Billy was a good challenge for her. He held his knife blade pointing down towards his elbow. That way he could use punch techniques with the knife in his hand. It was a good technique, though it allows more blocks, especially inside blocks. Emily blocked him several times in a row from the inside, each time spinning inside his attack, grabbing his right wrist below the knife, twisting his arm up and around, taking the knife from his helpless hand. Sometimes she forced him to stab himself in the ass. It was all very humiliating.
The next time he switched to a forward grip with the blade protruding from his thumb and forefinger. This was better for stabbing motions, but it was also hard to block because the attacker’s hand was free to slash through an inside block. But it was vulnerable to a down block or grab. The first time Billy lunged, she slid back into a crane position, then slid forward as she grabbed his wrist with both hands from above and yanked his arm upwards. He winced from the pressure on his wrist and dropped the knife. It was an awkward position for him. If she had pulled as sharply as she easily could have, she would have broken his wrist.
He tried one last time to get past her defenses. He knelt down to retrieve his knife. Then suddenly he lunged upwards from below, no doubt hoping to catch her by surprise. But Emily was ready for him. Her mind flashed to the scene in the basement tunnel, her father’s left arm swinging in a lazy circle around the lunging blade. Her arms were already moving like her dad’s. Billy seemed transfixed by the movement and stood motionless as she grabbed his wrist from below, twisted it in towards his body and then sharply upwards. Billy gave out a little yelp, half of pain and half of surprise, as he felt his arm pulling his entire body into a flip. He could have resisted, but that would have been much more painful, so he let his body go with it. Emily realized halfway through the maneuver that if she held onto his wrist all the way through she would surely dislocate his shoulder. She let go, and he went sailing across the room. Fortunately he landed on some mats stacked in the corner and avoided serious injury.
Emily shrieked “omagod!” and ran over to help him. “Billy, I’m so sorry! I had no idea.... Are you okay?”
“That was amazing! How on earth did you do that,” Billy gushed.
“No. It wasn’t,” Emily insisted. “You could have been seriously hurt. I’m really sorry.”
“I’m fine, Em. Don’t sweat it.”
Actually, Billy was more than fine. He was ecstatic. Emily was apologizing to him! She thought she had made a mistake. She never did that. She must have been distracted. “I wonder if she likes me,” he mused.
Almost everyone else in the dojo was entertaining an analogous train of thought. Most of them would gladly have changed places with Billy. They all knew Emily cared about them. She was kind. She taught them stuff. But her general demeanor was cool impassivity. She didn’t make mistakes, and she never needed to apologize to anyone. Yet here she was running across the room to help Billy up, dusting him off, apologizing to him, really caring about him. This was a new experience for all of them.
Sensei’s thoughts were running in an entirely different direction. He recognized that technique. He had never taught it to her. It was a very aggressive move, almost cruel. Had she not released Billy’s wrist at just the right moment, he would have been lucky to get away with only a dislocated shoulder. Her instincts were superb, and her reaction time was astounding. Billy was very fortunate, even if he didn’t realize it.
Where had she learned to do that? Sensei knew her father was trained in those sorts of techniques. But would he teach that to her? Or had she developed it on her own? That was certainly not beyond her abilities, which were formidable. But he had not expected her to be exploring such dark arts. He began to wonder what else could be going on in her life. And how did it fit in with the obvious changes in her social demeanor?
Emily was deeply confused by what had just happened. She was shocked by what she had almost done to Billy. She had never practiced that move. She had only just seen it for the first time a few days ago. When her father did it, he didn’t hold back at all. He meant to kill his attacker. She had no such intention for Billy. They were just practicing, almost playing. She was fascinated by what her father had done, not by the violence of it she thought, but by the serenity of it. The man in the tunnel was distracted by the lazy movement of her father’s arm. The same thing had happened to Billy. She waved her hand in front of his eyes and he froze. The move came out of her spontaneously. She hadn’t planned it, or even thought about it at all. She wanted to think it had stuck in her mind because of its graceful curves. But she was bothered by the thought that she was drawn to it because of its extreme violence. She found it all very unsettling. She breathed a sigh of relief when Sensei announced that class was over for the evening.
