by H. J. Lawson
“They’ve enlightened me about quite a few things that will happen in the future,” Gumi says, “and Vandir has agreed to let me help redesign the future and create a world that is… let’s just say, a little friendlier to me and mine.”
“No, no, no,” Scarlet moans. “You can’t do this.”
“The deal’s already struck, Scarlet,” Hector says.
“No,” she says again, her voice becoming hysterical. “You cannot do this!”
Gumi laughs, and that makes the others laugh.
“Hysterical women,” Hector mutters under his breath, and that makes Clint laugh harder than he had before.
None of them notice how pale Scarlet has become, how frightened her eyes turn as she continues to moan, “No, no, no…”
I notice. But what am I supposed to do about it?
“Let’s get on with it!” Gumi suddenly calls.
His men immediately grab hold of Oshiro and drag him to Gumi, Bruce, Clint, and the others waiting. A couple guys also grab Oshiro’s wife, making her scream. Tora grabs onto her mother’s leg and refuses to let go, causing them to lift her off the ground as well.
Tora begins to scream in this high-pitched wail that drowns out her mother’s soft cry and Oshiro’s voice as he tries to calm the women. One of the men grabs Tora and tosses her away like she’s nothing more than a rag doll. I jump to my feet and catch her just an instant before she slams her head against the concrete.
“Hey!” I yell. “She’s just a kid.”
Gumi glares at me. “She’s not just some kid,” he says, his voice filled with loathing. “Don’t let those beautiful eyes fool you. One day she will lead the underground into a mess we will all regret. Even you, American boy.”
I pull her tighter against my chest, cradling her head against my shoulder as she sobs.
“The future isn’t set. And today she’s just a kid.”
Gumi rolls his eyes and turns away from me.
Two men hold Oshiro’s hands behind his back. He’s whispering to his wife and whatever he’s saying calms her. She stops whimpering, but she cannot seem to stop the tears that roll thickly from her eyes. Her eyes jump from Oshiro to me and Tora, to Gumi and back again, moving all around as though she doesn’t know who is the biggest threat, who’s in the most trouble, or who she can trust. I want to reassure her, but even if she could understand me, I'm not sure words would be enough.
I’m nobody.
I’m just the guy caught in a strange situation and trying to make it out alive. I’m still not even sure this is real, despite the very real pain that shoots through me every time I move my injured arm. The only thing I know is that I have to protect this little girl and time is quickly running out. I don’t even know why.
I pull Tora closer to me, drawing as much support from her as I’m offering. Her tiny body shivers. For a moment, she hides her face against my shoulder. But she wants to see, wants to know what’s going on. I try not to let her turn, but she’s stronger than she looks and, in the end, there’s not much I can do to stop her.
Gumi has moved up in front of Oshiro and is whispering to him. I don’t hear anything at first and, to be honest, it doesn’t look like a hostile confrontation. I glance at Scarlet, who is sitting back on her heels, watching closely. Tension screams throughout her body even though she doesn’t speak, doesn’t move. But the tension is there and I can feel it in my shoulders, too.
Something bad is about to happen.
“You lied,” Gumi suddenly says, loud enough for everyone in the warehouse to hear. “We had a deal. I accepted your word as law. And you lied.”
Oshiro only stares at Gumi as he moves closer to him, standing less than a few inches from Oshiro’s face.
“I tried to be fair with you. I came to you and asked you to keep your people away from the western side of the city and we would stay away from your traditional territory in the east. I could have just moved in on your territory, could have pushed your people out. But I was considerate enough to come to you and ask that we respect each other’s space.”
Again, Oshiro doesn’t respond. He just stares Gumi in the eye as his wife continues to cry behind him.
“When we found half a dozen of your men in our territory, we thought it was a mistake. But when it happened again and again, I knew you were ignoring our deal. And I can’t sit back and allow that to happen. It’s disrespectful.”
“If my men were in your territory, it wasn’t by my orders,” Oshiro says.
