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Annals of Fear II	By : DeathNoteFangirl Category: Death Note > Yaoi-Male/Male > Mello/Matt Views: 5803 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note and I do not make any money from these writings

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Hal sighed, resisting the urge to hug Deontic.   "Let me come with you."

Deontic was so self-contained now.   Her suitcase and bags were packed and the little chalet looked very neat.   She sat on the very edge of the bed, wrapped tightly in her buttoned up coat.    Her back was rigidly straight.   The only hint of her upset were the red raw rims of her eyes and the distance within them.    "No."   She carefully pulled back the hem of her sleeve and peered at the watch beneath.   "The boys are tearing themselves apart and it needs your sanity here.    I will be alright."

"With respect, Dee, I don't think you will be.   It's a long way from Aberystwyth to Winchester and you'll be driving that alone at night.    Let me..."

"I will not." Deontic replied, firmly.    "As I suspected, it would be difficult for Lauren and Valerie to book a hire car out here at night.    They merely got as far as the town in a taxi.   They are returning and I will be driving them back.   I may bed overnight in Wammy's House, but tomorrow, I'm flying home."

Hal frowned, "Flying?"

It had seemed impossible for Deontic to freeze more, but she did.   She covered her fluster with standing.   "Yes."   Deontic passed to the window and stared out through the net curtains.

Hal shrugged.   It was of no matter.   "I just assumed that you lived in England.    Many of the Wammy alumni do."

"Do they?"   Deontic challenged.   "And your evidence is?"

"It doesn't matter where you all live and yes, there is a room for you at Wammy's House. For all of you."   Hal watched her. "I'm sorry that this had to happen to you.   I know it must hurt to be off the case."   Hal waited, but Deontic didn't respond.   "Is it Mello?   Did he force you out?"

Deontic shook her head.   "I reached the point where I realised that I have no business being here.   Neither am I willing to be manipulated by those who have business here."

"Mello."

"All four of them."   She dipped into her pocket and pulled out a communicator.    "It's an open frequency.   I've been listening to them. Mello, Fenian, Century, Matt and Kiana, all with their individual power games.   And I do include Kiana in there.   I do believe that her primary objective is Fenian's protection, but she rattled Mello and that really went to her head.   She enjoyed the fact that Matt took some of her ointment for his bruises.   You know that they're at the manor house, don't you?"

Hal nodded.   "That's what I came to tell you."

"Mello's with them in the car."

Hal blinked.   She asked, cautiously, "Is he?"

"Yes. You can feel the testosterone between him and Fenian from here."    Deontic frowned, peering more closely out of the window.   "Interesting."    She flicked on the communicator.   The sounds from it were muffled.   They could hear crying and a woman's voice shouting.   They couldn't make out what she was saying.     Deontic held it out.   "Take this and monitor it."   She seemed suddenly alive, as she hurried to the door and flung it open.   Deontic yelled, "Matt!"

Hal took the communicator and held it to her ear.   Between the sobs, there were words.   They sounded almost Russian, but indistinct.   The emotion came through more than the actual words.   Hal was fluent in Russian, but between the dialect and the distress, there was nothing that she could make out.    She crossed to the door and looked out, into the wake of Deontic.   The Malaysian woman was scurrying across the green, the wind whipping her hair across her face.   There, indeed, was Matt too. He had no jacket on.   The striped sleeves of his shirt were dark with blood.   He was standing at the edge of the low wall, above his own car, staring back at them.   Deontic was nearly upon him.

Hal sucked in a breath, wondering what Mello had done to him now.   Yet the more she listened, the more she suspected that the man sobbing over the airwaves was Mello.    Was he badly injured? Dying?   The thought sank into her mind that it was the witch bottle.   It had been removed.   He had reverted to how he had been yesterday.    It was a working hypothesis, which she decided to run past Deontic.   Hal looked up, just in time to see Deontic raise her hand and slap Matt so hard, that the tiny man flew from the wall and landed on the bonnet of his Camaro.     Hal darted forward, "Deontic!"

