“Hai,” she said.
I sat in the chair, turned it from side to side, gripped the wheel. I liked it. “The sea hates a coward, men. Buck up, says I, and haul those sheets taut!” I cranked the wheel. “Man overboard! Three points off the port bow. Heave to, men! Luff the sails! Back the jib!”
Keiko wrinkled her nose. “Do you know what you are saying?”
“Sort of.” From a combination of Sammy’s dad and pirate movies.
“So you are Captain Supensa-san, then?”
“I’m Cap’n Redbeard. And this is my pirate ship, the
Dragon Star.”
She stood up and grabbed my chin. “You have no beard.”
“Only true pirates can see it,” I said. “You must be a
landlubber.”
“What it means, landlerber?” Keiko asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “Can I drive it?”
“It is docked, Pensa.”
“Oh, come on.” I gave her what I hoped was my most charming grin. “Let’s pull up the anchor and hoist the mainsails. Please?”
“Is not sailboat.” Keiko took hold of my face and kissed me, major. I let go of the steering wheel and hugged her closer. But she pulled away. “Come and I will show you downstairs.”
She didn’t have to ask me twice. I mean, yes, the thought of this being a trap flitted in one ear and out the other along with Beth’s warning to stop kissing her and pay attention, but what did Beth know about kissing? She was waiting until she got married. And I could still feel Keiko’s lips on mine. If we were truly alone on this boat, I was sticking with the pretty girl and hoping for the best.
I followed her to the back of the boat and down a ladder. Sammy’s dad’s boat actually had steps, so this one must be older or cheaper or something.
I walked backward down three rungs, then held on to the edge of the hole and leapt the rest of the way. The boat rocked on my landing.
Empty. I released a long sigh. See? Nothing to worry about. Just me and an Asian princess and an empty boat. Maybe I’d finally have me a story worth telling Kip. I was sick of hearing about him and Megan and all the crazy things they’d done.
The main cabin wasn’t all that different from Sammy’s dad’s. A little smaller. Reminded me of a motor home. The ceiling was a bit higher down here. Six-foot-seven at least. There was a bed on the far end, shaped into a point at the bow, following the contours of the boat. There was a kitchen on the left side of the boat, a booth and table on the right. The bathroom door was behind the ladder.
There were two skylights: one over the end of the bed and the other over the floor between the kitchen and the table. The cabin glowed from the skylights and the television sitting over the mini fridge, displaying a fuzzy salt and pepper image. Red letters spelled out MUTE across the bottom of the tiny screen.
Keiko took my hand and drew me forward, toward the bed. The bed! The bed! I bit my lip and trailed after her, keeping my other hand on the ceiling to help my balance as the waves rocked the boat.
Keiko climbed onto the bed, turned, and sat on the edge with her knees to my stomach. I was debating whether to follow her up or wait until she asked me to when something clunked behind me. Keiko’s eyes shifted, focusing on something over my shoulder.
“Privet, Spin-seer.”
Blood drained from my cheeks at the sound of a fake Russian accent I instantly recognized.
Anya.
Mother figs and pus bucket jam.
Keiko squeaked, swung her legs up onto the bed, and scooted back into a pile of pillows. I turned slowly.
Anya stood just outside the door to the shower, Bushi right behind her, his arms folded across his chest. Anya and Bushi? My mind spun, trying to put the pieces together, but nothing fit. Why was Anya with Bushi? Had they known each other before I’d come? Or had Anya known I was coming, made some calls, and found herself some Okinawan henchman in the Abaku-kai?
A bang turned my head back to the bed. Keiko had pushed out the skylight and was climbing though. You go, girl! Did that mean she was innocent or trying to ditch me with her ex?
Once she was out, her head poked back through. “Pensa, come!” she said. “Ikou!”
See? She did care! But there was no way I could fit through that little opening. “Get help!”
“Hai.” Her head disappeared. I heard her footsteps above us and turned back to Anya and Bushi, but neither of them were moving to give chase.
“It will not make a difference, Spencer,” Anya said.
“What do you want?” I asked. “You really have nothing better to do in life than chase me around the world?”
