The Knight's Hunter

Chapter 16

"Do you think she's dead?" The question popped out of my mouth before I could help it.

After crawling in pitch darkness through the tunnel, it had led us to a small exit hidden behind a bush. After disentangling ourselves from its spiky branches and probably destroying half the bush in the process, we had begun walking, seeing the entrance of Hana's shop through a gap in the other buildings. The tunnel had taken us under the road and behind some shops, it seemed. How Hana had gotten a tunnel like that built so discretely was a miracle.

"No," Zero didn't stop walking. "She's stronger than that."

"How do you know that?" I kept pace with him, the briefcase feeling sticky under my clammy and sweaty hands. "It sounded like Ereon had won." But Hana had escaped, I added silently, though it didn't seem possible.

"She escaped, didn't she?" Zero turned left and I ran to catch up, the briefcase slipping slightly lower in my grasp. "And it has handles."

"What?" I frowned at him, stopping mid-stride. He stopped walking and looked at me like I was stupid.

"It has handles," he repeated. "The briefcase. You don't have to hold on to it like a teddy bear."

He was right, I looked down at the briefcase in my arms. It did have handles.

But I wasn't holding on to it like a teddy bear.

I hated to admit it, but as I held the briefcase by the strap at the top, it was much easier and saved my arms the effort of clutching to it.

"Is that your apartment?" Zero pointed to a building in the distance as he walked, the same building half-hidden by numerous other buildings. Apartment sounded fancy, but as I looked at my apartment with eyes worn down with exhaustion, the dingy building that came closer towards us looked more like an abandoned warehouse shaped like a hotel.

"Yeah," I replied briefly, the briefcase swinging slightly in my hand as I walked.

Zero said nothing in reply and the two of us continued walking in silence.

"The lights are off," I couldn't help noting as we got closer, less than ten metres from the building's entrance. The window where my unit was located was dark, betraying no sign of any presence inside.

Zero's strides grew larger until he was almost running into the building. He pulled open the front door roughly, looking almost desperate to get inside. The door creaked loudly, and I winced, terrified it might pull apart altogether.

Then a second thought occurred.

"Be quiet!" I hissed, leaping forward to grab Zero, just as he was about to bolt into the building. "You'll wake the landlady! And what's the big deal, trying to charge right in there."

Zero blinked at me at first, and slowly he relaxed, looking at me properly.

"I don't trust the vampires," he replied at last, letting his arm drop from the door. It swung closed and I stepped inside to avoid getting hit, bumping into Zero as a result. "Especially not Kaname. If the lights are off, what does that mean? They can't be asleep, can they? Something must have happened to them." He ran a hand through his hair, and I could see the faint shadows beneath his eyes. He must have had very little sleep recently. Not that it would have been easy, just coming out of kidnapping and already running from the mafia - I wondered if I looked the same.

"Let's just go up," I shook my head, trying to clear my mind. I needed sleep. "And be quiet. I don't want my landlady waking up and finding me. She's probably already mad enough that I've disappeared and held back three weeks of rent."