Chapter 2

Chapter 2

You eyes shot open when you felt something cold against your neck. A butcher knife?! Your ___ colored eyes widened in surprise and fear. Who had managed to get into your house and why are they attacking you?! It was out of your control, your body shook with fear and your thoughts were jumbled, you could hardly think straight and you weren't sure just what to do. You reached up and grabbed the wrist of the person that was holding the weapon to your neck and you tried with all your might to move the hand and weapon away but this person was very strong.

"Don't struggle, it will be over in moments," said a voice that belonged to the owner of the butcher knife. Your eyes shot up to look at the person but because of how dark your room is, they only looked like a shadow and you couldn't distinguish any features. The knife pressed into your neck more, causing you to gasp and close your eyes momentarily.

"W-Who are you?" you sputtered. The person laughed, a very loud and menacing sound that sent shivers down your spine.

"Who am I? You know exactly who I am.... I am Jack the Ripper," the man whispered into your ear, his breath smelt of alcohol and brought nothing but fear. You felt the hair on the back of your neck rise and goose bumps spread over your skin.

"N-No, you can't!" you shouted and cried out as the sharp metal dug into your skin. You could feel your blood dripping down your neck and into your hair and sheets that lined your bed. Terrified... that's the only word you could think of to describe how you felt at that moment.

"Once I finish with your neck, your abdomen will be next," whispered the man as he dug the weapon deeper into your neck. Black spotted your vision and you were finding it very hard to bleed. You started coughing, choking on your own blood.

'This can't be the end... not so soon!' you thought desperately.

"No!" you shouted and sat up quickly, sweat matted your face and body as you took deep breaths. Your pajamas clung to your sweaty body and your heart raced in your chest. You studied your empty dark room and quickly snapped the lamp on that sat on your bed side table. Carefully you pulled open one of your drawers and pulled out a pistol then stood from your bed. Very slowly you walked around your house, checking every closet and possible hiding spot there was but there was not a person in sight. The last place you had to check was your kitchen. With your pistol held in front of you, you took slow, cautious steps into the room. A thump was heard from your pantry, causing you to jump.

"Who goes there?" you called, your voice sounded braver than you felt. There was no answer; you tookslow steps over to the kitchen. You reached a hand out towards the door knob and gulped. You grabbed onto the object and flung the door open with your pistol pointed inside. No one was in there, just a bag of chips that had fallen from one of the shelves.

"It was just a dream and you are just getting paranoid because today you will be meeting up with SPJ members," you assured yourself and lowered the gun. The pressure was already getting to you and you didn't even know a thing about the case yet or any of the people involved. You lowered the gun to your side and leaned back against the counter, with your free hand, you moved your hair that was clinging to your sweaty face. 'Maybe I should have taken Matsuda's advice after all' you thought and poured yourself a glass of water. You picked up the glass and your pistol before returning to your room, you placed the pistol back into its hiding place.

"Well after that dream, I won't be able to go back to sleep," you told yourself and took a sip from your glass of water. You rubbed your neck warily even though you knew that there was no damage done to it, you still felt nervous. Now your eyes wandered over to the clock in your room, it read 2:34 a.m. You were going to have to meet the members of SPJ at 8:00 a.m. so you had to find something to occupy yourself till then.

--

You took a deep breath and pulled the door open to the small coffee shop. Once you took a step inside, you took care to look around and take in your surroundings. It is a very small and quiet coffee shop, there actually weren't many people there. There was a small group of people sitting in one of the booths towards the back of the shop and they were the only customers here so you had to assume that they were the members of SPJ that L had mentioned. Slowly you walked over and took care to study each personindividually, each had a name tag. Halle Lidner is a young looking woman with white-blonde hair, and amber eyes... she was the only girl sitting in the booth. Stephen Gevanni is a young man with black hair and light eyes. Anthony Rester has light blonde hair and light blue eyes, all of them looked much older than yourself. The three of them looked up when you approached, the only one that showed any sign of welcoming was Halle because she gave you a smile.

"____ ____?" she asked and stood, holding out a hand to you. You took her hand gratefully and shook it.

