InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 5: Phantasm ❯ Bas' Lie ( Chapter 17 )

Bas groaned as the incessant pounding on the door rattled through him, jarring him awake.  Sydnie whimpered and buried her face against his side, and with a smothered yelp of pain, he sat up a little too quickly, only to flop back down once more.  “Damn it . . .” he gritted out, wrapping his arm over his sore ribs before attempting to sit up again.  Sydnie pulled the blankets over her head as he staggered toward the door and jerked it open with a vicious yank to glower at his cousin.  “Oh, hell, you found us.”

Gunnar Inutaisho artfully arched a jet-black eyebrow and held up two McDonald’s bags.  He didn’t look overly impressed with his own offering, not that it was surprising, given that the Japanese hanyou tended to dislike American fast food, but it obviously wasn’t for him, anyway.  “Yeah, yeah . . . Let me in, will you?  I stopped off and got you some breakfast.  Hope you like sausage sandwiches . . . It was the only thing that sounded even slightly appetizing . . .”

“McMuffins, you mean?” Bas asked quizzically, though he still didn’t open the door.

“I refuse to say that,” Gunnar retorted dryly.

Bas made a face as Gunnar pushed past him.  He still took a moment to give the hallway a good look both ways before he closed the door and turned around in time to see Gunnar, who had deposited his suitcase as well as the two fast food bags on the table and was leaning over the bed, gingerly pulling back the covers.

“Step away from the cat, you asshole,” Bas growled.

“Aww, she likes me,” Gunnar mumbled as he knelt down and leaned in close.  “We had a nice, long talk last night.  I think we bonded . . .”

Sydnie sighed as she rolled over, uncurling herself from the tangle of arms and legs that she found most comfortable for sleeping.  Arching her back as she stretched languorously, she kicked the blankets away with her feet, exposing the very tender skin of her belly as the high string of her panties peeked out from under the covers.  Bas growled as Gunnar sat back, and maybe he would have found the absolute amazement in his cousin’s face a little more amusing if the bastard weren’t gaping at Sydnie with obvious interest.  Gunnar Inutaisho was known for his ease with women, and not for the first time Bas had to tamp down the desire to shove his cousin right back out into the hallway again—before Gunnar got a chance to work his charms on Sydnie.

“If you like your balls, you’ll get the fuck away from her,” Bas growled, stepping over and jerking Gunnar to his feet by the front of his slightly-rumpled white shirt.

Gunnar grinned insincerely.  “What’s the matter, Bas-tard?  Do you even know what you’re supposed to do with a kitten like her?”

Bas let go of Gunnar’s shirt and cracked his knuckles.  “Why don’t you suck my—?”

“Gunnar!” Sydnie squealed, launching herself off the bed—straight into Gunnar’s arms.  With a giggle, she pushed herself up on his shoulders to lick his cheek as Bas grabbed her around the waist and tossed her back on the bed, gritting his teeth as his sore ribs cried out in agony but completely ignoring the painful burn in his muscles.

“Get dressed, cat!” he bellowed, yanking the blanket out from under her and tossing it over her instead.

“Oh, hell . . . Don’t do that on my account,” Gunnar deadpanned.

Bas’ head swiveled around to glare at his cousin.  “Shut it, Gunnar.  I mean it.”

“Jealous much, Bas?”

“Bastard much, Gun?”

Gunnar shrugged.  “I can’t help it.  I see a pretty little pussy like her—”

“Gunnar . . .” Bas began in a warning tone.

Sydnie scrambled off the bed, mercifully hidden under the folds of the blanket that she’d wrapped around herself.   Gunnar chuckled as he reached out to stroke her hair.  “—And I just have to . . . stroke it.”

“You’re so dead,” Bas ground out, advancing on his cousin with every intention of making him rue the day he was born.  Gunnar—the ass—chuckled, simply ducking to the side just enough to avoid Bas’ first punch.  Sydnie caught Bas’ arm.  He gently but firmly shook her off as he swung at his cousin again.

