InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Patchwork Family ❯ Of Shoes, Bugs and Puppy Dog Ears ( Chapter 19 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: Allannarose22 
Rosalind's old apartment is now a trap well set, Hiten makes a brief appearance, and the beginnings of a plan start to come together.
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Supernatural / Romance / Psychological / Drama / Action | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 10.12.2014 | Updated On: 02.14.2015 | Pages: 6 | Words: 4.4K | Visits: 507 | Status: Completed
Rosalind's old apartment is now a trap well set, Hiten makes a brief appearance, and the beginnings of a plan start to come together.
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Supernatural / Romance / Psychological / Drama / Action | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 10.12.2014 | Updated On: 02.14.2015 | Pages: 6 | Words: 4.4K | Visits: 507 | Status: Completed
A/N: All Inuyasha
characters and references belong to the creator of Inuyasha, Rumiko
Takahashi and published by Shogakukan. Any other characters are
more than likely my own creation. If I borrow directly from another
story I will do my best to make sure I give credit where credit is
due. I will also be pulling some material (ideas and inspirations)
from Burn Notice, Scorpion, Supernatural, and Lockwood &
Co.
***
Inuyasha pulled into a Walmart parking lot just before they left “We’re just going to run in and get you a decent pair of shoes right now. We’ll come back later for other things. Those flip flops could land you with a broken neck on the stairs.” Kagome shrugged and nodded, waiting for him to lock the doors before they started across the sunny parking lot to the store entrance.
Inuyasha was impressed. He’d never seen a female take so little time to get what she came in for when it came to shopping. Kagome had gone straight back to the shoe section, picking up a pack of women’s plain white cotton socks on the way. He only had to wait while she tried on two pairs of sneakers before she chose one and indicated she was ready. Then he looked at the shoes. They were ten-dollar, cheaply made white sneakers. He frowned a little and said, “you can get a better pair than this. These look like they would turn into soggy cardboard if they got wet.”
She shook her head firmly.
Inuyasha sighed and turned to look at the other options on the shelf. He took a moment to be incredulous that he was standing in a Walmart, shopping for a pair of women’s sneakers. After a minute he pulled out a pair of Avia running shoes that were gray and purple. He checked to make sure they were the right size and handed them to her. “Try these. Nothing here is great, but these’ll work for now.”
Reluctantly she took the box and sat down. He could tell by the way she moved as she walked up and down the aisle once that they fit and had better support. He even thought he saw her smile for a second, enjoying them. She picked the box up and looked at the price tag. When she pursed her lips he took the box and put Rosalind’s flip flops in it before tucking it under his arm. “It’s $25. It’s hardly gonna break the bank. Come on.” Kagome opened her mouth to protest, but with a sigh, she threw her hands up and followed after him, the new running shoes squeaking a little on the shiny tile.
As they drove north on the highway past Arcata Bay Kagome looked out the window, her elbow braced against the door, chin resting on her hand. Inuyasha broke the silence when he saw her absently rubbing her shoulder where she’d been shot. “How does that feel?” he asked, frowning a little in concern.
Kagome looked over at him, her eyes unfocused for a moment, as if she’d been far away. He clarified. “Your shoulder, where that asshole shot you. Does it still hurt?”
She shook her head and said softly, “no, I’m alright. I feel a lot better than I have in a while, actually.” He pondered that and had to admit that anything better than what she’d been like a day or so ago was a much improved state. But she’d said better than she’d felt in a while. How long was a while? In the wake of this train of thought he asked, “exactly how long were you in there, with Naraku’s crew I mean?”
Kagome thought for a long moment before she told him, “nearly a year. I sent…” she paused and swallowed hard to clear a small lump in her throat, then continued. “Two weeks after my father and uncle were killed I sent Souta to live with my grandmother someplace else across the city. I thought they’d be safer there. Once I got them settled, I convinced the Anansi I was valuable; that they could trust me enough to bring me in.” There was another long heavy pause before she said in a hollow voice, “Souta begged me not to send him away.”
She felt her eyes water a little as she remembered, but she blinked the tears away. She didn’t have time to break down right now, and besides, she’d already spent too much time crying, surely. Inuyasha finally said, “for what it’s worth, if I was in your position, I would’ve done the same thing where your brother was concerned.” Privately, he thought he would have moved the kid to another state or country, but it was likely that Kagome didn’t have those kinds of resources at her disposal. When she didn’t respond he glanced over. She was staring out the front window with an unfocused expression.
“It wasn’t your fault Kagome,” he said with conviction.
