Jin held out his hand, and Marcus took it.
“Marcus Williams,” he said warily.
“Hi,” Jin smiled.
“Hi.”
A somewhat tense silence ensued, with Marcus, Leah, and Will all put somewhat on edge by Jin’s brightness.
“Well,” Marcus said, looking at the three of them. “If none of you have any further business here, I need to prepare for my next class.”
Jin fought to stifle a short laugh. Marcus caught it, and looked at him severely.
“You got a problem?” he asked, glaring.
“No, no, sir, not at all,” Jin said, still fighting a smile and losing. “It’s just that…you saying you need to prepare. When’s your next class, twenty years?”
Marcus’ eyes flashed dangerously and Jin grinned, eyes shining in challenge.
“Excuse me?” Marcus growled.
“Well,” Jin said, voice still bright and polite. “Just based on what I’ve seen from William here, and what I saw you teaching the rest of your class, you’d need about twenty years to fix all the flaws in your technique.”
“Oh yeah, well how much surgery would you need to reattach your head after I rip it off?”
Jin chuckled; Marcus obviously possessed a Napoleon complex to go along with his short stature. When Jin next spoke, eyes still shining, his voice contained a razor’s edge of challenge.
“I would love to see you try.”
Marcus took a very forced deep breath and gestured to the center of the dojo. Jin bowed, still grinning, and started to walk toward it.
“Jin wait!” Leah said, grabbing his shoulder.
“What is it?” he asked.
“You’re in no shape to do this. Your arm needs at least three weeks before you’ll be able to use it again!”
“Who said I needed to use it?”
The playfulness in Jin’s words astounded Leah. She didn’t know what to make of it. She involuntarily released Jin’s shoulder, and Jin walked out to the floor to meet Marcus.
Jin took off his boots and set them aside. No need to hurt Marcus more than he was already going to. He bowed then to Marcus, and Marcus merely glared. Taking a moment to loosen himself up, Jin bounced a little on the balls of his feet before sliding down into a subtle, but near flawless, neutral stance. If he’d had the use of his left arm, it would have been perfect. As he did so, Marcus settled into a rough, flawed offensive stance.
They began to circle each other, Marcus looking cold and murderous, while Jin’s eyes still shined with the thrill of the challenge, his boyish grin never leaving his face. He looked up to Leah, faking a hint of distraction to draw Marcus’ attack, and Marcus took the bait.
The game was on.
It was time to play.
Back by the benches, Leah and Will watched the fight with great interest, though for dramatically different reasons.
As Will watched Jin go toe-to-toe with his instructor, he couldn’t tell if Marcus was that bad, or if Jin was just that good. Marcus looked like a drunken fool, stumbling around Jin with his wide steps and lurching blows. Jin, meanwhile, moved with such fluidity and control that Will couldn’t look away. He effortlessly wove his way between Marcus’ attacks, but blocked a few with such solid finality that Will came under the distinct impression that Jin was holding way back.
I wonder what he could do if he could use his left arm too, Will thought.
At the same time, Leah was so enthralled by Jin’s movements and demeanor that a small something inside her chest tugged painfully at her heart. There was something so pure about the way he moved – it was the most beautiful thing Leah had ever seen. And what sealed that for her was the look on Jin’s face. That boyish grin he kept flashing was fully in place, and it was echoed in his eyes, which shone with pure, unadulterated joy. He was like a young kitten playing with a mouse he had caught. Only in this case, the mouse didn’t want to be played with. That didn’t matter to Jin though. In fact, the more the mouse didn’t want to be played with, the more fun Jin had playing with it! He was pure, more pure than anyone Leah had ever met. The joy she saw in him wasn’t just the joy of playing, or of having fun. It wasn’t even the joy of having your life’s dream come true. It was the joy of life, the simple joy of being alive.
There was no other place in the world that Jin would want to be, and Leah could see that. And if Leah’s life had taught her anything, it was that the moment was all that mattered. If you didn’t live in the moment, you didn’t live at all. As Leah watched Jin continue to toy with Marcus, she had a feeling that Jin understood that too.
