InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Incubus Ambition ❯ Dark Alleyways ( Chapter 2 )

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha. Copyright belongs to Viz and Rumiko Takashi. As goes for this entire Fanfic story.

Chapter 2:

Dark Alleyways

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KAGOME RUSHED INTO HER HOUSE AND quickly closed the door behind her. She looked around, and then sighed in relief when she realized her mother had not yet arrived home from work. She was not in the mood to chat it up with Linda on today's series of events just yet. She hadn't been in school for two weeks and these two boys, Alex and Chris, were turning her brain into oatmeal.

The house seemed dead, and it made Kagome feel anxious which was one of many strange symptoms arising ever since school began. She went to the kitchen, throwing her jacket onto the back of a chair that sat by the table. She could not help but look over her shoulder every minute or two. Her hands shook as she went to reach for a bottle of water that chilled in one of the refrigerator drawers. She slammed the large door shut and leaned back into the table with her eyes closed. This boy Alex had a tendency to drag her attention away from the important things in life, like Homecoming, sporting events, and the weekend parties.

Kagome usually calmed herself by taking in slow, deep breaths and after a few minutes she would relax and the little anxiety attack would just disappear. She got up and crept around the house looking into the semi-dark rooms, as she did she could feel the dull thump of her heartbeat. She wondered if her cat, who was staring into the dark along with her, could hear it too.

She slowly trudged up the stairs and threw herself backwards onto her bed. She started to rub her fingers against her temples. For a minute, an odd sensation came over her—as if someone was watching her. Kagome shook her head, and realized how completely ridiculous she was acting.

“I need some serious alone time to think on today's events.” Kagome said aloud to herself after calming her nerves. Just as she started to recall her day, her cell phone vibrated in rebellion. Kagome rolled her eyes and then quickly snagged the phone from the side table by her bed.

“Hello?” She asked in a sigh.

“Hey, Kagome,” sounded a male voice on the other line. She smirked, recognizing the voice.

“Hey Sean, how's life?” she questioned, curious to why he was calling in the first place.

“It's good—but hey, I actually have a reason for calling you,” he said, answering Kagome's most recent inner question. “Some of the group is going out tonight, dinner and a movie—I'm pretty sure. Are you in?”

“Who's all going?”

“Well I am of course, and then there is Samantha, Emily, Trisha, Yuri—“

“C'mon Sean, those are all girls. Get some male bodies to even it out and then I'll think about it. It is not going to be a girl's dinner and a movie night plus Sean.”

“Ah, okay,” Sean replied in obvious disappointment since his plan on looking like a major pimp just fell through. “I'll call you back in a little while,” he said then hung up the phone.

Kagome drummed her fingers on the table that sat beside her bed. Her mind was racing with thoughts of today's events which, like always, included the two God-like boys.

Kagome even brought the Chris and Alex subject to Yuri, but Yuri is such a scatterbrain that the only thing she thought of to explain Kagome's odd reaction was that Kagome was love sick. Yuri thinks that since Kagome has still to date another guy since her ex, Hojou, means that she needs to get back together with him or something ridiculous like that.

Yuri was already making fantasy dates with Chris. To Kagome's approval, he was not a jerk—conceded? Yes, but a jerk? No. Yuri was extremely disappointed to hear that he had a girlfriend, so the conversation was then dropped and turned back to Alex, who Kagome didn't even have a chance to talk to yet. Never in her life has a boy intimidated her so much! Out of the two men Chris was much easier to speak with, girlfriend or not.

She had so many questions to ask Chris. Her biggest question: What were the obvious problems between Alex with his friends—and Chris with his?

Her forehead wrinkled when she thought back to what Chris had said to her after she sensed something going on between the two. Their attitudes definitely did not get any better, but it didn't get any worse either. Their constant glares gave her a headache; and when she took the simple route and just asked, his response left her still in the dark!

It's nothing you have to worry about.

This triggered an even higher amount of curiosity. What exactly was that supposed to mean? She isn't stupid. Moreover, she always thought herself to be an open-minded person. She could handle the truth behind Chris and Alex's little spat with one another—or at least she thinks she can. She had a headache, a usual occurrence after thinking of the two boys. She wasn't even able to do her homework because she couldn't stop thinking about Alex! All she wanted to do was calm her thoughts, stop them if she could, for the sake of receiving a high school diploma.