Along the track came the headlights of an approaching vehicle.   Matt scrambled from the bonnet, racing between the cars, right into its path.   But the taxi was going very slowly, searching for the chalets.   It didn't take a screeching halt to stop in time.   It didn't even hit Matt.   Deontic rushed down the handful of steps to the parking bays.   Lauren dashed out of the taxi.   It was Lauren who reached Matt first, but the redhead was wriggling out of her grasp.    Hal caught him, as he fled, and he didn't escape her.   Matt gave Hal a look of such utter hopelessness, that she nearly believed all was lost.   His words flooded out, as a plea, "Necesito a Mello. Necesito encontrar a Mello. Por favor. Necesito a Mello."

Hal took control.   "Lauren. Deal with the taxi.   Valerie, look to Deontic."   She frog-marched Matt back to her own chalet.   Her hands felt sticky and warm with the blood on his arms.

Lauren slapped the money into Valerie's hand and raced after Hal.   "He's speaking in Spanish.   He's saying that he needs Mello."

"Lauren," Hal stopped to regain her grip on Matt, as he fought against her, "I believe that the witch bottle has been removed from the roots of the yew tree up there. "    She had reached her door.   Matt was struggling with greater strength than his geekish frame would have suggested was possible. Hal, fortunately, was relying more on technique than physical power.   Even so, she was only just about holding him.   She gushed out, urgently, "My key is in my pocket."

Lauren fished it out and opened the chalet door, but she followed the couple inside.   "Vamos a encontrar a Mello, Matt. Va a estar bien."   She smiled reassurance.   "Just telling him that we will find Mello and it's going to be ok."

Hal barely seemed in the mood.   She forced Matt onto her bed, then took handcuffs to fix his wrists behind his back.   Matt bucked and kicked, but she held him.   He moaned out, "Necesito encontrar a Mello. Por favor. Por favor. Por favor."   With a knee to the small of his back and one hand against his neck, Hal pulled back his sleeves.   She revealed deep cuts running, and bleeding, along them.   "Por favor.   Necesito enc..."

"Matt." Lauren interrupted, kindly, calmly, "Vamos a encontrar Mello. Te lo prometo."

"Self-inflicted."   Hal concluded, swallowing hard.   "He's acting very differently than before.    Then again, Mello was with him yesterday."

"Por favor. Por favor." Matt pleaded, gasping.   "Por favor."

Hal sighed, "Lauren, tell Valerie that we need a sedative."

Lauren nodded. "Volveré, Matt. Está bien. Les prometo que traeremos Mello a casa."   She ran to the door and opened it.    A quick glance told her that neither Deontic nor Valerie were out there anymore.   "Hal, I need to go looking for them. I will be right back.   Volveré, Matt."   She disappeared through the door, but returned almost immediately. "Hal, look after Mello's man.   Are the handcuffs strictly necessary? You cannot believe the trouble that we would be in, if..."

"I know, Lauren."   Hal snapped.   "Just get that sedative from Valerie."    The young woman left, while Hal tried to work out her priorities.    Matt was injured, but he hadn't cut an artery.   He wasn't going to bleed to death lying there.   But someone ought to be out there reaching Mello.   Hal mused on the woman's voice that she had heard in the background.   It was distant, but could well have been an Irish accent.   Kiana was with Mello.   Deontic said that they had left together.   Mello had a communicator.   Hal searched in her pocket, where she had dropped Deontic's communicator.   She listened and could still make out an ocean of grief at the other end.   She glanced down at Matt.   He wasn't crying.   He was pleading, moaning, panting and wriggling, but he wasn't crying.   That shook her slightly, but she didn't react to it.   She flicked the tiny switch, activating the microphone.   "Mello?   Mello, it's Hal. I'm with Mail."    The only answer she heard was a desperate keening, Mello howling out his terror, too far gone to even hear.

