[fic] The Things We Can't Control - Chapter 64 ~The First Rescue~
Title: The Things We Can't Control
Author:
prettyorianna
Pairing: Akame. Others to be added later.
Rating: NC-17.
Genre: crime drama au
Beta by: my cat Gemma. okay, seriously, nobody
Disclaimer: I don't own KAT-TUN, any of its members, any other JE people. I write this for fun and for other fans of these fine folks. But don't steal my plots, mmkay? I put a great deal of time into them except for when I'm randomly spastically spitting words onto a page. But I value those too...
Summary: Two criminals with vastly different styles meet by chance one day. They immediately clash but is that all they'll ever be? How much is fate and how much choice? And how will their meeting change the world around them?
Author's Note: The rest of Yurina's rescue. Enjoy!
BANNER BY DESHISORABA!! THE MOST AWESOME BANNER EVER AND I WILL FIGHT ANYONE WHO DISAGREES!
Warning: This gets graphic often occasionally, containing at the very least foul language, character death, nefarious crimes, rape, etc etc.
The Master Posts:
On my journal - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the akame_ Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the akame_fanfics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the je_kamenashi Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the kattun_fanfics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the jin_fics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
Chapter 64 ~The First Rescue~
Even though all the buildings in that area fit the description of “really trashy apartment building” pretty spot on, the building was easy enough to find. Or, rather, the kid was. He was chilling on the stoop with a couple of other kids. They looked high.
When the kid saw Kame striding purposefully towards him, the kid said, “Hey, yo, I ain’t been back to that store since! You come to hassle me, man? I’m just sittin’ here minding my own damn business!”
“I want to talk to you. Alone. I’ll make it worth your while.” Kame flashed a wad of cash at the kid.
“Oh, well, that’s different.” The kid looked relieved. “Follow me into my domi-sale.”
“Your… what?”
“My domi-sale! My crib! You don’t speak English?” The kid rolled his eyes.
Was… was he trying to say “domicile?”
What an idiot.
“Great. To the domi-sale it is, then,” Kame said, making sure to say the word exactly the same way as the kid. “Got a name, kid?”
“Sora.” And Kame followed the kid up into the building.
The inside was worse than the outside. Sora, clearly quite the thinker, had left what looked to be some kind of pipe just sitting on the top of his living room table along with some kind of rock-looking things that were probably crack or meth or something like that.
“So what’s this about?” Sora asked.
“Information. You got it and I need it. Lock the door behind us, won’t you? I don’t want anyone else hearing this stuff!” Kame heard the lock click as he spun around to face Sora. Gesturing with his head that Sora should take a seat on the couch, Kame said, “So, we can do this one of two ways. I got the cash…”
“What’s the other way?” Sora sprawled out on the couch.
“… or I’ve got the gun.” Kame pulled the weapon and pointed it straight at the kid.
Sora had been reaching for his pipe but he stopped midmotion. “Hey, that ain’t cool, man!” But the kid looks scared.
“So tell me what I want and I’ll pay you and go, then.”
Swallowing hard and eying the gun nervously, Sora asked, “What do you wanna know?”
“I want your brother Mitsuru’s address and I want it now.” Kame looked him straight in the eyes. “Or I will shoot you.”
“Eh… okay… yeah…” Sora stammered. “I’ll just… um… pen? Do you have a pen?”
“There’s a whole bunch of them in the cup on the table.”
“Oh.” The kid laughed nervously. “Yeah. Um…” Sora grabbed a pen and a napkin and wrote down an address. “That’s… his crib.”
Kame snatched up the napkin which had something sticky all over it and shoved it into his pocket. “If this isn’t right or if you call him and tell him I’m coming, I will be back. And I will shoot you.” Sliding the gun back into the other pocket, he turned to leave.
“Hey, wait, man! What about the money?!”
Without even bothering to count it, Kame tossed a handful of bills over his shoulder. He unlocked the door and strolled out of the apartment.
He had his address.
Now he could get Yurina.
What had the man at Abe’s brothel said? Only old high school friends and personal muscle. The man wouldn’t be expecting him, which worked in his favor, but the girls at the hostess club told him Abe never traveled with less than two goons. Best plan for those.