She shrugged, looking out the passenger side window, and something in her posture looked tired again. Inuyasha cast around for something to say; and he remembered her mentioning her grandmother. “Is your grandmother still in ”
“I imagine so,” Kagome said with a small sigh. “I’ve been wondering if she’s safe there as long as I don’t try to contact her.”
“We could bring her down here. Or move her to a safe house farther away.”
Kagome wanted instinctually to deny the help, but it wasn’t about her this time. Keade was the last of her family. If there was a way to keep her safe, at any cost, she would be terribly selfish not to take advantage of it simply to appease her pride. She looked at him and asked, “wouldn’t Sesshomaru mind?”
Inuyasha shrugged. “We’d talk to him about it, but it’s nothin’ we haven’t done before. Which would you rather?”
Kagome pondered this and said, “farther away would be better, but I don’t know if she would go. I’d have to talk to her and I don’t know how to do that without putting her in worse danger.”
Inuyasha passed a tow truck in front of them and asked, “does she work?”
“Some,” Kagome said. “But at her home. It’s a small version of the shrine her family had in She grew up there and when she met my grandfather, they moved to the Statesand married.”
“Is the shrine still there in ” he asked, curiously.
“I don’t know. She’s never really talked about it. I get the impression that the move to the States was done in a hurry. She was the guardian of the jewel before my dad, and now me, and brought it over with her… I haven’t told her I let Naraku get it. I’m not sure if she knows.” The last sentence was said in a quietly fearful tone.
He sighed and breathed again, “not your fault. Sometimes shit happens. You’re doing everything you can. We’ll get him, and you’ll get the Shikon back.” She looked at him and pursed her lips for a second in a small appreciative smile. As they began to enter Arcata she said, “if it’s possible, I’d like to take a bus to Portland and get her as soon as I can.”
Inuyasha frowned and shook his head. “No bus. If you want to send her to a safe house, we’ll fly her out of into We have a place out on an Island near Bay”
She looked over at him in surprise. “”
He glanced over at her and then back at the road. “Yeah, unless you want her farther, but I’m sure she’d be safe there.”
“Well…yeah, I guess,” Kagome said. She was frowning a little and he probed, “what is it?”
She hesitated before answering. “I have some things in Portlandthat I want to retrieve. I’ll need them if I’m going to figure out a new angle to get at the jewel.”
“What kind of things? Where are they?” he asked, speeding up again as he passed a dawdling little white car whose driver was chatting away on her cell phone.
“Just some software and equipment,” she said. “The storage rent is paid until the beginning of June. Some of it is tools I need for other work I need to get back on track with too, now that I’m free and mobile again.”
Inuyasha raised an eyebrow. “Uh-hugh.” He saw she looked a little apprehensive, and he said, “We’ll figure something out, though you should probably still take it easy for a while. Give yourself some time. Maybe we can drive up to Portland ourselves to put your grandmother on the plane and pick up your stuff. Will she give you a hard time about it?” He didn’t ask what he was really thinking. Would they have to send someone with her to make sure she went with the plan and gently strong arm the old woman to the safe house?
Kagome shook her head. “The hardest part will be convincing her that she can’t stay here and help me… I think.” She frowned, looking worried. “The whole situation will be a little complicated. I’m afraid she won’t be terribly receptive to help from the Wardens.”
He maneuvered into a parking space in the alley behind the building where Rosalind’s apartment was located and turned off the engine. When Kagome looked at him her face was tense with anxiety and he reiterated what he’d said again. “We’ll figure it out, I swear. Right now though, we need to focus on this. Can you do that?”
Kagome nodded and took the tool bag he handed her.
They made their way into the building and he followed the back staircase up to the second floor. He swept his eyes over everything, looking for any detail that might have changed since he’d left with Rosalind. As he unlocked the front door, he pointed to the power outlet just across from it. “That’s the one she was talking about. That should work right?”
Kagome nodded and followed him into the small, shabby, and sparsely furnished apartment. She looked around and said, “yikes… I see what you meant….” She looked out the window in the front room and said, “there isn’t even a fire escape. I think that’s illegal.”
Inuyasha snorted. “Yeah, I don’t think the guy who runs this place cares. He runs the Rent to Own shop on the first floor.”
Kagome wandered through the small apartment, collecting a small radio and lamp from the bedroom and bringing them out to the card table that held Rosalind’s ancient Dell monitor. When Inuyasha raised an eyebrow she pulled out the cell phone she’d set to silent and auto answer, explaining, “the more cords and wires there are, the less likely anyone is to notice a cell phone sitting on the floor back here.”