Anya hummed, a delighted sound like she’d just taken a bite of her favorite ice cream. “You are so naive.”
True that. And I still wasn’t positive if Keiko had led me here on purpose or if she was going for help.
Bushi slid into the booth and stretched both arms along the tabletop, drumming it with his hands.
Anya stepped toward me. “One year and look at you! You’ve grown so strong.” She ran her long red fingernail from my shoulder to my elbow. I flinched back, then shoved past her and ran toward the ladder.
I was halfway up when someone seized the waistband of my shorts. Bushi’s arm wrapped around my chest and pulled me down. My back hit the floor before my feet, rocking the boat and sending a pulse of pain through my bruised abs. Bushi sat on my chest and pressed his forearm against my neck, which made it really hard to breathe.
My head was wedged up against the booth’s bench, my feet against the shower door. But my arms and legs were free. Maybe Bushi wasn’t trained in jujitsu after all. I just needed a moment for the pain to fade and to straighten my spine, and I could get myself out of this mess.
“You’ve met Bushi, yes?” Anya said. I couldn’t see her face with the table in the way. “He didn’t like sharing his girlfriend with you, but it was necessary.”
“Ex-girlfriend,” I said, trying to decide what move would be best to get him off me. An elbow escape should do the trick.
Anya cackled and rattled off a command in Japanese. Seriously? The woman spoke Japanese and Russian and English? She crouched under the table, a syringe in her hand. Bushi shifted slightly, drawing his arm back until the side of his hand was against my throat, reminding me that he could karate chop me at any time. His other hand grabbed for my arm, like he was going to hold it down for Anya.
“I don’t think so.” I dug my left elbow under his leg and brought my left knee up to meet it. That freed up my leg enough so that I was able to hook my foot over the top of his leg.
“Hold him still,” Anya said, then repeated herself in Japanese.
Bushi growled and moved his hands to my shoulders, like that was going to do any good. I twisted to the other side, slid back my hips, and hooked his right leg until I had him in my guard, which meant that Bushi was still on top of me but my legs were wrapped around his waist. Not a good place for him to be.
I used my legs to pull him toward me and wrapped his neck in an arm triangle. Bushi grunted, tried to slip out, hammered his free hand against my side, but I had him.
Anya held the needle up to my arm, and I put on the pressure. Bushi grunted again—I was hurting him. I rolled him into Anya’s legs. Didn’t know if she’d stuck him with the needle or not, but they both yelled. Anya tripped over Bushi and fell back. I released Bushi and scrambled up the ladder.
Before my head could pass to the top level, Keiko appeared above and stomped down on my face. Fire exploded against my left ear. I slipped down the rungs and slammed the bottom of my chin on one, biting my tongue. Salty blood filled my mouth.
I looked up the stairs, dazed. What the … ? Well, that answered that question.
My hesitation was more than enough to lose my window of escape. I barely saw Bushi’s hand chop at my temple, then nothing.
REPORT NUMBER: 23
REPORT TITLE: I Get Tortured but Make a Date for the Future
SUBMITTED BY: Age
nt-in-Training Spencer Garmond
LOCATION: Aboard the Dragon Star, Okinawa, Japan
DATE AND TIME: Sunday night, July 12, time unknown
I AWOKE DANGLING FROM THE CEILING. My head and tongue throbbed. I felt like I was going to puke. I’d never been knocked out before, not by someone’s fist, anyway. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling. I squinted up at my hands. A white cotton rope was wrapped around my wrists and tied to the skylight in the kitchen. A black skylight. It was night now? How long had I been out?
My body swung and twisted as the boat rocked over waves. My right hip struck the edge of the table. I looked down. For some reason I wasn’t wearing a shirt. Just my basketball shorts. My ankles were also tied together—my feet dragged on the floor behind me. I’d lost my flip-flops somewhere down here.
I tried to focus on my surroundings, and my eyelids fluttered at the pain in my head. Anya was standing at the counter, looking at the bed and talking to someone in Japanese. I couldn’t understand her. The salt and pepper was still playing on the TV. The round ceiling lights were on too. The microwave clock blinked 00:00.
