Razor's Edge Part 2

[x-penance.livejournal.com]

Yvette and Angel go to the adoption centre and for a moment might change their minds.



The building that house the war orphan adoption center was dull grey concrete, an ugly industrial-era block still showing signs of the bombing a decade earlier in the cracks and holes roughly patched over. From behind some garbage cans in a side-street opposite, Yvette watched the building with glowing eyes, biting her lip a little. Now she was here, she wasn't exactly sure what to do. It wasn't like she could just barge into a children's home and start looking for the man, but she didn't really have much of a plan otherwise...

Behind her, and a safe distance away from Yvette's spikes, Angel crouched down and had the same misgivings. "Now what?" she asked quietly, frowning as she studied everything around them. She didn't even know what this kidnapper guy looked like and she was really starting to regret not getting an adult. Or at least a trainee. In their mad dash through the city, she hadn't been able to ask many questions but she took the time now. "Was he going to be doing something here with the kids?"

"He is working here," Yvette replied, the thought rekindling some of the anger that had propelled her this far. "He is using it as a... how you say? Front? This is being where he is finding new children to be selling." She considered the situation; perhaps she'd been a bit hasty, maybe they could go back and talk to the adults and Dr. Marcel... Then the front door opened and a man came down the steps, glancing left-right. Yvette stiffened, her long fingers gouging tracks in the pavement beneath them. "~There he is!~" she exclaimed in Albanian, forgetting herself momentarily.

Angel didn't think he looked like the type of man to run around and kidnap children. But then again, the ones that probably did would have already been caught by now. And she really had no personal experience. She eyed Yvette with some alarm. "Uh, you wouldn't have happened to have said 'Let's got get a beefy adult' in Albanian, would you?"

Yvette was already half-rising, eyes fixed on the man. "I will follow him," she said, voice uncompromising. "You can be going back, if you like." And before Angel could really say anything, she was climbing up the wall of the building beside them, digging her long fingers and toes into the wall for purchase.

Tilting her head back, Angel watched Yvette's progress for a moment before bashing her forehead against the brick wall. "The things I do for friends," she muttered, keeping low as she crept around back. Yvette might be able to scamper up a wall like a pokey monkey but she retreated to a quieter alley before launching herself up in the air.

She kept close to the wall and only let herself get enough height past the edge of the roof so she could get her feet up and around.

"Now what?" she asked, trotting to join her friend again.

"Now we are following," Yvette said, already moving along the roof, eyes on the figure in the street below.



Back at the hotel, Laurie and Kyle notice the missing students and raise the alarm.



Laurie was heading toward the hotel gym, towel slung over her shoulder when she saw Kyle, and she had an almost overwhelming urge to head in the other direction. Since 'the incident', she'd been doing that a lot though, and perhaps it was well past time to let bygones be bygones. She was after all, an adult now, she should probably act like one.

Besides, seeing Kyle had just made her realise that she hadn't seen Yvette or Angel for awhile now, something that hadn't happened before on this trip. They were meant to be looking out for the younger students, and if they'd gotten lost. Laurie didn't even want to think about it.

"Kyle! Wait up." she called out, hurrying after the man. As was his usual for swimming, Kyle had a violently loud pair of swim trunks on, a loose button down unbuttoned, and a very large, very fluffy towel over his shoulders. Time zone changes had screwed up his workout schedule all sorts of messed up, and he was doing his best to try to fix that. And people kept interrupting him. "What?" He snapped, looking over his shoulder. "I thought we already dealt with this crap."

"Well aren't you just a ray of sunshine and bunnies." Laurie snapped back, starting slightly at the abrupt words.

"I -eat- bunnies. What do you want?" Kyle said, baring his teeth. "If this is more nagging, leave me alone." He didn't have -time- for this dumb crap, if Laurie was still being stupid.

