Death Note: Blood Ties - 9. THIEF

Chapter 9: THIEF

Ethan:

It was nearing the end of May and I could sense winter's approach. At lunch time I made my way back to the empty Visual Arts room where we would all meet. Making sure no teacher saw me I quickly opened the door and went inside.

"Hello, Ethan." Gallu growled merrily.

"Hi," Hannah greeted happily and then frowned for some reason.

"Hello," mumbled Billy. He looked down, embarrassed from where he sat and I was once again reminded of him before he had accepted the deal with Gallu. Jack gave his usual nod in my direction but gave no other indication that he was happy to see me.

"Good morning!" I said to them all politely and found myself a seat next to Hannah and Billy.

"So," Jack started, looking over to Hannah. "You weren't at school yesterday. Did you end up killing someone with the notebook?"

Hannah gave a dark look but didn't reply straight away "My personal life is none of your business. If you want to find out you'll just have to wait five days until it's your turn and then read what I've written."

"Looks like it." Jack snarled in response.

I didn't exactly know why but the idea that Hannah may have actually killed someone worried me. Looking over at the blonde girl as she stared ahead with that dark look on her face I couldn't help feeling fear for her.

"I don't think we should let the death note change who we are." I blurted out without thinking. I realised I was still looking at her when she turned around to face me.

"You can't judge me, Ethan!" she spat "After all, you've used the notebook too! We all already agreed that we'd be using it for personal gain, so what's private should stay private. It's not like we're friends or anything." she said with venom.

Jack looked at the two of us warily. There was too much anger in her voice to be over just what I'd said. There must be something else wrong with her, I thought.

"Well I consider you a friend." I told her truthfully. Her eyes widened and she stared at me in shock. "I consider all of you guys my friends." I said looking around the room.

Jack's face went blank. Billy smiled gratefully.

"Why thank you, Ethan." Gallu said from across the room "I consider you a friend, too. Well, at the very least as much as a friend as a Shinigami can be with a human. Rest assured that if you died I would feel some form of remorse over you."

I nodded in understanding to the Shinigami. I expected that would be as much emotion as I could get out of him. I turned over to look at Billy and I noticed he was frowning at something over my head.

"Is something wrong, Billy?" I asked. He blinked and looked down at my face.

"No, nothing. Sorry."

Jack also noticed this.

"I've been thinking." he said to us. "Billy, you can see all of our lifespans but you can't read them?"

Billy nodded "I've basically memorised them by now since I see you guys so often."

"Have you noticed that the numbers are often similar in a large group of people?" Jack asked. Gallu looked at Jack curiously from across the room with his large yellow eyes.

"Usually." Billy agreed.

"What are you getting at?" I asked Jack.

"People generally have the same lifespan." Jack explained. "It's the life expectancy of humans. I believe for our generation it's something like seventy to eighty years. So even if we don't know the exact time of our deaths, we can have a general idea of how long we will live compared to the average lifespan of people our age."

"Very clever, Jack." Gallu called. Jack ignored him.

"So what do you think is a general lifespan that you see above people?" he asked Billy. Billy stared and then thought to himself.

"Usually lifespans have eight numbers in them," he said slowly, "but sometimes they can have nine."

Jack nodded.

"So I'd say usually the numbers are in the high eight digits or low nine digits?"

"Yeah." Billy answered. Jack thought to himself, then he turned to Gallu.

"The lifespans you see above people's heads, do they include accidents, diseases and other stuff like that? Or is it just death from old age that you can see?"

Gallu gave a short laugh for some reason "We see what time destiny has decided for that human to die. Regardless of the cause. Otherwise we wouldn't know how much life we were adding to our own whenever a Shinigami killed a human with their death note. The only kind of death we can't see in an individual's lifespan, obviously, is if someone is killed by having their name written in a death note. However, you could have just asked that boy-" Billy twitched, "-and he would have told you that there are too may lifespans way below the average for him to only be seeing someone's death from old age." Gallu laughed again.

Is he implying that we have small lifespans? Is that why Billy was staring over my head? Was he looking at my lifespan and frowning?

Jack sighed "What numbers can you see above my head?" he asked Billy seriously.

Billy looked above him and was about to speak when Gallu interrupted "Are you sure you want to do this, Jack?" he asked. "Once you figure out the time of your death you can never avoid it. It will haunt you until you die. Some would consider it better off not knowing."

Jack looked over to Gallu "I'd consider this worth knowing. I need to see how much time I have left and fit my life plan before that time comes." He looked back at Billy "Tell me."

Billy spoke blankly "The numbers I see above your face are: nine, nine, six, zero, two, two, two, five." He read. Jack thought to himself.

"Eight digits, but it starts with a nine. Is that anything like the average of lifespans you see above other people?"

"Yes, most of them start with nine and are eight digits." Jack leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. He closed his eyes.

"Sounds like I'll probably live to my seventies or eighties then. That's wonderful news." he said quietly with a smile on his face.

"Well what about me?" I asked. I turned to Billy with a questioning stare.