She scooted backwards, rested her head on the wall, and then closed her eyes. She was exhausted with her own eagerness and her incapability to keep her nose out of these conflicting boys' problems. She knew it was none of her business but something just kept racking her brain, like a little pebble in the bottom of your shoe. Every time she tried to change the subject in her head it would change right back.

She jumped at the sound of a door slamming shut down stairs. “Kagome?” called her mother, Linda, from the first floor. Kagome hopped off her bed and ran down the stairs.

“Hey mom,” she exhaled from the sudden exertion. “How was your day?”

“Oh, it was the same as every other day.” Her mother replied as she walked into the kitchen and started fingering through the boxes of food deciding what to cook for dinner. “How was school?” She asked in a conversational tone.

Kagome pulled out a chair and sat herself in it, folding her hands on top of the table.

“It was . . . interesting,” she said with a smile. Kagome was definitely telling the truth. Her mother didn't seem too interested in the conversation, so Kagome decided to change the subject to the matter at hand. “What's for dinner?”

“That's what I'm trying to figure out now.” Her mother sighed in defeat. Linda looked lazily over at Kagome. “How about we settle on some take-out?” she asked with a smile.

Kagome laughed.

“Yeah, I'm up for that.”

“Okay, good. You know I'm not that fantastic when it comes to creating a home-made dinner,” her mother said in a joking tone and took a seat across from her daughter at the kitchen table. “Toss the phone over here, would you?” She asked directing her gaze towards the phone that hung on the wall behind Kagome. Kagome plucked the phone out of its resting place and tossed it to her mother.

The household consisted of just the two of them. Linda and her husband divorced when Kagome was very young. The cause of the divorce was that her father was having an affair on her mother. She caught them together in their own bedroom. The divorce preparations went into action soon after that.

Kagome's mom looked thoughtful as she opened the phonebook in search for the first Chinese take out that stuck out. Kagome smiled as she leaned across the table and pulled the phonebook towards her after Linda had decided on a place. `China Wall restaurant and takeout' was circled about five times. She watched her mom order an immense amount of Chinese food. Kagome could hear the jabbering woman on the other line, sounding as if she just learned the basics of English yesterday. Her mother's forehead wrinkled, trying to keep up with the woman's thick Chinese accent.

Kagome smiled when she investigated her mother's persona. She looked young, with her short, dark, brown hair. She glanced down at what her mother was wearing—a yellow short sleeved shirt with a V- neck.

That's mine! Kagome thought to herself. Her mother and she were about the same size, and instead of looking like mother and daughter they looked more like sisters. Her mother hung up the phone with a `click' of a button and looked exasperatedly over at her daughter.

“Ridiculous. You think you would have to learn how to speak English properly before you could go gala-bunting off, creating a chain of restaurants and serving English speaking people your food,” Linda sighed and then set the phone back in its hook where it belonged.

“How long will it take till it arrives?” Kagome asked.

Linda rolled her eyes.

“I'm just going to go pick it up. They couldn't say the address right, and I just told them I would be there in ten minutes.”

“Okay, I'll tag along. Only if you don't mind though,” Kagome said as she got out of her chair.

Linda nodded.

“Nice shirt by the way,” Kagome added, directing her gaze to the yellow V-neck her mother was wearing.

Her mother laughed, “Yea I know I got it from a place called `Kagome's closet'.”

KAGOME AND HER MOTHER LEFT THE HOUSE later that evening, rain trickled lightly onto their heads so Kagome shielded her face with the hood of her jacket as she ran to the car. She yanked open the door and threw herself in.

“Wow, I hate the rain,” Kagome groaned.

Her mother nodded in agreement.

“Yeah this sucks.”

Linda pulled out of the driveway and then onto the main highway. The rain picked up and started pattering large droplets onto the windshield. Her mother put the wipers on turbo and sighed irritably.

“So are we playing rock-paper-scissors to see who runs through this flood and grabs the take-out?” Linda asked with a sly smile. She was leaning forward in her seat trying to see more clearly out of the window.

Kagome rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, but you know I'm going to lose and be left to drown out there.” Kagome said in a far off tone as she tried to peer out the window. Drowning seemed very likely when seeing how hard the rain was pouring down from the empty night sky.

