InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Hijacked Honeymoon ❯ Chapter 19

Hijacked Honeymoon

 

Chapter 19

 

“Kincaid estimates we have a thirty-minute head start, maybe only ten, if Hojo can commandeer a chopper,” Sesshomaru told her as they headed back to their vehicle. “Don't look around. Gaze at me as if you know how much I want to kiss you.”

 

She wanted to run, but Sesshomaru kept their pace steady and even, so as not to attract attention. She was sure everyone was staring at them, but he'd asked her to look at him as if she couldn't take her eyes off him. Normally having an excuse to look at him wouldn't have been a problem. She enjoyed the strength in Sesshomaru's face, the intelligence I his eyes, the humor so often revealed in his upturned lips. But not with the FBI about to show up. Not when she wasn't ready to confront Hojo.

 

Sesshomaru took extra time to stop at the front desk, pretending they would check into their into their room as he paid for three nights and asked directions to a hiking path, leaving a false trail if anyone asked. But when Hojo and his men checked into their room and found it empty, they'd search for their vehicle, and when they failed to find it, they'd suspect she'd left.

 

Sesshomaru led her straight to their car. He grabbed the backpack with cash, a gun, a knife and several cell phones. Perhaps Sesshomaru meant to leave the vehicle behind, too. But he gestured for her to get in.

 

“We'll park down by the lake.” He drove to the far end of the crowded parking lot, slowly bumped their way over a curb, and half hid the vehicle behind some bushes. “Wait here.”

 

Sesshomaru removed a sack of equipment from the rear passenger seat and tossed it into the lake where it sank from sight. Next he untied one of the rowboats and shoved it into the lake, before returning to her and hefting the pack onto his back, “Let's hope the boat drifts to the other side.”

 

“Where are we going?” she asked.

 

“Kincaid said if we head due north, he'll have someone meet us.”

 

“Who?”

 

“I don't know. Kincaid had thousands of contacts in the police, CIA and military. Sometimes it's a friend of a friend of someone who owes him a favor. Sometimes the contact is simply hired to do the job. Whoever meets us will identify himself by one red and one green pen in hid front pocket.” Sesshomaru handed her a cell phone and pointed to a narrow path that forked to the right. “You go on ahead. I want to wipe the car clean. I'll catch up within half an hour.”

 

She didn't like the idea of leaving him. She didn't want to go on alone. And yet she didn't want to waste time arguing. Delays meant that Hojo had a better shot at catching up with them. Still, she took time to fling herself into Sesshomaru's arms and plant a kiss on his welcoming lips before heading up the path alone.

 

Without Sesshomaru beside her, she started at every crackle in the brush, at each darting squirrel, chirping frog and cooing bird. While she wasn't a city girl and had grown up in the suburbs, this part of Alabama was almost as remote as the area where the chopper had gone down. At least the path was well marked and she had no fear of becoming lost in the dark.

 

To lift her spirits, she counted her blessings. She wasn't cold, hungry or wet. She wore comfortable hiking shoes, jeans and a jacket. She had a cell phone if she needed to call for help. she wasn't sick, tired or even sore.

 

So why did she feel so down?

 

The tension was getting to her. The constant running and looking over her shoulder was stressing her out. And without Sesshomaru there to buffer her from her true feelings and to distract her with interesting conversation, she knew she couldn't take much more of this. She'd heard people who had been on the run for decades and then turned themselves in to the law, knowing they would face severe consequences. Now she knew why.

 

She needed to go on with her life. She needed to make plans for her future. But that kind of normalcy was impossible until either her father finished his invention or the government caught Hojo and his cohorts. She could do nothing to speed up her father's progress. And Sesshomaru didn't liked her plan to catch Hojo. Perhaps she could think up another.

 

Kagome strode quickly down the path at a fast walk. She'd been thinking so hard that she stopped startling at the sounds from the woods, and it took a moment for her to identify Sesshomaru's evenly paced running footsteps until he came alongside her. “Everything okay?”

 

“I suppose.”

 

“What's wrong?” he asked, his tone a shape whisper as he scanned ahead as if expecting danger to pop out of the trees and confront them.

 

“The food in my fridge is rotting. My car payment is overdue. I haven't paid my electric bill and my credit—“

 

“I'll have Kincaid take care of it.”

 

“Thanks…”

 

“But,” he pressed, “what else?”

 

“Sesshomaru, living on the run like this it wearing me down,” she admitted. Although she hated to complain, she didn't think he had a clue why she was upset.