"Yes, it's nice to meet all of you... though it isn't under the best circumstances," you told them. Halle Lidner scooted over in her seat and allowed you to take a seat beside her. Now that you were sitting, you noticed a man that you hadn't before. This man looked quite young and childish but if you had to guess, you'd say he was around the same age as you. This mysterious boy had medium length wavy white hair and thoughtful gray eyes, under his eyes were sharp bags.. you wondered if he ever slept. His eyes weren't what caught your attention though, what really caught your attention was the fact that this boy was wearing a baggy white pajama top and white pajama pants. This man set down a strawberry he had been holding in his hands and looked up at you.

"You can call me Near," he said simply then curled a strand of his white hair. L hadn't mentioned this man, slowly you nodded and studied the group. Near seemed like a strange name, you were positive that this was just a fake name given to you, now you wondered if any of the names given were real. If anything, they all seemed to get along well and seemed open to having you in the group. Near motioned to each person as he explained to you just who they were;

"Halle is a former Secret Service agent and former CIA agent who works for me as part of the SPJ, and is the only female member of the organization. Gevanni is very talented, having skills which include lock-picking, investigating, monitoring and following suspects. He is also good at imitating the handwriting of other people. Rester helps me with actions I'm not used to doing, such as booking a flight on a plane." You studied each person, all seemed to be skilled in some way to help L solve this case. What is it that you have that would make L place you in this group?

"What about you Near? Why did L place you in the SPJ?" you asked. A smirk crossed the man's features. He tugged on a strand of his hair.

"I am very calm and level headed; I am also very observational, good at multitasking, intelligent, and good at solving puzzles. I am more than qualified for my place in this case. I'll even give you statistics if you'd like to prove this. All these percentages will be out of 100. When it comes to my intelligence 90%, Creativity 70%, Initiative 60%, Control over emotions 100%, and Social skills 10%," replied Near.

'Very interesting' you thought and narrowed your ___ colored eyes at him a bit. "How old are you?" you asked. Everyone was quiet, listening to the two of you going back in forth with your conversation.

"Twenty five," he answered simply. 'As I thought, around the same age as me' you thought to yourself. Halle slid a cup of coffee over to you that you gladly took. Carefully you took a sip and were surprised to find out that it was just the way you like it.

"Thank.. you," you told her and looked at each member of the small group. 'Shouldn't a group as important as this one have more members?' you considered. As if reading your mind, Near spoke,

"Most of the SPJ's members were killed during the Kira case. We are all that is left of the organization but the group is still quite capable," he informed you. He turned his gray eyes way from you and towards Rester instead. "Rester, my robots please," requested Near and the blonde man handed over two robots. One robot was pink and the other red and black. Near set both robots at the table and pointed at the black one.

"For now, this robot will symbolize Jack the Ripper since I have yet to make puppets, the pink one will be the woman," he said, speaking directly to you rather than the whole group. 'Robots...?' you thought and slowly nodded your head.

"In the past, the Riper seized the women by their throats and strangled them until they were unconscious if not dead. Then he would lower them to the ground and cut the woman's throats while they were on the ground, careful not to get blood on himself. The case had been so hard because there were hardly any connections back then. All but Kelly were killed outdoors and there is no evidence to suggest that any of them knew each other. They varied in age and appearance. Most were drunk or thought to be drunk at the time they were killed... the only similarity between the women were the injuries done to the body.

In that time period, the only way to prove someone committed a murder was to either catch him or her in the act, or get the suspect to confess. In the end the police never charged any suspect with the murders committed by the Ripper which shows they did not have a sufficient amount of evidence that would gain a verdict of guilt in court. Much like back then, the current Ripper is using this same tactic to kill women," Near told you and lightly fingered the robots that he had set on the table.

With his 'Ripper' robot he knocked over the pink one then sent the Ripper robot in front of you. The albino boy pulled a folder out from under his white pajama shirt and slid it across the table so it also lay in front of you.

"There has already been five victims in this new Jack the Ripper case, in there is information about the murders and a few pictures taken at the crime scenes. We have reasons to believe that this Ripper will go beyond five murders," Halle supplied and smacked Gevanni's hand when he tried to take Halle's coffee cup. You mentally prepared yourself before opening up the file. Near on the other hand had picked up both his robots and was currently making them crash together which was very distracting and childish of him. You shook your head and focused on the images and information.