When her mother pulled into the back of the restaurant and parked, they played their game, and just as Kagome predicted, Linda had won two out of three games of rock-paper-scissors. Kagome took a deep breath in and prepared herself for the unwanted onslaught of rain that was going to flank her as soon as she got out of the car. Then, trying not to think too much about it, she flung herself into the rain and ran up the sidewalk that stretched along the building's edge. Kagome covered her face and turned herself toward the brick wall as she ran along side of it. Finally, arriving in front of the restaurant, she squinted up at the large, glowing sign that read: `The China Wall' in big red letters.

Kagome saw something move out of the right corner of her eye. She looked over quickly just in time to catch someone escape the rain and run into the neighboring alleyway. She stood there and waited to see whether someone or something would pop out of the shadow and reveal itself, himself or herself, but of course, it did not and after a few more seconds, Kagome's curiosity got the best of her.

She sighed and looked up at the plastic red tarp that hung above her head posing as a type of roofing by shielding her from the rain. After a second of considering her options she shrugged inwardly.

“What's the worst that could happen?” she mumbled, not particularly asking a question to anyone but herself. With that, Kagome darted for the alleyway.

`Salvation,' she thought in relief when she was, once again, slightly shielded from the rain. Even though in between the two buildings, the rain had no way of permeating the premises there was still a heavy dampness in the air. Kagome looked frantically for whoever had done the same just a minute earlier but she couldn't see anyone. She squinted to the end of the alleyway, where the most light allowed itself to enter, and started to haltingly walk forward. Her eyes slowly started adjusting to the lack of light and she was able to make out the patches of lighter area trapped in the dark alleyway. She was nervously preparing herself for somebody to jump out of the shadows and scream `boo!' into her face as some type of horrible trick.

The alleyway was getting darker and darker with every step and before she knew it she was tripping over her own two feet. The echoing sounds they made startled her and she spun around. When the feeling of unsteadiness washed over her once again, like it had earlier that day when she was alone in the house she thought:

This was a really stupid idea!

Why didn't she just walk into the Chinese wall restaurant and go home?

A low rumbling sound emerged from behind her and Kagome froze. Was she hearing things? The last time she checked there shouldn't be anything in here other than her. The sound came again but somewhat louder this time. She twirled around quickly and when she looked down the alleyway, her breath caught in her throat. Two bulbous yellow eyes were watching her, but these were not the beady eyes of a street cat. They were large and iridescent. Kagome took a step back but faltered. Was there another behind her?

She heard the growl again, followed by an odd clicking noise that Kagome had never heard before. She didn't need another warning. She turned again but more frantically, her feet tangled around one another, and before she knew what was going on, she was falling face first towards the ground. Whether it was the concrete or the animal mauling into her, Kagome braced herself for impact.

She opened her eyes in amazement when she discovered that she had stopped in mid-air or maybe it was when she noticed the manly grip take a hold of her arm yanking her towards him. Whoever it was made Kagome forget all about what she was doing in this dark, gloomy, empty alleyway. She felt herself blink. The black behind her eyelids was the same color as the ground and walls of the alleyway. She was stuck in space.

Kagome squinted to try to see through the humid darkness at the person that held her. She could feel the lines of his muscle through his shirt. He helped her stand up on her own. She felt dizzy from going so quickly from falling to standing in one complete motion in such darkness, like when one comes out of an indoor rollercoaster. She remembered the luminescent yellow eyes of the creature watching her and the menacing growl, making her fright return. The space where she stood was so dark that she did not know how vast it was in between the walls, so she grabbed frantically onto the stranger. He tensed under her grasp.

“There- there was something in here!” Kagome whispered urgently as she pulled herself closer to him. “It was an animal, a large wolf or—I know what it was.”

The man responded after some hesitation, “an animal?”

Kagome shook her head and sighed, taking a second to try to calm herself. It was quiet. She didn't hear anything other than the rain dripping and her own shaky breathing.

“Whatever it was, it's gone now,” she said with an unsteady sigh. “There was something in here, I swear.” She said trying to convince both herself and him.