After she changed back into Andie’s clothes, Emily waited outside by the truck for Danny. Sensei walked out to her and asked her some vague question about “things.” He clearly didn’t know how to ask what he really wanted to know: was everything okay with her and her family? That he feared something had gone wrong was easy for her to see. She didn’t answer him right away. She had no idea how to begin an answer, so she kept him at a polite distance. “I can’t really talk about it right now," she said. “But I’m fine. Please don’t worry about me.”
“Where did that last move come from?” he pressed. She hardly knew what to say. She didn’t dare lie to him about this.
“I think it came as if out of a dream. I don’t understand it any better than that.”
In a way what she said was the truth. But it was also designed to conceal as much as possible about her current circumstances from Sensei. He would find out soon enough that things had changed at the estate. Then he would have to ask even more personal questions. Her father was his old friend. He would not be able to let the matter drop. The whole town would eventually find out what had happened. There would be questions, an investigation, perhaps even suspicions about her own role in those events. She hadn’t committed any crime, she’d done nothing wrong. Still she began to see it was not going to be so simple to step back into her previous life. In order to make the transition from Emily to Michiko, on which her entire future safety depended, she needed precisely not to become the center of attention of the whole town. If everyone in Bath County knew she was both people, she would never be free of the people who had killed her father.
This was definitely not the moment to explain everything to Sensei. But she would not be able to put off that moment for long. She needed time to think through what she could tell people, whom to trust, and how far to trust them.
“Sensei, I need time to think. It’s all very confusing to me right now. I’ll tell you all about everything in a few days. Okay?”
He nodded and gave her a half smile. Danny came out of the dojo and together they went to see his mom about an apartment.
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Chapter 9: Yet Another Garage
Emily and Danny’s mother, Laura Rincon, spoke for about half an hour, once they had shooed Danny out of the apartment. It was just a big room with a bathroom and walk-in closet on one end, and a tiny kitchen and dining table on the other. Two large windows faced out over the driveway toward the street, and a smaller window on the opposite wall looked out over the neighbor’s backyard. The kitchenette was in the corner next to the back window, just inside the door. A twin bed stood out from one side wall, next to the bathroom door. A long, old couch and lamp stretched under the front windows. The staircase led up the right side of the garage and was visible from the house through the kitchen windows. The landing at the top was large enough for a couple of lawn chairs. The studio was small, but clean. It suited her.
“Where exactly are your parents?” Mrs. Rincon asked.
“My dad’s traveling in Asia on business,” she replied.
“I thought your dad was just a chauffeur,” she asked, a little skeptically.
“He is, but he is also sort of a bodyguard. His boss likes to have h
im along on trips like this one.” That was true enough. Emily was wary of saying too much, of getting caught in a lie. Especially in front of people she was hoping to live with.
“What about your mom?" Mrs. Rincon pressed on.
“I don’t know where my mom is. I’ve never met her,” she said defensively, hoping to play on her sympathies to get her to back off. Also, it wasn’t exactly a lie. She had never met the woman whom she had supposed was her mother until the last few days. But she also had to worry about being consistent in what she told everyone around town. She needed to fit in among these people, not just for a few days or weeks, but for as long as a year. She needed to be able to have come from this town in order to be able to go anywhere else as anything but a fugitive. In Danny’s case, the problem was perhaps more acute. He was her friend, and becoming more important to her every day. When the truth about her father’s death came out, she did not want to be thought to have lied about it. But the lie about her mother was safe. No one in this town need ever find out Yuki was her mom. If everything went as Emily hoped, no one in the world would ever connect Michiko Tenno to Yukiko Kagami.
