Didn't I tell you I wouldn't update for a long time? How long has it been, three weeks or so? So yeah. But I've finally finished the next chapter. It's longer than usual, so I hope it'll make up for the long wait. If it doesn't, then…Well, I'll try to make it up again!

However, it'll again be a long time before my next update. I'm still crammed with art commissions, and I'm getting busier in all aspects of life. Just as a warning.

So, enough talking. I know you're anxious to read this chapter…I don't own Yugioh, like always.

"Pick the damn phone up already," he mumbled, his hand clenched around the phone. His eyes glinted dangerously in the sparse light.

"Hello?" a voice answered, obviously unaware of why he was calling. He seemed happy; voices of excitement broke through the background.

"Wheeler."

"Kaiba." The voice immediately lost all of its joy and good feeling. It was flat now. "What do you want?"

Kaiba didn't answer for a moment, trying to find an easier way to break the news. Even if he didn't like him, he couldn't just tell him and leave. It would defeat the purpose. "Your sister—"

"What about her? What did you do?" Threats laced his voice, and the murmurs became silent.

"I didn't do—"

"Where is she then? You better tell me she's safe, or else—"

A fist slammed onto the desk. "If you want to know, fine; but let me finish, damn you! What do you think I'm trying to tell you?"

"Alright then, fine. Tell me already."

Kaiba took a deep breath to steady himself, then let it all out in one breath—"Your sister's been kidnapped."

It was dark, too dark. She could see nothing. Her ears rang in the muffling silence. The air was dry in her mouth, hot and moistureless against her skin. It was musty, yet it felt as if there was no air.

Her heart raced in her chest. Where was he? What was this place?

Desperately, she tried to move, but found her arms and wrists immobile behind her. Her legs were tied together too, bound with biting cord around her ankles. She tried to look about her, and a blindfold made its presence known. She tried to scream, but nothing came out.

Panic rose in waves inside her. For a few moments, it blinded her senses and her mind to everything but the feeling. But slowly, it faded as she sought to gain control once more. Ever so slowly, it backed away into a little shadowed corner of her mind.

She tried to find another way to move, to explore where she was kept prisoner. Her hands were quickly becoming numb now from the loss of blood flow. Panic momentarily flooded over her once more. However, she quickly gained control once more. Discovering her feet and legs still had feeling, a plan started to hatch inside her mind. Painstakingly, keeping her back to the wall, she scooted along the floor—it was hard, not carpet—until finally, tired, she felt her shoulder hit something hard and small. A dull thump that rang in the air lifted and faded away as she hit a flat surface with her shoulder. She maneuvered herself to turn around, to put her back against whatever it was that she had hit. Oh, it was so difficult! Something kept poking against her, hindering her, making it harder and harder to turn and place her back on the new object.

When she finally did, she was exhausted. There were three things digging into her neck and back now. What she was leaning on was cold, at least. It felt good. But slowly, she felt herself slipping away from consciousness. It seemed as if she was floating, light enough to escape. Dimly, she was aware that something warm and sticky was trailing down from her wrists to her lower back. But she didn't care. Instead, she let herself drift away.

"What? What the hell are you talking about?" Joey shouted to loud that Kaiba couldn't help but wince.

He sighed. "Your sister."

"How do you know that she…that she…" The challenge turned to a trickle as he tried to find another word.

"Kidnapped? There's no polite way to say that for the ignorant."

"Don't say that. It's not true! You're lying to me! Where is she?" His voice rose hysterically.

Kaiba had enough of Joey's denial. His fury and anger boiled over. "How do you expect me to know where she is? I told you, she's been kidnapped! Did you expect me to follow them by foot when they were speeding in a car?"

"You could have taken another vehicle! You're just trying to make excuses! I would have thought someone like—"

There was the sound of a brief struggle, then a new voice came over the line.

"Hey, Kaiba?" Yugi asked uncertainly.