I planted my feet under me and stood. The movement made my skull scream. My hands touched the skylight. I fiddled with the rope, but the knot was tied above deck. I let my hands fall back until they were resting on top of my head. Where was my cap?
“Spencer, did you have a nice rest?” Anya asked.
I had to blink to focus on her and was glad to see her eyes were normal and not that creepy inky black that took over her sometimes. When we’d been in Moscow, Arianna had thought Anya was possessed by a demon. I used to think that was nuts. I wasn’t so sure anymore.
Anya was wearing a white tank top and white slacks. I stared at the tattoo on her bicep, the labyrinth maze in red ink. A shiver flooded through me, knowing all it represented: A journey to power. Connection to the source.
I remembered Dmitri Berkovich and his offer to shoot me up with Bratva’s “connection.” I glanced at my arm, looking for signs that they’d injected me. I didn’t see any. Perhaps Keiko’s kick to the face and Bushi’s karate chop had accomplished their objective.
Keiko.
I looked behind me and saw Keiko and Mary Stopplecamp sitting in the booth. Mary’s hands were bound, and her eyes were all red and watery like she’d been crying.
What? How had she gotten here? Oh, my dream. Oh, no. It had never been a restaurant booth in my dream—it had been a boat. This boat. And I’d gotten on it on purpose!
“Mair, why? How did you get here?”
A tear slid down her cheek. “I’m sorry, Spencer. I was trying to help.”
I was a baka. I was the biggest baka there ever was. I was Ryan Matheson. I was every guy who died in a horror movie because he went off with the pretty girl, hoping to get lucky. I hated Keiko, but mostly, I hated myself. “Hey, don’t cry. It’ll be okay.” I held eye contact until she gave me a smile, then I turned back to Anya, who was now holding a military boot knife. Aw, great. I hoped that Mr. Sloan was on the way and Jun was sending reinforcements, because this was not good. “Let her go, she’s just a kid.”
Anya clicked her tongue. “Aren’t you both just kids?”
“Come on! You don’t want her.”
“She’s obviously very fond of you to try to rescue you from us. Brave too.”
The horror of this situation hurt my brain. I was desperate to get Mary out of this. “Let her go. Please? I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Just seeing how much you want this delights me,” Anya said, smiling wide. “I think she will help us get information from you. Yes. I think she will be very helpful.”
As my vision played out word for word, anger and hopelessness clashed inside me. I sat back on the table and kicked my feet at Anya, but my legs let me down by getting nowhere near her face. She was too far away.
Someone on my left giggled. Up in the very back corner of the bed, Keiko was nestled against Bushi, his arm around her. What? No, she was at the table beside Mary. I turned back to the table. Neither girl had on the pink tank top Keiko had been wearing at the castle. In fact, they were both wearing all black. Long sleeved shirts and pants. One of them was Kozue, obviously, but which? Both of them had a mole on her cheek. How did that happen?
Think, you moron.
My gaze fell to the silver chain Jun had given Kozue around the neck of the girl at the table. I whipped back to where Keiko sat with Bushi and spotted a smudge of red Shuri Castle stamp ink still on her nose.
“I love watching his eyes as he pieces the whole thing together,” Anya said, her face lit up with a devious smile. “Are you there yet, darling? Have you got it all now? I think he’s close, girls. His face is quite red. That’s right, Spencer. Bushi. The girls. They work for me. Don’t be upset. It was nothing personal. I’m sure the girls had a lovely time toying with you.”
Bushi uttered a slur of angry Japanese. Keiko stopped his words with a kiss. I looked at the floor, sick. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I’d walked right into Anya’s trap, knowing it was very likely a trap, and I’d brought Mr. S’s daughter with
me. It couldn’t get any worse.
But then Anya tapped the knife on the kitchen counter, reminding me that things could get far worse. “It’s time to tell me what I want to know, Spencer.”
I didn’t like the looks of that knife and my lack of shirt. I spotted my shirt in a heap on the floor with my Lakers cap and flip-flops. Why remove my shirt? “I don’t have a clue what you want from me.”