He hesitated but then answered "Six, eight, six, one, zero, nine, seven, five." I counted in my head, even though I was already sure it was unnecessary.

"That's only eight digits." I said appalled. "It's basically two thirds of Jack's life!"

"Bad luck." Jack said plainly. I sighed heavily.

"I suppose it could have been worse. Oh well, like Gallu said, there's no point worrying about it now." I felt a bit disappointed and I could tell Billy felt bad for me.

"What about you, Hannah?" Jack asked sinisterly. "Want to know when you'll die?"

"But I can't see her lifespan." Billy interjected.

"That's fine." Jack said. "She can just transfer ownership to me, then you'll be able to read her lifespan and I'll give it back afterwards. Unless you don't trust me?" Jack asked with mock innocence.

"Oh no, Jack." Hannah said sarcastically. "You're a regular Mother Teresa." She stood up "I would not like to know something like that now. When you do see my lifespan, Billy, don't tell me. I'll decide later if it's something I want to now." She put her bag on her back.

"Where are you going?" I asked her.

"The bell will ring soon." she said. "I'm going to my next class." Then she left.

"I wonder what's wrong with her?" I asked the other three. Billy shrugged. Gallu remained silent for a moment but then his wings outstretched and he lifted himself above the ground.

"I better follow her," he said bored. "She's still attached to the death note after all." I was the only one who said 'goodbye' to Gallu. He stayed for a while longer.

"See you." Then he flew through the door.

Time passed and as it did, Ethan could feel that the four outcasts along with himself, were starting to drift closer and closer together. Billy had been a lot nicer and wasn't as shy as before. I sat next to and talked to him every roll call before class. We got along really well and he had stopped blushing from embarrassment whenever one of us looked at him, but that hadn't gone completely. At first, Hannah had seemed secretive and cold but that had changed dramatically over the weeks. She was actually very nice, especially to me and Billy.

Jack hadn't changed much. The three of us were coming to the conclusion that he just didn't want friends. Gallu also seemed the same, although he had gotten to know each of us very well from all the time he had been spending with us. To say, however, that everyone was happy all the time, would be a complete lie.

The most noticeable change was in Billy, but I was noticing these glitches with Hannah as well. It must have had something to do with them gaining the power to kill. I was noticing that their view of things had started to differ from what they had been. They seemed a bit more...remorseless, in their way of thinking. They also showed a progressively decreasing value in human life. They were becoming proud and, even though they wouldn't say it I was sure they were thinking it, that they were like gods.

It was the middle of July, and I found I was definitely in the midst of winter. The cold didn't help soothe my worries. Today was the day where I would be transferring ownership of the death note back to Hannah. It was my second turn at holding the death note but just like the first time I had failed to write down any names. Billy was starting to stick up for himself more and increase in confidence, I realised this when he joined Hannah's side in arguing that there was no point in me holding the death note if I didn't use it. It was Jack who saved me by saying that from the beginning we had agreed not to be judgemental on what each of us used or, in my case, didn't use the death note for.

At lunch I sat in either the Art classroom or library with Billy, Hannah and Gallu. Jack occasionally sat with us, but he spent a lot of time with his girlfriend who he hadn't managed to break up with yet. Although he had managed to keep the death note a secret from her all of this time, which I personally thought should be commended. Even if it was Jack's turn to carry the notebook he would tell Gallu to sit with us if he knew he wasn't able to at lunch because he would be with Emma. Gallu didn't mind sitting with us and joining in on our conversations although he wasn't with us all the time, either. Sometimes he would fly around the town or start stalking random people.

I entered the empty Visual Arts room where the other four were already waiting for me. Hannah leapt up excitedly and stood in front of me with her arm out expectantly. I took off my bag and unzipped it. I fished around for the death note and then passed it to her.

"I relinquish ownership of this death note to you."

She stared at it greedily and then started flicking through the pages.

By now the four of us had recognised each other's writing well. She scowled when she saw I hadn't written down any names.

"Again, Ethan?"

"Don't berate me." I said and walked past her to take a seat next to Billy, although he was also frowning at me.

Gallu was squatting on a desk in the corner of the room.

"You know Ethan, if you're not comfortable with using the notebook I could simply erase your memories and you could go back to your normal life." Before I could respond Jack beat me to it.

"That's no good. He'd only forget about using the death note. He'd still know all our meeting places and still talk to us which would make it difficult to discuss things about the notebook while at school."

"I suppose that's true." Gallu conceded. "Either way, I'm just glad I get to be with Hannah again for a week. Billy is so boring, he barely ever talks to me. More or less ignoring actually."

"Sorry." Billy said nervously without looking at him. I was sure Gallu could tell he was not at all sorry. He hmphed angrily to himself.

"I don't want to go back to my normal life!" I told them suddenly. "Not that my life can ever be normal again since Reece is dead."

"You're still going on about that guy you killed?" Jack said, rudely exasperated.

"He was our only source of income." I said thinking of me and my mother. It turns out my brother hadn't decided to help her out after all.

