BAST

You Hide and They Die

---Chisuzu---

I hadn't been expecting L to make a move to comfort me, so when he had reached out and touched my face, I acted on impulse and leaped at him, clinging to his person and bawling like a small child.

He had not said anything and didn't seem to treat or see me differently after I cried my eyes out into his stark white shirt.

Now I was beyond embarrassed, trying to focus on this case.

There were too many coincidences for this to not be someone after me, which was bad for a vast assortment of reasons.

"The person responsible is either someone you put away, someone who saw you during this case and recognized you despite your disguises...or both."

There was more than one problem with that.

I pulled away from the computer and searched my room. After making these giants of wonder and infinite possibility, I had ended up with enough pieces to make enough of a computer for it to at least look real.

It was my equivalent of hiding a house key under a rock or plant as inside a side compartment of this box, held all my blackmail; terra bytes of incriminating photos, information, and videos. This ranged in levels of blackmail, from adultery and fraud to things much worse than murder. I had things on there that would be all too popular on snuff sites so murder was a medium offense compared to a good portion of what I'd seen.

They had all gotten locked up anyways, it was the minor offenses I kept the secrets of so they'd pass along how to contact me. If they were lucky, I'd help them for a reasonably sized fee, the major stuff naturally costed the most. The ones I 'helped' were the ones who had dirt I could use as well as the money to pay for my silence. When the really horrendous ones were locked up despite contacting me, thinking I was someone who could clean their mess, I went on posing as someone else, saying BAST had denied them of service.

It kept the business going.

Realizing what I was doing, I stopped in my search and turned back to the screen.

"L, how many people do you think I've put away in the time since BAST started?"

"When did you start?"

"Almost seven years ago."

"May I ask how old you are?"

"I'm twenty-five." I couldn't resist sending a glance his way, not really expecting him to react.

"Does you age bother you? You've never brought it up before." Of course, this was his reply; an observation.

"Not really. I actually thought you already knew." I shrugged, mollified with having distracted him from my momentary odd action. I would really rather he not see any of the content on those drives...

Where did I even start, though? I began coasting through common contact sites and reading comments, not really finding anything.

"So this is how you pick your next case?" He surveyed, thumb to his lip as I scanned through another page.

"Just the first half. They pay for the job and my silence. I get money and insurance." I mumbled, not knowing where to start on these weird forums. Until Suzume Kobayashi received a strange email, tucked away in her spam folder, nearly trashed.

I could only stare at it. More people knew that alias than Loralie, so I couldn't really use it to dumb down the number of possible suspects.

Out of curiosity, I opened it and was overwhelmed by the clutter of images that appeared on my screen.