What if he said Sora sent him? That might at least get him through the front door. Once he was in, a couple of quick shots before anyone expected them to take down the muscle…
God, this was going to be dangerous. There was no way around that.
So. Okay, take down the muscle. Kill Abe. No. No, what if he moved her or he never took her to his home in the first place but rather somewhere else entirely? No, he’d better just shoot him in the leg or something. Disarm. Question. Get Yurina. Then kill him.
He was scared. If he failed…
Kame was more afraid of what would happen to her if he died than of the fact he might die. Ito-san might call the cops on his own if he didn’t hear from Kame within a few days so it was still possible they’d save her but he couldn’t really count on that.
Okay, the gun was full. He had two knives, sheathed, on either side. If he brought anything else, he’d be more likely to arm the enemy than buy himself more protection.
Taking the bus to as close to the place as possible, Kame took a deep breath and walked to down the street to the building and up the stoop to the front door of Abe’s duplex. The front door lock was busted so it wasn’t hard to get inside and according to the napkin, Abe’s was the one on the left.
Banging on the door hard, Kame started shouting, “Yo! Open up! Sora said I was sposed be here! Anybody listening?”
There was a commotion from inside. Abe’s voice, “I told that punk not to send someone else to pick his shit up again! Fine, fine, let him in!”
The door swung inward and Kame quickly assessed the scene. Three lines of… well, probably coke, considering the information he’d gathered, were already spread on the glass table in the living room. The man, Abe, was snorting one through… was that a rolled up dollar bill? Yes, that’s exactly what that was.
“Woah!” Abe yelped, apparently feeling the rush or whatever it was that cocaine was supposed to do. But then he added in a much more normal tone, “Better have all the money this time or you can just go back and tell him…”
But by then Kame had the gun out. Before any of them could react, he fired two shots off at the guard leaning across the opposite wall, hitting more or less the center of the chest. He spun around, firing off three more shot as he went. One he got off too early and it missed but the second and third hit the man behind him straight in the neck and chest and then he was down. Only Kame kept spinning, until he was once again facing out into the room. The guard against the far wall had slid down to the floor. He wasn’t quite dead but he soon would be and was no longer a threat.
So all of Kame’s attention turned towards Abe, who was reaching for a nearby drawer. Kame shot at his hand. He missed the hand and the bullet splintered the drawer but it was enough to stop Abe. Crossing the little living room, Kame kept his gun trained on Abe’s head and opened the drawer himself, grabbing Abe’s gun.
“Ah, thank you. What a lovely gun. Let’s have a nice little chat, you and I.”
“Who are you?” Abe asked.
Kame didn’t answer. Instead, since it worked so well on Naito, he shot Abe in the knee. The man screamed and Kame said, “Oh, I’m sorry. Were you using that knee? I thought you were done with it. So, Abe-san, tell me. Where is she?”
Fear quickly filled Abe’s eyes, almost completely drowning out the pain in them. “You’re… here for her…”
“WHERE IS SHE!” Kame screamed at him and shot him twice in the same leg. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?”
With another sharp scream of pain, Abe-san begged, “I didn’t know she mattered, that she had someone watching her, I swear I didn’t…”
Shot to the shoulder. “YOU THINK THAT MAKES IT OKAY? WHERE IS SHE!?”
“N-next door! She’s next door!”
“Key?”
The man pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and tossed them sloppily in Kame’s direction.
Kame snatched the phone off of the stand next to Abe’s chair and pulled the phone cord out and jerked it from the wall. He quickly bound the man’s hands together with the cord and grabbed anything weapon-like he could see as well as the man’s cell phone. Then he took off with the keys for the other half of the duplex.
Third key he tried did the trick. He flipped the light switch by the door and followed the hallway away from towards the kitchen. The first room he passed was a bathroom but the second was a bedroom and that’s where he found her.
Oh, god… It took every bit of strength Kame had to not fall to his knees crying. She was laying on the bed, one wrist cuffed to the headboard. She was naked and had bruising all along her inner thighs and wrists as well as the not yet dried remains of someone’s release. Her head lolled to the side like she was still drugged and she was whimpering so softly he almost couldn’t hear it.