Kagome plugged the phone in and did her best to arrange things around it without blocking the microphone. Inuyasha pulled a foot stool to a central spot and grabbed the screwdriver to put the faux smoke detector on the ceiling where it could see part of the bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, and most of the living room. Within a few minutes they were finished inside. Inuyasha brought the stool out to the hallway and noticed as he put up the second camera, that there weren’t even any actual smoke detectors in the place. He muttered something about calling the city inspector and hoped no one would notice that suddenly there was a smoke detector.
A few minutes later Kagome was sitting in the hallway with her bad leg stretched out on the floor by the electrical outlet. He asked quietly, “you ok here while I go set up the stuff outside?” She looked up briefly and nodded, before going back to her wires. Before he walked back down the stairs he told her, “yell if there’s trouble, I’ll hear you.” She smiled a little and made a shooing motion with her hand before she started digging in her bag for the rubber handled needle nose pliers.
Inuyasha went out the back and pulled the box of camera gear out of the Highlander. After a cursory glance to make sure no one was paying him any attention, he leaped onto a large dumpster and made the jump to the top of a garage across the alley. From there, he managed to climb onto the roof of the insurance building that faced the next street over. He set up the camera and battery pack in a protected corner, tying everything down carefully and covering all but the lens with a sheet of plastic covered in a matte gray paint.
When he was finished he collected the box of remaining equipment and made a wide circle around so he would be in the alley on the other side of Rosalind’s street. He crept over the roof until he found a perch on top of a book shop. As he set up the camera he could smell the bakery down the block where Rosalind had worked. His stomach rumbled at the scent of bread, sugar and coffee. As he finished tying down the plastic, he noticed a truck come down the street. He narrowed his eyes, watching as it parked on the street across from the front entrance of the Rent to Own store. No one got out, and the engine continued to run as the truck sat parked.
When he’d come to get Rosalind she’d mentioned a truck like this one. It was a dinged up, old, blue, one-ton pickup with a Pacific Gas & Electric company logo on the door. Finally, there was movement and he saw a face he recognized in the cab window. It was Hiten.
Something big and restless in him seethed with anger at the thought of the other demon touching Kagome, holding her neck in his hands and nearly frying her vocal chords. He had to clench his fangs down on a snarl until his jaw creaked. He narrowed his eyes and checked the front door to the building, hoping Kagome was well out of sight. Hiten seemed to be talking to someone else in the cab, but with all the other noise and the window rolled up, he couldn't hear anything. It looked like, at least for the moment, they were just watching the place.
Inuyasha stood from his crouch and hurried back around to use the back entrance of the apartment building. He had to get Kagome out of there, but it might not be a bad idea to let them see him walking out the front entrance afterwards, to confirm the lie, if that's what they were looking for. He reflected with some satisfaction that Hiten must have really pissed Naraku off if he was being relegated to the position of fact-checking street watcher.
Kagome was frowning down at her work when Inuyasha came up the back stairs again. "How's it coming? We need to go. Someone's just pulled up. They're watching the front of the building."
She made a frustrated sound and tossed the wire nippers back in the bag. Her eyes cut towards the stairs that lead to the front entrance for a moment, nervously. Then she reached back into the hole in the wall with the pliers. It looked like she had one of the wires fully attached, and the other halfway there. He squatted down on his heels next to her and asked, "problems?"
She shrugged and sighed, rasping out, "this is just extremely old wiring. He really needs to have it updated. I've done this kind of work plenty of times and even I'm a little afraid I might electrocute myself."
Inuyasha frowned. "If it's not safe just leave it. It isn’t worth you frying yourself."
She shook her head, muttering, "allll….most… done…."
True to her word, after a few minutes and a couple sparks, she screwed the face plate onto the socket. He pulled the walkie talkie out of his pocket and said, “testing, testing...”
Kagome smiled in victory when his voice came back to him loud and clear, with about a half second delay from the plastic box in his hand.
While he tossed the tools back into the bag and locked Rosalind's front door, she used her fingers to carefully brush the plaster dust out over the carpet under the outlet, removing any evidence that it had been tampered with. He turned back to Kagome as she was wiping her hands on her jeans and held the keys out. "Go down the back stairs and get in the car. Lock the doors until I get there. I'm going to go around the front and give them a look at me to confirm the story I gave Vin- if that's why they are here. Don't hang around outside."
Kagome nodded, biting her lip nervously and taking the keys and tool bag. After she started out the back door he went down the front steps and walked out onto the sidewalk, looking around, but carefully letting his eyes slide over the blue truck. Without hesitation, he turned left and walked the short distance to the end of the block where he turned the corner to circle back down the alley. Once he knew he was out of sight, he ran to the car and heard the click of the locks as he reached for the door. 'Good girl,’ he thought. A lock wouldn’t have saved her from Hiten, but it would have slowed him down.