"What do you want?" he asked flatly. "Get Wheeler back on the phone. This doesn't concern you."

"He's not going to listen to you, at least not now. It's useless to try and explain it to him in his state of mind."

"Then what do you propose I do? Wait ten minutes and call again?"

Kaiba let his taunt hang in the air, letting him absorb the meaning of it, leaving silence to float there. Hesitantly, a reply came back.

"Well, we can all talk about it, instead of just you two. After all, what happened to her…it concerns us too, you know."

"Fine. As long as I can talk to Wheeler. As much as I hate and loathe him, it's worth my time for him to know." He glanced at the numbers hanging on the wall in a circle. "I'll wait fifteen minutes. I'm at my office. If you don't come then, I'm not waiting." With that, he hung up the phone.

Something was chasing her. Something, someone. It was no more than a dark shadow, never giving up, never stopping. Yet it never ran, either, or moved. It simply got closer and closer.

She tried to scream, but she couldn't. When she tried to run, she couldn't move. She looked down to see herself tied with ropes of darkness, and waves of it slowly consuming her. She never had been moving, it had only been getting closer.

She struggled more, but it only made the bonds tighter, the waves stronger and darker. What was happening to her? Why?

The last thing she saw was the—thing—closing in on her. The darkness. Light was just behind it, but she couldn't reach.

Then she closed her eyes and screamed as loud as she could.

Kaiba's head snapped up. "What are you slamming my doors for?" he growled viciously. His glare penetrated even the anger of Joey, and he faltered for a moment. However, it was only for a split second.

"Because I want to! Where the hell is Serenity?" Joey's fists were clenched as he stood before the rest of his friends.

Kaiba felt like throwing something at him. Who did he think he was, barging in and trying to break someone else's furniture? But instead, he calmed himself down and kept his limbs—and voice—in control. "I've told you already. I don't know."

"Then how did you know she's gone?"

Yugi had crept behind Joey as they had swapped words. "Yeah, maybe you should explain it to us," he said.

Us? Kaiba looked behind them for the first time to see who was really there. Joey and Yugi, of course, and Tea and Tristan. At least the others weren't here.

He turned around his chair to look out the window, down at the streets below him. It was pretty late now, and most people were trying to get home. Lights flickered and turned off and on as they were blocked. Streetlights changed colors.

"Are you going to tell us or not?" Joey asked venomously.

He ignored the question and didn't bother to answer. But he told his story. "There's not much to it. I decided to take a break from here, so I drove my car a few miles to the other side of the city. I parked my car in the public garage and made my way through the streets, not really sure where I was going. I saw Serenity in a small café.

"I decided to join her, since I really had nothing else to do to pass my time. She told me she was sitting in there to shelter herself from the strong winds, since some club was cancelled and she didn't have a way to get home. I bought us some beverages and things from the café, then we left.

"It was still windy outside and getting worse, so I offered her a ride home. It took her awhile to make the decision—something about intruding on the courtesy of others—but she finally agreed. And when we were just a few blocks from the garage…well, that's when it happened. Someone took her."

It was silent for a moment. The only noise was the ticking of the clock, a steady beat counting the time.

"And you never thought to go after her, did you?" Joey finally asked.

"It was…shocking. The man threatened me, then went off in a speeding vehicle that some buddy of his had in wait." He paused. "But I did get a bit of information before they got away."

He turned around as he pulled several slips of paper from his pocket. "I got the license place number, and a glimpse of the driver."

"And the man who took her?" Tea asked, speaking for the first time as Joey took the offered slips.

"I got more than a glimpse of him. He's burned into my memory." His gaze flickered to Serenity's brother, who was flipping through the pieces, waiting to see what he would make of it.

He looked up shortly. "This is all you got?" He passed the papers to his friends.

"From the kidnapping? Yes. From the whole ordeal, no."

Joey's fists clenched tightly. "What are you talking about?"