Gumi doesn’t react at first. But then he slowly shakes his head.
“You disappoint me, brother,” he says so softly that I almost don’t hear him. “I never expected you to lie to my face.”
I can see that Oshiro is offended by Gumi’s accusation. His face tightens and his jaw looks as though he could chew through metal. But he doesn’t respond.
Tora says something softly in Japanese. Even though I don’t understand her words, I understand the sentiment. I can’t help but think about the night my dad died. I’ve often wondered, if he had known what was coming, what would he have done? What would his last thoughts have been about? Would he have thought about my mom and me?
I don’t know that Oshiro is about to die. But I can feel those same thoughts, that same idea, racing through Tora’s mind. I want to protect her from it. No one should have to live with the unanswered questions I will always live with. And no child should have to witness their parent humiliated. I want to turn her head away again, but she resists my touch on the back of her neck.
“You know what my gang does when someone lies?” Gumi asks Oshiro.
Oshiro stares at him unflinchingly.
“For every lie, the man gives me one finger.”
Even as he says it, I find myself glancing around the room. Sure enough, most of his men are missing one or more fingers. Mostly pinkies. Some middle fingers. But they all still have their index finger. The trigger finger. That’s not really reassuring.
Gumi holds up a knife. “So. Whose finger shall it be? Yours? Your wife’s? That pretty little girl’s finger? She’ll be gone soon enough, so I don’t suppose it would matter if she’s mutilated along the way.”
Oshiro lunges forward at that. Gumi steps back and laughs as his men yank Oshiro back by the wrists they’re still holding behind him. At the same time, Oshiro’s wife begins to sob quite audibly.
“You choose,” Gumi tells Oshiro.
“I will not.”
Gumi’s eyebrows rise. “No? Then I will.”
Gumi begins walking toward me, toward Tora. I tug her closer against me as I slide backward across the floor, scrambling to get to my feet. But before Gumi’s taken more than a few steps, Oshiro calls to him.
“Stop. I will do it!”
Gumi turns. “Yes? Who will it be?”
Oshiro’s eyes slide to Tora and me, his expression softening for a brief second. He mouths something, something in Japanese. Tora begins to cry again, the sobs vibrating her entire body. Again, I don’t know what he said, but I can easily guess. And a part of me wishes that my dad had had that split second to do the same for me. But then again, maybe I don’t.
“Give me the knife,” Oshiro says quite calmly, quite steadily. “It will be me.”
Gumi hesitates only a second. Then he gestures for his men to let Oshiro go. He hands the knife to him and watches with cautious eyes. But there’s nothing he can do. Oshiro is a brilliant fighter and a brave man, but there are too many. He could probably take out the two men beside him, might even be able to make a charge at Gumi. But then he and probably his wife would be gunned down by the half-dozen men standing around with their guns in their hands.
I can see him weighing his options, can see the moment when he comes to the same conclusion I did. A certain kind of resignation comes into his eyes as they move slowly over his wife, then Tora.
Scarlet curses under her breath, her wrists beginning to bleed where she’s been, very subtly, trying to get the ropes off.
Oshiro holds his hand high so that Gumi can see what he’s doing. And then he begins. The first cut severs the flesh, moving through the skin like it’s nothing but melted butter. There is no sound. Oshiro does not so much as grunt. There is pain in his eyes, but he is brave and full of pride. He will not give Gumi the satisfaction of his weakness. When he reaches the bone, the knife struggles. But he manages, bracing his hand against a low table that happens to be standing nearby. In a matter of seconds, the finger is severed and Oshiro stands there with the bloody knife extended to Gumi.
“Now it is your turn,” he says.
Chapter 25
“My turn?” Gumi actually looks surprised. “I am not a liar. I did not go back on an agreement.”
“Oh, but you did lie. You lied when you said you found my men in your territory. And you lied when you said that I went back on our deal.”
Gumi laughs, but there’s something wrong with it. It takes me a second, but I realize the laughter is filled with guilt.
“He did lie!” I yell.