Inuyasha had Kagome scoot way down in her seat at first, while he pulled the car the wrong way through a one way drive and onto another street behind the one the blue truck sat parked in. After he had navigated around the downtown area and south onto the highway again, he told Kagome she could sit up. She looked through the back window for a moment and he glanced in the rear view mirror again as he told her, "no one's following. They didn't see us."
His ears twitched as his stomach growled again. Kagome must have heard it too because she raised an eyebrow and smiled a little in amusement. He shrugged. "I'm hungry again. Sue me. Could you eat?"
Kagome raised both eyebrows incredulously. "It's only been two hours. No. I'm still full. In fact I think my stomach hurts." He sighed and looked over at her slight form. "It was probably too much for one sitting, considering. We should try smaller meals, but more of them."
She shrugged. "I'm fine." Inuyasha just made a dismissive sound and pulled into a fast food drive through. After he picked up a burger to eat on the way, he turned them south towards Eureka.
When they got back to Shore House, the place was quiet. It was almost 3 p.m. Inuyasha unlocked the door and Kagome followed into the front hall. He stood and listened a moment, ears twitching. "Koga and Ayame are still asleep, sounds like everyone else is still out."
He grabbed a can of Coke from the fridge and handed Kagome a bottle of water when she turned down a soda. She took it and they went back to his rooms. He dropped the tool bag on the table and closed the sitting room door. He unlocked the bedroom again and set the active cell phone and the walkie talkie on the dresser where he would hear if they made a sound. He turned to Kagome, who was leaning heavily against the couch, looking as tired as he felt. "I'm gonna crash for a little while. I haven’t gotten much sleep lately. You look like you could go for a nap."
She nodded, letting out a small yawn of her own. He paused and asked, "do you want to keep sleeping in here or move to a room of your own? There are two more open down the hall."
Kagome looked conflicted and he added quickly, "I don't mind… if you want to stay here. It doesn’t bother me." She didn't look like she wanted to be on her own down the hall, but she eyed him a little uncertainly. He held up both hands and shot her a grin. "I swear- no funny business." Then he clarified with a smirk, “…unless you start it first.”
Her lips twitched in a tight smile and she nodded, setting her water bottle down on the dresser. He turned on the small flat screen that was mounted on the wall above the dresser, across from the bed. Kagome smiled a little more in amusement as he changed the channel from news to Cartoon Network and turned the volume down to almost zero. With that done, he kicked off his boots. He paused for a moment and picked up the folded card Rin had given him to deliver before everything had fallen apart the day before. “This is for you,” he said, turning to Kagome and holding the paper out.
Kagome took it and her smile warmed when she saw the little girl’s colorful artwork. He watched everything in her soften as she looked inside it. “This is wonderful. Did Rin or Shippo make it?”
“Rin,” Inuyasha explained. “She gave it to me when I brought Rosie out here yesterday. I was supposed to give it to you when I got home.” She looked confused for half a moment, then her face stilled and she nodded grimly. She murmured softly, “I’ll have to thank her later. That was nice of her.”
Inuyasha flopped down on the right side of the bed, allowing her to keep the left. He’d noticed she seemed more relaxed when there was nothing between her and the nearest door. He supposed he could understand that. She stood and watched the television for a minute before she set the card, and the notebook, pen and knife from her pockets on the dresser too. Inuyasha was watching her closely, and didn't miss the slight grimace when the weight came off her sore leg.
Kagome toed off the new running shoes next to the bed and leaned back against the pillows, straightening her legs in front of her and rubbing her knee. They settled into a companionable silence and watched the television. Within a few minutes, Inuyasha had fallen asleep, his breath becoming deep and even.
She took the opportunity to look him over closer, silently appreciating the long lines and handsome face. He didn't look quite like anyone she’d ever seen before. Despite the fact she knew him to be hundreds of years old, with his intense golden eyes closed and his face relaxed in sleep, he didn't look any older than 25, 30 at the absolute most. ‘Must be nice to never have to worry about wrinkles until you’re well over a thousand years old,’ she mused to herself.
His ears twitched a little and she remembered how soft they were. Her cheeks reddened at the memory for a moment. Thinking on it now, she couldn't believe she’d just reached out and touched him like that, and didn't know what had possessed her. She pondered the idea of touching them again now, but dismissed it quickly. The memory of his reaction to her ear rubbing made her blush deepen, but it also made her stomach tighten a little in a way that wasn’t entirely unpleasant, now that she was alone in the thought. Briefly she thought again how luxurious it was to feel alone in her head out here at Shore house, with only her own thoughts and problems to contend with. The whisperings of Dead Space could wait… she thought; just for a bit longer.
