Death Note: Blood Ties - 10. INCONSPICUOUS

Chapter 10: INCONSPICUOUS

Hannah:

"I don't believe this! How the fuck could this have happened?"

I sat in our secret meeting place, the secluded art room, scowling. If Jack kept this up the teachers in the art staff room were going to burst in to find out what all the yelling was about...

I had long since given up on trying to get Jack to calm down. What's done is done, all that's left is to calmly and concisely make a plan to get the death note back into our possession. Not that the hot-headed jerky jerk could calm down enough to see that. Billy looked thoroughly terrified and wasn't speaking at all.

At least Ethan was being level-headed and trying to find a solution to this mess "We may not have the death note anymore, but what we do have is the thief's receipt for an aeroplane ticket. So we know where he is going to be in two days."

"I just don't know how you could have been so careless that you lost it!? What were you thinking!?"

"I didn't lose it." my voice was quiet and laced with venom. "It was stolen."

"It's not like she had left it somewhere obvious, she had it on her when it was taken." Ethan defended me chivalrously. Jack put his face in his hands and sat down, seemingly exhausted. Gallu's slow crackly voice made everyone suddenly aware of him.

He was standing in the corner of the room, partly concealed by shadow. Tall and like a statue, his yellow orb-like eyes peered at us from the darkness. His new cold resolve made him finally seem like a god of death since the first time I'd seen him "Hannah is still the owner of the notebook so I'm bound to follow her. That may not be the case for long." He did something with his mouth, was he relishing in this? His voice pierced my heart and for a moment I felt true fear "Should the thief discover the death note and realise its authenticity, he is sure to read all of the instructions. He'll know you are its owner and he's probably already seen your face. I shudder to imagine you would have all kinds of identification in that handbag that would give him your name. If it turns out he doesn't remember your face I'm sure in what he stole there would be enough for him to find out where you live."

I paled. This is rilly rilly bad. A sickening sense of understanding washed over me as I realised I could drop dead from a heart attack at any moment!

"Then we don't have time!" Ethan was on his feet.

"Wait guys," Billy began and we all turned to look at him. "Even if he did see the book, we don't know that he would have tried it. He could have just taken the money and thrown the bag away. The death note could be lost." His voice seemed to break at the end of that word.

"Finding this guy is all we have." Jack mumbled darkly. "We have to go to Brisbane Airport."

I stood up suddenly "No! What do you mean 'we'? This is my problem! The death note was lost on my turn! I'll go to the airport, but I'm going alone."

"That's far too risky!" Ethan yelled. As much as I appreciated his help, I hated it when he got all over-bearing. I'm not some helpless little girl who can't take care of herself.

"It's not your decision! Either way if all of us go it will look too suspicious. I'm the only one out of the four of us who has a license."

"Don't worry Ethan," Gallu interjected. His regular chirpy voice seemed to have returned to him. "I'll be with her. I'm really interested in meeting this thief again."

"So it's settled." I concluded. Ethan was about to open his mouth when Jack spoke.

"Fine. Like she said it happened on her watch. She has the right to deal with her own problems by herself. Makes it easier for us."

Ethan turned to him floundering "There's just one major problem I think we're forgetting. How the hell is she supposed to wrestle the Death Note off of a fully grown man?" It seemed like no one had any idea how to respond to that, until Billy cleared his throat nervously.

"I have something to confess." We all stared at him expectantly and he seemed to grow increasingly uncomfortable by the second. "I stole pages from the death note!" He blurted "They're hidden beneath papers under the bottom drawer of my desk."

I stared at him appalled.

"You what?" Jack was incredulous and I thought he was going to start yelling again. Billy hung his head guiltily.

"I'm sorry." he mumbled sadly.

I sighed heavily "This isn't so bad." I tried to bring the conversation back to me again to spare Billy. "Now I won't be going in unarmed."

"You don't have his name!" Ethan yelled. "Unless you're going to be taking Billy with you?"

"I can do this myself!"

"At any rate," Jack interrupted us "I'd prefer it if Billy didn't go, as you all can understand I don't trust him now."

The small boy with the honey-brown hair cringed at the cutting edge in the taller boy's voice.

"Sounds to me like you'll need the eyes?" Gallu questioned cheerfully.

"I told you before Gallu, and my mind hasn't changed. I'm not going to give up on half my life."

"Then what?"

They all brought their attention to me. I felt like I was in the spotlight. Like a rock star in my own bad ass movie. I had said it before though right? This was my problem, and I would fix it on my own...

"I'll take a picture of his face, and send it to Billy with my phone. The Shinigami eyes can see someone's name in a photograph, can't they?"

"Clever girl," Gallu commented. "So you're going to drive yourself to the airport? Find this man, get a picture of his face with your mobile thing and send it to Billy so he can kill the thief from here? Seems straightforward. I wonder if your plan works as well in practice as it does in theory."

"It better. It's all we have right now."

"I don't care for that plan." Jack interjected. "We all made the rules when we agreed to share ownership of the Death Note. Billy broke it. I don't want him anywhere near that book, or even its pages."