Someone had left her not long ago.
Abe…!
Kame tore back down the short hallway, through the living room, across the hall and back into the other living room. Abe was watching him with terrified eyes. All Kame could think to say was to spit the man’s own words back at him:
“I think I’d like to see you beg again.” And Abe did just that. Until Kame emptied every single bullet he had left in his gun into the man.
Then he went back for Yurina. The key to the cuffs was thankfully on the key ring with the others, though Kame probably could have picked them otherwise. Oh so carefully, Kame wrapped the sheet she was laying on around her.
There was no way he could walk all the way home carrying her like that even if it was in walking distance. The bus wasn’t an option. Maybe a cab? Hm… he still had about three hundred dollars on him. The fare itself would probably run about fifty. For a two hundred and fifty dollar tip, the cab driver would probably just shut up and do what Kame told him to do.
So the question was, home or hospital?
Yurina had been through enough. She didn’t need to get poked and prodded further by doctors and it wasn’t like she’d be pressing charges so they didn’t need to have any evidence gathered. She’d probably feel a whole lot safer at home.
Home, then.
He used the phone in the living room to call the cab company and they said they were pretty close so they could be there in five minutes. Kame went back to the bedroom and slid one arm under her knees and one behind her back, lifting her as gently as he could.
She was crying…
The cab driver was very cooperative once money changed hands. He took them home.
Kame carried Yurina up the steps, to the elevator, and on up to the apartment. He’d been in such a hurry to go after her he’d forgotten to lock the door. But, frankly, he didn’t care in that moment whether anyone had ripped them off while he was gone. He wanted to take care of her. That was all that mattered to him now.
Carefully he put her on the bed. He grabbed a small bowl from the kitchen, filled it with warm water and grabbed a wash cloth from the bathroom. Opening the sheet, he washed the mess from between her legs, taking great care to not put too much pressure on the bruises. Tossing the rag into the laundry hamper, he lifted her off the sheet, pulled it off the bed, put her back down, and pulled her own blanket over her.
Then he grabbed a chair from the card table in the main room and a cool, damp wash cloth and settled in to take care of her while she was coming down off of… well, with the needle marks, it was probably heroin, right? What other drugs did people inject, after all?
And it was not an easy time. But she eventually passed into a natural sleep. Satisfied she was going to be okay, at least physically for now, Kame dragged his own tired self to the couch and finally passed out, too.
The sound of a chair falling over woke him suddenly. There was a frightened gasp.
Kame bolted upright and turned on the lamp on the little table at the end of the couch.
Yurina had tied her sheet around her and was trying to sneak out. She didn’t seem to realize where she was. When the light came on, she decided to make a run for it. Kame was up and after her in an instant. Throwing his arms around her, he pulled her backward and they both fell to the floor. She started struggling and crying while he started talking, “Yurina! Yurina, stop! It’s me! It’s Kame! You’re home! Home! You’re safe!”
“K-kame?” she whispered, spinning in his arms to face him. “Oh, Kame!” and she was sobbing into his shirt so hard she seemed to be having trouble breathing.
“Shh… It’s okay… you’re safe now. He can’t get you anymore. Shh…”
But no matter how softly he spoke to her, trying to calm her down she just kept sobbing and sobbing.
And he had no idea what to do.
Yurina sobbed a full twenty minutes without slowing in the slightest, maintaining a death grip on Kame’s shirt the whole time. Kame was pretty sure the only reason she slowed then was because she was simply exhausted.
“Come on. Up on the couch. You’ll be so much more comfortable and I’ll make some of Aoi’s magic tea,” Kame whispered, stroking her hair soothingly.
“No. No! Don’t leave me alone! Don’t leave me alone!” and Yurina’s grip on his shirt tightened even further. “They’ll come back! Please, don’t go! So many eyes and disgusting hands and… and…”
“There were others?” Kame asked with a start. “Not just Abe?”
