Ill Wind

As Tseng had expected, Reno balked at the idea of Kerri meeting Darkin without him being present. Only a direct order from the president himself ceased the redhead's protests. It did nothing, however, to remove the mutinous look from his face. He stalked out of Rufus's office, stopping just short of slamming the door behind him. Kerri started to rise and go after him, but Tseng motioned her to sit back down. “I'll go,” he said, leaving Rufus and Kerri to wait.

“Reno!” His teammate stopped , his head down, in the middle of the corridor but didn't turn around, forcing Tseng to go to him. He put a hand on the younger man's shoulder when he reached him, and Reno shrugged it off. “Reno, this is exactly why you cannot accompany her. You are far too emotionally involved. You might lose control.”

Reno looked sideways at him, his lips a thin white line, his aqua eyes burning. “You watch out for her, Tseng. Don't let that son of a bitch hurt her, or I swear, nothing will keep me from killing him.”

“She won't be within his reach, Reno,” Tseng assured him, but the other man shook his head.

“Not what I meant.” He turned to fully face Tseng. “The last time she saw him, she was naked on the floor, while he told another man to go ahead and do whatever he wanted to her. She still has nightmares. I've seen her wake up, biting her hand so hard that blood was running down her arm, and she didn't even realize it.” Reno shook his head and laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “I know, I know. We've all been through some tough shit. Especially you and Elena, yo. It's just that it's harder for me to see her hurting than to go through it myself. Maybe it sounds stupid--”

“Not at all,” Tseng interrupted, thinking of Elena, thinking that he would gladly have taken her torture at the hands of the Mako brothers as well as his own, if it would have spared her pain.

Reno sighed. “Just don't let her be intimidated by him. Help her stay strong, man. Make sure she knows you got her back, yo.”

“Of course, Reno,” Tseng answered. “She's one of mine. As are you all.”

“That might be, Tseng, but the way I see it she's my woman before she's your Turk. I should be the one standing behind her today, and you and the boss tell me I can't.” Movement caught his eye and he turned his head to see Rufus and Kerri approaching them. “Just watch out for her,” he said in a lower tone.

“I promise, Reno,” Tseng replied before the other two reached them.

Reno took Kerri's hand as she came close and brought it to his lips briefly. “You show him he didn't break you, babe,” he told her.

Kerri smiled at him. “I will,” she said. “I'll make you proud.”

“You already do, yo.” He squeezed her hand, then dropped it, watching as the trio passed by on the way to the elevator. He thought Kerri looked very small, almost fragile walking between the two men. It would be easy for someone to miss the determined set of her back, her confident walk. If Darkin expected a beaten, broken-willed woman, he had a surprise in store. He watched them until the elevator doors closed before continuing down the hall. He passed by his own office door, deciding to go see Rude for a bit instead.

~=~=~=~=

“Hello, Kerina,” the prisoner said in a cold tone as she entered.

She sat in one of the chairs along the wall, flanked by Rufus and Tseng. They were there merely to listen and watch. Rufus wanted this to be Kerri's play. “Darkin,” she responded. Kerri could feel a coldness descending on her, burying fear and nervousness, making her see everything with a peculiar clarity, especially Darkin's battered visage. “You're looking well.” she commented.

“So you like what your new friends have done to me, then?”

“Very much so,” she replied, smiling a little.

“I might have expected such from a girl who would choose being a whore for Shin-Ra over loyalty to her own father,” Darkin snarled.

Kerri ignored the first part of his comment. “A father is someone who raises and protects his child. You've done neither. What have you done that I should feel loyalty to you?”

“I see. You're angry that I gave you to my friend. Why, not enough wealth and power for you?” Darkin looked pointedly at the two men on either side of Kerri. “I suppose whores do have to be paid.”

Kerri felt a wave of revulsion at the reminder of what Vertro had done to her but didn't let it show. She had been prepared, knowing that Darkin would more than likely refer to it in an effort to make her lose control. “I didn't know terrorists were so interested in the sex lives of Shin-Ra employees,” she said. “What is your ultimate goal? Celibacy for Shin-Ra?”

He glowered at her, ignoring her comment. “Did Vertro loosen you up too much for your Turk lovers?” he asked crudely.

Kerri was actually becoming amused. This was the man whose love she'd tried so hard to earn? He was pathetic. With laughter in her voice, she answered, “I only have one Turk lover, and Vertro didn't come close to measuring up to his endowments. And besides that, I hate to disappoint you, but Vertro went for the entrance he seemed to be most familiar with. You were his friend—you should know what I mean,” she finished suggestively.

Darkin suddenly lunged at the cell bars, a snarl of hatred on his face, reaching through the bars toward her. Rufus shifted slightly, and Tseng instantly drew his gun and aimed it at the prisoner, but Kerri never moved, her smile never faltered. Rufus's eyes glinted with approval at her composure and the fact that she'd managed to infuriate the man. He was more apt to let crucial information slip in this state.