Roaring with fury, Marcus lashed out with a vicious kick to Jin’s head, and Jin decided that, despite the fun he was having, it was time to stop playing. When Marcus went high with his next punch, Jin slid lithely underneath it and drove his right fist into Marcus’ gut. The tremendous force of the blow shot straight through Marcus, driving the breath from his lungs. He gave a hoarse, strangled gasp, and then Jin reared up and smashed his right forearm down across the back of Marcus’ head.
Marcus hit the floor face first and did not get back up. Jin waited for a moment, and when Marcus gave a weak, but audible groan, Jin walked back to Leah and Will.
“Told you I only needed one arm,” he said to Leah, smiling.
“I’ll say,” she said, stunned.
“Where did you learn to fight like that?” Will asked, the awe evident in his voice.
“Not here,” Jin replied vaguely, still with a smile.
Will looked up at Jin, again with suspicious curiosity.
“What do you do for a living?” he asked.
“I’m in public relations,” Jin replied. “The martial arts is just a hobby.”
“A hobby?” Will asked incredulously, looking back at Marcus’ crumpled form and then back to Jin.
“Yeah.”
“Right,” Will said skeptically.
Jin smiled again, and then Leah spoke up.
“So, Jin, where you headed?”
“Back to my hotel, I suppose,” he answered. “I’ve got some stuff I need to pick up before I head home.”
“Home?” Leah asked, the slight sadness in her voice drawing a sharp look from her son.
“Yeah, I was just down here on business,” Jin explained. “I actually live back up in Maine, in this small town called Pine Lake. I like it there. It’s quiet. Peaceful.”
“Sounds nice,” Leah said. “This city is always so noisy.”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind showing you around there sometime.”
The instant those words left Jin’s mouth, he desperately wished he could have taken them back. He didn’t even know where they’d come from! The shock on Leah’s face was one thing, an expected thing, but what really disconcerted Jin was the look of pure venom and hatred that Will suddenly shot him with. It was completely unexpected, and the power behind it made Jin suddenly wonder what had gone on in Will’s past. Leah’s too for that matter, as when she saw the look that Will was giving Jin, her expression became one of guilt.
And fear.
“Anyway,” he said, changing the subject as swiftly as possible. “Let’s get out of here.”
Jin then led Leah and Will out of Marcus’ dojo, and Leah continued the change of topic.
“You want a ride back to your hotel?” she asked.
“You sure?” Jin asked. “It’s not horribly far from here.”
“Maybe so,” Leah countered. “But you don’t know this city like we do. You’d get yourself hopelessly lost.”
“You’re not letting me get out of this, are you?” Jin asked, a wry smile tugging at his lips.
“Nope. Not a chance.”
Leah smiled and Jin shrugged.
“Alright,” he sighed. “I’m staying at the Doubletree Hotel, about a mile from where you live.”
“Then that’s where we’re headed.”
Jin shot a furtive look at Will, but the teenage boy’s mood had gone back to one of sullen disinterest
. Shrugging it off, Jin turned to Leah, who nodded, and the three of them walked out of the dojo.
--<(0)>--
Thanks to New York City’s legendary traffic, the drive back to Jin’s hotel had taken far longer that Jin had expected, or wanted. Sitting next to Leah as she drove, Jin could feel that same strange pull toward her, and it only got stronger the longer he sat there. It set him on edge because he knew that he couldn’t follow it up, much as he wanted to. His breath became shallow, and while on the outside he seemed perfectly calm, his conscious mind was warring against his subconscious.
Finally, after what seemed like years, Leah pulled into the parking lot of Jin’s hotel.
“Well,” Leah announced. “Here we are.”
“Mm-hmm,” Jin nodded, looking over to the hotel’s front doors.
What he saw made his heart skip a beat.
Victor Malakai, flanked by two of his men, was walking out of the front doors towards a large, black H2 Hummer parked about fifty feet from the door. Instinctively, Jin crouched as low as he could to avoid being seen. Leah looked at him, perplexed by her passenger’s behavior.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Jin didn’t answer, and only when Victor and his men entered the truck and drove away did Jin sit back up, his expression now hard and cold.