Anger suddenly explodes in my chest. He’s lying and he made Oshiro cut off his finger for nothing! That wasn’t right! Someone should do something… and then I remember that it’s my job to do something. But what can I do? I don’t know how to fight like Scarlet. I don’t have a gun. All I have is my dweeb’s body and some sick skills with video games. But this isn’t a video game. This is way too real.
Gumi jerks the knife out of Oshiro’s hand and throws it to the floor.
“Face it, brother,” he says slowly in a voice that is deep and well controlled, “it’s over for you. You’ve lost control. And your little girl? She’s not going to be your savior. The Sumiyoshi-rengo is dead.”
Gumi gestures to his men and they grab Oshiro, pulling him backward across the warehouse floor. They lift his wife, too. Toward the chains hanging from the ceiling …oh, please! Please tell me they aren’t…
But they are.
They wrap the chains around their wrists and lift them up, hanging them high over the concrete floor. Oshiro’s wife screams, thrashing her body around. Oshiro remains silent and calm. As I watch, horror making me numb, Tora struggles against my chest. She breaks free and screams to her parents, but I manage to grab her and pull her tight against me, her face buried against my chest.
Gumi, fascinated with the scene in front of him, is pulled out of his reverie. He marches over and snatches Tora out of my arms even as I try to hold on. I grab her ankle, but I’m not strong enough. Her shoe pops off, my grip begins to slip, and Gumi lands a sharp kick to my ribs. I fall to the ground, nearly falling into Scarlet’s lap. Gumi walks away with Tora struggling like a small, frightened animal in his arms.
Oshiro begins to scream at Gumi, begging in both English and Japanese for his daughter’s safety. But his screams, underscored by his wife’s similar pleadings, fall on deaf ears.
I wish my ears were clogged. I wish I couldn’t hear their pleas.
And then I see an opportunity. I wasn’t paying attention when Gumi tossed the knife away. But I see it now, see that it’s only a few feet in front of me. I edge forward, cautioning myself not to move so quickly, to be cautious of the many eyes in the room. My fingers itch to feel the handle of that knife, my desperation to do something, anything, suffocating.
I manage to get the knife while everyone else is focused on Oshiro and his wife. I slide up behind Scarlet and carefully saw at the thick edges of the rope holding her wrists behind her back. I’m sawing and sawing. The knife seemed so sharp before, but it’s dulled now.
I hear a scream and look up over Scarlet’s shoulder. Tora has her teeth buried in Gumi’s shoulder. He pulls her away from his body and drops her on the hard concrete floor. I hear the crack of her arm landing awkwardly under her slight body. She screams and then she’s deadly quiet. The quiet frightens me.
“Pick her up,” Gumi orders one of his men, gesturing toward Tora with the hand that isn’t holding a hanky to his shoulder. “She’ll watch her parents die. And then it’s her turn.”
“Vandir wants her alive,” Hector says, speaking for the first time since the chaos began.
“Why? What will he do with her?”
“Where we are taking her no one has ever escaped.” There is deep satisfaction and foreboding in Bruce’s voice. But then his gaze moves across the room to where I am still sawing at the ropes around Scarlet’s wrists. “Well, one escaped.”
Gumi glances at Scarlet. “You can have her, too,” he says. “Tell Vandir she is my gift to him.”
I feel a shiver run through Scarlet. It takes me a second, but I realize she’s scared. I’ve never seen Scarlet scared. Not even when we were fighting Vandir’s men, not when bullets were flying all around us. Not even when she was tied up and dumped in this warehouse. But she’s afraid now.
And then Gumi turns back to Oshiro and his wife.
“I’m sorry to see you go, brother. You were a good rival. But there is to be a new future and I’m to lead it.”
Then he pulls a gun and shoots both Oshiro and his wife in the head as they hang above the warehouse floor. No warning. Nothing. He just shoots them.
Tora screams from the arms of the man holding her. She pushes at his chest, kicks her legs, does everything she can to make him let her go. Tora runs to her parents, falling to the floor in heart-wrenching sobs, followed by the slow patter of blood drops dripping to the concrete.