Kaiba sighed. "Maybe it's time I should explain the whole thing to you, now that it actually involves you." He pushed himself out of his chair and walked over to a nearby filing cabinet, opening one of its drawers. Flipping through a few folders, he finally found what he wanted and pushed it shut.

"I have a deep suspicion that this does with my brother's disappearance. Probably more than a suspicion, I'm almost certain. Otherwise, they wouldn't have gone after your sister. But I have some more concrete evidence here." He laid out the papers on his desk, then tossed his folder onto his chair.

"This is everything your sister and I have found on the whole disappearance. The people, their doings, any hints, all of it. And this man"—he leaned over his desk and pointed to a black and white picture—"looks like the man in the car."

The four of them gathered around to study it. "Where did you get it from?" Tristan asked.

"The police. I've shared everything I've found with a group of them."

Yugi frowned. "Then what makes it so special?"

"This is where it would take half a year to explain everything has happened in that amount of time. I'll keep it short. I went to the city hall around Christmas because of…well, let's call it an invitation. This was the man I met there. After I dropped your sister off—"

"What? You were with my sister during Christmas?" Joey's eyes were filled with anger.

"Look, do you want to hear all of it or not? Personally, I don't care, but I thought you wanted to know for half a year. Isn't the suspense killing you already? I would think so."

Joey muttered something under his breath, but he didn't argue. With one more warning glance, Kaiba continued. "As I was saying, after I dropped your sister off, I went straight to the police station and reported the man. They were able to find a file on him shortly after as a missing criminal. I also gave them copies of this."

All of them bent closer to two scraps of weathered and torn paper; Kaiba to point, and the rest to examine them. "What is it?" Tristan asked suspiciously. "It doesn't look like anything to me."

Kaiba scowled. "Obviously." He pulled open a drawer and rummaged through it for a bit, then found what he needed. He slammed it shut and pushed the new object under Tristan's nose on the desk. "Read."

"Mokuba is at…something…the place where we…something…him. Meet me at…something," he read. He looked up. "What the hell? It doesn't make any sense."

Tea became impatient. "And what does it have to do with Serenity? Stop taking the long way around, Kaiba, and be more direct, will you?"

"I am. If I was any more direct you wouldn't understand me."

"So?" She prodded.

He stared at her. "Let me finish." His attention went back to the paper. "I'm surprised none of you noticed Serenity's handwriting. The man that I supposed kidnapped her had those scraps with him. He took it out for me to read it but apparently forgot that thought as soon as it came out of his pocket. He ripped it up and threw it into the air before I could read it. She was able to copy what one piece said before it blew away from the windshield. She wrote what she remembered from the other piece that blew past the car when it stuck to the window from the force of the wind for one second."

Joey looked utterly confused. "And what does this do with her being gone?"

"Nothing."

The others looked at him, dumbfounded. "Nothing?" Joey shouted. "Then what the hell are you doing telling us this?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you wanted to know," Kaiba said dryly. "Maybe you weren't begging to know about the whole thing, just part of it."

"Stop playing games with us, Kaiba," Yugi demanded. "Just get straight to the point."

"Well, what else do you want to know? Just about Serenity? Then fine, you get it. I've already told you all I know. And I've told the police the same thing." His gaze swiveled in a quick movement to Joey, silencing him. "If you think I haven't been puzzling over this enough, think again. That's all I've been doing since I've returned."

Just then, the phone rang. With a glance at the number, he swept the papers in a flurry off his desk and angled the machine so the webcam could see nothing but him and the view outside the window. With once more warning stare, he hit the speaker button. "Kaiba Corporations, Seto Kaiba speaking."

"Perfect. Just who I wanted…" a familiar voice drawled. He recognized it as the man from the last call who claimed he was the boss. He was still wearing the same outfit. "So has the impact hit you yet?"

"Be more specific."

"Well then, I guess I don't, do I? If everything else has hit you, so as this. What are you planning to do about it?" A catlike smile cut his features in half.

"Nothing."