She let her gaze travel down his body, noting muscles that were long and lean, clearly strong but not terribly bulky. He was clearly built for both power and speed. One clawed hand rested on his chest and she noticed there were calluses on his fingers. She wondered what work they were from. It would have to be something he did often, if the calluses remained despite a demon's healing abilities. That led her to wonder if all demons healed quickly or just some. She didn't know. Maybe she would ask him later… maybe. She was beginning to realize there were a lot of things she didn’t know about demons; the little, everyday things.
At this point she pulled the cream colored comforter that had come with her from his apartment back around her. Before her brain could process much more, she was asleep as well.
***
Inuyasha pulled into a Walmart parking lot just before they left “We’re just going to run in and get you a decent pair of shoes right now. We’ll come back later for other things. Those flip flops could land you with a broken neck on the stairs.” Kagome shrugged and nodded, waiting for him to lock the doors before they started across the sunny parking lot to the store entrance.
Inuyasha was impressed. He’d never seen a female take so little time to get what she came in for when it came to shopping. Kagome had gone straight back to the shoe section, picking up a pack of women’s plain white cotton socks on the way. He only had to wait while she tried on two pairs of sneakers before she chose one and indicated she was ready. Then he looked at the shoes. They were ten-dollar, cheaply made white sneakers. He frowned a little and said, “you can get a better pair than this. These look like they would turn into soggy cardboard if they got wet.”
She shook her head firmly.
Inuyasha sighed and turned to look at the other options on the shelf. He took a moment to be incredulous that he was standing in a Walmart, shopping for a pair of women’s sneakers. After a minute he pulled out a pair of Avia running shoes that were gray and purple. He checked to make sure they were the right size and handed them to her. “Try these. Nothing here is great, but these’ll work for now.”
Reluctantly she took the box and sat down. He could tell by the way she moved as she walked up and down the aisle once that they fit and had better support. He even thought he saw her smile for a second, enjoying them. She picked the box up and looked at the price tag. When she pursed her lips he took the box and put Rosalind’s flip flops in it before tucking it under his arm. “It’s $25. It’s hardly gonna break the bank. Come on.” Kagome opened her mouth to protest, but with a sigh, she threw her hands up and followed after him, the new running shoes squeaking a little on the shiny tile.
As they drove north on the highway past Arcata Bay Kagome looked out the window, her elbow braced against the door, chin resting on her hand. Inuyasha broke the silence when he saw her absently rubbing her shoulder where she’d been shot. “How does that feel?” he asked, frowning a little in concern.
Kagome looked over at him, her eyes unfocused for a moment, as if she’d been far away. He clarified. “Your shoulder, where that asshole shot you. Does it still hurt?”
She shook her head and said softly, “no, I’m alright. I feel a lot better than I have in a while, actually.” He pondered that and had to admit that anything better than what she’d been like a day or so ago was a much improved state. But she’d said better than she’d felt in a while. How long was a while? In the wake of this train of thought he asked, “exactly how long were you in there, with Naraku’s crew I mean?”
Kagome thought for a long moment before she told him, “nearly a year. I sent…” she paused and swallowed hard to clear a small lump in her throat, then continued. “Two weeks after my father and uncle were killed I sent Souta to live with my grandmother someplace else across the city. I thought they’d be safer there. Once I got them settled, I convinced the Anansi I was valuable; that they could trust me enough to bring me in.” There was another long heavy pause before she said in a hollow voice, “Souta begged me not to send him away.”
She felt her eyes water a little as she remembered, but she blinked the tears away. She didn’t have time to break down right now, and besides, she’d already spent too much time crying, surely. Inuyasha finally said, “for what it’s worth, if I was in your position, I would’ve done the same thing where your brother was concerned.” Privately, he thought he would have moved the kid to another state or country, but it was likely that Kagome didn’t have those kinds of resources at her disposal. When she didn’t respond he glanced over. She was staring out the front window with an unfocused expression.
“It wasn’t your fault Kagome,” he said with conviction.
She shrugged, looking out the passenger side window, and something in her posture looked tired again. Inuyasha cast around for something to say; and he remembered her mentioning her grandmother. “Is your grandmother still in ”
“I imagine so,” Kagome said with a small sigh. “I’ve been wondering if she’s safe there as long as I don’t try to contact her.”
“We could bring her down here. Or move her to a safe house farther away.”
Kagome wanted instinctually to deny the help, but it wasn’t about her this time. Keade was the last of her family. If there was a way to keep her safe, at any cost, she would be terribly selfish not to take advantage of it simply to appease her pride. She looked at him and asked, “wouldn’t Sesshomaru mind?”
Inuyasha shrugged. “We’d talk to him about it, but it’s nothin’ we haven’t done before. Which would you rather?”