"Have you seen Yvette or Angel? I haven't seen them at all today" Laurie asked, deciding to ignore his obvious attempt at needling her. She didn't nag, she just suggested, why he could never get that, she didn't know. Stupid man. "You know, the ones we're responsible for? The ones we're meant to keep safe? But don't worry, I'm sure they're perfectly fine. You just go back to your whatever it is you're doing and I'll go look for them by myself. Far be it from me to disturb his holiness, after all."

Kyle frowned, and turned back around from his attempt to stalk away. "What, like not at all today?" He asked, voice and face suddenly all-business. He wasn't going to apologize or anything, but she did have a point. Not that he'd say so. "Angel might've chased something shiny like a ferret. Or chased ferrets, who knows, she might've just forgot, but Yvette would've said something, or left a note, or a voicemail." He pulled his phone from the pocket in his swim trunks and did a quick voicemail check. "I got nothing."

"No voicemail for me either, and Yvette doesn't go off without letting people know." Laurie replied, clamping down tightly on her bodies instinctual reaction to her worry. They didn't need any of that right now, it would just make the situation more tense. "I didn't see any message taped to my door or anything. I wonder if they left something at reception?"

Kyle rolled his eyes. "We're not the only adults here. Shit, we barely qualify as adults. Lets check in with Angelo and everybody. Maybe they told someone else. Hell, Angel's got a crush on John, maybe she left -him- a note. "

Monet waved vaugely at Kyle and Laurie as they went past before going back to her coffee. Her really bad coffee. "This will be the last time I ever order a latte outside of Rome. Why does everyone always scorch the milk?" She wondered if this was what junkies felt like, deprived of their fix, and if she'd known how to make a good coffee, she wouldn't have hesitated in taking over the barrister's mind for five minutes. She frowned as the edge of Laurie's mind brushed hers, irritatingly loud in its anxiety. Yvette and Angel... "Shit! Start calling the others, will you? We need to figure out what to do."

Laurie blinked in surprise as she turned toward the sound of Monet's voice. Right, telepath, and a particularly nosy one at that, it really was terribly rude to just barge into someone else's thoughts...Wait, focus. Yvette and Angel, they needed to find out where the two of them had gone.

"Fine, I'll call John first. Maybe he'll know." Laurie replied, pulling her cellphone out of her back pocket and quickly scrolling through names.

John had been taking a nap in his room when his cellphone rang. It was in his jacket pocket but it took him a while to realize that, and by the time he picked up it up, it had rang at least seven times.

"This had better be good, Olive," he mumbled, groggily.

"Have you seen Angel or Yvette at all today?" Laurie asked, ignoring his blathering with only a quick roll of her eyes. Not that he'd see it, of course, but it made her feel better.

He sat up and ran his fingers through his hair. "No. ... Why the fuck are you asking me for?" John figured the girls were probably in their room braiding each other's hair or some shit.

"Because none of us have seen either of them all day." Laurie snapped, and then counted to ten in her head before she spoke again. "Look, just meet us down stairs in the lobby, okay?"

Maybe if they rounded everyone up, it'd make it easier to figure out just what the hell was going on. At least, she hoped so.

"Fine. I'll be down in a minute. In the meantime, you should probably keep trying to reach them on their cellphones. I'll double check the girl's room in case they're there." John flipped his phone shut and grabbed his shoes.

Angelo raised his eyebrows at him from the other side of the room, sitting on his bed. "We got a problem?"

"Yvette and Angel." John slipped his shoes on. "You seen them at all today?"

"Not since I checked on them this mornin'." He frowned. "Please tell me they didn't go missin'."

"Eh." John shook his head. "I'm not sure. Laurie claims that no one else has seen them." He frowned. "We gotta meet the rest downstairs. I'm going to go by their room first to check if they're there."

Angelo nodded. "Call me if you find them anywhere. I'll head down an' ask the reception guy if he's seen them."

***

Jane bounced out of the hotel dining room into the lobby, still gnawing a piece of bread. She was so going to move into the hotel kitchen if she could figure it out. Surely they wouldn't mind.