 

“We'll go far away. Somewhere we can settle for a while. How dose Maine or the Caribbean sound?”

 

“They sound great for a vocation, but I can't relax when I'm always expecting something bad to happen. I want to go home. I want my life back. I need this to be over.”

 

Sesshomaru placed an arm around her shoulders and hugged her. “Hang in there. We're going to be fine.”

 

Easy for him to say. His life wasn't being disrupted. Being on the move all the time was his life. And while she didn't mean to be ungrateful, if she could do something to help, she wanted to opportunity.

 

“Sesshomaru, I have another idea how to make this all end sooner.”

 

She knew he wouldn't laugh or make a dismissing remark, but she didn't expect him to sound so curious. “Tell me.” He encouraged her.

 

“If I understand you correctly, out government needs to catch Hojo in the act of plotting terrorism or committing a treasonous act?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“What if I go back to Hojo—“

 

“No. You'd be in too much danger,” Sesshomaru insisted, his tone hard.

 

“I'm already in danger.” She squeezed Sesshomaru's hand. “Hear me out, please.”

 

“Okay,” he agreed, but his tone didn't soften.

 

“if Hojo's still looking for me, he's hoping to talk me into changing my mind about marrying him. He wants to carry out his original plan, right?”

 

“Maybe,” Sesshomaru conceded.

 

“So we let him. I'll go back and tell Hojo that I got cold feet right before the wedding. That I ran away for a few days to think things over and have realized I made a huge mistake. I'll tell him how much I love him and ask his forgiveness.”

 

“And then?” Sesshomaru's tone remained hard but interested.

 

“If I go back to him, won't he have to make plans? Talk to his cohorts and contact the terrorists? You'll be watching every move he makes. You'll be able to catch him.”

 

“You want me to let you go to him?” Sesshomaru shook his head. “You'd have to meet alone with Hojo. Probably several times.”

 

“So? He doesn't want to kill me I'm of no use to him dead.”

 

“We can't send you in with a wire. He's too smart for that.”

 

“Don't you have other kinds of listening devices? Couldn't you bug the room ahead of time?” she let her enthusiasm enter her tone. “Please, Sesshomaru. I don't want to keep running for mouths and mouths. I want to catch him and move on with my life.”

 

“And my spiriting you away to some vacation spot won't satisfy you?” Sesshomaru's tone sounded sad, disappointed.

 

“This isn't just about us. Besides, I'm not sure what to think about us. But I can't evaluate my feeling when we're on the run. When the only person I see and talk to is you. When I'm scared and anxious. This isn't the real world. It's more like a romantic thriller than my life. And that may be the kind of would where you're comfortable, but no matter how terrific the locale, I'm not comfortable hiding out.”

 

Sesshomaru removed his hand from her shoulder. His words, so controlled, so contained, revealed to her more than a shout just how much she'd hurt him. “So what an I to you? some else you filled up the hours with when no one else was available? Someone you used to chase away your fears?”

 

“That's not fair.” She stopped walking but he didn't wait for her, giving her his back. Hurrying to catch up, she tried to explain after having made such a mess of things. “My point is that until my life returns to normal, I won't know how I feel. I obviously made a huge mistake thinking I loved Hojo, and part of that was due to grieving over the loss of my mother. How do I know that what I feel for you isn't due to forced proximity, danger and that my life is in your hands?”

 

“It wasn't just your life in my hands. I don't recall you complaining when I—“

 

“Don't. don't say something that we'll both regret.” She tugged on his shoulder and he reluctantly turned around. “Sesshomaru, I want a real chance for us to spend more time together. Time where we can relax, where a phone call won't send us running into the woods in the middle of the night to meet some stranger who will take us someplace I've never been before. I'm not trying to negate what we have together.”

 

“And what do we have together?” he challenged her.

 

“That's what I want to find out. and I can't trust my feelings while I'm so off-kilter, so emotional charged or wrung out, so worried over Sango that I don't know if I'm thinking straight.”

 

“Maybe you're thinking too much.”

 

He reached for her and she didn't resist. His arms around her felt good and she tipped up her head, her lips automatically searching his. But instead of kissing her as she expected, he jerked back. “You wanted me to kiss you, don't deny it.”

 

“Of course I want you to kiss me. Why would I deny it?”

 

“Hell, woman, you are sending me so many mixed signals I'm not sure what to think.”

 

A/N hoped you liked the chapter. (I say that a lot, don't I?) next chapter I will try to make it long, okay. Well, tootles.