Now, in her mind there are two noticeable problems occurring and ending—there was an animal in the alleyway and now it's gone—first problem solved. Problem number two: she knew that instead of getting comfortable in this stranger's arms she should probably be trying to make a run for it, because when it comes to being firmly held in a dark alleyway, the scene of a perfect murder case, this would be a very good option, plus some screaming and yelling. However, for some reason she couldn't bring herself to do such a thing, she'd rather stay cooped up in this cave-like place with this hero of a man for the rest of the night. Kagome blinked in confusion when her thoughts started to turn to bubbles in her head and disappear as if she were drunk.

“Are you alright?” the man asked. He had a voice like honey.

“Yes,” she breathed out as her heart thudded hard in her chest.

Kagome sensed him nodding his head above hers, and then he placed his hand on the small of her back. He went to move toward the exit but Kagome leaned closer to him. She laid her head on his chest and tightened her grasp around his waist as if he would slip through her fingers if she didn't. Her mind whispered for her to stop what she was doing now and run away, but her physical body would not respond.

He hesitated for a few long seconds before he turned his body to face hers. He ran his fingers through her hair, behind her ear then traced the outline of her jaw. Her skin tingled under his touch. She let out a shaky breath and tilted her head back as his fingers trailed down her neck. He brought his face close to hers and with each millisecond she was dissolving mind and soul. His mouth opened and she could feel his breath on her bare neck and she tightened her hold on him instinctively.

Then, as if a fuse had blown, he stopped, inhaled a sharp breath and pushed her away from him. She stumbled backward from the force of the push in a daze. She came to an uneasy stop. Her mind had fogged over and she was having trouble focusing her gaze as colors blurred themselves together. She concentrated on blinking a few times and soon everything in her vision came together.

Kagome looked around, perplexed to see that once again she was standing outside of the alleyway but what was she doing here? The cool rain splattered against her burning face and neck. Kagome squinted back into the darkness. She couldn't believe her eyes when a person emerged from the alleyway. It was Alex. He was wearing the same thing that he had on in school that day but it was soaking wet. Water dripped from his messy silver hair and fell onto his already drenched long sleeved shirt.

“Your Alex—”she began weakly, but she still felt out of sorts and it took her a minute to get thoughts together. The two of them were in the alleyway together, but how did that even come about? She shook her head once she finally got over the prostration and then looked over at him. Her eyes locked with his sending a shiver down her spine. He was mesmerizing, even when she had no idea who was holding her he still held a spell over her.

He closed the gap between them. Her heart compacted; she was dreading another episode might occur and her breathing cut short. Why had he been holding her?

“Don't forget the Chinese food you came all this way to get,” Alex murmured, “and you need to control that curiosity of yours or it might get you killed.”

She made a questioning face at him. He then smiled back at her as if remembering a memory from long ago and then disappeared into the alleyway.

Her mind suddenly became clearer, as if a veil had been lifted. “Alex!” she called into the darkness but the only response was the dripping and splitting of the rain.

Alex, the guy I've been watching and thinking about constantly just came out of nowhere? She made a disgusted face at herself, and hit the bottom of her palm to the front of her forehead. Stupid, stupid, stupid, she thought as she walked back to her first destination. What the hell happened in the alleyway?

When she entered the Chinese restaurant, a small woman peeked at her through a large square in the wall. She looked very annoyed. The woman walked away and soon came back with the take-out Kagome and her mother ordered and were supposed to have picked up probably forever ago.

“Dis yo tag-out?” The small old woman asked in a demanding voice. Kagome cringed at the terrible accent, but then nodded and yanked the money out of her pocket to pay for it. It was damp and clung together in her hands. She had too much on her mind to concentrate on slowly pulling the dollar bills from one another, so she just slammed it down on the counter. The woman narrowed her eyes and took up the act herself, huffing and puffing.

It took both of Kagome's arms to handle the bag and pick it up. Kagome looked up at the clock and sighed, she had gotten out of the car twenty minutes ago and she knew her mom was going to be worried. The old Chinese woman looked up at Kagome when she started towards the door.

“Yo wan change?” She asked and then held out three wrinkled bills and some coins shaking them in the air. Kagome turned back towards the exit.

“Just keep it,” she yelled over her shoulder. The bells chimed against the glass when she opened the door before going out into the rain once again.