She smiled when she saw the group at the reception desk and waved. "Hey there!" she called. "What's up?"

"Angel and Yvette are missing...We think." Laurie said, looking sideways to where Angelo was talking quietly to the man at reception. She hoped that he would have some news for them, or that John would. She really didn't want to have to call someone back at the mansion to tell them they'd lost people.

Angelo turned back to them then, face grim with worry. "He saw them", he informed the group. "Left the hotel about an hour an' a half ago. They are so grounded when we find them... Kyle, Monet, we're gonna need you to play tracker, no one else can do it like you can."

Monet nodded. "I might have some trouble if they're in a big building, and too far away from the walls for me to hear them. But if Kyle can pin them down, we should be good."

"On it. Both of 'em have pretty distinctive smells, so it shoudn't be that hard." Kyle waved a pair of socks, one matte-black and one bright blue with dolphins on it. "I sorta broke into their room through the balcony. Whatever's got 'em running around without calling also has Yvette like, ninety kinds of pissed the hell off. No blood though, I don't think they've been kidnapped. It'd be hard to grab Yvette without her drawing some blood."



Tracking their target to the warehouse district, Yvette and Angel find themselves in over their heads.



No one, or almost no one, ever looked up. Angel used this to her advantage as she and Yvette followed the man through the streets. Yvette was able to scamper from roof top to roof top, only stopping when the gaps were too large. But then it was just a matter of scooping her up and gently dropping her on the next roof over.

She was flying at a slow speed so she wouldn't either lose Yvette or overtake the man in the street. It was easier to pretend this wasn't a horribly stupid or potentially dangerous situation when her feet weren't on the ground.

Yvette waved at her and Angel angled herself down, coasting to a stop next to her. They were in a more abandoned part of town - a warehouse, it looked like. "You still see him?" she asked quietly.

"He has gone into that building," Yvette said, indicating the warehouse. Perched on the edge of the roof, she looked like a tiny, spiky gargoyle. "It is the place. We will catch him there."

"I once caught this fish with my dad," Angel said, staring down at the warehouse. "And it was huge and I was all like 'now what' and dad was all like 'now you gut it!'. I ended up putting it back in and named it George." She rubbed the back of her neck and gave Yvette a wry look. "I guess I'll meet you on the ground, then? Besides, he didn't much look like a George to me, you know?"

She got a faint smile and brief brightening of Yvette's eyes in return. "No, he does not," she replied shortly, and then the impenetrable mask dropped back down. "Be careful." And with that, she began climbing down the wall, ramming her fingers into the gaps between the brickwork like ice pitons.

"Says the spiky girl to the girl on fire," Angel muttered, jumping off the building into freefall before flaring. She landed faster than Yvette could climb down but it wasn't far between the two. The warehouse was quiet and looked deserted so she gestured for Yvette to go in first - the harder skinned girl would have no trouble if something were to pop up. And Angel could throw fire, so...

The door creaked as Yvette pushed it open and she stopped for a moment, holding her breath as she listened for any indication they'd been heard. Nothing, so she pushed the door wider and went on in, Angel close on her heels. The inside was shadowy, filled with shipping crates and Yvette stopped, heart sinking. They'd come all this way, only to lose him!

Cautiously, Angel extended a hand to bring up a small lick of flame. Just enough light to give them something to see by but nothing more. "Where?" she said softly, searching the shadows. She froze when she heard steps shuffling from nearby and she nodded in that direction.

Yvette started in that direction, but then more footsteps shuffled from off their other side and she stopped again, uncertain. "Who..." she began, and then let out a small squeak as several men came out of the shadows around them. Several large, heavily armed men, who did not look in the least bit happy or easy to intimidate.

"Oh." The flame sputtered in Angel's hand as she looked around, eyes widening with each passing second. "Oh, shit. We? Are in so much trouble."