It breaks my heart.
Chapter 26
Scarlet’s ropes break free.
I run to Tora. She shouldn’t be alone in this moment. She shouldn’t have to see this, shouldn’t feel her parents’ blood dripping down over her like morbid rain. I grab her, pull her tiny body against my chest. She shouldn’t have to do this, just like I shouldn’t have had to go to the hospital and stand beside my father’s lifeless body on that gurney. It wasn’t right. If I could have stopped this…
But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t stop this any more than I could stop all the times Travis beat me up, the times he made fun of me in front of his friends, the times he tortured me just because I was weaker than him. I am weak. I’m a dweeb who does nothing but sit in front of the television, playing video games that are nothing like real life. I was not prepared for this. I should have been, but I wasn’t.
Why was I here if I couldn’t protect Tora?
“Clean this damn mess up!” Gumi yells at his men.
Some of the men leave the room. Others come over to lower Oshiro and his wife back to the floor. I move out of the way, cradling Tora’s head against my shoulder so that she doesn’t have to watch. She is so still in my arms now. She doesn’t sob, she doesn’t move. I’m not even sure she’s crying anymore. She’s just still, as if all her emotions have been stolen from her.
In shock, I hope.
“Why are you here?” Gumi asks, suddenly confronting Scarlet as if he hadn’t just killed two people. “Why are you trying to protect this little girl?” he adds.
Scarlet glares at him, holding her hands behind her back so that he cannot see that she is free now.
“Are you a time traveler? Are you like Hector and the others?”
She shoots a dirty look at Bruce, but still refuses to answer.
“If you don’t work for Vandir, how do you travel?”
“She’s a natural,” Clint says. “She travels on her own will.”
“That’s possible?” Gumi asks.
“For a few,” Hector says, shooting Clint a look that suggests he shouldn’t have said anything.
“Is that why Vandir wants her? To figure out how she does it?”
No one answers. I suppose no one really knows why Vandir wants her. But the idea makes Scarlet’s face tighten with fear again, though I don’t think anyone but me notices it.
Gumi studies Hector and Clint for a moment, still waiting for an answer to his qu
estion. And then he turns back to Scarlet.
“You said she escaped Vandir’s prison once before. The only one to do it.”
Hector nods, then says, “Yes” when he realizes Gumi cannot see his nod.
“What if she does it again? And what if she manages to take Tora with her this time?”
Clint and Hector exchange glances.
“Why are you here?” Gumi demands of Scarlet again, aiming his gun at her kneecaps. “I will shoot you if you do not answer me. You won’t have much luck getting around with a bullet in your knee.”
“She’s important,” Scarlet says in a voice that is strong and determined. It’s as though she is the one with the gun. “She is the key to the future.”
Gumi’s face pales a little. “How does she know that?” he asks the room.
“We’re still figuring out how all this works,” Hector says lamely.
“I don’t like this. If she manages to get free with Tora…”
Hector gestures toward Scarlet. “She could have gotten shot in the struggle.”
Gumi nods as he raises his gun to the center of Scarlet’s forehead.
Scarlet’s leg flies forward, knocking the gun out of Gumi’s hand, then quickly follows with another kick at his jaw. For his age Gumi moves fast, and he manages to avoid her attack.
Gumi’s armed men surround Scarlet before she has the chance to make another move.
“Gun,” Gumi says, waving his hand to one of his men, who throws it to him.
“You can’t run if your legs don’t work,” Gumi says, moving the gun toward Scarlet’s kneecap.
A gun fires.
I close my eyes, not really wanting to see Scarlet get shot, despite the fact that she’s never been all that nice to me. She got me off the street and saved my life a few times. She was stubborn and short-tempered, but I didn’t want the assignment to end this way.
But then another shot and another shot ring through the warehouse.
I open my eyes. Gumi’s on the floor. So is the man who’d been standing beside him. And more fall as I watch.