“Find a place to park,” he said firmly.
With a worried expression now on her face, Leah did so, parking her car in a spot by the entrance. As she did so, Jin looked back out the rear window to make sure that Victor’s truck was gone. Seeing that it was, he turned to Leah.
“I don’t care what you see, hear, or think,” he said coldly. “Stay here and wait for me.”
Frightened by Jin’s tone, Leah could only nod as he swiftly stepped out of the car and jogged up to the hotel. As he did so, Jin couldn’t quite shake the slight feeling of vulnerability that crept into his system. With his coat and sword still hanging over one of the chairs in Leah’s apartment, not to mention his broken arm, Jin felt horribly naked. If he were suddenly attacked by Victor and his men, he would be at a possibly overwhelming disadvantage.
Passing through the front doors, Jin shoved those thoughts from his mind and focused solely on the elevators at the rear of the lobby. If he were attacked, he would simply fight as hard and as savagely as he had to in order to break free. When Jin reached the elevators and pressed the call button, one of the elevator doors slid open almost immediately. Stepping swiftly inside, he pressed the button for the twelfth floor, followed the button to close the doors, earning a rude hand gesture from the man who was about to join him.
As the elevator rose to the right floor, Jin tapped his foot anxiously, lost in thought. On the one hand, it was probably a good thing that he had spent the morning with Leah and her son. If he hadn’t, he would have been sitting in his room nursing a broken arm at the exact moment Victor had arrived. Yet on the other hand, by associating with Leah at all, he had inadvertently marked both her and her son for death. Dorigan would have them killed merely on the chance that it would cause Jin pain.
The elevator bell chimed, the doors slid apart, and Jin bolted through them as soon as he had room. He dashed down the hall as fast as he could until he came to his room. He reached into his pocket for the key, but then remembered that he’d left the key in his coat pocket and that his coat was still at Leah’s apartment! Growling in frustration, Jin kicked in the door and walked inside. He found his duffle bag full of ammunition on the table where he’d left it, and finding that its contents had not been disturbed he zipped the bag shut, slung it over his shoulder and left the room.
The elevator was much slower arriving than it had been the first time, and Jin’s anxiety doubled. On some level, he couldn’t understand why he was so agitated. It wasn’t because of his arm, he knew that much. Just like he’d told Leah, he’d suffered, and fought with, much worse. Then there was Leah herself and her son. Yet even then, Jin couldn’t understand why or how they contributed to his agitation. What did they truly matter to him anyway? He had never seen them before, and would most likely never see them again. So knowing that, why was he so manically driven to protect them? The elevator bell chimed again, and Jin rushed inside, furiously tapping the button for the lobby.
The whys didn’t matter anymore, Jin decided, all that mattered was that he had to protect Leah and Will no matter the cost.
I won’t let another innocent family be destroyed because of me, Jin thought firmly.
The elevator doors opened into the lobby, and Jin walked through them, roughly pushing past the crowd of people who’d gathered before it. He walked briskly through the rest of the lobby and back out into the parking lot. He walked up to Leah’s car, and rather than getting back in the passenger seat, he jerked open the driver’s side door.
“Come on,” Jin said in clear, clipped words. “Get out, we need to go.”
“Jin, what’s…?” Leah tried to ask.
“No time, come on. You too, William.”
Will looked affronted at Jin’s use of his full name, but Jin just ignored it. Instead, he leaned over Leah and unbuckled her seat belt before grabbing her arm and pulling her from the car.
“Jin!” she cried, stunned by his behavior.
“I don’t have time to explain things, Leah!” he barked. “We have to go!”
Jin nevertheless released her arm and began to walk swiftly to his own car, with Leah following him.
Shocked by the sudden turn of events, Will too got out of the car and followed Jin.
“Hey!” he called out. “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I don’t have time to explain it to you, William, just come with me!”
“No!” Will said defiantly. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on, and neither is my mother!”
