26-Sep-2000
Woo-hoo! Toldja I'd write more as soon as I could! ^_^v
Hope you enjoy it! DARK warnings still apply, and ol' Yoiko is not kidding about that. :) There is also some lemonish, nonconsensual content in this part, so please consider yourself warned.
"Anything?" Zechs asked, glumly watching Quatre sift through his share of the records on Mel. In an hour or so, he would have to go meet Lisa Love, and he wasn't looking forward to it.
"Mm. Maybe," Quatre replied, forcing himself to concentrate on the papers in front of him and not the slender, silent Preventer sitting across the table from him. "It seems that Mel was an enlisted man for Oz, under Treize Khushrenada."
"That would explain how he recognized us," Duo said from the doorway, limping in with Wufei close behind him. "Oz must've circulated our pictures to all their people."
"Yes, you were considered the Most Wanted," Zechs said. "We had pictures of all of you, except Trowa."
"Most Wanted? I like that," Duo replied, sinking into his chair with a wide grin. "It's always nice being wanted."
"But only if they take you out to dinner first," Wufei quipped, and smirked slightly as the others gaped at him in surprise.
"Er, quite," Zechs said, hiding a smile. "So... Mel was in Oz?"
"Yes," Quatre replied, grateful to Zechs for getting them back on track. "Apparently, he resented being drafted to fight in what he called a 'pointless war,' and was quite vocal about it. There's a long list of non-judicial punishments here..."
A low whistle sounded as Zechs perused the list. "He just barely missed being court-martialed."
"After the war, he tried to go back to the high school where he'd been a teacher, but they had closed down."
"He's a teacher?" Duo was incredulous.
"Theater and Speech."
"He definitely has a flair for the dramatic," Wufei said sourly, thinking of the video recording and the exploding house.
"Anything on where he might be hiding out?" Duo asked, leaning forward eagerly.
"The man has lived in so many different locations since the war... the clerk is making up a list of all of them."
"Maybe I'll go have a word with the clerk," Duo suggested, but a hand on his arm forestalled him.
"Trust me," Zechs said. "He's hurrying as fast as he can. And we have several teams ready to go investigate the sites." Duo nodded and settled back in his chair reluctantly.
"Anything else you can tell us about this man?" Wufei asked.
"He has ten fillings," Quatre said.
Zechs stifled a sigh, and nodded his fair head, taking another sip of coffee. Lisa Love was cheerfully telling him all about the retail business, and how hard it was to find good help nowadays. The chewing gum she'd had in her mouth when he met her was now stationed on the edge of her saucer, and there was gaudy orange lipstick smeared across the rim of her coffee mug. As she talked, crumbs of the pastry she was messily devouring sprayed across her plate and the used tissue she'd left on the tabletop.
Heero Yuy, you'd better appreciate what I go through for you, he grimly thought to himself.
"Ok, so he lived in an apartment on Peachtree, and the whole building's been combed," Duo repeated.
"Right," Quatre agreed, highlighting a line on his list to indicate the building had been cleared.
"And they didn't find jack shit."
"They haven't found anything at the house in Lawrenceville, either," Trowa added, disconnecting the comm unit and then responding as another team called in.
"Team Three says there's no trace of him in the Misty Creek place," Trowa reported a few minutes later.
"Team Two hasn't reported back yet," Quatre said, highlighting another item on the list.
"The Club's been gone over top to bottom," Duo added, marking off another line. "Too obvious, anyway."
"But we couldn't take a chance on missing the obvious," Quatre said quietly. "We're missing something."
"Holy shit!" Duo cried. "I think I know!"
"We should've waited for Zechs to get back," Wufei said quietly, pulling up in front of New Atlanta High and quickly checking his weapons.
"No time, if this is the place," Duo responded. "Besides, the other teams are still checking out the rest of the locations."
"But you're pretty sure this is the place."
"So are you," Duo replied. "Ready?"
"As I'll ever be."
To say that the abandoned high school was creepy would have been an understatement. Duo and Wufei crept carefully through the shadowed halls, treading lightly to keep their footfalls from echoing down the empty corridors. Tattered posters and papers hung from the bulletin boards, stained with age, and insects scurried in the piles of filth that had collected in the corners. The air was filled with a musty, stale odor, indicating that the building had remained unused by anyone but insects and rodents for a long, long time.
It was when they silently crept through the "Backstage" door of the auditorium that they noticed the difference. Here, the stage floor gleamed with a high gloss, and scent candles filled the air with a sweet aroma that almost masked the fetid smell of the hallway. In the center of the stage stood a huge, canopied bed, and there in the middle of it, lit up as though they were starring in a dramatic production, were Heero and Mel. The killer was laying on top of Heero, humping between the oblivious pilot's wide-spread legs.
He never even heard the gun.
Duo raced over to the bed, breathing harshly, the still-smoking gun clenched in one hand. With a wild scream of rage, he tore Mel's body away from Heero and started kicking it, still screaming. Dimly he felt Wufei's hands around his waist, pulling him away, and then the Chinese pilot slapped him, hard. Duo glared at him for an instant, then turned to Heero, leaving Wufei to deal with Mel.
"Oh... Heero..." Duo whispered. Heero was still in the precise position Mel had left him in, his legs obscenely sprawled open, his hands raised up as if holding his rapist to him. Blinking back tears, Duo quietly pulled Heero's limbs into what he hoped was a comfortable position, and covered his nakedness with a sheet before using the bedspread to start wiping Mel's blood away. Behind him, he heard Wufei reporting in and requesting an ambulance. He looked down into Heero's empty eyes, desperately seeking any glint of recognition and finding none. "Hang on, Heero," he whispered, carefully wiping blood from the too-still features, the blankly smiling lips. "Help's on the way."
End Part Five
That's it for now, but there's still more story to tell! Don't worry, I still think there'll be a happy ending! ^_^v
Yoiko ^_^v
Please send comments to: Yoiko