Friday the Thirteenth
Rated T
Chapter 13: "Angels and Men"
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Tell me, tell me,
The moon of my imagination.
Be silent, be silent
Leave this illusion and say no more.
I am here, I am here,
Why are you so afraid of the face of god?
-Juno Reactor; song "Angels and Men"
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Usagi's heart plummeted straight down to her feet as a wave of hopeless desperation engulfed her. Enigma's muscular contours pressed firmly into her shaking body as he teased her earlobe with his tongue.
"Good girl," the rough voice crooned, hand snaking away from Usagi's mouth to gently caress her odango. Usagi gulped noisily, watching the silver blade as it moved across her line of vision with that despicable hand; warily, for the weapon could, at any moment, spell her untimely and violent end.
"You and I... are going to get to know each other very well," Enigma hissed, voice inflecting into a purr by the end of his declaration. Usagi trembled, whining fearfully at the hand that traced a perverted pattern down to her navel, stopping to linger far too long in places she did not want any man near at this point in her life.
"S-stop. P-please," the blonde stuttered, teeth chattering painfully against each other. She twitched her fingers toward her pocket, hoping to distract Enigma long enough to at least fetch her communicator. "I'll do anything. Anything..."
Enigma groaned into Usagi's hair. "Begging. Oh, the devolution; the degradation. Always my favorite part of the experience... to hear even the strongest men and women cast down; emasculated into blithering fools... Weak, meaningless, vulnerable and easy for the taking-"
"You're sick!" Usagi gasped, but a thrill of fear rushed through her as Enigma chuckled throatily, tugging her roaming hand back into his clutches.
No no no no no...
"Perhaps."
I've got to transform, but I can't reach my brooch; I need to alert the Senshi, they're in danger too, but I can't... I can't... Oh Mamoru-san, where are you, please help me! Help... But even as Usagi screamed for Mamoru in her mind, Enigma pushed her against the wall with brute force. Usagi let out a muffled sob, trying to free her arms as she realized where this was going to lead. Minako's voice echoed around inside her head.
"Likes to rape his victims, nice and slow. Gets him in the mood. Then, bam! Slices up their body parts..."
"No, no, please no," Usagi moaned, beginning to struggle for use of her appendages. "Let me go!" She kicked out with her legs, jactating and letting them flail in Enigma's general direction while in the same instance trying to keep track of where the knife was in propinquity with her body. On impulse, Usagi's foot connected with the nearest thing in sight, her fallen flashlight, and it rolled across the dirt a second time. She froze, watching as the beam swivelled to rest on a slack figure stuffed into the corner. The motionless countenance mocked Usagi as she realized her primary rescuer was out for the count-
Perhaps permanently.
"Mamoru-san...?"
Usagi's voice had taken on a frighteningly broken quality; it was pure horror mixed with a concern so strong it stung her throat. Is he... he's not...?
"You'll be lucky if you don't join him," Enigma threatened in his gravelly tenor, and Usagi's face finally snapped back to accost her assailant. For the first time that night, she saw his face in stark relief through the rebounding rays of the flashlight.
Brown, graying hair...
A face, pleasantly aged with few wrinkles but for one imperfection- a scar, white and jagged marring the man's left cheek...
"You!" Usagi breathed, staring up at the stranger she'd met only hours earlier at Perhoff's. The recognition seemed to spark courage in Usagi. "I knew it... I knew there was something off! M-Mamoru-san wouldn't believe me but I could feel it... You liar, you're not a bellhop! You don't have any children!"
Usagi wasn't sure why his deception bothered her so much. Maybe it was because, in some deep crevice of her heart, she'd actually felt sorry for the creepy stranger to whom she had nothing to spare for his family, fake though they were. It was disconcerting, it was deceitful... but most of all it was evil: pure human wickedness. Usagi had grown accustomed to the alien fiends that roamed earth wreaking havoc for vengeful purposes, but to encounter that same malevolence in her own species... it sickened her.
"Clever girl," Enigma leered. "Unfortunately it does not matter that you discovered the ruse now. It is far too late in the game to save yourself from what is to come..."