Gunnar evaded that one, too, with very little effort.  “What’s the matter, Sebastian?  You’re moving a little slowly.”

“Fuck off, Mamoruzen,” he shot back, lowering his shoulder moments before he barreled into Gunnar’s chest.

The wall shook as Gunnar—still smiling a little contentiously—grimaced as he pushed himself away from the surface.  “Damn, you’re still a fucking howitzer,” he complained, throwing a quick jab of his own—and missing.

“Sebastian?” Sydnie piped up.  Bas winced and shot a glance over his shoulder at the entirely too-quick cat.  Gunnar took the opportunity to land a blow on Bas’ right side just below his arm.  With a harsh cry, he fell to his knees, gripping his ribs as he tried not to pass out.  Ordinarily, Gunnar’s hits didn’t faze him, but on ribs that were already quite bruised . . . He concentrated on drawing deep breaths as Sydnie gently cupped his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her as she gently smoothed his hair back out of his face.  “You are hurt!  I should have known last night when you swore you were fine . . . Stupid, stubborn dog!”

“I am fine, Sydnie . . . He’s just an ass; that’s all.”

“Let me see.”

He shoved her hands away as she tried to yank on his shirt.  He brushed her off and slowly got to his feet.  “Leave it alone.”

She uttered a sound suspiciously close to as hiss, knocking his hands aside and grasping his collar, rending the material under her claws as if it were made of little more than paper.  “Damn it!” he growled.

Sydnie sucked in her breath and pushed the ruined shirt off his shoulders.

“Holy dogs . . .” Gunnar muttered.  “Bas . . .”

She winced, gently brushing her fingertips over the mottled bluish-purple-and-black skin that started just under his sternum and wrapped around his chest, extending across the flesh on his back.  Bas stubbornly refused to look, pushing her hands away again as he turned on his heel and strode off toward the bathroom, slamming the door before sinking down on the covered toilet with a grimace.

Seconds later, the door opened, and Sydnie slipped into the room.  She didn’t speak as she strode over to the high rack on the wall, yanking down a few towels that she tore into wide strips.  “Stand up,” she said, her tone gentle as she set the strips aside and shook out the first one.

“Sydnie—”

“Stand up,” she repeated, her voice wavering, faltering.

Bas stifled a sigh and slowly got to his feet.  Sydnie leaned toward him, reaching around him to wrap the first strip over his torso.  She worked in silence, wrapping all the strips around him and pinning the last one in place with a couple of tiny safety pins she’d likely dug out of her purse.  “You should have told me,” she finally said.

“I’ll be fine in a day or two,” he mumbled.

“You still should have told me.”

“It’s okay, Sydnie.”

She stepped away, tugging her skirt off the shower curtain rod and shaking it out before slipping it over her feet.  Bas turned his face toward the ceiling and tried not to blush.  “You should lie down,” she told him as she adjusted the tiny tube of fabric.

“I’m—”

“You’re not!” she interrupted, her eyes flashing angrily.  “You’re not!  Those bounty hunters . . . They’re coming after you because of me, and—”

Bas caught her arm and pulled her close, clumsily wrapping his arms around her to silence her tirade.  “Sydnie . . . It’s okay.”

She whimpered quietly, and he sighed.  “Bas . . .”

“It’s my job, cat.  Don’t worry about it.”

She let her arms drop and stepped away from him, her back straight and proud despite the curious flash of hurt in her gaze.  “Of course, it is,” she agreed quietly as she grasped the doorknob but didn’t turn it.  “Your job.”

Bas heaved a sigh as Sydnie slipped out of the bathroom, wondering just why it was that, no matter what he said, it never seemed to be the right thing.  She made absolutely no sense to him, and he wasn’t even sure why it bothered him as much as it did.  Somehow, seeing her so upset because of his injuries . . . It didn’t set well with him; not at all.

‘You don’t know, Bas?’ his youkai chimed in gently.

‘No,’ he thought as he sank down on the toilet once more.