Lauren had ran twice around the green and searched down to the beach and track, before she considered the lit room above.   It was Matt's computer hub, but he obviously wasn't in there right now.   She hurried up the concrete stairs to find the door ajar and voices within.    Uttering a sigh of relief, Lauren pushed inside.   "Valerie, Hal needs you to give Matt a sedative.   He's in her chalet."

Deontic was moving from screen to screen, leaning over the monitors to note each new data in turn.   "Valerie, take his cigarettes.   He left them here."   She handed them to the psychologist, who took them with a expression of distaste.   "Thank you."    She waited for Valerie to leave.   "Lauren, listen to this."   Deontic turned up a speaker and signalled to Lauren to approach.   They both listened to the muffled, terrified tones rasping out the words.   "And if you saw me punch Matt, then know that he deserved it and I have it out of my system now."   Deontic moved on.   Lauren leaned into the speaker, her brow furrowed with the effort of concentration.    Deontic depressed the button to her own microphone. "Fenian, Century, are you reading me?"   She was watching them both, on the big screen, inside the kitchen of the manor house.   "The electro-magnetic force is at 7 milligauss. Are you reading me?"   On the screen, neither of them so much as blinked.   She had the audio high, but could not hear her own voice coming back at her.   "It's started all over again.   Idiots."

"He's saying the last rites in Croatian."   Lauren informed her.    "But messing it up a lot.   He keeps stalling and repeating lines or phrases."

Deontic nodded.   "I deduce that either Fenian or Century have removed the witch bottle.   It needs to be replaced before Mello and/or Matt frighten themselves into a heart-attack or suicide.    Fenian and Century also need to be warned that that house is live.   Century's 'phone just kicks straight to voice mail and I don't have Fenian's number.   I may have to go through Watari."

Lauren took in all of the equipment.   "Can you manage all of this?"   She saw the withering look that the Malaysian woman gave her.   "In that case, I'm going to enter my own protocols.    I work for Mello, not Watari."

"What are your protocols?" Deontic asked, after the briefest pause.

"Protecting Matt.   Mello told me that, in a choice between them, I always protect Matt first."   Lauren took a communicator and strode towards the door. "I propose that we send Hal after Mello.   If you can manage here, then I wish to be kept informed."

Deontic watched her foster brothers walking towards the staircase, inside the manor house.   "Hal shouldn't go alone.   No-one should be alone in this."

Lauren paused.   "That includes you?"   She waited by the door, seeing the mostly convincing bristling of the other woman.   "I'll send Valerie back here."

Deontic shook her head. "No.   Send Matt back here."   She couldn't tear her eyes away from the screen.   Fenian and Century were on the second floor now.   "I promise not to punch him again.   If he's going under, the technology might help.   It did before."

"I'll send Valerie."   Lauren replied, decisively, then took off down the freezing, outer staircase.    She jogged across the green and knocked on Hal's door.   There were footsteps within and Valerie opened it.   The psychologist looked calmly professional, if a little pale.    She smiled at Lauren. Lauren nodded, noting the vial and unopened syringe in the woman's hands.   Lauren called out, cheerily, "Ya estoy de vuelta, Matt."    The redhead was lying face-down on the bed, utterly still.   Hal held him down, with one hand and a knee, but she was also on the 'phone.   "What's the situation?"

Valerie flashed a wan smile.   "She's just got through to Kiana, but on Mello's 'phone."

Hal frowned, her gaze passing to the door, "And you're with Mello now?"

Valerie tapped on the vial, holding it up to judge the liquid within.   On the bed, there was a jagged, muffled cough, then Matt started choking.   They heard it in the gargled sounds and they saw it in the thrashing of his body.   Hal took her hand from the back of his neck.   Matt's leg kicked backwards, bent at the knee, and a boot heel smashed into Hal's genitalia.   She gasped, rearing away, a hand clutching herself.   Matt's boot caught her knee and shin on the downward thrust.   Matt bucked, like a fish out of water, and flipped over onto his back.   He was red-faced, but not purple.    He wasn't choking now. Hal dropped the 'phone and made a grab for him, but Matt was away, over the bed and against the back wall.    It all happened so fast, that Valerie and Lauren only had time to register it and step forward.   But the expression on Matt's face stilled them both.   It was bestial, frightened and frightening.

