaudy green pizza delivery car to arrive.

 

`Damn it . . .'

 

He still wasn't entirely certain why he'd given in, though he had a sneaking suspicion that it had something to do with those dog ears of hers. Something about the drooping appendages was just incredibly hard to ignore, and worse, how she'd managed to make him feel like a complete and utter ogre for having ordered a pizza with `green stuff' on it . . . well . . .

 

And that wasn't even the half of it; not by a long shot . . .

 

When she'd figured out that he was calling to order another one, she'd done this strange little half-shuffle, half-scoot thing that completely reminded him of an excited puppy that he'd almost—almost—smiled. But she'd made such a racket while he was trying to order that pizza that she'd nearly driven him nuts, too . . .

 

“Yes, one deep dish meat lovers, small—”

 

“Large,” she corrected, leaning over his shoulder where he sat in the chair behind the desk. He covered the mouthpiece and pinned her with a bored stared. “I'm hungry,” she hissed in a stage whisper.

 

He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Large,” he amended.

 

“With extra meat.”

 

The bored stare turned a little darker. “You don't need extra meat,” he pointed out. “It's meat lovers . . . that's a hell of a lot of meat, to start with.”

 

“But I like meat, and by the time they get here, I'll need it since I've been smelling your pizza, and it's making me hungrier . . .”

 

Pressing his lips together when her ears did that hideous droopy-thing again, he heaved a sigh. “With extra meat,” he muttered.

 

“Well, sir, you realize that'll be an extra five bucks per meat you double . . .” the kid on the other end of the phone said.

 

“I know,” Kurt stated, wondering if he ought to have stopped by an ATM before he came in. “It's fine.”

 

“Okay, so that's one large deep meat lover's with extra meat, right?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“That'll be . . . fifty-three twenty-nine,” the kid said.

 

Kurt grimaced. Five bucks times seven meats plus the base price for the pizza, to start with . . . yeah, that sounded about right . . . “Fine.”

 

“Okay, we'll be there in thirty minutes or less.”

 

Snapping the phone closed, he turned to face the little demon, only to stop short when he saw the flattened ears again. “Wh-what?” he blurted, eyes widening at the obvious attempt on her part to make him feel bad.

 

“You forgot the extra cheese,” she said in a really quiet tone.

 

He stared at her for almost a minute before yanking open the phone once more.

 

“Mario's Pizza. We deliver everywhere,” the same kid answered.

 

Kurt grimaced. “Yeah, hi . . . I just ordered a large pizza with extra meat . . .?”

 

“Oh, yeah! Right.”

 

“Could you add extra cheese to that, too?”

 

“Hold on.” Covering the receiver, he heard the kid's muffled voice call out. “Hey! That pie with the boatload of meat? Add extra cheese, too!”

 

“Thanks,” Kurt muttered.

 

“Not a problem, dude. Anything else?”

 

“Oh, I think that's more than enough,” Kurt remarked.

 

The kid laughed. “All right. They're getting ready to bake your pizza now, so we'll be there shortly.”

 

“Great,” Kurt replied. The line went dead, and Kurt snapped the phone closed.

 

The little demon cleared her throat.

 

“What now?” he demanded, almost afraid of what her answer was going to be.

 

“Well . . . you need soda when you have pizza,” she pointed out a little too reasonably.

 

“Soda . . . There's a machine for those just down the hall,” he reminded her.

 

“But the white-coats said that it's been broken since the night that you were snowed in here. They say you broke it. Did you? You realize, don't you, that some people make their livings off machines like those, and if you go around breaking them—”

 

“I only broke the snack machine and only because a particular little demon kept whining about being hungry.”

 

The ears flattened just slightly as she scrunched up her shoulders and forced a tight little smile. “That's okay . . . I don't need a drink, too . . .”

 

Heaving a sigh, shaking his head, a part of him seriously having trouble believing that he was having this particular conversation with the demon, Kurt shot her what should have been a quelling glance—if she had been looking at him. She wasn't. Hitting redial on the phone, he could only grimace when the kid who answered asked him if he'd remembered something else. “Soda,” Kurt said. “A two-liter of Coke.”

 

“Umm . . .”

 

“What now?” he demanded as he closed the phone.

 

The little demon winced and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Well . . . I like orange soda better,” she confessed.

 

Shaking his head—he should have known—he didn't say a word as he opened the device and dialed the number yet again. “Orange soda,” he said when the kid answered the phone again.

