Sukeban (Discontinued)

Chapter 30: Caught

With every step that Rina took, she winced a bit. The knife wound on her leg felt like it was tearing open a bit more with each step; it definitely wasn’t a pleasant feeling for Rina. The young brunette knew the wound hadn’t reopened yet. After all, she wasn’t feeling any blood running down her leg yet, so she just assumed it was still closed. Rina hoped it would stay that way. She didn’t want to lose any more blood, she was already worrying about the wound being infected from spending the night in the park, but she could worry about that later. Right now, she just wanted to get back to the meeting place.

Rina was hoping that she would have stopped somewhere close to the meeting place but she hadn’t done that. Or maybe she had, Rina didn’t really know. She was so exhausted when she woke up that she had ended up getting herself all lost and turned around. It took her hours to get herself back on the right track and headed in the right direction. Rina had looked at some clocks in the windows of the stores she was passing and she could see it was nearly 3 pm. She was beyond later, she had woken up late and being lost had put her at an even worse time.

She didn’t know how any of the girls would react when she walked in.

Surely by now the girls must have figured out that Rina had lied about spending the night over at Haruna’s house. She knew that if she had taken Haruna’s cellphone with her, they would probably be blowing it up looking for her. But she’d left the phone with Haruna and with not having one of her own; there wasn’t a way for the girls to contact Rina. They were completely in the dark until Rina returned.

The young brunette pushed herself forward regardless of the pain. She knew that she was almost to the building and she knew that she couldn’t stop, especially not in a neighborhood like this. She didn’t want a repeat of last night’s episode. Even just thinking about it was enough to send a shudder through Rina’s spine. The memories would be permanently etched into her mind.

Within a few more minutes, Rina had successfully made it to the building but now she had another problem. Getting over the fence. It didn’t seem very possible with her injured leg but she was going to have to try, it’s not as if she had much of another choice. Rina took a deep breath, exhaling slowly and mentally preparing herself for the agonizing pain she knew she was about to feel.

She had to do this though, she had to be strong. She could take the pain. If the others could take pain then so could she. She could be as strong as they were; she just had to push herself… But that was easier said than done. Rina shook her head, inhaling and exhaling once more before she approached the fence. She wound her hands into the holes of the chain-link fence before slowly beginning to hoist herself up.

Just as she expected, a searing pain shot through her leg as she began climbing. She let out a small whimper but pushed herself forward. She couldn’t give up. She always gave up and ran to someone else for protection but right now, there was no one to protect or help her. She had to do this herself; she had to learn how to do things for herself.

By the time Rina had gotten up and over the fence, there were tears flowing down her cheeks from the pain. Her leg almost felt like it was beginning to go numb for how much effort she had to put in to get her leg to carry her up the fence. Rina took in a deep breath and wiped the tears from her eyes before setting off around the building.

She paused just outside the doorway, the panic beginning to set it. How was she supposed to explain herself? She didn’t have an alibi; she didn’t even have a lie prepared to tell them. She could only go with the truth unless she could think of something on the spot. Rina let out a defeated sigh; she would just have to get this over with. She did want to see the girls again; she just didn’t want to deal with the questioning she knew was going to come.