Tseng's movement had caught Darkin's attention. Seeing the gun pointed at him, he backed away from the bars and returned to his bunk, and Tseng re-holstered his weapon. The prisoner's eyes still showed his fury, but his voice was calmer when he next spoke. “So, the red-haired one who questioned me yesterday, the one who killed Vertro—that's the one you belong to?”

“I don't 'belong' to anyone, but I'm his woman, yes,” Kerri said.

“Did you know he cut Vertro's dick off before he killed him? That he split his scrotum open?” Darkin's tone was vicious. “That's the kind of man you spread your legs for?”

“That's the man I spread my legs for,” she answered mildly, and Darkin spit on the floor in anger. Kerri leaned forward, a curious expression on her face. “What else did he do?” she asked, as if asking someone about a date they went on. Darkin remained silent, and Kerri settled back in her chair. “So why did you want to speak to me? If it was just to ask about my sex life, then you are more of a scumbag than we thought.”

“I'm a scumbag? That's rich, coming from a Turk,” he said. “Torturers, murderers, Shin-Ra uses the Turks to defile the people and the planet.”

“And your hands are clean? What about the orphanage GALEFORCE bombed? The soup kitchen? Innocent blood, Darkin.”

“With ties to Shin-Ra,” he argued, sparing a look of loathing for Rufus. “Which means they weren't innocent.”

“The children?” Kerri spat, her control slipping a bit.

He shrugged. “When you clean out a nest of vipers, you don't leave the young, do you?”

“You're insane,” Kerri said. “But you still haven't told me why you wanted to speak to me.” She folded her arms, waiting.

“Perhaps only to ask you how you could betray your own father,” he replied. “How you could join the enemy, turning your back on me.”

“You were never there for me to turn my back on. Even before mother died, you weren't there. And afterward, you made Glenna my caregiver. A retired Academy teacher! What did you expect?”

Darkin sneered as well as his swollen, battered face would allow. “I expected you to show your true colors. As you did when you gave your loyalty to Shin-Ra, and your body to a former street gang member. The lowest of the low—except for the Turks and their boss, that is. How can you defend your choices to me?”

“I don't have to defend my choices to you. You gave me nothing, you never cared about me, you have no right to expect anything of me. You lost my love long ago, but that wasn't enough. You had to earn my hatred, didn't you?” she stated. “So spare me the lies about how I betrayed you, because you betrayed me first by never treating me like your child.”

“Because you should have been a son!” he growled. “But no, your mother couldn't give me a son, and then it turned out that she couldn't give me any more children. She was barren after she had you.”

Kerri was stunned. “That's ridiculous! There were other women. You could have divorced mother and found someone who could give you children.”

“So you would think. But no. Thanks to years of working in one of Shin-Ra's power plants, your mother wasn't the only sterile one. So was I. Shin-Ra ensured that when I die, there will be no one to carry on my line, my name. Sons are a man's immortality, and Shin-Ra took that from me.”

Kerri and her companions were equally dumbfounded. It was Tseng who answered Darkin this time. “So that's the vendetta. All the killing, the pain, destruction—all because one man isn't able to have any more children.”

“Shin-Ra took my immortality!” Darkin raged, coming off the bunk and stalking to the cell bars.

“Your immortality was right in front of you!” Tseng shot back. “You had a daughter!”

Darkin shook his head. “You're Wutain. Your beliefs are not my own.”

“If you mean that we love and revere all our children instead of holding one sex above the other, then I am glad that I don't share your beliefs.” He would have went on, but at a subtle signal from Rufus, he sat back and was silent.

“And I'm glad that I won't carry on your name,” Kerri said.

“You won't even carry on your lover's name, will you, seeing as how he doesn't have one?” Darkin sneered. “Any children you have by him will be worthless, nameless bastards.”

Kerri shot to her feet and rushed toward the cell before Rufus and Tseng could stop her. Darkin stepped back in shock, but not before Kerri was able to spit in his face. “Any children I have will be loved and nurtured. I won't leave them with a legacy of apathy and neglect. They'll be proud that their mother was a Shin-Ra Turk.” She stepped back to where Rufus and Tseng were now standing, Tseng with his gun drawn once again.

“That's assuming there's anything of Shin-Ra left after next month,” Darkin said, wiping the moisture from his face.

“Next month?” Kerri asked, and a look of panic crossed Darkin's face as he realized what he'd said. “What is going to happen next month?”

He shook his head. “You'll find out. Now, unless you want to refine your torture techniques, you can go. I've said all I need to say to you.”

“What's going to happen next week?” Kerri yelled, but Darkin turned his back and went to the bunk, laying down to face the wall.

“Come, Kerri,” said Rufus, taking her by the elbow. “Time to go.”

She looked up at the young president. “But, sir...”

“I said time to go,” he insisted, and Kerri was shocked to see an actual smile light up his face for a moment. In fact, he looked rather smug. “Darkin has dismissed us,” he continued.