 

The kid laughed and hung up. Kurt wasn't going to call again, damn it, no matter what the little demon thought of next . . .

 

“Wait, wait, wait . . .”

 

Kurt shot her a look as he snapped the phone closed. “Now what?” he demanded, almost afraid to ask.

 

She shot him a sheepish grin and shrugged. “I . . . I wanted some bread sticks, too.”

 

“Absolutely not,” he insisted.

 

Those damned ears flattened again. “But I haven't had anything to eat in days,” she reminded him.

 

Kurt snapped his mouth closed and made a face as he flipped open the phone once more, wondering absently if it wouldn't be easier to put the pizza place on speed dial. “Add an order of breadsticks, please?”

 

The kid chuckled. “Sure thing . . . cheese or marinara sauce?”

 

Gritting his teeth, he started to ask the demon then thought better of it. “Can you just bring extra of both?”

 

“No problem . . . We'll be there soon.”

 

“A candy bar would have been nice,” she ventured at length as he closed the phone yet again.

 

He snorted. “Don't push your luck, little demon,” he warned.

 

She heaved a sigh that he supposed was meant to make him feel bad. It didn't work, considering how much her stinking pizza was costing him . . .

 

As luck would have it, though, he didn't have to call back. Oh, no, the kid figured that he should call Kurt before the delivery guy left, to make sure that they didn't need anything else. Kurt grunted as the little demon yanked on his wrist to bring the phone down to her level. “Bring me a Hershey bar, please!”

 

And now, he was standing outside, freezing as he waited for the delivery. The watchman who was sitting in the monitor room had laughed and asked him if he were extra hungry or something.

 

At least it gave him some time to consider what to do about the silver haired demon who had found his office. That was going to be trouble—more trouble than he'd anticipated. Still, maybe he would give up if Kurt laid low for awhile. After all, he didn't use that office unless he'd captured a demon, so it wasn't like he had to go back there. He had books there, yes, and some of his equipment, but there wasn't actually anything there that would lead them directly to him, as far as he could tell. That didn't really offer him much in the way of reassurance, though . . .

 

It wasn't that he was trying to hide her now, exactly, but . . . but there were too many things that he really needed to get straightened out before he set her free—things to ensure that she wasn't captured again. When he had sat down earlier to make a list of things that he had to make sure of before he tried to get her out of there, he'd realized one glaring thing that he needed to have verified before he ever tried to move her. Harlan had told him once that they'd gotten in a few of the very newest tracking devices; ones that could easily be inserted just below the skin—one that was so tiny that regular sensors wouldn't pick it up: about the size of the head of a needle. Rich husbands put them on their bored wives sometimes to make sure that those wives weren't cheating on them. It had all been a joke to Harlan at the time, and Kurt, as usual, had only been listening halfway since nothing that Harlan had to say was of much interest, as far as he was concerned.

 

Now he wished that he'd paid just a little more attention. He didn't rightfully know whether or not Harlan had put something like that in the little demon, but he'd be a damn idiot if he didn't make sure that there wasn't one before he got her out of there. If the little demon knew, he could ask her. The trouble was that it could have easily been injected into her without her even realizing it, and once implanted, those things could transmit back the target's location via satellite network, right down to a street address anywhere in the world . . .

 

There was the security footage, of course. He'd be able to tell from watching those, whether or not they'd put something like that in her. Still, that was a hell of a lot of footage, wasn't it? But he didn't really have a choice in the matter, either . . . If he didn't check into it—if he got her out of there without bothering to make sure . . . a device like that wouldn't just put her in danger, it would also mean that her family was at risk, too, since he was going to make sure that she went straight home . . .

 

That aside, the other very real problem was that they came in every day, seven days a week. If they'd take weekends off or even just Sunday, he'd be able to get her out and allow at least a twenty-four hour lead time before they realized that she was missing. As it was, he'd be lucky if he could get a twelve hour head start, and that wasn't nearly enough to reassure him.

 

There were some very real drawbacks to his rough plan, and as much as he hated the idea of keeping her here, he wasn't entirely sure that he dared to try to get her out of there before he verified whether or not a tracker had been injected into her . . . She'd never forgive him, would she?

 

He sighed. Not that she was likely to forgive him now, that was . . . and with good reason, of course.

 

The headlights of a car slowed down on the street and pulled into the alley. Kurt pushed himself away from the wall and dug his wallet out.

 

“Seventy-five twenty-nine,” the kid who got out of the car said.