Kagome pondered this and said, “farther away would be better, but I don’t know if she would go. I’d have to talk to her and I don’t know how to do that without putting her in worse danger.”
Inuyasha passed a tow truck in front of them and asked, “does she work?”
“Some,” Kagome said. “But at her home. It’s a small version of the shrine her family had in She grew up there and when she met my grandfather, they moved to the Statesand married.”
“Is the shrine still there in ” he asked, curiously.
“I don’t know. She’s never really talked about it. I get the impression that the move to the States was done in a hurry. She was the guardian of the jewel before my dad, and now me, and brought it over with her… I haven’t told her I let Naraku get it. I’m not sure if she knows.” The last sentence was said in a quietly fearful tone.
He sighed and breathed again, “not your fault. Sometimes shit happens. You’re doing everything you can. We’ll get him, and you’ll get the Shikon back.” She looked at him and pursed her lips for a second in a small appreciative smile. As they began to enter Arcata she said, “if it’s possible, I’d like to take a bus to Portland and get her as soon as I can.”
Inuyasha frowned and shook his head. “No bus. If you want to send her to a safe house, we’ll fly her out of into We have a place out on an Island near Bay”
She looked over at him in surprise. “”
He glanced over at her and then back at the road. “Yeah, unless you want her farther, but I’m sure she’d be safe there.”
“Well…yeah, I guess,” Kagome said. She was frowning a little and he probed, “what is it?”
She hesitated before answering. “I have some things in Portlandthat I want to retrieve. I’ll need them if I’m going to figure out a new angle to get at the jewel.”
“What kind of things? Where are they?” he asked, speeding up again as he passed a dawdling little white car whose driver was chatting away on her cell phone.
“Just some software and equipment,” she said. “The storage rent is paid until the beginning of June. Some of it is tools I need for other work I need to get back on track with too, now that I’m free and mobile again.”
Inuyasha raised an eyebrow. “Uh-hugh.” He saw she looked a little apprehensive, and he said, “We’ll figure something out, though you should probably still take it easy for a while. Give yourself some time. Maybe we can drive up to Portland ourselves to put your grandmother on the plane and pick up your stuff. Will she give you a hard time about it?” He didn’t ask what he was really thinking. Would they have to send someone with her to make sure she went with the plan and gently strong arm the old woman to the safe house?
Kagome shook her head. “The hardest part will be convincing her that she can’t stay here and help me… I think.” She frowned, looking worried. “The whole situation will be a little complicated. I’m afraid she won’t be terribly receptive to help from the Wardens.”
He maneuvered into a parking space in the alley behind the building where Rosalind’s apartment was located and turned off the engine. When Kagome looked at him her face was tense with anxiety and he reiterated what he’d said again. “We’ll figure it out, I swear. Right now though, we need to focus on this. Can you do that?”
Kagome nodded and took the tool bag he handed her.
They made their way into the building and he followed the back staircase up to the second floor. He swept his eyes over everything, looking for any detail that might have changed since he’d left with Rosalind. As he unlocked the front door, he pointed to the power outlet just across from it. “That’s the one she was talking about. That should work right?”
Kagome nodded and followed him into the small, shabby, and sparsely furnished apartment. She looked around and said, “yikes… I see what you meant….” She looked out the window in the front room and said, “there isn’t even a fire escape. I think that’s illegal.”
Inuyasha snorted. “Yeah, I don’t think the guy who runs this place cares. He runs the Rent to Own shop on the first floor.”
Kagome wandered through the small apartment, collecting a small radio and lamp from the bedroom and bringing them out to the card table that held Rosalind’s ancient Dell monitor. When Inuyasha raised an eyebrow she pulled out the cell phone she’d set to silent and auto answer, explaining, “the more cords and wires there are, the less likely anyone is to notice a cell phone sitting on the floor back here.”
Kagome plugged the phone in and did her best to arrange things around it without blocking the microphone. Inuyasha pulled a foot stool to a central spot and grabbed the screwdriver to put the faux smoke detector on the ceiling where it could see part of the bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, and most of the living room. Within a few minutes they were finished inside. Inuyasha brought the stool out to the hallway and noticed as he put up the second camera, that there weren’t even any actual smoke detectors in the place. He muttered something about calling the city inspector and hoped no one would notice that suddenly there was a smoke detector.
A few minutes later Kagome was sitting in the hallway with her bad leg stretched out on the floor by the electrical outlet. He asked quietly, “you ok here while I go set up the stuff outside?” She looked up briefly and nodded, before going back to her wires. Before he walked back down the stairs he told her, “yell if there’s trouble, I’ll hear you.” She smiled a little and made a shooing motion with her hand before she started digging in her bag for the rubber handled needle nose pliers.