Trembling violently, Yurina started to ramble, eyes wide. “Top shelf. So sweet. Round up the old gang. Round up the old gang. Yes, all eight of you! Whatever you want; she needs to learn. Bitch, I’ll teach you not to fuck with me. I’ll teach you. I’ll… Oh, god, I can’t fight! Why can’t I fight? Beg, slut. Beg and maybe we’ll just take you once and let you go. But it wasn’t once! It wasn’t once! OH, GOD! I BEGGED AND BEGGED AND BEGGED AND IT WASN’T ONCE! BITCH, YOU KNOW YOU DESERVE THIS! YOU TRIED TO SIC COPS ON ME! I WAITED THREE YEARS FOR THIS!”
“YURINA!” Kame shouted, shaking her by the shoulders. “YURINA, STOP! PLEASE!”
Now she was laughing darkly, “That’s what I said over and over. Stop. Please. Don’t. No more. I couldn’t fight. Nine pairs of hands… My body, so heavy… Having fun, bitch? Learned your lesson yet? No? Stop! Please! Not again! Oh, god, please! NO! PLEASE! NOT AGAIN! NOT AGAIN!” She released Kame’s shirt only to put her hands over her ears, close her eyes tightly, and very loudly and shrilly scream, “STOP! STOP!! I WANT TO SCREAM! WHY CAN’T I SCREAM?! STOP!! PLEASE!!” And she was sobbing again, eyes still closed tightly and hands still covering her ears.
Yurina had completely snapped. Whatever she was seeing of her ordeal, it wasn’t this room or him. She was stuck in her head, in her memories. It had to be surreal, considering how she’d been doped up. He was having trouble following her, but he understood well enough to leave him in tears.
Abe, royally pissed off over the incident three years ago and the thought she had also led the cops to Naito’s warehouse a couple night ago (even though it wasn’t true), had called in all eight of his high school friends and they’d all taken turns on her, more than once, while she was too drugged up to fight them off.
Not that the experience would have been enjoyable for anyone, but Kame imagined that it was probably made all the worst by the fact that she wasn’t from the streets. Until Ryuichi (god, he wished he’d made him suffer more!) destroyed her life, she’d led just a normal life, growing up with family that loved her and watched out for her. She was just an ordinary girl with a bit of a temper but a basically good heart.
He had no idea how to snap her out of this.
Maybe… if he could call the prison, he’d be able to get Aoi? Hearing her brother’s voice might calm her down. Aoi had his own problems and this definitely wouldn’t help but Kame was literally out of ideas. Yurina was lost somewhere in her head where he couldn’t reach her.
“Okay, Yurina… I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m going to take the cell phone I got off of him and try to call Aoi for you. Maybe your broth…”
Her eyes snapped back open, wide and terrified. “NO! No! You can’t call him! You can’t tell him! He still thinks I’m a good girl, a virgin. They don’t know! They don’t know! He’ll be so mad at me…” she babbled.
She was a virgin when Ryuichi got her? And then he’d traded her for cocaine, where Abe and who knows how many had her. He knew it was more than one, at least, because at the warehouse, Abe has said, “Begged us all.” No wonder she had denied Ryuichi raping her. It wasn’t just him she’d face in admitting it.
But when he’d met her a few weeks ago, she seemed okay. It was like she had come to terms with it as best she could.
Until this, like something out of her darkest nightmares. Only instead of the few hours like before, it had gone on for days and she wasn’t just being taken for their pleasure; she was being deliberately punished.
At least he managed to bring her back to the room and out of the prison of brutal memories her mind had her trapped in.
“Yurina, I need you to listen to me, okay?” Kame said in an even, serious voice. “You are still a good girl. What happened to you wasn’t your fault. None of it. Ryuichi is dead. Naito is dead. Abe is dead. I will find the others somehow and I will make every single one of them pay for hurting you. You did nothing wrong! And your brothers will still love you and I can promise you, they won’t be mad. You survived before because you are a strong girl - no, scratch that! A strong woman - and I believe you have all the power that you need in order to face this already within you. You just have to find it, ne? And in the meanwhile, be as sad or as angry as you have to be. I’ll take care of you, I promise.”
She didn’t say anything for a few moments but finally asked, “How did you find me?”