Hal screamed out, "Shut the fucking door!"

Lauren closed the front door.   Hal stood there, panting, trying to catch her breath and win herself precious seconds in which to think.   She felt sick with the sharp pain, stabbing through her vagina.   Valerie swallowed and carefully unwrapped the syringe.   Against the wall, there was a sudden click and Matt's hands were free.   Lauren found her tongue.   "Why don't we just take him to Mello?   If we know where Mello is?    Why is he cuffed anyway?"

"He's a danger to himself." Hal breathed.

"Matt." Lauren saw how the redhead's gaze moved from one of them to another.   "I will take you to Mello, if you calm down." She saw no acknowledgement in his eyes.   "Matt, te llevaré a Mello, si te calmes."   She pushed the glasses further up her nose. Her mind was speeding through the scenarios.   Valerie would stay with Deontic.   She and Hal could take Matt.   There was blood on the wall behind Matt, where he had just shifted.   "Hal, find out exactly where Mello is."

Hal cast her a withering glance.   The American's eyes were filmed with tears, either watering or crying, Lauren wasn't sure.   But her expression was one of grim determination.   She had provided security for the leader of the free world.   She was not going to be out-manoeuvred by a short, Spanish nerd.   Nevertheless, right now, Lauren out-ranked her.   Hal uttered a curt, "Ma'am."   And ducked down to scoop up the 'phone.

Matt was fast. Faster than anyone, who had known him for any length of time, would have thought possible.   First, with his right hand, he hurled the handcuffs across the room into Valerie's face.   They lacerated the bridge of her nose and bruised her cheekbone.   A smaller cut was carved into her cheek.   She stumbled back into Lauren, her hand to her face.   Matt was already halfway towards her, his crouching gait having freed a knife from his boot, which he cast at Hal.   It would have hit her left shoulder, but for the fact that her reactions were faster than Valerie's.   She dived onto the bed and, though she bounced straight back up again, Matt was already on the other side of the room.   A second knife was clutched in one hand and his gaze was sheer calculation.

"You bastard!" Valerie shrieked.   "Oh my God!"    Her eyes were tightly closed and weeping.   Blood bubbled slowly over her fingers.   Lauren held her, but her attention was solely on the redhead.   The couple were still between Matt and the only door. That consideration did not bring her any comfort.    She just watched the knife and thanked her lucky stars that he didn't appear to have a gun.

Hal raised her hands in surrender.   "You are not under arrest."   She stated firmly, standing cautiously from the bed.   She must have still been in pain, but she didn't show it.   "You have hurt Valerie.    What is it that you want, Mail?"

Matt didn't reply.   He was taking them all in - their positions, relative to the door and to each other.    Lauren exhaled, willing calmness into her tone.   "He wants Mello."   She pushed Valerie gently towards Hal, then rushed to pick up the 'phone.   It left the door unguarded and Matt was swift to take the avenue of escape.   As the freezing sea air swarmed into the room, from the open front door, Lauren gasped out, "Leave it, Hal!"

"Hell no."   Hal snapped, depositing Valerie onto the end of the bed and racing after him.

Lauren rushed into their wake, "I'll get you help, Val."   Then she too was out of the door, yelling into the communicator. "Deontic. Valerie is injured.   Alone. Hal's chalet."    She was witnessing Matt and Hal's latest scuffle, down on the gravel.   "Please can you deal with it?   I have my hands full with Matt and Hal."

"Hal?" Deontic clarified.