‘Then listen a little closer.  She’s the one, you know?’

‘The . . . one . . .?’

‘Yeah,’ his youkai added cryptically.  ‘She’s the one . . . the only one.’

Sydn ie stirred the cup of coffee with a delicate claw, watching as the low-fat non-dairy creamer swirled in a rich tan color.  Gunnar opened the door and stepped into the hotel room as he snapped his cell phone closed.  “Still sleeping?” he asked, jerking his head toward the bed where Bas slept.

She nodded.  “Out like a light.”

“Good.”  He sighed as he slumped into the chair across the table from her.  “So, tell me what happened?”

Sydnie shrugged.  “Not much to tell.  They showed up and attacked us.  Bas—Sebastian—killed them both.”

“Bas said he was distracted.”

She grimaced.  “That’s a new word for it.  Yeah, okay . . . He was distracted.”

Gunnar crossed his arms over his chest, eyes bright, curious as he gazed at her.  “I don’t mean that in a bad way.  Just that, as a hunter, he really can’t afford to let himself get distracted . . . At least, not in public.”

“And that’s my fault?” she challenged.

Gunnar chuckled, and the sound of it was entirely different from the laughter she’d heard when he was bantering with Bas earlier.  Kinder, softer, not quite gentle, but almost . . . “Not really.  I’d be distracted, too, if I had a kitty like you around.”

She didn’t even smile.

“The bounty hunters didn’t say anything about who sent them?  Nothing at all?”

“Nope . . . All I know is that the bitch’s name was Lessa, and she had a preoccupation with staring at Sebastian.”

“And that bothers you?”

She snapped her mouth closed on the retort that had been forming and turned her face to the side as she willed the hot flood of color not to surface in her cheeks.  “No.”

“Women normally think Bas is a little intimidating,” he supplied.

“Sebastian?”

He nodded.  “Yep.”

“He’s just a puppy,” she scoffed.

“Maybe to a kitty like you.”

“Maybe,” she agreed.

“Oh, yeah, I almost forgot.”  Sydnie blinked as Gunnar stood up, digging into his pocket and producing a thick wad of bills that he dropped on the table before her.

“What’s that?”

He grinned.  “I sold your picture to Bas’ brother, Evan.  Figured you should have it.”

She slowly took the money and counted it, blinking in surprise as she shook her head.  “Four hundred dollars?”

Gunnar shrugged as he sank back into his chair.  “Sure . . . I could have gotten more.  It was all he had on him.”

“Four hundred dollars for that picture of me?”

A wolfish grin surfaced, and he chuckled.  “Evan said he’d have paid more.”

She laughed, tucking the cash into her purse.  “So, you know Sebastian pretty well?”

“Better than anyone, I guess.  He’s pretty much my best friend—don’t tell him I said that, though.”

“I see . . . So, you know his bitch.”

“Come again?”

Sydnie wrinkled her nose, unable to keep her eyes from narrowing as she scowled at the coffee cup.  “His bitch—Madison.”

Gunnar coughed suddenly as he sat up a little straighter.  “Wait . . . Did you just say Madison?”

Her answer was a significant glare.

“Did Bas say . . . anything else about her?”

Sydnie fluttered her hand dismissively and rolled her eyes.  “Madison—Maddy—pole-cat-youkai . . . Is she pretty?”

“Pretty?”

“Where’d he meet her?”

“Meet her?”

“How long has he known her?”

“Uh . . .”

“Have they been dating long?”

“Well . . .”

“What does she smell like?”

Gunnar winced since the last question was accompanied by a very pronounced cracking of her knuckles.  “Let’s see . . . Pretty?  She’ll probably be damn gorgeous one day . . . She’s the daughter of a family friend . . . He’s known her almost all her life . . . To my knowledge, he hasn’t been dating her . . . and she smells like . . . a fourteen-year-old girl, I suppose.”

Her eyes flared wide seconds before her pupils thinned to tiny slits.  “He’s dating a fourteen-year-old girl?”