Inuyasha went out the back and pulled the box of camera gear out of the Highlander. After a cursory glance to make sure no one was paying him any attention, he leaped onto a large dumpster and made the jump to the top of a garage across the alley. From there, he managed to climb onto the roof of the insurance building that faced the next street over. He set up the camera and battery pack in a protected corner, tying everything down carefully and covering all but the lens with a sheet of plastic covered in a matte gray paint.
When he was finished he collected the box of remaining equipment and made a wide circle around so he would be in the alley on the other side of Rosalind’s street. He crept over the roof until he found a perch on top of a book shop. As he set up the camera he could smell the bakery down the block where Rosalind had worked. His stomach rumbled at the scent of bread, sugar and coffee. As he finished tying down the plastic, he noticed a truck come down the street. He narrowed his eyes, watching as it parked on the street across from the front entrance of the Rent to Own store. No one got out, and the engine continued to run as the truck sat parked.
When he’d come to get Rosalind she’d mentioned a truck like this one. It was a dinged up, old, blue, one-ton pickup with a Pacific Gas & Electric company logo on the door. Finally, there was movement and he saw a face he recognized in the cab window. It was Hiten.
Something big and restless in him seethed with anger at the thought of the other demon touching Kagome, holding her neck in his hands and nearly frying her vocal chords. He had to clench his fangs down on a snarl until his jaw creaked. He narrowed his eyes and checked the front door to the building, hoping Kagome was well out of sight. Hiten seemed to be talking to someone else in the cab, but with all the other noise and the window rolled up, he couldn't hear anything. It looked like, at least for the moment, they were just watching the place.
Inuyasha stood from his crouch and hurried back around to use the back entrance of the apartment building. He had to get Kagome out of there, but it might not be a bad idea to let them see him walking out the front entrance afterwards, to confirm the lie, if that's what they were looking for. He reflected with some satisfaction that Hiten must have really pissed Naraku off if he was being relegated to the position of fact-checking street watcher.
Kagome was frowning down at her work when Inuyasha came up the back stairs again. "How's it coming? We need to go. Someone's just pulled up. They're watching the front of the building."
She made a frustrated sound and tossed the wire nippers back in the bag. Her eyes cut towards the stairs that lead to the front entrance for a moment, nervously. Then she reached back into the hole in the wall with the pliers. It looked like she had one of the wires fully attached, and the other halfway there. He squatted down on his heels next to her and asked, "problems?"
She shrugged and sighed, rasping out, "this is just extremely old wiring. He really needs to have it updated. I've done this kind of work plenty of times and even I'm a little afraid I might electrocute myself."
Inuyasha frowned. "If it's not safe just leave it. It isn’t worth you frying yourself."
She shook her head, muttering, "allll….most… done…."
True to her word, after a few minutes and a couple sparks, she screwed the face plate onto the socket. He pulled the walkie talkie out of his pocket and said, “testing, testing...”
Kagome smiled in victory when his voice came back to him loud and clear, with about a half second delay from the plastic box in his hand.
While he tossed the tools back into the bag and locked Rosalind's front door, she used her fingers to carefully brush the plaster dust out over the carpet under the outlet, removing any evidence that it had been tampered with. He turned back to Kagome as she was wiping her hands on her jeans and held the keys out. "Go down the back stairs and get in the car. Lock the doors until I get there. I'm going to go around the front and give them a look at me to confirm the story I gave Vin- if that's why they are here. Don't hang around outside."
Kagome nodded, biting her lip nervously and taking the keys and tool bag. After she started out the back door he went down the front steps and walked out onto the sidewalk, looking around, but carefully letting his eyes slide over the blue truck. Without hesitation, he turned left and walked the short distance to the end of the block where he turned the corner to circle back down the alley. Once he knew he was out of sight, he ran to the car and heard the click of the locks as he reached for the door. 'Good girl,’ he thought. A lock wouldn’t have saved her from Hiten, but it would have slowed him down.
Inuyasha had Kagome scoot way down in her seat at first, while he pulled the car the wrong way through a one way drive and onto another street behind the one the blue truck sat parked in. After he had navigated around the downtown area and south onto the highway again, he told Kagome she could sit up. She looked through the back window for a moment and he glanced in the rear view mirror again as he told her, "no one's following. They didn't see us."
His ears twitched as his stomach growled again. Kagome must have heard it too because she raised an eyebrow and smiled a little in amusement. He shrugged. "I'm hungry again. Sue me. Could you eat?"