Just then, Joey and the others chose to break the silence. "What?" Joey cried, his friends voicing indignation. "You son of a bitch! I thought you cared about her enough to save her life!"

He reached across the desk to pull the phone towards him and took in a breath to shout into the speaker, but Kaiba knocked his hand away. "Don't even try," he spoke in an undertone. A dangerous glint lit in his eyes that didn't go away.

"So you have friends over, hmm?" said the voice. Kaiba immediately turned his attention back. "And so I was right, you do care for the girl."

Anger surged through him. "Assume what you want," he seethed.

"Little liar. You do have friends to help you. How mean of you to not tell the truth."

"Like I said, assume what you want. What the fuck did you call me for?"

"Oh, I just wanted to make sure…"

Two fists slammed into the table hard enough to lift papers into the air and rattle the contents of the desk. "I asked, what the fuck did you call me for?"

He smiled. "Oh, I'll leave that for you to decide…but remember our little picnic outing that's coming up."

"What the—"

But the line was dead, the screen black.

"So, what's your answer now?" Joey taunted.

Kaiba looked as if he were about to lunge over the desk and murder him. "My answer? You want my answer? You ruined everything, little boy! They know everything now!"

"Guys, calm down…" Yugi interrupted hesitantly.

But he wouldn't take it. The enraged CEO turned towards him. "Just in case you haven't figured it out either, you've just put yourselves in danger. And Serenity and Mokuba might as well be dead. Have you not realized it yet? We know next to nothing about them. They, on the other hand, know everything about us, our every move, our every plan, our every word. You wanted to help? You've got the job! Get my brother and that little boy's sister out of what you've just put them into!"

In the silence, all that was heard was his ragged breathing. They looked at each other in the growing dark uncertainly.

"Is that what you wanted?" Kaiba whispered roughly. "Then fine. Come by every chance you have to see what you can do with all of the information your sister and I have found. Everything, all of it, use it. I keep nothing back. Let's see if you can do better." He threw the file and the papers at them. "Do you want it now? Go ahead and take it. I have my own copies; you can use the original. Let's see if I've just been blind and stupid."

She fell back in exhaustion, only a little satisfied. Since she had woken up and shaken off the effects of the drug they had used to tranquilize her—how long had she slept?—she had found out she was locked up in a small abandoned office. What she had fallen asleep on was a desk. The rest of the room was bare except for one filing cabinet. Everything was empty from the sound of it. There were no windows, only a locked door.

She had built up her strength enough to push herself up and wander around, using her shoulder as a cushion and a replacement hand. That was how she had found out everything. Yet what was the use of it all? She slumped on the ground. She was alone, and no one would listen to any pleas. The drug that had kept her voice from working had long since worn off, but she had yelled herself hoarse once more in attempt to attract someone's attention. It must have been after hours, wherever she was.

She felt the lump that was tied around her ankles, shifting her legs. If only there was something sharp enough to cut through them! But everything she had found sharp enough was too high for her to keep sawing at forever, even at the bonds around her wrists. Her hands and arms were too numb to hold anything, anyway. On her back, she could feel the blood that had trickled from the abrasions caused by trying to work her hands out. Otherwise, they felt like dead weights against her back—her hands and arms could feel nothing at all, not even pain.

What were the others doing now? Did they wonder where she was? Did they think of a way to bring her back? Did they even know what had happened?

Unbidden, tears came to her eyes. Would anyone come and help her? Would someone find her, hear her silent pleas, and rescue her? They soaked into her blindfold, absorbing into the cloth. She was scared, of why they kept her there, what they wanted to know, what they might do.

Where was everyone? Why wouldn't they come? She felt so lonely; didn't they know? How come no one wanted to save her?

In the darkness, her heart cried soundlessly for a friend, aching.

Joey.

Yugi.

Seto.

So, did you like it? A bit more angsty than usual, and it'll be like this for another few chapters. Happy reviewing!