“No, no . . . He’s not dating her at all, though I’ve very little doubt in my mind that she’d be more than happy to date him . . .”

She dug her claws into the pressed-wood table. Gunnar grimaced as it creaked and groaned.  “That . . . That . . . He lied to me?”

Gunnar sighed.  “Sounds like it, but . . . Sydnie, he might not have been trying to—”

She shot to her feet, but sank down again, her shoulders slumping dejectedly as she struggled to hide the sudden pain that welled in her chest.  “I see.”

“Would it matter to you if I told you that Bas isn’t really that great with women?”

She sent him a scathing glance.  He held up his hands in mock surrender.  “Okay . . . that would be a ‘no’, right?”

Taking a moment to compose herself, Sydnie slowly got to her feet and grabbed her purse.

“Where are you going?”

She strode toward the door.  “For a walk.”

The scrape of his chair told her that he wasn’t going to let her leave, and she stifled a frustrated sigh as he caught her hand and pulled her back.  “I can’t let you do that.  What if more bounty hunters followed the two of you?”

“I’m not helpless,” she informed him.  “I can fight if I have to.”

“I’m sure you can,” he agreed easily enough.  “I still can’t let you do it.”

Jerking her arm away from Gunnar, she turned on her heel and strode off toward the bathroom.

“Sydnie?”

“I’m going to take a bath.  That’s allowed, isn’t it?”

Gunnar sighed, but let her go.  She slammed the door behind her and locked it.  Eyeing the small frosted glass window over the tub, she snorted.  ‘All right, Bas the Hunter . . . If you can be a bastard, I can be a bitch . . .’

The window pushed open easily enough.  After checking the area outside the hotel, she balanced on the edge of the tub and turned on the water taps for good measure.  ‘There is something to be said for being scrawny,’ she decided as she shimmied out the narrow opening and slid to the ground below, thankful that Bas, for once, had gotten a room on the ground floor, probably because his ribs were so banged up, she supposed.  She hadn’t questioned it last night . . .

Straightening her back proudly, she smoothed her skirt and slowly walked away from the building.

Bas opened his eyes slowly and grunted as he tried to take a deep breath only to remember a little too late that it wasn’t a good idea to do that.  His brain seemed sluggish, and he carefully sat up with a wince.  “Fuck,” he muttered, squeezing his eyes closed against the intrusion of pain that shot through him with every movement of his body.

“Feeling any better?”

“God . . . You’re still here?” he gritted out, eyes popping open to glower at his cousin.

Gunnar glanced up from the manila file in his hands.  “So it would seem.”

Bas opened his mouth to tell Gunnar to get the hell out but stopped as he looked around the room.  “Where’s Sydnie?”

“Taking a bath.”

Bas grunted in reply, forcing himself to stand up.  “How long are you staying?” he demanded, draining the cup of lukewarm coffee sitting on the table.

“Till your ribs are healed up,” Gunnar remarked.  “Anyway, we need to move tomorrow.  It’d be a bad idea to stay in one place more than a day or so.”

“Yeah, fine.”

“So, Bas . . . You know, if you wanted to lie to Sydnie, don’t you think it’d have been a good idea to tell me not to blow your cover?”

Bas dropped the Styrofoam cup and coughed, wincing as the movement sent shockwaves of pain straight to his brain.  “What?”

“Your girlfriend . . . Maddy.”

“. . . Shit.”

“Coming up with a fake girlfriend isn’t really that bad, but don’t you think you should have at least picked a girl who wasn’t jailbait?”

“Shut up, Gunnar.  Did you tell Sydnie?”

“Yeah, I did,” he replied with a grimace.  “She was rather upset with you.”

Stifling a sigh, Bas nodded.  “I tried to tell her, but—wait . . . Did you say she’s taking a bath?”

Gunnar closed the file and dropped it onto the table as he sat back to stare at his cousin.  “Yes, but she’s been in there a while.”

“Fuck!”