Jin’s eyes blazed with sudden fury, and he walked right up to Will, staring down into the boy’s defiant eyes.
“William Lawson,” he growled threateningly. “Do not challenge me. You are coming with me, and either you’ll do so of your own free will, or I will knock you unconscious and carry you!”
The furious power behind Jin’s words disarmed Will’s angry defiance, and Jin walked back towards his car without waiting for a reply. Leah followed him, and so did Will. Even though he didn’t want to, Will was compelled to do so by a pull and desire he did not understand. With his mother in the passenger seat, Will slid in the back behind her, next to Jin’s black duffle bag. With everyone inside, Jin looked back to make sure they were all buckled in. Finding that they were, he pulled out of the parking lot and drove as fast as he could back to their apartment.
Yet what Jin didn’t know, and hadn’t seen, was the third man that had come with Victor to the hotel. When Victor and the other two men had left, this third man had stayed behind. He’d seen Jin leave, and as he walked out into the parking lot, the third man called his teammates waiting outside in a van, and as Jin’s black Mustang pulled into traffic, the van followed at a discreet distance.
--<(0)>--
Though Leah hammered him with questions, Jin remained silent and focused through the entire drive back to the apartment. Once they arrived, Jin got out of the car and walked over to the passenger side.
“Come on, up to your apartment, now!”
Leah looked as if she wished to protest, but she didn’t, and instead got out of the car with Will following her. Wordlessly, Jin led them into the building and up to their apartment.
“You have five minutes. Get anything you want or think you’ll need. After that, we’re gone.”
“What is going on, Jin?” Leah asked desperately.
Jin ignored her and stepped inside the apartment, closing and locking the door as he did so. Finally, he sighed, and turned to face Leah. His shoulders slumped and his emerald eyes lost their shine, lifting the veil of deception to show Leah what he truly was, and what he’d been through.
“I lied to you, Leah, I’m not i
n public relations,” he said, garnering curious stares from both Leah and her son.
“Then what are you in?” she asked warily.
“I’m an assassin, Leah. I kill people for a living, or at least I did. Five years ago, I made a choice to do something, and the actions I took made me some very powerful enemies. Right now, those enemies are coming for you and your son. They will kill you both for no other reason than they think it will cause me pain.”
“Oh my God,” Leah whispered.
She couldn’t believe it, couldn’t process it, yet something in Jin’s eyes assured her that he was telling the truth.
“I don’t want that to happen,” Jin continued. “And so you need to come with me right now.”
Suddenly, a loud bang shocked the silence, causing Leah and Will to jump halfway out of their skin. Jin whirled to face the door just as another loud bang shook the walls of the apartment.
“Get in your bedroom,” he said, turning back to Leah. “Now!”
Leah nodded frantically and ran into her room, ushering Will in with her. Another bang, she closed and locked the door, and Jin went over to the kitchen table. His coat still hung over the back of one of the chairs, and he reached into it, pulling his sword out just as the door to Leah’s apartment burst inward. Four of Victor’s Grunts moved into the room, and Jin turned to face them, rage and hatred flaring in his eyes.
“Come on!” Jin bellowed, brandishing his sword.
The Grunts hesitated; they hadn’t expected Jin to be there. Yet there he was, and they would have to adapt accordingly.
Not that it would do them any good.
The lead Grunt charged, attacking with a slash meant for Jin’s neck. Jin ducked under this attack and then slashed Lead Grunt across the stomach with his own sword. Jin recovered quickly, then chopped downward at the Grunt to Lead Grunt’s rear. Rear Grunt blocked Jin’s initial attack, but then Jin lashed out with a vicious side kick to Rear Grunt’s gut. Rear Grunt was knocked backward into the third Grunt, who caught him. With that split-second opening, Jin surged forward and plunged his blade through both Rear Grunt and Third Grunt’s torsos. The last Grunt saw an opening of his own and thrust his blade toward Jin’s side. Jin leaned just out of the way, however, and slashed out with his sword again, chopping off Last Grunt’s head.
Chronicles of the Apocalypse: Revenge, Everything is Nothing Page 12