“Come now, Spencer, let’s not play games.”
“I’m not the one playing games. Why don’t you ask Keiko and Kozue? They’re the experts at games.”
“Aww. Bitterness is not attractive, you know. Now tell me, who is the first twin?”
My eyebrows scrunched together. The first? “Uh, Jun said Kozue was born first, but they’re both liars, so who really knows?”
“Not them!” Anya stepped back and sighed. “Let’s start at the beginning. Who is heading the profile match case?”
“I don’t know. No one tells me squat.” And even if they did, I wasn’t about to tell Anya.
“Are you the match?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.” Which was true: I didn’t.
Could it be me?
“Keiko said you have a journal for your prophecies. Where is it?”
“I haven’t seen it since your people searched Jun’s house.” Which was true. And I was proud at how I’d deflected that question.
“Do you know the story of the profile match?” Anya asked. “Do you know the prophecy?”
“A little.” A very little. The ropes around my ankles pinched at my circulation—my arms had begun to tingle. I leaned back and tried to straighten my arms, but there wasn’t enough room.
“What if I told you the prophecy says that the profile match will betray the Mission League?”
“Yeah, right.” My dad had done that, and I wasn’t about to follow in his footsteps. But I didn’t know if I was the profile match, either, so …
“It’s what your father tried to do. He thought if he could live out the qualifications in the prophecy, it would prove that he was the match.”
“You’re lying.” But that did kind of make sense. Maybe my dad hadn’t been a devious traitor. Maybe he had been trying to do the right thing and it backfired. If so, I’d certainly inherited that trait from him.
“You believe what they told you about your parents?” Anya said. “You also believed that Keiko liked you. Haven’t you learned that you can’t trust people?”
Okay, that ticked me off. “You don’t know I’m the match, so why do you keep chasing me everywhere?”
“You’re him.” She waved the knife in front of me.
The blade was like a magnet to my eyes—I couldn’t break my gaze from it. “What’s the knife for, anyway?” I didn’t want to get hurt again. I didn’t want Mary to get hurt. Please, God, help us.
“One of the
prophecies states that the profile match will bear the mark of his faith. But there are no marks on you, except those that Bushi left. Lovely bruises, by the way.” She cocked one eyebrow. “We looked for the other mark while you were … sleeping.”
That’s why they’d taken off my shirt? “You’re all freaks, you know that? Psychotic—”
Anya brought the blade up to my chest, which shut me up. “What if I marked you with a pentagram?” She circled the knife in the air, drawing the shape. “Or the Bratva labyrinth?” She turned so I could see her tattoo. “What would that say to your agent friends? That I declare you not to be the match?” She reached up and yanked off my cross necklace, snapping the chain. She dangled it in front of my face. “You’ve made your choice.”
The mere sight of the necklace thrilled me. Mr. Sloan could find me. Help was coming.
Anya tossed the chain on the floor. “The cross is the mark of your faith. So, if I give you that mark, I force you to fulfill the prophecy. And since I’ve caught you, I also subvert the outcome of the prophecy long before it can take place.”
She was crazy, that much was certain. “What’s supposed to happen that’s so—”
“That’s a ridiculous idea,” Mary said. “Real prophecies can’t be forced.”
Anya brought the knife to my chest and scratched it lightly back and forth. I sat back on the table again and curled my spine, every muscle tense, waiting for the pain. But it didn’t come.
I looked into Anya’s eyes. Inky black darkness flooded her pupils. I whimpered. Oh, Lord, help me. I needed a verse. One of those spiritual warfare ones Mr. S had taught us. Something about putting on armor or a belt. “The fight isn’t against flesh and blood but …” Aww, nuts. “Stand firm with the belt of truth buckled and … um … keep your feet on a firm foundation of …” Seriously, I had the worst memory on the planet.
“‘Truly I tell you,’” Mary yelled, “‘that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.’”
Oh, nice one. “Good girl, Mary,” I said. “Say another one.”
Project Gemini (Mission 2 Page 22