Kagome raised both eyebrows incredulously. "It's only been two hours. No. I'm still full. In fact I think my stomach hurts." He sighed and looked over at her slight form. "It was probably too much for one sitting, considering. We should try smaller meals, but more of them."
She shrugged. "I'm fine." Inuyasha just made a dismissive sound and pulled into a fast food drive through. After he picked up a burger to eat on the way, he turned them south towards Eureka.
When they got back to Shore House, the place was quiet. It was almost 3 p.m. Inuyasha unlocked the door and Kagome followed into the front hall. He stood and listened a moment, ears twitching. "Koga and Ayame are still asleep, sounds like everyone else is still out."
He grabbed a can of Coke from the fridge and handed Kagome a bottle of water when she turned down a soda. She took it and they went back to his rooms. He dropped the tool bag on the table and closed the sitting room door. He unlocked the bedroom again and set the active cell phone and the walkie talkie on the dresser where he would hear if they made a sound. He turned to Kagome, who was leaning heavily against the couch, looking as tired as he felt. "I'm gonna crash for a little while. I haven’t gotten much sleep lately. You look like you could go for a nap."
She nodded, letting out a small yawn of her own. He paused and asked, "do you want to keep sleeping in here or move to a room of your own? There are two more open down the hall."
Kagome looked conflicted and he added quickly, "I don't mind… if you want to stay here. It doesn’t bother me." She didn't look like she wanted to be on her own down the hall, but she eyed him a little uncertainly. He held up both hands and shot her a grin. "I swear- no funny business." Then he clarified with a smirk, “…unless you start it first.”
Her lips twitched in a tight smile and she nodded, setting her water bottle down on the dresser. He turned on the small flat screen that was mounted on the wall above the dresser, across from the bed. Kagome smiled a little more in amusement as he changed the channel from news to Cartoon Network and turned the volume down to almost zero. With that done, he kicked off his boots. He paused for a moment and picked up the folded card Rin had given him to deliver before everything had fallen apart the day before. “This is for you,” he said, turning to Kagome and holding the paper out.
Kagome took it and her smile warmed when she saw the little girl’s colorful artwork. He watched everything in her soften as she looked inside it. “This is wonderful. Did Rin or Shippo make it?”
“Rin,” Inuyasha explained. “She gave it to me when I brought Rosie out here yesterday. I was supposed to give it to you when I got home.” She looked confused for half a moment, then her face stilled and she nodded grimly. She murmured softly, “I’ll have to thank her later. That was nice of her.”
Inuyasha flopped down on the right side of the bed, allowing her to keep the left. He’d noticed she seemed more relaxed when there was nothing between her and the nearest door. He supposed he could understand that. She stood and watched the television for a minute before she set the card, and the notebook, pen and knife from her pockets on the dresser too. Inuyasha was watching her closely, and didn't miss the slight grimace when the weight came off her sore leg.
Kagome toed off the new running shoes next to the bed and leaned back against the pillows, straightening her legs in front of her and rubbing her knee. They settled into a companionable silence and watched the television. Within a few minutes, Inuyasha had fallen asleep, his breath becoming deep and even.
She took the opportunity to look him over closer, silently appreciating the long lines and handsome face. He didn't look quite like anyone she’d ever seen before. Despite the fact she knew him to be hundreds of years old, with his intense golden eyes closed and his face relaxed in sleep, he didn't look any older than 25, 30 at the absolute most. ‘Must be nice to never have to worry about wrinkles until you’re well over a thousand years old,’ she mused to herself.
His ears twitched a little and she remembered how soft they were. Her cheeks reddened at the memory for a moment. Thinking on it now, she couldn't believe she’d just reached out and touched him like that, and didn't know what had possessed her. She pondered the idea of touching them again now, but dismissed it quickly. The memory of his reaction to her ear rubbing made her blush deepen, but it also made her stomach tighten a little in a way that wasn’t entirely unpleasant, now that she was alone in the thought. Briefly she thought again how luxurious it was to feel alone in her head out here at Shore house, with only her own thoughts and problems to contend with. The whisperings of Dead Space could wait… she thought; just for a bit longer.
She let her gaze travel down his body, noting muscles that were long and lean, clearly strong but not terribly bulky. He was clearly built for both power and speed. One clawed hand rested on his chest and she noticed there were calluses on his fingers. She wondered what work they were from. It would have to be something he did often, if the calluses remained despite a demon's healing abilities. That led her to wonder if all demons healed quickly or just some. She didn't know. Maybe she would ask him later… maybe. She was beginning to realize there were a lot of things she didn’t know about demons; the little, everyday things.
At this point she pulled the cream colored comforter that had come with her from his apartment back around her. Before her brain could process much more, she was asleep as well.