'Joker Jail, age 56, found at 4 a.m. ... throat was severed and the abdomen was ripped open by a long, deep, jagged wound... the number one was cut into her forehead' you read and frowned. 'This person is numbering off their victims, making sure that we defiantly know that the victims were all killed by the same person' you thought and looked up at Near.

"This person doesn't want to be mistaken as someone else... they want you to know exactly how many people this one person is killing," you told him and the others. Near set his robots down and shook his head a bit.

"You can't rule out the possibility that there is more than one person involved, as long as the killer told others exactly how to attack the bodies and what number to put on the forehead then the murders would seem like they are done by the same person," he replied, automatically ruling out what you had just said. You made a face, how could you work with a guy who would just bash your ideas the second after you say them?

"Well... that is true but it would be pretty hard to copy some ones method of killing exactly," you insisted. Near's gray eyes looked up from his robots and met your ___ colored ones.

"I can copy some one's hand writing exactly," Gevanni countered. You shook your head in frustration.

"It's not the same thing though! You would have to have the same kind of weapon if you want to do around the same kind of damage. There are many kinds of knives: a chef's knife, a cleaver, a Chinese cleaver, a boning knife, a paring knife, a turning knife, a palette knife, a carving knife, a steak knife, a filleting knife, a butcher's knife, a skinning knife... there are so many possibilities. The easiest way to mimic some one's cuts done to a body is to have the same kind of knife unless the person is skilled enough to use a different kind of knife and do the same damage.

Then the way the Ripper cuts the abdomen... it has its own style. I guess you could say...for one of the victims, they simply just cut off the layer of skin without inuring any major organs. That takes a lot of skill and practice; I would think that it would be hard to find many people that talented with the body. I still believe this is just one person's work," you snapped. Gevanni held his hands up as if to surrender due to the tone of voice you had used to snap at him.

"You can buy most of those knives you listed just about anywhere; multiple peoplecould easily have the same knife in order to murder someone. Also, when you look at the second murder, the number wasn't carved into her forehead like the first one... suggesting that either there is more than one person acting as Jack the Ripper or the one person changes their methods to try and throw us off," the albino told you and twirled a strand of his white hair a bit faster than before. He stopped curling his hair for a moment and tapped the table.

"As for the cutting skills as you put it... a doctor would have that skill and precision," he suggested. You took a long sip of coffee to calm your nerves and looked back down at the file.

'Apple August, age 8, found at 9:36 p.m. ... the throat was severed by three cuts and the abdomen was sliced only partly open. The liver was found lying beside the young girl'shead and the number two was written in blood beside the liver on the stone path. When the blood was tested, it was proved positive the number was written with the own girl's blood' you read. It saddened you that such a horrific murder was done to such a young girl.

"People are crazy," you whispered as you continued to read the file. Near considered this statement.

"There was a man I used to know and I told him 'If you can't win the game, if you can't solve the puzzle, then you are just a loser. This puzzle is rather difficult since there are so many possibilities... we have to narrow down these possibilities. The bodies are now in a morgue being examined to see what kind of knives were used," he told you. You slammed your hands down on the table and stood up.

"This isn't just some game Near! These are people's lives that are being lost!" you shouted, unable to believe this man. Your shouting didn't seem to faze the boy, another one of his devious smirks crossed his face.

"It's obvious now, this is a direct challenge to L, this case. This 'Jack the Ripper' isn't killing people because they want to; they are trying to get to L, to prove a point of some sort. It is the Ripper who is playing a game and has gotten me and the rest of the SPJ involved in it so we must plan our moves carefully," Near told you, his gray eyes showing no emotion. You narrowed your eyes at him.

"I don't like this, I don't like this at all," you hissed under your breath and glanced down at the file, reading the other three victim's names. 'Rocket Rider, Pilot Pajama, and Dee Dairy.' Near found your reaction quite interesting and decided to try and push the point just a little bit more.

