STARLIGHT | krmy ✓

22

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO —
PRESSURE.

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SHE DIDN'T KNOW what woke her. Was it the sound of whispering voices, the cold floor, or the low murmur of white noise cloaking her in a hazy daze? Her ear was pressed uncomfortably against the ground, the chill flushing up her cheek unpleasantly. Her hands were pulled behind her back, and she couldn't feel her lower body, but she could sort of make out the outline of rope binding her legs in the dark too. And that smell. The stench of cologne.

Maya lays there for a while longer, then sniffs, beginning to regain some sort of sense in her legs. Her injury to her right knee from the stage accident those years ago was aching uncontrollably, as it always did when it was too cold for her. Pressing her upper half to the floor, she somehow manages to prop herself back upright, her teeth clenching as she struggles to keep her balance.

Unfortunately, she did not have the support of a wall behind her, and she dropped back down onto the floor like a rag-doll. Wincing in pain, she resigns to her fate in the cold, hard floor, silently cursing. Judging from the feeling of it against her hands, she'd guess it to be marble. Her ribs hurt.

...A marble floor? Maya looks around, growing more worried by the second, remembering what had occurred before she had woken in this situation. Where was she? Was Claudine alright? Oh no. Her voice recorder and documents weren't on her either.

"...caught on?"

Maya's head whips to the door, hearing those voices nearing, closer, and closer. She breathes in deeply, quelling the rising anxious feeling in her chest, and closes her eyes.

"She's not awake yet?"

Kirin's voice.

"Not yet."

Kenjirō.

The door creaks open, and the loud click-clack of boots parading in sliced cleanly through the haze in Maya's mind, and she tenses, just a little.

Relax. She concentrates on the sounds in the background: there was a lighter pattering along the floor, and then a soft meow. A cat? Honking and the screech of tires — the silent rush of cars — and the muffled sound of on-going construction work seep through the walls, kicking Maya's brain into action.

She was no longer in Rinmeikan, evidently — never had the tiny town been this noisy.

"Have you sent her the picture?" Kirin was speaking, his voice low, but louder now. His footsteps stop. Maya figures he was just a little off to the side of where she lay on the floor.

"Yes," came Kenjirō. "She should have received it by now."

"Excellent," there was a pause, and she feels a presence looming over her. She holds her breath as a hand moves her hair away from her face. "Why isn't she gagged? She'd make a racket if she were to regain consciousness."

"Oh, sorry–"

"–do it. Now."

Kirin lets go of her hair and the sound of his boots disappear out of the room, giving Maya an opportunity to release her breath slowly. What now? She was being held by the very people she was trying to investigate, the same people who probably harmed Claudine too.