Payment

So Many Questions

Note: Rewritten but not triple checked for spelling and grammatical errors. If you see one feel free to comment

"Are you absolutely sure you don't want to stop and buy a new dress? I don't mind." Dominik sighed, his back turned as I stripped down to my petticoat. It was a little short, dangling just below my knees but it was the the only salvageable scrap of clothing I had. In a fit of panic, he had completely destroyed everything else without much thought as to what I was going to do for the trip home.

"Can I have your belt?" I stood there with my hands covering my breasts, eyes shifting uneasily at either end of the hallway. "I can use it to fasten your jacket into a cover."

"I'm saying, I'll buy you a new dress." Fed up with my arguing, he turned to face me, eyes steady on my face rather than my exposed body. I saw the concentration pinch at his brows as he focused to keep his gaze at eye level. "Let me buy you a dress."

"No!" I stomped my foot in protest.

I couldn't get what Giovanni had done out of my head. It was more so the thoughts he had somehow injected into my mind that tormented me. Ever since Dominik had taken me in, I had done nothing to thank him. It was always a give and give relationship with me on the receiving end. The reason I had been so effected was because on a basic level, I knew Giovanni was telling the truth. It just wasn't as ugly as he made it seem.

"Belt, please?" I slid my arm across my chest to free one hand and held it out to him. I knew I was being stubborn, I knew I was probably annoying him, but I couldn't stop my mind from screaming parasite. It echoed like a curse.

I watched the seconds tick by in his stern gaze before he heaved a hefty sigh and reached for his waist. My eyes were drawn to the rough movement of his hands as he unlatched it and yanked it from his pants loops. When I glanced back up, I found that his eyes hadn't left my face, not even as he stepped forward and slapped the leather belt into my outstretched palm with a gentle little smack.

Placing his hands in front of himself in a casual stance that seemed way to powerful for its simplistic nature, I waited for him to turn around and give me a moment of privacy. He didn't. He didn't move a single muscle as I spun away to shield myself. It was then, the time it took me to reach down to grab his coat and the actual pulling of it over myself as cover, that felt like a lifetime. Before I had it on, while it was still in my hands, I felt the urge to look back at him, to take a seek peak into his eyes and see what they told me. But I didn't. I slowly covered myself and used his belt to secure the baggy coat to my waist. I had to tuck the excess leather into itself to keep it from coming loose but it worked.

When I did a playful twirl, an obvious move to seek his approval, he remained silent. He simply watched me with this serene glint in his eyes. It was like a sparkle, stars dancing where I shouldn't be able to easily see them.

"Is that a bit of drool I see?" We looked over to see Kana stalking slowly along the wall. She had mysteriously disappeared earlier through all the commotion and I hadn't really noticed her absence. That alone was enough to send a ping of guilt through my chest like a needle.

"Where did you go?" I gripped the end of the coat, my face hot in the midst of her teasing.

"I'm the one who got everyone out. I could tell Nik was getting riled up, it was only a matter of time before-" I had never seen Kana so serious, so exhausted looking. It hung from her eyes like subtle bags, her lips tight and her hair mused from over stimulation. "Well, you know."

"Before what? I don't really know what happened." I pushed my hair from my face, glancing between the two of them. "I collapsed."

She sucked a breath through her teeth and squinted her eyes in this guilty, self reprimanding way. She has obviously gone before I'd hit the ground.

"That makes sense." She sighed.

I looked between them. Noticing the tension in the air and a lack explaining, I knew it was upon myself to ask. They're lips were sealed unless I could pry it from them. An easy target was my only way in and I knew, sadly, that was Kana.

So I stalked up to her, her eyes just now catching my makeshift attire and going nearly crossed with confusion. She didn't ask. I hadn't wanted her to because I needed to speak first. It felt urgent. I was so desperate to finally get just one of my answered acknowledge by either of them that it filled me with this jittery tension.

"What happened in there?" I demanded.

I watched the gate open up in her eyes, not a single fight in them. And she blurted it all out exactly the way I expected her too.

"Dominik," she glanced behind me as she spoke. "Well, they fought and Giovanni got knocked out. I was clearing the room, I didn't really catch the whole thing. That's all I can really say for sure."

My mind shot back to the mess I'd seen splattered across the floor. It hadn't been much but how may times do you have to hit a man to draw blood? I felt cold. Maybe it was shock? I wasn't sure, just as I wasn't sure of anything.

No one had been around when I'd awoken, not even an unconscious Giovanni.

I looked at Kana and I mean really looked at her. She was a mess, her dress crooked and wrinkled, her demeanor drained of any and all energy. It wasn't hard to tell that she had dragged him away herself. Which meant she knew I was unconscious. So why had she pretended not to know? It was as if she wanted me to ask what had happened, like there was more she wanted to tell me. I could see it burning in her gaze, smoking like a pipe, sending me signals. But I didn't know what more to ask, at least not in that moment.