 

Kurt blinked at the total as the kid's grin widened. Shaking his head slowly, he dug money out of his wallet and handed it over, muttering for him to keep the change. The kid laughed again as he handed it over. “Sorry, man . . . the pizza was too tall for the box, so we sort of had to fake it . . . Have a good one!”

 

Letting out a deep breath as he grasped the paper sack that contained the soda, breadsticks, and probably her candy bar, Kurt shook his head and pushed the after hours clearance button beside the door with his elbow. A moment later, the buzz sounded that signaled the lock release, and he leaned against the door to let himself inside.

 

`She'd better appreciate this,' he thought as he headed toward the elevator. He never should have ordered a large pizza, damn it . . . she'd never be able to finish it . . .

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

“I can't believe you ate the whole thing . . .”

 

Samantha made a face as her stomach protested movement but managed to turn far enough to face the taijya, who was standing there with his arms crossed over his chest and a really weird look on his face. Caught somewhere between complete and utter shock and absolute horrified fascination, the end result was amusing at best—or would have been if laughing wouldn't have been so blasted uncomfortable. “It was really delicious. Thank you.”

 

He shook his head and let out a deep breath. “You're going to be sick; I just know it,” he predicted darkly.

 

“No, I won't!” she argued with a flutter of her limp wrist. “Ohh, my stomach hurts . . .”

 

Shaking his head, he leaned back in the desk chair and stared at her for a long moment. “Tell me something,” he finally said.

 

Samantha drew her feet up where she was perched atop the desk. “Tell you what?”

 

“Your family,” he said in a carefully casual tone. “How big is it?”

 

Samantha's pleasant mood faltered. “My family? Why?”

 

He shrugged, as though her answer really didn't interest him that much. “Just asking.”

 

She considered his answer, and while she didn't entirely buy into his reasoning, she figured that it was a good enough one to have asked. “Well, my immediate family isn't that big, not really . . . Just my sisters and my parents and me . . .”

 

She didn't see his scowl as he stared at her since she was frowning at her feet. “No . . . no brothers?” he asked.

 

She almost smiled, but the reminder of her family was a harsh one. “No, no brothers. Lots of cousins, though . . . and aunts and uncles and . . . well, you know: family.”

 

“Just sisters . . .”

 

She nodded then sighed. “My sisters . . . they both look like Mama . . . really pretty . . .”

 

“They're pretty?”

 

“Mhmm . . . Mama . . . she's taller than me with this . . . gorgeous long bronze hair—not quite golden but not brown, either . . . Papa always says she's the prettiest woman anywhere, and he'd probably right. I mean, I don't think there's anyone prettier than her, either. My sisters both look like her—Well, Isabelle has golden eyes like Papa, but Lexi looks exactly like Mama . . .”

 

His frown deepened. “So . . . you look like your . . . your papa.”

 

She smiled a little sadly, her ears drooping just a little as the image of her father's face flashed through her mind. “Mhmm . . . I mean, Papa's a good-looking man, but . . . but I'm a girl, and . . .” She trailed off, biting her lip, hating to admit to her own insecurities. She supposed that it was natural enough. Having grown up in a home full of beautiful women, she figured it was normal to feel a little like the ugly duckling living amongst swans.

 

He was quiet for a moment. “Bronze hair . . . golden eyes . . . Is there a . . . a male demon . . . who looks like that . . .?”

 

She blinked at his question then glanced at him. He was staring at his boot—he was sitting sideways with his right ankle crossed on his left knee. “Sure . . . my cousin—err, uncle.”

 

He did a double take. “Your . . . what?”

 

“Well, he's my uncle, but he's also my cousin,” she reiterated. “See, my papa and my grandma are brother and sister—well, technically Grandma's my step-grandma, but I call her grandma, anyway . . .”

 

He stared at her for a long moment. “You're . . .”

 

“No!” she insisted, cheeks pinking since she knew what he was going to say. “Not at all. My grandpa was married before, and he and his first wife had my mama, but she died just after Mama was born. Then he later met and married my papa's sister. There's none of that involved.”

 

He narrowed his gaze, leaning back a little more and crossing his arms over his chest. “You know, that explains a lot,” he remarked.

 

Her mouth dropped open and she snorted loudly. “That's not even funny, taijya,” she countered as she turned around and started to scoot off the desk. “I think I'm going to bed now.”

 

“Wait.”

