Inside of Sakura TV station, shouts and screaming punctuated the suddenly smoke-filled air. A chunk of the ceiling had been blown out, and dust and debris showered the air.

"Get Miss Takada out of the building," Aiber immediately ordered the rest of the bodyguards, then raised his voice to everyone else, "Everyone evacuate!"

He didn't need to say it twice. Everyone in the station began streaming towards the exits. Aiber stayed close on the heels of the other bodyguards who were now flanking Kiyomi Takada and ushering her out. The bodyguard at the rear, just ahead of Aiber, was a lean man who was a head shorter than him. Aiber reached out and chopped him right at a vital nerve below the neck. The man went down with hardly a sound. No one noticed amidst all the shouting and running—except for Mello, who was jogging a few feet behind Aiber and overlooking everything with watchful eyes.

Aiber didn't pay attention to him, instead running ahead to take out one more rear bodyguard, before catching up with the others. Bursting out of the exit and onto the street, they were met with a cacophony of noise—gunfire and more screaming, this time from civilians. Yakuza gang members were just outside, causing a commotion and general panic.

"You two," Aiber addressed the remaining bodyguards. "Watch our backs. I'll get Miss Takada to the car."

"Where are Hikari and Kyo?" asked one of them, even as he obediently drew his gun.

Mello came running up behind them, wearing an appropriately distressed look. "They got taken out by the explosion!" he panted, pointing back at the station. "I saw their bodies in the debris."

The two other bodyguards, seemingly satisfied by this, turned to face the Yakuza. Aiber started to usher Takada, who was pale with fear, towards the car on the curb.

"Stop! Police!" shouted a voice in the crowd.

Aiber and Mello exchanged a brief glance of concern—the police should not have arrived on the scene for another five or ten minutes—before turning, as one, to look.

There, at the forefront of the crowd and facing the Yakuza with a gun in his hands, was former Chief of Police, Soichiro Yagami.

"Crap," said Aiber under his breath.

Mello glanced at him sharply, his shrewd eyes taking in the look of recognition and concern on Aiber's face. He opened his mouth to say something, but then another gunshot rang out.

Soichiro went down, clutching his side.

Aiber swore and drew his own gun. At that moment Mello came to his side.

"Go take care of him, if he's important," he said. "I'll take Takada."

Aiber looked at him, quickly weighing options, before nodding. He grasped Takada by the arm. "Go with him," he told her, gesturing toward Mello. He fished his car keys out of his pocket and tossed them to the boy.

Takada, too panicked to argue, nodded. Mello came forward quickly and took her gently by the arm. "Come on, Miss Takada," he told her. "I'll get you out of here." He began leading her to the car.

"You can drive?" she asked, her voice a little squeak as she went with him.

"Yes," he said shortly. "Don't worry."

Takada nodded again as she got into the passenger seat, her entire frame trembling. Mello got in beside her, starting the car.

"I'll take you somewhere safe," he promised, and began to drive.

----------------------------------------

Jubilee was anxiously biting her nails as she stared at her laptop. Onscreen were two livestream videos; one of the vacant interior of a box truck, and the other of the driver's seat, currently empty.

She rocked back and forth, and waited.

It had barely been five minutes since the bomb had gone off. Jubilee had watched as the inhabitants of Sakura TV station evacuated, and then she had switched the channels over to the cameras installed inside the box truck, and waited for Aiber to enter it with Takada and make contact with her.

Any minute now.

Beside her, Hellenos shimmered in and out view. If she didn't know better, she would think he was excited to see what would happen.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

When she finally saw Takada enter the back of the truck, she started to give a sigh of relief—until she saw Mello follow in behind the woman, holding her at gunpoint.

"What is he doing there!" she yelped.

Oh, snap, she thought she heard Hellenos say from beside her.

Onscreen, Mello threw Takada a blanket. "Use that to cover yourself and take off your clothes," he ordered her coldly.

Takada glared back at Mello just as coldly, even though she shook in both fear and anger. Dark, troubled hues pulsed around her. "Why, if you don't want the show?" she bit out.

"Just do it," he snapped.

She did as she was told, wrapping the long blanket around herself and stripping awkwardly underneath it, discarding her blouse and pants onto the floor of the truck.

"Kick your clothes over here when you're done," said Mello.

She did so, then added icily, "Is this all a ploy to get your hands on my underwear, Matthew?"

"Keep your underwear," said Mello coolly, picking up her clothes. Then he exited the space, locking her in.

Seconds later, he entered the front of the truck and got behind the wheel, dropping Takada's clothes into the seat next to him. He started the truck, then reached into the glovebox and pulled out the headset that was waiting for him.

"J?" he said, his voice filtering more clearly into Jubilee's headset now that he was on a mic.