"This is exactly like a game of chess ____ ____, in order to win you must give up some pieces so that we can get to each other. L and Jack the Ripper are the kings, our pawns are people such as Joker Jail, Apple August, Rocket Rider, Pilot Pajama, and Dee Dairy. People such as the SPJ serve as the higher ranked pieces such as the knight, bishop, and rook," he continued. This pushed you over the line, he had hit your last nerve and the hairs on the back of your neck stood on end. You reached over the table and yanked the boy up by his shirt and shook him hard. Everyone else at the table stood also but Near held up a hand.

"Rester, Halle, Gevanni, stand down," he instructed them, his gray eyes never leaving your ___ colored ones. You moved your face close to his and lowered your voice.

"I am not a piece for you to use to solve the puzzle," you whispered, echoing Mello's words to Near many years ago. The boy's face remained as emotionless as usual but he did glance away from your angry face.

"You don't want to call this case a game and you don't want to be a piece in the game... you are worse than a preschooler. You are acting like such a child, just snapping at all of us and not thinking clearly," he said. This comment shocked you, shocked you enough to let go of him. You stared at him, how could the two of you work together if you couldn't even get along and all he seemed to do was insult you?

"You are letting your emotions get in the way of your thinking, much like someone I had known who went by the name Mello. For a short time, Mello also worked on the Kira case... he ended up being killed," Near said so seriously and without emotion. 'How can he not be upset about someone he knows dying?' you thought and slowly sat back down.

"Are you implying that I'm going to get killed Near?" you asked as the boy sat down also. Slowly you flipped the file back open again and you pulled the pictures out. You studied each picture and avoided looking at the albino.

"I didn't say that ____. I am just saying that you should focus more on the case rather than on your emotions," he said. You glanced around to group to see if Halle and the others also agreed with Near, they seemed to agree which angered you. After letting out a long sigh you placed the photos back into the folder.

"I think I will study this at home," you supplied then stood. Near nodded and twirled a strand of his hair with his left hand and picked up on of his robots with the other.

"I see... tomorrow we will visit the crime scene where Joker Jail was killed and possibly also Apple August. You will be working we me and the SPJ on this case and L said to call him on this number," Near replied and pulled out a small folded piece of paper. He handed it over and you bowed slightly.

"Thank you, I'll keep in touch with all of you if I figure anything out. I saw that your numbers are listened in the file," you told them and then rushed out of the coffee shop.You took a deep deep breath of fresh air. Near could be so frustrating and got on your nerves but there is something about him that just keeps you interested. Carefully you tuck away the file Near had given you and then shoved your hands into your pockets before walking. Where you were heading... you weren't sure. Not back to your hotel just yet, maybe you could call Matsuda.. or L. You pulled out the folded piece of paper Near hand handed you and dialed the number before pressing it to your ear. The phone rang once before it was answered.

"I wasn't expecting a call so soon ____," said the synthetic voice that you had become familiar with already. You glanced up at the gray sky and sighed softly.

"I met the members of SPJ... you forgot to mention Near," you told him, giving him a little update on your activities. L was quite for a moment before he answered.

"Is there a problem with Near? He works very hard and is very good at solving cases. He did give the file on the five current murders right?" L asked. You huffed and watched as a white puff formed in the air the floated up towards the sky.

"He did give me the file and I believe that it is just one person committing the murders and there is nothing wrong with Near... he just frustrates me," you informed him. You lowered yourself onto a bench.

"You can't rule out the possibility of there being more than one killer," L told you. You groaned internally.

"That's what Near said... it's a gut feeling L, I just have a strong feeling that it is only one person," you insisted and clutched your cell phone a bit more tightly. Both of you were quiet for what seemed like an eternity.

"Alright ____, I'll keep that in mind. Now what I want you to do is review the information in the file and try to make any connections you can. I'll give Near a new phone number for you to use tomorrow. Only if you have a very important reason to, you can call me again on this number," the synthetic voice said then hung up. Slowly you shut your phone off. 'I will work with Near and we WILL get along... to save people's lives' you thought and glanced back one last time towards the coffee shop.

'People are depending on us.'

( ^ω^ )