“Oh! I’m sorry honey. I didn’t realize,” Mrs. Rincon said, clearly embarrassed for having intruded into this girl’s private pain.
“It’s okay, Mrs. Rincon. I’m used to it.” Mrs. Rincon sighed. She would not be able to press her any further now.
“And you’re eighteen?”
“Yes,” she lied, innocently, but with the documents to back her up.
“And you want the place through May?”
“Yes, though I might want to stay through the end of the summer, if that’s okay with you.” Mrs. Rincon hesitated for a moment, but then relented.
“We don’t really need a lease, I guess, for a month to month arrangement. Are you sure you can really afford the rent?” Mrs. Rincon’s jaw dropped when Emily counted out twenty three hundred dollar bills and said: “That should cover everything through the end of May.”
“I guess I owe you fifty bucks then. I’ll get it to you tomorrow, if that’s okay.” Laura handed her the key, looked at her for a moment, and then turned to go. She stopped at the door and turned again to say: “Why don’t you come over for breakfast in the morning before school.”
The next day after school Emily went to the DMV and took a driver’s license test as Michiko Tenno. She passed the written test and had an appointment for the road test Friday afternoon. After she passed the road test, she sold the truck registered to George Kane to Emily Hsiao. She was creating a past for her new identity in Bath County, Virginia. Later she would convert the paperwork on the dirt bike to a similar name. It wasn’t safe yet, she judged, to attach her real name to any of these vehicles. Eventually, she would have to transfer the title to all of her school records to Michiko Tenno. This was a subject her mind returned to frequently. She didn’t know quite how she was going to do it, but she was pretty sure she needed to wait until just before or just after graduation. She didn’t want anyone at Bath County High School to remember her as the girl who changed names in her senior year.
On Saturday, she went to the dojo early to talk to Sensei. She didn’t know exactly what she would say to him. She hoped it would come to her when she looked him in the eye. He was the only person there when she got there. Students wouldn’t begin to arrive for another twenty minutes or so. She went into the office.
“Emily, it’s good to see you, as always.”
“Hi, Sensei,” she said tentatively, almost sheepishly. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, looked him in the eye and went on. “There’s so much I have to tell you. Everything is different now. I don’t know where to begin.” Her voice was trembling.
“Emily, what’s wrong? What is it?”
“My dad is dead.” There, she said it. Someone else who knew him had heard it. It was now a fact in the world. She started weeping, slowly, sobbing deeply. It was now an inescapable fact for her as well. Up to this moment, she had been able to avoid confronting the reality of it. It had been obscured in her consciousness by the blinding awareness that Yuki was her real mom, that she had not been abandoned by her mother. But now the full weight of the event came crashing down on her. She began to feel ill, as if she would throw up. She staggered over to the wall, put her back against it and let herself slide to the floor.
Sensei was speechless for a long moment. George was a friend. Emily felt almost like a daughter to him. He knelt beside her and tried to offer some comfort.
“Oh, Emily! How? When?” He stopped talking and just sat next to her. He had no comforting words. Just mute sympathy. They remained in that posture for several minutes. It could have been days, or weeks. Students started arriving for class. Sensei peered around the office door. “I’m gonna have to go out there in a moment. Are you gonna be alright in here?”
“No. I’ve gotta go do something. Meet me here late, say one o’clock, I’ll show you what happened.”
He was intrigued. There was no way he wouldn’t meet her. Though he hardly knew what to expect. He went out into the dojo. Emily slipped out the front. No one noticed her except Wayne.
Emily got in the truck and drove about thirty minutes east to the town of Goshen, to the Goshen Public Library. Her father had given her a thumb drive with a program on it that would allow her to make encrypted web phone calls from a public terminal. He warned her to be careful about using any terminal that might be traceable to her, and not to use any location more than once. He was not absolutely confident about the encryption program, and worried it might be possible to trace an origin from it. She was pretty sure Mr. Cardano and her mom would be in New Mexico by now, if they had made it there at all. She had fought every impulse to call her before now, not wanting to make them break cover before they had gotten dug in, so to speak. But the conversation with Sensei showed her exactly how much she needed to hear her mom’s voice.