“I followed you to the warehouse. I tried so hard to get in but by the time I got the door broken open, Abe was driving away with you. But between information I shot out of Naito and some information I already had, I started searching around town, looking for leads on where Abe lived. Once I got the address, I came and got you.”
“How… how long…?”
“A few days.” Kame sniffled, wiping the tears from his cheeks with one hand. “I did my best. I am so, so sorry. You have every right to be mad at me. I… I took too long and you’re the one that suffered for it. It was just so hard to find you! Please, forgive me!”
A long pause.
Finally, “I thought nobody would come for me. I thought… you would believe I just took off.”
“I’ve been following you every time you left but you’ve always managed to lose me. You lost me that night, too, but I’d tracked you as far as the warehouse district. You’re pretty slick when you want. I figured whatever you were up to, it was a good chance it was in one of those warehouses so I just checked them one by one until I could hear your voice. Come on…” and he helped her climb to her feet. “You really should sit on the couch. It’s much more comfortable than that hard floor.”
Yurina let him guide her towards the couch and the two of them sat down. “Thanks…” she mumbled.
“Yurina, why didn’t you tell me what was happening? I could have helped you. You wouldn’t have had to keep running for that bastard Naito.”
“I was scared. No, more than that. I was too proud to admit I needed help. Too proud to admit that there was something I couldn’t handle myself even with how tough I am. Plus… I didn’t know you, not really. I’ve heard so much about you and I trust my brothers’ judgment but…”
Kame nodded, “But it’s not the same thing as knowing someone. Knowing you can count on them.”
“Un…” Yurina mumbled sleepily. She yawned.
“You’ve got to be exhausted,” Kame said softly to her. “Let me make some of that tea; I swear it’ll make you feel better. I mean, it always helped me. I think it might be magic. And then maybe you should go back to bed after that. I’ll be right out-”
Instant panic in her eyes as her hand shot out to grab Kame’s wrist. “Sleep with me.”
“What?” he whispered, confused. There was no way she wanted sex now, not after everything she’d gone through. “Yurina…? I… You… can’t mean that…”
“No! I… I meant, sleep. Sleep. Keep me safe…” she babbled. “I’m afraid to close my eyes again. Even with them open, I see their cruel, hungry expressions and… and… But you brought me back.” She sounded so nervous. “When I used to have nightmares, I’d crawl in bed with Akira and Aoi because I knew nothing could get me then. But they aren’t here and… and you saved me… Please! At least, for tonight…”
“If it’ll help…” Kame started slowly.
Barely louder than a whisper, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Let me make that tea now, okay?” And this time, she didn’t stop him, though her eyes followed him everywhere he went like she was worried he’d vanish if she looked away. He made the tea and it wasn’t nearly as good as when Aoi made it but it got the job done.
The two of them went to the bedroom and Kame turned away long enough to let her switch the sheet out for one of Akira’s long t-shirts that more or less covered everything important. He’d seen her naked earlier, true, but that had been necessity and he didn’t think she’d want any more eyes on her like that. But it only took a second and the two of them crawled into bed, her in the long shirt and him in the clothes he’d fallen asleep in earlier.
As she snuggled up close to his chest, she whispered, “Don’t leave me alone. Whatever happens, please don’t leave me alone.”
“I won’t. I promised I’d keep you safe, didn’t I?”
She didn’t say anything else. She just closed her eyes. It took a while, but her breathing sort of evened out and Kame was pretty sure she’d finally fallen asleep.
But he couldn’t sleep. Maybe he just wasn’t used to sharing a bed, but somehow he didn’t think that was it. He just… he felt so damn guilty. He was supposed to keep her safe but he’d let her get kidnapped and violated and the twins would never forgive him for it. Hell, he wasn’t sure he had it in him to forgive himself.
At least he had a goal.
He’d track down every last one of those men and make them pay.
++++++++++++++++++
The story continues:
Chapter 65 ~Yasu's Warning~
A/N: Well, there you go. Yurina's home. She's a bit a lot freaked out but can't really blame her. At least we know she turns out okay. She's already pretty tough (took down four of Naito's guys in the warehouse) and she gets tougher.
Yet another tragedy Kame feels responsible for, though.
Seriously, if he keeps throwing his money around like that, it's not going to last.