“I’VE. COME. TO. KILL. YOU.”
“Boy, you’re pushy. No wonder your fiancée hated you.”
Utagawa raised his eyebrows; his face was flush with anger.
“WHERE IS SHE. MY WOMAN. MINE.”
“You mean Shoko? She was never yours, and never will be.”
“YOU STOLE. MY PRIVATE PROPERTY. YOU REALIZE. HOW MUCH THAT PUSSY COST ME. THEN BEFORE. I FUCK HER ONCE. YOU SNATCH HER UP. THAT GIRL WAS MINE. HER AND HER LOUSY. DAD’S ENTIRE OPERATION. GIVE ME BACK. MY LIFE. MY LIFE. WHERE IS THAT. SCUMMY BITCH. FUCKING RUNAWAY. WHERE THE FUCK. IS SHE.”
“Too bad you only get reflective when somebody screws you over. Poor guy.”
Red in the face, Utagawa gave a signal. Four . . . five men got out of the minivan. Armed with steel pipes, tackle strung from tow chains, metal bats.
“WHERE IS SHE. IS SHE. ALIVE. TELL ME. WHERE. SHE IS.”
The men closed in on Shindo through the pooling water.
“. . . Wanna know what happened to your long-lost lover? Here’s an update.”
Shindo pointed the Maglite at the sweatpants of the guy holding the steel pipe.
A second later, he was wailing, a black arrow stuck into his thigh.
Inside the storage room, Shindo took off her clothes.
Yanagi said to pack her things, but she had hardly anything to pack. Her only personal effects were a wristwatch, her wallet, and her steel-toed safety shoes.
Their orders were to drive to Takasaki, up in Gunma, where Masa the Dagger putatively ran a soba restaurant, and to capture him and Shoko’s mother, Yukie Naiki, preferably alive. As long as they accomplished this by first light, Yanagi would be spared, while Shindo would get let off for the price of her good arm. Naiki surely knew the risks of sending them on such a mission. They could easily escape, but pride made it impossible. He knew that he could count on Masa, even now, for a good old-fashioned duel, the same as he knew Yanagi was too proud to walk away. He was the only member of the Naiki family with the skill to take on Masa. Guns wouldn’t bring them back alive. Only a blade, his blade, could get the job done. Another reason he was “lucky.”
Shindo knelt in a corner, wearing just her socks and underwear, and opened one of the cardboard boxes of old newspapers. She folded a newspaper the long way, into a kind of obi, and secured it to her stomach using packing tape. She did the same with both her shins, wrapping the tape tight around the newsprint several times. Then she put on her blue suit and stashed five ballpoint pens in each of her jacket pockets. Maybe she should ask Yanagi if he had a tanto she could borrow. If she only had a better weapon . . .
Suddenly, she realized she was taking deep, heavy breaths. Unable to hide her excitement.
This was fun. Preparing for a journey that could end with everybody dead.
She made two fists. Barehanded. That’s how she wanted it. If Masa was as strong as everybody said, she wanted to make contact. She wanted to feel her fists break through his flesh and bones. To feel the terror of a dagger cutting through her skin.
Ah, she was no good . . .
Whenever someone said this about her, which was often, she refused to believe it. But at this moment, Shindo felt it keenly, for the first time in her life. She was no good. There was no room for her in a peaceful world that other, normal humans held together like a bunch of children playing house. Even now, after everything that happened, she chased after the violence. Her muscles twitched with energy more primitive than any ape-man swinging a club in a cave. She had been born too late. Way too late. Shindo could barely look a normal person in the eye. The normal people went about their normal lives, maintaining the peace, a peace she threatened to destroy. People like her were born to die fighting. She had no choice.
Shindo assumed that even if they brought Masa and Yukie back alive, Naiki’s promise would be scrapped, and they would get tossed in with Utagawa anyway. This would be her final battle. She could either fight back now and die fighting, or get raped to death tomorrow. One form of violence clashing with another.
She took a deep breath. Trying to slow her racing heart.
She was not afraid of dying.
She wanted to die fighting. Before he had his way with her.
And yet.
Shindo pressed a hand to her chest. Once she was dead, what would happen to Shoko? Was there any reason to believe she would live happily ever after, as that sicko’s wife? What if Shoko did something to anger him? Or if he and Naiki had a falling out? What would happen then? What would happen if . . .
She heard a sound.
Mostly hampered by the rain, though clear enough to make it out.
It was footsteps. Coming slowly this way, down the hall. Too heavy to hide, the sound of a man walking.
Shindo listened carefully. The footsteps stopped in front of Shoko’s room.
Then Shindo heard the fusuma slide open.
“I guess you learn to sense the footsteps, just before you hear them.”
She could hear Shoko’s voice inside her head. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Before she had a chance to think, her legs were moving. Shindo flew out of the room. Her understanding that the worst was happening and the realization she had overlooked it all along spun through her heart like a tornado.
She threw open the fusuma so hard it whacked the jamb.
“You piece of . . .”
She found Shoko’s slender body on a futon in the middle of the room. Long hair undone, spilling like motor oil over the tatami. Eyes wide open, staring off into the void. Expressionless, as if she didn’t notice Shindo. Her chest had been stripped bare. It was moving up and down, however slightly. She was breathing. Shindo stormed into the room.