Billy looked like he was about to cry.

"You're not the one who decides everything, Jack." Ethan snapped heatedly.

"Whatever!" I tried to calm down the atmosphere with a compromise. "I'll send his picture to Billy, he'll text me the thief's name and I'll kill him with the pages. Sound fair to you all?"

"It appears we do have a plan." Gallu licked his lips, as if he was savouring the taste of a delicacy "Don't forget if it weren't for Billy's betrayal of trust you would be entering this situation without a weapon."

"Okay." I was glad things had gone more or less my way. "Billy will bring the pieces to school tomorrow and I'll write a situation where this guy will kindly return the death note to its owner upon meeting her at the airport. What could possibly go wrong?"

Two days passed and my silver Toyota economy car sped along the highway. It was a warm and sunny afternoon, not that I noticed. I was trying not to think about what was at stake! It would take me some time before I reached the airport... Even so I was careful enough to have planned it so I would make it there several hours before the thief would have actually left for his flight. If he gets on that aeroplane to the United States, it's all over. Three Days Grace was blaring from the speakers to distract me from my anxiety.

There's no way any of us could follow him out of the country without our parents figuring out. The risk was just too great! The time frame I had in which I had to successfully retrieve the death note was small! There was no margin for error... Customs security is incredibly tight, I had to catch him before he passed through a barrier. I remembered what Gallu had said a few days earlier, about hoping my plan would work as well in practice as it did in theory. As the tires of my car spun forward and the speedometer changed it seemed to me that it was quite unrealistic...

No time to worry about the details now, this plan was all we had... Gallu was flying above me, his wings beat more frequently as he had to keep up with my speed. He didn't seem to mind the exercise and I didn't slow down at his expense. One page of the death note was in folded over in my pocket with three ballpoint pens. The turnoff for Brisbane International Airport lay ahead. I moved the steering wheel closer towards my fate!

I had only seen part of the man's face. I thought to myself as I sat inside the waiting area of the huge airport. Large black sunglasses obscured my face and I sat alone, trying to look inconspicuous. Even though I had trouble recalling his face from memory, I was sure that if I saw him again I would know. The name on the flight receipt ticket was for a Mr Dart Grey. None of us had ruled out the possibility of an alias which is why Billy waited at the other end for a picture message from me to confirm his identity.

Crowds of people passed me. Families wheeling varyingly coloured luggage and business workers hurried about. I sat expectantly waiting for him by one of the tables surrounding a café. It might not have been a bad idea to buy a drink but I was too on edge! I couldn't afford to let myself be distracted... When I did see him I immediately looked downwards to cover my face. I had been searching through the mass of people for faces when I noticed him. I needed to be sure he didn't recognise me by my face from when he mugged me.

His luggage was light and he walked carefully towards a food store that sold kebabs. It seems he was going to purchase lunch before he boarded. How convenient for me. According to the information on his receipt his plane will be leaving in just under two hours. Where I sat wasn't close enough! People constantly obscured my view of him as they walked past to their own terminals. I needed to get closer without him spotting me. Casually standing I made my way closer to him so I could see him better...

I was thankful for Jack's warning about making sure Gallu wasn't near me should the thief look around and spot him from already touching the death note. The grouchy Shinigami agreed to stay on the roof and peer through the high glass windows if curiosity demanded it. I carefully made my way around people towards the back of his head, my phone already clutched tightly in my hand. His thinning hair was a dirty blonde colour like mine but was flecked with grey. I was getting close to him now; if he turned he would see me for sure!

I made my way around him to get a better view of his face and then he moved. I froze in horror as he turned and dug through his luggage bag beside him. He removed the thin black notebook and my heart hammered. Pulling a pen from his shirt pocket, he casually opened the book and began to write. In public, in broad daylight! I backed away from him quickly, and a terrified thought made me stop. What if it's my name he's writing down?

A large analogue clock ticked on the wall above me. In forty ticks, forty seconds someone here was going to die. The thief seemed so casual when he wrote in it, almost like he wasn't aware of the impact of taking someone's life. I had used the death note to kill innocent people before, but I could never be so calm when I wrote. Like I had nooo problem with it at all. Then a thought struck me, maybe he doesn't know that what he's holding is really a weapon?

Unless he's an incredibly sick-minded individual, he won't kill someone right here unless he doubted the authenticity of the note. He didn't write long enough to jot down a cause of death either, but I couldn't be sure. There was a scream. Across the large room a young man behind a counter with a name tag on his chest clutched his heart before dropping lifelessly to the floor. People nearby started to panic and while all heads turned in the direction of the murder my head snapped elsewhere.

The look of sudden panic on his face made it clear to me. He didn't know the death note was authentic, but he sure as hell knew it was now! Frozen there for a good long minute, he made his way to the bathroom on unsteady legs. Shit. Following him into the men's bathroom would not go unnoticed. It didn't play to my advantage either, I needed to be somewhere open where he couldn't try to hurt me. I made my way to the oncoming traffic of flyers that were not yet distracted by the incident of the collapsed man. I spotted a woman in her sixties and something about her made me think she was the type of person I needed.