"You have a source of income." Hannah said. "You just refuse to use it." She held up the death note.

I sighed but gave no other response. My life would never return to normal. I could walk around my house freely without fear of bumping into an angry drunken Reece. If the death note had gotten rid of him, maybe it wasn't all bad. Maybe I could somehow use it for good instead of evil.

Billy:

Tall and good looking, with a girl all over him. I sat in the train station on an early morning as I watched people come and go. Waiting. It was a good place to see people's faces. I gripped the bench I was sitting on as I watched the smiling young man.

His name was Bryce Miller and his life span was eight digits and started with a four. That meant he'd die when he was middle aged? Probably younger. It was Jack who had told us that we were allowed to do whatever we wanted with the death note and that there would be no judgement. I didn't want any of them to know what I really used the death note for. I pulled out the pages of the death note I'd taken secretly from the notebook when it had been my turn the first time. In the actual notebook I made sure to kill people. I killed the same amount as Hannah each time it was my turn, the absolute minimum.

Every time it was my turn, on the day I'd been given the notebook from Jack, I sat down at my desk in my room with a pen and killed several people straight away. They were all random names of people I found from photos in the newspaper and didn't care about. Gruesome. I made sure to write conditions telling them to leave money in a specific place but I rarely ever went to retrieve it. Calculating.

The conditions I wrote were only to distract the others from what I was really using the death note for.

Bryce Miller. Accidental death in three year's time. Immediately excuses himself to the nearest men's toilets and goes to the furthest unoccupied cubicle. He enters and waits leaving the door open. When another person enters with him and closes the door he lets that person do anything they want to him. Then he leaves and instantly forgets what happened, resuming his daily life.

Depending on the lifespan I saw, I chose in how many years that person would die. I was usually able to give them at most twenty years but if their lifespan was too low I played it safe. It says in the rules that if the circumstance of death is impossible the victim would simply die of a heart attack in forty seconds, so I couldn't say they would die after their pre-determined lifespan.

The man called Bryce excused himself and left for the toilets. Yearning. I watched him leave and smiled to myself. It was remarkable how easy it was for me to go completely against everything I'd been raised to believe. As I stood up I realised that what I did technically made me a rapist, but whatever, men were horny bastards anyway and if they so eagerly threw themselves at any woman who would have them I didn't have any problem messing with them like this.

Hannah:

I was in the city again by Captain Burke Park and Gallu was at my side. I walked merrily past the stores and other people. I noticed the jewellery store where I had first killed that man, Gus Bennett. There had been many others since him.

The death note was filled with several names. About a dozen were written by me, the same amount by Billy while Jack had written even more. The only writing that wasn't on the page was Ethan's. Ethan rilly confused me and I often wondered why he would even hold onto the death note if he wasn't going to use it... Maybe the problem was emotional? Once you got over the initial feeling of guilt using the death note had become easy for me.

I really did enjoy the towering city; it made me feel small, but in a good way. As I walked with my headphones in my ears I listened to 'Phenomenon' by Thousand Foot Krutch. It was amazing how everything looked different now: People, things, buildings. I felt like if I wanted I could simply raise my hand and touch the sky! I may have not accepted the Shinigami eyes but the death note had already given me new eyes to see the world through. Not only that, but it was back in my possession once again...

I noticed it was getting darker. I clutched at my handbag over my shoulder. I'd been too busy simply walking around the beautiful city to actually kill someone with the death note. I decided I should go home soon, even with this weapon of potential mass murder in my possession, I was pretty sure the streets wouldn't be safe at night. I pulled my earphones out so I could talk with my flying companion.

"Gallu, I'm probably going to go home now."

The Shinigami groaned "But you didn't even kill anyone, I came here for nothing."

A rough hand pulled my arm and gripped my handbag, a man in a coat ran through Gallu and pushed me to the ground, separating me from my bag. I gasped as I landed and watched him run off.

"Maybe I didn't come here for nothing after all..." Gallu then made a whistling noise as we both watched the fleeing burglar.

"Stop! Someone help! He stole my purse!" I screamed as I tried to get back onto my feet.

A strong man walking beside a woman grabbed the thief and they struggled for a bit but then the thief simply slipped out of his coat and kept running. I ran up to the strong man and turned to see the criminal jump into a parked car with my handbag! He twisted the ignition and drove off!

"Oh my God!" The woman was saying "I'm calling triple zero!" She fumbled with her phone.

"Sorry," the man said to me as I panted, out of breath from running, and simply stared at where the man had disappeared. He handed me the thief's jacket and turned to the woman.

"Did you see his number plate?" They kept talking urgently but their voices drowned out in my mind. Oh no. Oh NO! The death note has been stolen! I looked at the jacket I held in my hands. I went through the pockets and found something. A piece of paper. I looked closer and realised it was the printed-out receipt for an air travel ticket! This person was boarding a flight to America in three days from Brisbane airport. I looked back up and glared at where the thief had disappeared. I would be ready for him... and take the death note back as soon as I had the opportunity, preferably before he figured out what it did...