He pressed the knife so closely to Usagi's throat that she nearly gagged, feeling its sharp pressure dig gently into the first layer of her skin. Something soft, wet, and warm ran down onto her collar, tickling as it went but Usagi was too aware of Enigma's weapon to react. She licked her lips. If Enigma would just release her arms from their vice grip, then the teen might just be able to tear off her brooch before he sliced her jugular...
I need to do something!
"Game," Usagi grunted, and Enigma eased the knife back ever-so-slightly so she could speak, clearly intrigued. "You said 'game'. Is that what I am to you? What... murder is to you? A game?"
She had to keep him distracted, whatever it took; words were her only leverage in such a precarious situation. Maybe if she rambled long enough the girls would realize hers and Mamoru's absence was stretching into the exorbitant.
"Like a lion to its prey," Enigma smirked, running his tongue across the top layer of his pristine teeth. Again Usagi was struck by the fact that for a serial killer, Enigma was fairly well kempt. If it weren't for the oddly excited, almost mad gleam in his eyes, Enigma would have passed as a perfectly normal member of society. And she realized- he did. And he would continue to unless Usagi managed to find a loophole to take advantage of. "Stalking is an art; an art I have mastered over time. I am perceptive where others are blind; Quiet where others bumble around with grace of a charging bull. But my greatest achievement is patience. I have patience enough to win the game. And I always win."
"How did you follow us? You were on foot!"
"Sometimes it's as simple as a car left unlocked outside an ice cream parlor..."
Usagi blanched. "I... forgot to... and you... You were in the trunk? The whole time?" She remembered feeling jumpy the whole ride back; that niggling tingle on the back of your neck when someone is watching from afar but you just can't put your finger on it. Remembered throwing herself into singing along with the radio and occupying Kotono and bugging Mamoru because if she sat still, the foreboding would surely have overcome her...
"Until everyone retired into the house. And then I slipped out, surveying the grounds, the electricity... A girl- blunette, pretty little awkward thing- she almost ruined all of my careful planning; reassembling the circuit board to the point where I had to start over. I'd have killed her too, but it was not she I had decided to claim as my own, and she returned inside too quickly. I bided my time, waiting for the perfect moment to cut the electrical cords. I took out the boy when he came searching for an extra flashlight, brazen idiot that he was. My plan to infiltrate the house was just about to go underway when who should stumble so willingly into my grasp but the coveted prize I desired ever since the beginning?"
Usagi swallowed bile. "You wanted... me."
"Yes," Enigma crooned, baritone contracting once more with lust. He stroked a finger down Usagi's cheek.
"Why?" she whispered.
"I knew from the moment I saw you that you were the one. So delicate; so angelic... But even from outside the car I saw there was spirit in you; a fierce fire. Oh, how I wanted to watch that fiery spirit crumble; to feel you writhing beneath me as I stole that beautiful innocence and cradled it to my heart, savoring your last breaths like a starving man revels in his first meal after so... long..."
Usagi wanted to retch, to parry his disgusting fantasy with a projectile defilement of her own, but she had neither the wits nor the desire once opportunity was finally- finally- spotted.
In all Enigma's impassioned monologuing, he had completely forgotten to keep the knife centered at Usagi's throat. With a loud war cry the blonde struck, launching a fist as hard as she could into Enigma's nose. He howled, two hands swinging up to both protect and attack, but Usagi's reflexes were just as honed and she managed to duck the assault, slipping out of his grip. There was little time to think, only ride the wave of adrenalin as Usagi bolted from the shed without looking back. Her footfalls were unsteady, clumsiness making an inconvenient comeback, but Usagi plowed onward up the incline through a dull sense of reality. Pain lanced through her brain; a throbbing reminder that she had recently been nailed over the head. Usagi forced herself to only focus on what was important- the shed door creaking. Enigma cursing and keeping up the pursuit, perhaps only feet behind her. The cold, heavy metal bouncing on her chest and the slim communicator in her pocket that were the only chances she had at salvation. She had to make a choice; she would only have time to utilize one. Usagi increased her pace, beginning to scream even as she wrenched off the brooch and her hand rose to greet the night sky,
"MOON PRISM-"
The weight of a full grown man tackled Usagi to the damp grass and the wind escaped her lungs with a burning "OOF!"