 

She stopped and, against her better judgment, she spared a moment to look at him.

 

Without a word, he reached over and grabbed her wrist to tug her across the desk. “You're not bleeding anymore, right?”

 

She felt her cheeks heat at the indelicate reminder. “I'm fine,” she replied quietly, lifting her chin defiantly.

 

“I'd feel better if you'd let me look,” he said.

 

She shook her head and carefully pulled her wrist away. “I'm fine,” she repeated.

 

He didn't look like he believed her entirely, but he also didn't look like he was going to argue with her, either. “Here,” he blurted, suddenly grabbing his knapsack and rooting around inside. He pulled out a small cardboard rectangle and stared at it for a moment before hesitantly holding it out to her. “I . . . I bought this awhile back . . . It's not much . . .”

 

Samantha slowly reached out and took it, gasping quietly as her eyes widened, as she stared at the postcard. “Oh . . .” she breathed, blinking quickly as a suspect moisture glossed over her vision. “The . . . the sky . . .”

 

And it was. A picturesque image of the afternoon sky over an empty field with a tree and a steadily flowing creek . . .

 

“I saw it at the newsstand when I stopped to buy the paper,” he explained, as though he had to explain why he'd purchased it, to start with.

 

“The sky's so blue,” she murmured, unable to tear her eyes off the image. “Do you know where this field is?”

 

“W-I . . . no,” he admitted. “No . . .”

 

She giggled then sniffled. “That doesn't matter, does it? So pretty . . . so pretty . . .”

 

“You . . . you like it,” he asked quietly.

 

She nodded rapidly, a brilliant smile breaking over her features as she finally lifted her gaze to meet his. “You brought me the sky . . .”

 

For some reason, he looked pained. “It's . . . it's just a postcard,” he muttered weakly.

 

“Absolutely not,” she insisted. “I really wanted to see it again, even if it could only be a picture.”

 

He didn't look like he knew what to say to that, and maybe he really didn't. In the end, all he could do was nod. “Well, it's, um . . . yours.”

 

She started to giggle but stopped abruptly, and she shot him an almost nervous sort of glance. Slowly, hesitantly, she stared at the post card one last time then held it out to him. “Could you . . . would you . . . keep it for me? If they took it . . . the white-coats . . .”

 

He nodded, understanding her worry, taking the post card and staring at it for a long minute before he suddenly stood up and walked toward the cage. “Here,” he said, digging a pocket knife out and carefully slicing through the top layer of plastic that covered the ofuda he'd plastered all over the top of the cage. He worked them aside carefully slipped the post card under the ofuda then straightened the layer over them and smoothed down the plastic again. “How's that?”

 

She stared at him for a long moment then slowly crawled into the cage. With a happy little squeal, she reached up, touching layer of plastic over the postcard through the bars of the cage. “It's like a window,” she finally said, her smile still firmly in place. “The bars are kind of like a frame . . .”

 

His voice sounded oddly strained when he answered, but she couldn't see his face; she could only see his legs. “Y-yeah . . . a window . . .”

 

She tugged her blanket over herself and giggled. “I can fall asleep, looking at this,” she said. “Thank you.”

 

He didn't reply as he moved away. She noticed that he didn't go back to the desk, but instead sat at the table where the row of monitors were set up. That wasn't nearly interesting enough to hold her attention, though; not when she had a makeshift window to stare at . . .

 

`He brought me the sky,' she mused, reaching up, touching the picture once more. The plastic was cool against her fingertips, smooth like a pane of glass.

 

`And pizza,' her youkai added.

 

Samantha's smile widened seconds before a yawn interrupted her. `He really is nice, isn't he?'

 

Her youkai laughed softly. `We missed him, didn't we? And he . . . he knew to come back . . . he knew that we needed him . . .'

 

Samantha pulled the blanket a little closer as her eyes drifted closed. `Of course he knew,' she thought drowsily. `He's our . . .'

 

`He is . . .' her youkai admitted with a sigh. `Yes, he is.'

 

 

~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~= ~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~

A/N:

It's entirely possible to hit a female in the gut where the uterus is and to cause bleeding without actually hitting her too hard as long as you know where and how … and that's what Peterson did.

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Final Thought from Kurt:

Now to get to work …

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Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Vendetta): I do not claim any rights to InuYasha or the characters associated with the anime/manga. Those rights belong to Rumiko Takahashi, et al. I do offer my thanks to her for creating such vivid characters for me to terrorize.

 

~Sue~