Kagome glanced around nervously as she walked. She quickened her pace to almost a run to her mom's car once the shadow of the building swallowed her. Kagome rushed up to the door and practically ripped the handle off when opening it.

“Kagome, what took you so long?” Her mother questioned, annoyed from waiting in the car for such a long time and then grabbed the large brown paper bag from her daughter.

Kagome scooted herself into the car and slammed the door. She leaned over and took the bag back, storing it in the backseat of the car to buy her some time to create a quick explanation of her mother's twenty minute wait.

“Uh, yeah, I . . . entered the Chinese place, and there was a long line. A guy I know from school was there and I talked to him until the line finally went down.”

“Was it Hojou?” her mother asked a bit too excitedly.

Kagome sighed heavily and continued with her lie, “No it wasn't Hojou mom. It was Alex—a new friend from school that you don't know. But anyway then the Chinese woman gave me a hard time—you know, speaking terrible English and all.” She made sure to point that out, hoping it would get her mother to talk about something other than her tardiness in getting the Chinese food and her ex-boyfriend.

Her mother sighed irritably.

“Oh, goodness. . . We should have ordered Indian food instead.”

“Yeah, because they have English down so much better,” Kagome mumbled, and then looked out of the rain-dripped window.

Her mother must not have heard her, because she went on pulling out with no word in response. Kagome kept staring out into the darkness, the high, thin, gray lamp posts only lighting up the street and parts of the sidewalk.

As she watched the world slowly start to move past her, a girl leaning on the side of the building caught her eye. She glanced at her. Kagome looked back around as the car turned the corner. The girl was staring at her. Kagome decided to stare back, but the girl didn't look away. That's the alleyway I just came out of. . . Kagome thought a bit uneasily. This girl had a pale face and a dark short-sleeved shirt on. Her hair was long and dark.

Kagome shuddered away when she saw the expression on the girl's face, and how dangerous it looked. She couldn't help but taking one last glance back, but to her surprise, the girl had disappeared, as if the darkness itself plucked her out of thin air.

When they arrived home Kagome couldn't bring herself to do anything but pick at the Chinese food, slowly pushing it around and around her plate. Her mother watched her as she did this, misinterpreting Kagome's facial expression.

“Don't worry dear, its chicken—not cat.” With that she looked down at the overly sized calico cat that had slumped itself by her chair waiting for table scraps.

Kagome looked at her plate, then the cat, and then back up at her mother.

“Yeah, I just don't feel well, maybe it's from running around in the rain or something,” she pushed her chair away from the table, taking her plate along with her. She dumped half of the scraps into the cat's dish and the other half into a container.

“I knew I should've gone in to get it. I'm sorry honey. You would think that my mother's instinct should have set in by now.”

Kagome could see signs of frustration on her mother's face, kicking herself for not being able to solve the equation earlier—rain, plus child, equals a sick child.

“Mom don't worry about it,” she sniffed, “It's nothing, I think I felt this coming on earlier today anyway.” Kagome cringed when a sharp pain went down her spine but for some reason she didn't want her mother to notice. “I'm going to bed now,” she said before darting for the stairs without looking back.

Her mind clouded, as she struggled to pull off her clothes and watch her surroundings at the same time, she felt unsafe and unshielded. She tried to shake off the feeling when she crawled into bed but she couldn't. That night she left her light on and fell into a very restless sleep. The girl from the alleyway clawed her way into her dreams.

Kagome stood in the rain by herself in a barren back way street. A halo of light buzzed above her from the street lamp but it was flickering with that zapping sound, threatening to go out. She didn't understand where she was exactly. She turned around and sitting on the ground was a lizard with green yellow eyes staring at her. It's tail whipped back and forth lazily and Kagome turned back around uninterested.

At the end of the street the girl with long straight black hair stood watching her. Kagome stared back but then blinked. The woman was closer. Kagome backed up a step and was shocked to find the girl grab her from behind and wrap a cold set of fingers around her neck. Kagome screamed and fought but no matter how hard she hit this woman she came right back. Finally Kagome turned and ran. A firm grip took hold of her wrist and stopped her. She whipped around with a clenched fist just to see Alex.

