Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ The Dragoness ❯ Scars ( Chapter 7 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

The jet was circling, getting ready to make a landing. FASTEN SEATBELTS flashed the sign. Lilly was humming a song quietly to herself as she listened on her walkman.

Kaiba, sitting in another section of the plane, stood up, sighed, and tapped her on the shoulder. “Do you mind?”

She removed the headphones, stopping the player. “What?” she answered crossly.

“You were singing again. Besides, we're about to land.” He pointed to the tiny green islands below.

“Ah, the Virgin Islands.” For a second, she let her guard down.

“I see they did not name the islands for you, my well traveled rose,” sneered Kaiba.

“I didn't know they let men like you in. I should think it would spoil the virgins.”

“Touché.”

“We are landing in St. Thomas?”

“Charlotte Amalie.”

“The capital of the Virgin Islands. Good choice Kaiba.”

“We're staying in a resort on the beach. I would have preferred Crown Mountain, but they were booked on such short notice.”

“For the first time in history Seto Kaiba didn't get something he wanted.”

“There have been times… when I did not get what I wanted.” Lilly turned away, uncomfortable with the way he was staring at her.

Lilly was modeling bathing suits in the bathroom mirror. Silver Speedo for the athletic look? Or the skimpy black one? She craned her neck to see what her butt looked like in the bikini. Gently, she ran her hands along tight pink scars that ran down her pale back. She envisioned what they had once looked like- red lashes on darkly tanned skin.

Lilly walked back into the hotel room, covered in a blue silk wrap.

“Going swimming?” asked Kaiba, looking up from his laptop.

“Aren't you?”

“Why should I?” he asked.

She looked a little dumbfounded. “Because… we're on vacation?”

“Work before pleasure in all things.”

“Are you sure?” she said, opening her robe up just enough for him to see the bikini. “Too bad. Come and tell me when you want to go get dinner.” He was silent, shook his head to clear it, and then went back to work. Women.

The sea was beginning her shift towards shore, two lovers forced to a distance from each other by the cruel day, and they could only return to each other's arms in the evening. High tide was just beginning when Kaiba realized he needed to fetch his wife from the seashore. No sense of time at all. I wonder why she's so late?

The sun's rays were sinking below the golden horizon, a bloody red glow that wounded the water until it was filled with murky lifeblood.

“Lilly?” he called out, not seeing her on the large stretch of sand that was slowly being taken over by water. Where the hell is she? “Lillian!”

Finally, a lump of shadow in the water. There she was, soaking wet, hands on her knees as she sat in the frothy water. I have a feeling I'm going to ruin these shoes, he thought ruefully, noting the wet sand caking onto the Italian leather. He waited until he was practically on top of her- she if she detected his movements in the rising water she did not speak to him. Finally, he grabbed her by the shoulder.

She flinched, covering her head, as if expecting to be struck. “Let's go,” he said brusquely. She didn't respond, ducking her head farther into her folded arms. A wave splashed her in the face; she didn't react. Kaiba groaned inwardly, seeing the dark salt water stains up to his knees now.

She abruptly stood, shivering and soaking wet, and walked towards the hotel. Kaiba was astonished; when he caught up to her, he began to yell at her. “What the hell was that about? Sitting in the water at high tide like you wanted to be drowned?”

She turned viciously at him. “And what if I did? Would you care long enough to even make an attempt at grief for the cameras while your greedy money-grubbing hands robbed my company to the bone?”

“What kind of fucking question us that? Of course I care. I care a damn lot!” He grabbed her by the shoulder. Her eyes got big and she slapped him. He touched the red hand print that stretched across his face in disbelief.

“Oh, how low on your underbelly must you crawl, Satan?” she spat, returned to her brisk walk that was beginning to look more and more like a run.

Then he saw it. Something he had never noticed before. Vicious, cruel, painful red lashes running down her back. It looked like someone had once taken a whip to her.

“What the hell are those?” he demanded.

“None of your business,” she retorted defensively, beginning to run in the deep sand. This was her mistake, because she twisted her ankle in it and fell headlong into the sand. She gave a grunt of pain as she held the miserably sore foot.

“Tell me. Please. Who did that to you?” he said in gentler tones.

“It was… a long time ago,” she said dully.

“When?”

“I was twelve. I was disrespectful to-” she caught herself. There was a stubborn silence.

“I'm sorry. Why didn't you tell me about them?” He said this almost like he cared. There was a mournful tone in his voice that most people never heard.

“You wouldn't understand,” she said quietly.

“I wouldn't?” he said, untucking his shirt. Along his back, just above his waistline, there was a purple scar. “My stepfather and I didn't always agree. Usually he just pounded me until I was senseless with his belt. But one night, he was in a particularly bad mood; he had lost the contract to sell arms to some war torn country, I found out later. He broke his wineglass, and he slashed me on the back with it. Said it would teach me a lesson. It did. That was the night I learned what hatred was; before then, hatred was just a word.” His face hardened. “After, hatred was a reason to get up in the morning and keep fighting and keep hating.”

“It seems we are more in common than we believed, Seto Kaiba. Strange, I was sure I had you figured out.”

While I know so little about you, “Lilly Kikas.” Is that your real name? And where did you get the scars on your face and your back? Why are the Rare Hunters still hunting you years after they disbanded? And how are you connected to Tyas Fullam? I intend to find out.