"What in God's holy name do you think you're doing?!" she hollered into his ears.

Mello winced, and Hellenos coughed faintly. Okay, said the angel. That time might have been—

"You're fourteen!" she yelled, ignoring him. "What are you doing behind the wheel of a semi-truck?!"

"Driving it," said the teenager flatly as he shifted the transmission into gear and started forward. "What else?"

"How do you even—" she began, then stopped herself when she remembered that he was a genius and knew how to do a lot more things than she did. "Never mind," she said angrily. "Mello, this is not okay. This was not the plan. Where is Aiber? What happened?"

"Aiber's back at the scene outside of Sakura TV station. It ended up being more chaotic there than we anticipated, so he hung back to deal with crowd control and I took Takada instead." Over his head, a line wavered and cracked slightly.

Jubilee eyed it suspiciously. "What are you hiding?" she asked.

"Nothing, J," said Mello, the line over his head snapping completely this time. "Now can we—"

"I know you're hiding something, Mello," Jubilee persisted. "Tell me what—"

"There's nothing else you need to know at the moment, J," Mello snapped, the brown hue around him darkening into a thick, muddy color mixed with a dismal gray. "So drop it, alright? I need you to focus on what Takada's doing right now. Okay?"

She was about to say something else in protest, when the shade of gray that was around caught her eye. She stopped, recognizing the hue. It was the same color she saw sometimes when she looked in the mirror, and wondered if she would ever be able to erase the guilt that she felt.

"Okay," she said softly after a moment. She focused her attention on the video stream of Takada, who was huddled on the floor in the back of the truck, the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The woman was fidgeting with her undergarments. "I think she's taking a phone out of her bra," said Jubilee, squinting. "And—something else..."

"You can change camera angels and zoom in," Mello informed her. "I installed five in there and they have advanced lens capabilities."

"Oh," said Jubilee, fumbling with the controls on her laptop. "Okay, hold on. Uh..."

Beside her, Hellenos reached out and tapped a few buttons for her. The video of Takada switched to another angle and zoomed in on the items in her hands.

"Okay, I got it," said Jubilee aloud, while giving Hellenos a look. Since when were you able to provide tech support? she thought.

He only grinned.

Jubilee returned her attention to the screen. "She's got a scrap of paper and a pencil."

"Perfect," said Mello, shifting gears again and turning the wheel.

"Why?" asked Jubilee suspiciously. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going down a secluded road towards the countryside, and I'm slowing down."

"Why?" she asked again.

"One, so I'm harder to find, and two, so that she feels like she's safer."

Jubilee mulled over that last part, which didn't really make any sense to her. "This is part of the plan, right?" she said worriedly.

"Hopefully," said Mello.

"Hopefully?!"

"Well, hopefully she writes something before she makes a phone call," said Mello. "And hopefully she writes what I think she's going to write. What's she doing now?"

"Uh..." Jubilee watched Takada, who was considering the paper and phone in her hands. Slowly she reached for the pencil. "I think she's about to write something..."

"Tell me what she writes," instructed Mello.

Jubilee tapped the last button that she had seen Hellenos press, and zoomed in on the piece of paper in Takada's hands. In shaky handwriting, she scrawled the name, Matthew River, onto the parchment.

"She wrote your fake name," said Jubilee, feeling a small bit of relief. No one would be dying just now. "That's good. So now we know that she's had Death Note paper on her this whole time, and that it can be used to kill."

"Yep," said Mello. He sounded distracted. The cogs over his head lit up and began to spin.

"What are you doing now?" she asked suspiciously.

Mello didn't answer for a second, his eyes glancing at the dash. "What do you mean?"

"What are you planning?"

"I'm not planning, I'm checking the road."

"Why?"

"To make sure it's clear."

"Why?"

"Why wouldn't I want the road to be clear?" he answered easily.

Darn the boy. He'd figured out how to deflect in order to avoid her lie detecting. Jubilee glanced over at Takada, who was bracing herself in the corner of the truck for the crash she was expecting.

Mello muttered something under his breath.

"What?" said Jubilee sharply.

"What?" responded the boy innocently.

"I didn't catch that," she said, her eyes narrowing. "It sounded like a number."

"Oh, right," said Mello, swiveling his head to check both sides of the road. "Yeah...it was."

Jubilee felt a sense of unease begin to grow in her belly. She waited for him to expound. He didn't. "Why...?" she prompted again, feeling aggravated.

"Well," drawled Mello slowly. "Because...I'm counting."

A second passed as Jubilee registered his statement. Then, her suspicion sharpened into horrific realization.

At that exact moment, Mello jerked the steering wheel to the right—hard. In both video feeds, the scene jolted violently. Sounds of a crash thudded dully through her headset.

Jubilee screamed.