"Excuse me!" I said urgently and pulled her aside.

"What are you-?" her indignant reaction was cut off when five hundred dollars in fifties was revealed discreetly between us. She looked at the money silently and then eyed me.

"I need you to do something for me quickly, it won't take long I promise."

After a quick explanation of what the thief looked like the woman posted herself outside of the toilets and was ready to do my dirty work for me. If he was like Ethan, hopefully he would have just thrown the notebook away after using it. Luck didn't seem to work that way for me however... The toilet door opened. My hand clenched on the sheet of paper in my pocket. The circumstances of death were written for him to give the death note to a girl of my description. All I needed was to write down his name next to them.

The thief walked out and the woman held up my phone and used the camera to take his bewildered photo. He started shouting. She held up her hands to calm him. They appeared to be talking heatedly. I couldn't make out their words from the other side of the room. It didn't seem like the old lady was going to sell me out though. He reached into his bag and a tall man obscured my view. For a few seconds I couldn't see anything and then I noticed the thief was smiling.

Not in a sinister way but a friendly way. I was instantly suspicious. They talked for a while longer and I became impatient. Eventually she walked away, my phone still clutched in her hand, and she made her way across the busy room. I stared in expectation from behind my sunglasses, and then I caught sight of the thief's expression. It held just as much expectation as mine. Oh no. Did she give him her name? When I couldn't see them before, did he write her name down in the death note?

Her eyes widened. The poor old woman seemed to fall in slow motion. My phone was in her hand, I needed that phone, but now people surrounded her! This guy wasn't a thing like Ethan, he had used the death note again immediately after figuring out what it did. Fricking psychopath! He was like Jack. His face held all the wicked excitement of a mischievous child. I didn't have time, he had to die and I had to get the notebook back. I surged forth and pushed people aside to get to the fallen woman.

Sorry, I thought feebly. I had inadvertently been the cause of her death. I pulled the phone from her dead grasp while shocked eyes stared at me all around. Robbing a dead woman in a crowded area, how's that for inconspicuous? People shouted at me but the only pair of eyes that got my attention was his. He stared at me with horrible recognition appearing in those tawny eyes of his. Looks like he did remember; now would be a great time to run.

I did. A glance back showed him pushing through people as he chased after me. While I tried focussing on both running and sending a photo message to Billy's number I wondered if he was chasing me because he didn't have my name, or because he didn't remember my face and the sunglasses were in the way. The message sent and I skidded to stop, running into a tall dark-skinned man who glared at me as I moved around him. Focussing on moving now, I sped through the people to the exit of the building. I was met by dazzling sunlight and ran, not to the car park but the upward street that led to the overpass and highway.

Turning back I found myself starting to panic. Frick, he's fast! My phone beeped and I saw I had a new message from Billy.

Chandler O'Reily.

As I wrote his name down while I ran I was thankful I hadn't tried to take his picture on my own. I would have never made it outside of the airport if I had. I stumbled as I felt his foot kick my leg. He tried to trip me but I only stumbled and turned. He struck me across the face and I landed harshly on the concrete by the small metal fence of the overpass. My sunglasses skidded away from me and I could hear the cars zooming along busily below me. His shadow loomed over me, obscuring the afternoon sun.

"Who are you?!" he snarled, shaking me viciously "Tell me or I'll throw you over this overpass!" Blood trickled into my vision, pain and fear enveloped me. His body went rigid and I felt his grip loosen. Dropping the death note into my lap he then shook violently and collapsed forward.

He spun against the railing and fell to the street below. I heard a sickening splat as well as the swerving and honking of cars. I reached for the fallen sunglasses before chancing a look over the fence at his ruined body. It was time to leave... no one can see me here!

"I told you there was no reason to worry."

Jack took the death note from me and eyed it in his hands. He flicked through the pages before handing it back.

"I'm impressed." he admitted. "I wasn't sure you could do it."

Gallu gave a gravelly chuckle as he observed us where he stood against the wall of the abandoned classroom. All five of us were inside. Order had been restored, we had our death note. In front of Billy were three sheets of paper that had been torn from the death note.

On one of those papers was Chandler's name. Jack stepped towards them and scrunched up the papers before pulling out a cigarette lighter from his pocket. He lit the papers on fire and dropped them back on the desk in front of Billy who stared wide-eyed while they burned.

"You don't have to remove the piece of paper you have taped to your body. That means your memories will remain, but you can't hold onto the death note anymore. As long as I'm alive, you won't have another turn at it."

Billy stood up angrily and glared at Jack. Both me and Ethan looked on in shock. Billy had always been so passive and shy, but it seemed since he made the Shinigami eye deal he had changed a lot... They stared at each other silently for a few moments before the smaller boy walked around the taller brunette and left the room without a word. The fire on the desk went out. All that was left was ash.

"You don't really mean that, do you?" I asked Jack when it was just the four of us. Gallu watched on eagerly.

"No." Jack answered. "We need his eyes. He's still the most valuable member out of all of us."

Ethan looked up through his black glasses and dark fringe "Things may be changing soon." he quietly predicted.