"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?" Enigma asked through gritted teeth, rolling over and hauling up the dazed fourteen-year-old. It took her a few minutes to reply; to even come back to her senses. By the time that happened, Usagi realized her brooch was still laying somewhere in the dark and she was being dragged toward the far edge of the property; probably into the woods. And the knife was back, ensuring the probability that if she pulled out the communicator, her hand would most likely end up on the ground along with it once Enigma realized the object's purpose. But all of this did nothing to squelch Usagi's spirit, and perhaps Enigma was right... perhaps she did have fire within her. She may have just lost the last bit of deliverance allotted to her, but she sure as hell would not abandon hope.
"Surviving."
"A futile endeavor. Even the angels fall," Enigma proclaimed, but there was the merest hint of some foreign sorrow in his voice and Usagi latched onto that emotion. She could not understand blood lust; she could not understand the monster that was hate... but she empathized with pain.
"You lost someone dear to you," the girl whispered, revelation dawning. "Something very tragic happened to you. Something horrible..."
"Shut up," Enigma snapped, a moody scowl eclipsing his features. Usagi noticed they were almost to the first row of trees, but instead of watching the forest loom closer she gazed up into Enigma's eyes. Behind the mask of stone there was that same aching mixture of loathing and self-anguish; desperation and despondency. And suddenly the strings of Usagi's heart began to tug. How could she truly despise someone so conflicted; so damaged? Pity began to well inside her. If she was going to die tonight, she did not want to die afraid and disparaging. She wanted to die trying to give all the love she had received in life to this poor creature stuck in the hollows of misery.
"You can still be redeemed. Not all is hopeless. Humans have the power to change-"
"SHUT UP! What do you know? How can you possibly understand what life has been like for me all these years-"
"I could help you," Usagi interrupted softly, her voice suddenly gentle and inviting. "Do you have friends? I could be your friend-"
"I TOLD YOU TO SHUT UP!" Enigma roared like a wounded animal, throwing Usagi onto the brambled earth. She winced and he was upon her, tearing off the teen's panties with bruise-inducing ferocity. Usagi stared into his twisted features, pleading.
"Please, don't do this... Please, you don't want to do this!" Her breath began coming in shallow gasps as he pushed Usagi's skirt up onto her stomach. "Let me help you..."
"One more word-" Enigma grunted, struggling with his belt, "And this knife impales itself into your thigh."
Usagi pursed her lips, closing her eyes when Enigma bared himself, preparing to take what Usagi had always endeavored to protect for the right man in the right place at the right time. Two tears slipped past the girl's defenses and she felt his hands gripping her legs tightly. Usagi let her head fall back to hit the forest floor, mind retreating as Enigma's torso moved over hers. Somewhere, she could hear birds and feel the caress of sunshine as she waited for the inevitable agony; somewhere, she and her friends were laughing at something trivial and Mamoru was yelling her name frantically-
Wait. Mamoru?
"USAGI!"
Usagi's tear-strewn eyes flew open just as Mamoru exploded into her line of sight, a vision of fury and superhuman strength as his arm flew back and connected with the side of Enigma's head, sending the serial killer flying into a tree with his pants flapping comically open. For a moment Usagi just laid there, too stunned to fix her clothing or wipe her eyes or even remember the communicator still hiding safely in the confines of her pocket. Mamoru only spared her a worried cursory glance before he advanced on Enigma with the stalk of an enraged beast.
"YOU STAY AWAY FROM HER, YOU SICK, TWISTED BASTARD!"
Enigma brandished his knife menacingly as he quickly re-zipped his fly, leaving the belt to dangle. "I should have killed you while I had the chance. The girl belongs to me."
"Like hell." And Mamoru pounced.
TBC