The library’s terminals were in a room at the far end of the first floor. As luck would have it, the room was empty. With a little fiddling, she managed to launch the program and selected the first number it offered her. It connected her, through a very circuitous series of digital diversions, to a disposable phone in Michael Cardano’s pocket. After three rings, she heard his voice.
“George?”
“No, it’s me, Emily. I need to talk to Yuki,” she replied nervously.
Michael was caught by surprise. He hadn’t expected that George would let her use the thumb drive. His mind raced through possible explanations. None of them was not connected to some sort of catastrophe. Wordlessly, he handed the phone to Yuki.
“George?” she asked uncertainly.
“No, Mom, it’s me. Dad is dead.” She blurted it out as if it were a hot coal in her mouth. Tears ran down her face.
On the other end of the line Yuki felt a cold hand grab her heart, squeezing the life out of it. She saw the room begin to go dark as if she were traveling backward through a long tunnel, watching the light at the other end grow smaller. But then the first words Emily had said registered. Her daughter needed her to be strong. She could be in danger. She had called her “Mom” for the first time in her life.
“Chi-chan, are you safe?! Where are you?”
On her end, Emily felt a warm feeling rush over her. Her mother had used the pet name her father used for her. No one else ever called her that. But, of course her real mother would know it too. She wondered how much self restraint it required to keep from using it for all those years.
“Mom, I’m safe. Dad was wounded as we were leaving the estate. He died outside of Pittsburgh. Is it okay to say where I am on this connection?”
Yuki turned to Michael and asked. “As long as she’s calling from a public terminal, yes,” Emily heard him say in the background.
“I’m in Virginia. I’ve gone back to school.”
Yuki was flabbergasted. What could she be thinking? “No, No, No! You have to come out here right away. You’re not safe there. They’ll f
ind you! It’s too risky.” With that she started sobbing openly. Emily heard it.
“I’m sorry, Mom. But this is the only way. I can’t run from those men for the rest of my life, always hiding, always pretending. I have to make a life for myself that isn’t built on a lie. I can only do that here.” She knew she was right, but she also knew her mother would never accept it. She heard Michael tell her mother she had to end the call in one minute. The pain was like nothing either of them had ever known before, to hear each other’s voices, to have so much to tell each other, and to have so little time together.
No, Honey. Please no. I can’t afford to lose both of you. It’s too much,” Yuki sobbed out loud.
“Don’t worry, Mom. I’m taking precautions, being real careful, the way Dad taught me,” she said, trying to be reassuring. Yuki sighed audibly on the other end. “And Dad gave me all the papers, the passports, the money. I’ve got a new place to stay, in town. And, Mom, I’ve got friends!” She almost giggled as she said that last bit.
Yuki was dumbstruck. She knew how much that meant. She remembered how many times she and George had lacerated themselves over the thought that they were cheating her out of a normal childhood. And now, here was her daughter, encircled by unseen enemies, gushing over her new friends.
Yuki might have been surprised to learn how quickly Emily found friends. But she knew how hungry for companionship her daughter was. It was gratifying to hear that other kids could open up to her after all these years. Perhaps they had been fascinated by her all this time.
“I’ve got one question, Mom. I need to know if I can trust Sensei.”
Again, Yuki was dumbstruck. She had always disapproved of Sensei as an influence on a young girl. It was good to discover that Emily could even ask a question like this. She hated to admit it, but she had no reason to doubt him. He had been George’s friend for as long as she had known the two of them. She turned to Michael and asked him what he thought. He didn’t think he could have betrayed them. Yuki took a breath and said “Yes, you can trust him. But don’t tell him more than you have to.” Emily breathed a sigh of relief.
Girl Fights Back (Go No Sen) (Emily Kane Adventures) Page 8