"Affirmative."   Lauren fastened the communicator to her lapel, so that Deontic could see for herself, through the little camera.   Matt was on one knee, with an arm twisted behind him, and the knife in that same hand, held away from them both.   He should have been using the other hand to ensure that he didn't end up face down in the gravel. Instead, he had taken a fistful of gravel and dirt and thrown it into Hal's face.   Only the wind had saved her, carrying the load safely away.   Lauren reached them. "Hal, this isn't how you deal with Matt.   He'll fight you every step of the way. You're not Mello."

Hal looked exasperated. "And you have no clue about the background of this case.   He's not in his right mind."

Lauren nodded. "I understand that, but I am also asking you to release him. Will you do that for me please?"

"Is that an order, ma'am?" Hal shifted position, as Matt made to kick at her shins.   It knocked him off balance.

"Yes, it is." Lauren straightened to her full height, watching Hal accommodate the new holding position.

Hal did not look pleased. "And you realise that the result might be his suicide?"

From the tiny speaker of the communicator, Deontic's voice was almost lost in the wind.   They all heard her clearly though, "Over-ruled, Lauren.   Hal, restrain him.   We're on damage limitation at the moment."

Hal allowed herself the briefest look of triumph, before resuming, with much more vigour, her attempt to subdue Matt.   Lauren sighed and lifted Hal's 'phone to her ear.   "Hello, are you still there?"

Kiana sounded very shaken. "Yes, I am."

"And you're with Mello."

"Yes."

Lauren swallowed.   "Is he alright?"   The silence told her everything.   She could hear Mello's sobs as background noise.   "Where are you?"

Kiana whispered, "I don't think I should say.    Liam..."   She let it hang.

"Ok, you're afraid of Fenian." Lauren replied, watching Hal trying to drag Matt to his feet.   He was fighting her with everything he had.   It was furious and frenzied, but Hal was too highly trained.    It amounted to a stalemate. "That's understandable, but..."

"Afraid of him?"   Kiana gasped.   "Fuck off."

Deontic was not privy to Kiana's side of the conversation, but she had heard Lauren's question.   "Lauren, Mello's GPS is signalling from a lay-by, in the road leading up to the manor house.   About 300 yards before the turning into the track."

Lauren smiled.   "Thank you, Dee."   She turned away and pulled up the hem of her coat.   Puckering a couple of feet of heavy fabric under one arm, she shivered against the cold.   But Lauren's hand had found what she sought.    "Kiana, I'm putting you back onto Hal."   She turned and pointed the .45 semi-automatic at her erstwhile warden and mentor.   "Hal.   I'm sorry.   I work for Mello, not Watari."   Hal glanced up, then took a longer look of pure disbelief.   "Please release Matt now. Thank you."

Hal stepped away, her hands raised, palms out.   The shaking of her head and the expression on her face conveyed very well what she thought of this course of action.    But Matt had already scrambled away and had reached his car.    Lauren threw the 'phone towards Hal and ran after him.    It took him an age to insert the key into the door.   Even the adrenaline of the moment wasn't enough to flood movement into his icy fingers.    Lauren waited anxiously by the passenger door.   He didn't even glance at her.   She opened her mouth to suggest that she drive, then his door was open and he was inside the Camaro.    Lauren shivered, her hand ready on the handle, as the engine started up.   But Matt didn't unlock the door.    He reversed out at speed, causing Lauren to have to leap back to avoid being hit.     Hal had a similar hurried leap over the topmost rocks of the beach.   Matt sped off into the night.

"Voi vittu!"   Lauren gaped.

Hal merely gave her a look of absolute disdain and raised the 'phone to her ear.   "Kiana, a word of warning.   Matt's on his way to you and he's probably going to stop at nothing to rescue Mello.     You'd better ask yourself whether Fenian's ego is worth the Hell that he's just unleashed upon you."

Author's Note: There is a discussion taking place about this story here: http://mrsjeevas.joharrington.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=11
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Annals of Fear II