It took five long strides for Bas to reach the closed bathroom door.  “Sydnie,” he called, knowing that she wasn’t going to answer, and knowing, too, that it was because she wasn’t in there.  He could hear the rush of water from the tap, and with a muttered curse, Bas grunted as he slammed his shoulder against the door.  Another long string of expletives accompanied the sight of the empty bathroom and the window that stood wide open.  Pausing only long enough to shut off the running water, he stomped out of the room again, grabbing his sword, but not bothering with his coat as he ran out the door into the hallway of the dimly-lit hotel.

Down the hall and out the glass doors at the end, Bas paused long enough on the sidewalk to sniff, catching the lingering hint of Sydnie’s scent.  She’d headed west, and he gritted his teeth together in a determined scowl as he sprinted after her.  His chest ached horribly, his ribs protesting the jarring motion of his strides.  Vaguely he heard Gunnar call out to him, but he didn’t stop.  Uttering a low string of invectives, he ignored the pain and kept moving: cursing Sydnie for being so stubborn, cursing Gunnar for not having realized that she’d bolt the first chance she got, cursing himself for being stupid enough to fall asleep . . . cursing himself for being stupid enough to lie to her in the first place.

He wasn’t even sure why he had lied; not really.  Chalk it up to his inability to think whenever she was close at hand, he supposed.  Damn her for being so provocative.  Damn him for letting her get to him time after time . . .

Sydnie’s scent led him down a side street just off the main drag that ran past the small hotel.  The surreal sense of suburbia was lost in a haze of motion as Bas sprinted down the sidewalk.  He wasn’t sure how much of a head start she’d gotten, but her trail hadn’t diminished very much.  Running past houses, he tried to assure himself that he didn’t need to worry, that he’d find her.  Unfortunately, he knew only too well that Sydnie was just too damn good at getting herself into massive amounts of trouble.  With his luck, he’d find her all right, and he’d end up finding more bounty hunters, too . . .

‘Damn her!  Why can’t she just stay where I fucking leave her?’ he fumed, pushing himself a little faster, grimacing as his ribs jarred painfully.  ‘When I find her, I swear I’ll . . .’

‘You’ll what?’

Bas scowled but didn’t miss a stride as he closed in on a large grove of trees off to the left of the road.  ‘I’ll beat her; just see if I don’t!’

‘You won’t beat her,’ his youkai scoffed.

Bas snorted in reply since the ache in his body precluded a more rational line of thought.  ‘Fine, but if she puts up any sort of fuss at all, I’ll slap her into the handcuffs, damn it!’

‘You can’t,’ his youkai pointed out.

‘Oh?  And why can’t I?’

‘Because, Bas . . . You left those in your jacket, and your jacket is still at the hotel.  Besides, it’s bad form to handcuff your future mate, don’t you think?’

‘. . . Shut up,’ he growled as he darted through the trees on the moisture-sodden earth.

‘Would you do that?  Would you really?  You know, right?  You were wrong—dead wrong.  You never should have told her that you have a girlfriend back home, even if you don’t think it’s any of her business, and another thing . . .’

‘What?’

‘Do you really think that she’ll trust you now?  She knows you’ve lied to her once.  How do you expect her to tell you things when you’ve been dishonest with her?’

He sighed, skidding to a stop as he broke into a small clearing beside a picturesque little lake.  It wasn’t the water that stopped him, and it wasn’t the view of the placid scene, laid out like a postcard image.  Sydnie sat on a small boulder on the shore, her back straight, proud, and her legs tucked neatly to one side as she stared out over the lake.  Her hair whipped around her in the wind coming off the water, but she didn’t make a move or give any indication that she’d heard his approach.  She sighed, a delicate lifting of her thin shoulders, a rippling of her flesh as the pale pink crescent moon-shaped youkai crests encircling her shoulder blades contracted slightly before dropping in an entirely defeated fashion.  He grimaced as his anger suddenly dissolved.

“Sydnie,” he murmured, taking a hesitant step toward her.  “I . . . I’m sorry.”