KAGOME DRUG HERSELF INTO SCHOOL THE next morning. The sound of the animated students came like a wave through the opened school doors and almost made her turn around and go back home. Her head felt like it was going to explode, which would be rather messy, how would the janitors feel about cleaning up tiny pinkish-gray globs of brain off of the floor and walls?

She moved as quickly as possible through the combustion of teenagers, trying to get to her next class without someone impending on her destination.

As usual Sean demolished the good plan with one of his own. He rushed up out of no where with his eyes wide and his arms flailing about. Obviously he had something important to say. Kagome ducked her head and turned, walking behind a group of students.

“Kagome?!” he yelled.

She cringed. He saw her.

His loudness left a prickling sensation lingering in the back of her head. Sean continued repeating her name until he was finally walking beside her. He began speaking very loudly even though she was right beside him and his voice continued to do its damage on her already raking headache.

“I called you like a million times last night! I thought you wanted to tag a long and watch the movie with us? I even rounded up some more guys just like you wanted - Hojou went with, and he was disappointed when he found out that you weren't coming like you said you were going to.”

Are her ear drums bleeding yet? No matter, her stomach hurts worst.

He hesitated, expecting an answer. He waited a few seconds for Kagome to reply. She was not going to bother. Her stomach entombed by her arms underneath her jacket as they continued walking, classroom after classroom passed by as if there were no end to them. God she only wanted to sit down.

Sean cleared his throat before talking again. She had thought he had left her alone to go talk to someone else.

“Did you watch the news last night?” he asked. Kagome didn't know that he took the time to watch the news, she didn't watch it.

Kagome stared at him irritably now, not caring what was on the news even if Sean took the time out of his day to watch it. She just wanted Sean to go away. He had created a habit of coming around when she was at her worst, and was surprised that he continued to do so, considering how many times she had about ripped his head off for asking a simple question. He probably thought she was some demon woman by now.

“No,” she sighed, “what was on the news?”

Sean took to her question as if someone had snapped the clip and yelled action. “There was a messy murder the night before last!” his eyebrows raised so high they might have been able to bump his hairline. “It looked like the guy was mulled by a wild animal in the provincial part of town.” Sean made a face of disgust, “but the police got a lead, and they say that a person did it and just tried to make it out to be an animal attack, scary huh?”

His question expected a reaction. Still making the same face, his nose wrinkled and his eyebrows came together as his lips squeezed into a pucker. She now raised her eyebrows at him, he was acting a bit more off than usual. Her annoyance was melting, her classroom was coming up. The people in front of her just had to speed up the pace a bit.

“Yea, that's terrible,” she said. “Where was this?”

“Out a ways, maybe two to four hours from here,” he contemplated.

“I really don't think you have to worry about it then, somebody killing people to make it look like an animal attack isn't guna come out here to get you. You can sleep tonight without any trouble.”

Sean looked at her smile and balked at her sarcasm.

“Leave it to you Kagome to go and smile at a death story,” his expression became excited again as he followed after her. “But It's all over the news!”

She flinched at the high pitch of his voice again.

“Yes, you said that!” she wanted to yell at him, scream in his ear so he knew what it felt like, but thought better of it. No need to make a scene. “Sean, what do you want me to say? If you haven't noticed I'm not feeling very well.”

“Aren't you scared?” he asked, serious as a heart attack. He always put his heart into everything, it was inspiring, but at the same time she and the people they both hung out with were a bit rude to him. He didn't really deserve it if anything they all could learn something from him. The classroom was coming up and she quickened her pace. She would listen if she didn't feel so sick.

“I already told you my theory on the matter. Why should I be scared when some guy or animal killed someone far away from here?” she chuckled and smiled at him. “Come on Sean, this is my class. Why don't you get some more opinions?” With a quick wave she turned and darted into the room before he could say anything else to her. She sighed, half in relief the other half in fatigue. For some reason their conversation reminded her of the alleyway.

It was still early to go to first period, and the classroom was quite barren from when she arrived just before the bell the day before. She was so disappointed to see that Alex was not there. Yuri wasn't there, but it was like her to run around the halls for a good time before coming to class. Kagome spotted Samantha in the back ready to learn, she had sat herself around the same place that they all had been sitting since the first day of school. Samantha's face tilted downward reading her book, and Kagome could just about see the story coming to life inside her head.

The Incubus' Ambition

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