Chapter Eighteen

When the doors opened, Takeru and I stumbled out together. The staff elevator emptied into the restaurant's kitchen. We stood in a recess that had been walled in by cardboard boxes for napkins and paper towels.

"Where's the Elite?" Takeru whispered.

"What Elite?"

"There is supposed to be an Elite here."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know."

We paused, breath held. It looked normal enough. Before us were stainless steel tables, a row of ranges, a haze of heat and steam, and sorted trays of uncooked food. Cooks in starched white shirts and aprons bustled and chopped with their heads down, chatting with each other, calling to waiters as they dashed in and out. We stood there completely ignored for a couple of seconds while I scanned the area for the missing Elite and a back door. Then a waiter thrust through the double doors, saw us, and skidded to a stop.

"Oh my god!" he said.

"Help us," I said. "Call the police."

"We've been stabbed," Takeru said.

The cooks, dishwashers, and waiters turned to stare altogether. The next thing we knew, a battalion of kitchen staff had pulled up some cheap plastic seats, set us up in a windowless break area, broke open the First Aid kit, made calls on their phones. I kicked the clamshell case underneath my chair.

"Who did this to you?" a waitress asked. She leaned in toward me and cupped my cheek. She had perfect ringlets, a round face, and wore bangles. Something about the combination was motherly and soothing. Mr. Sugar's voice whispered warnings in my ear, but all I wanted to do was wrap myself up in her concern like a blanket, release the responsibility, close my eyes, sink away...

I recovered almost immediately.

"No, no, wait!" I said as a cook stuck a bottled water in my hand. "We've got to get out of here. There are bad men after us. Do you understand?"

"What do you mean?" asked the cook slowly.

"And what happened to the Elite?" Takeru asked. "Where'd he go?"

My waitress turned to look at Takeru. Her eyes flew wide.

"Oh my god!" she said, pushing Takeru's hair back. "You're Takeru Watanabe!"

"Yeah," he said, gasping. He didn't look so hot now that he was sitting down. Very white, clammy skin. As though his body had been waiting for the rest and now it was crumpling.

I drew my katana and stood. "Yeah, and who are you?"

The room went silent. The workers backed away in a nervous pack, glancing at one another. The sweet motherly waitress jerked away like I had stung her. Her fear horrified me.

"Who doesn't know him?" someone asked.

"Get away from us," I said, "or I will gut you."

Nobody laughed.

"Takeru," I said, "get up. We've got to keep moving."

Takeru tugged on my sleeve.

"Leave them alone," he said in a tiny voice.

"There could be ninja in here," I whispered. "I said to get up."

"Wait. Who are you?" my waitress asked.

Her look of confusion was genuine. Laughing weakly, I lowered my sword and hooked my arm around Takeru's.

"Nobody," I said.

I heaved Takeru to his feet. His skin was cool to the touch.

"Get the case. We have to keep going," I said. "These people can't help us."

"But I'm tired," he said.

"I know," I said.

I dragged him after me, raising my sword as we passed through the knot of workers. I tried not to feel wicked. The only way I could manage this was by not looking anyone directly in the face. The tip of my katana quivered.

We stepped out of the kitchen into an entirely different world.

Carpets and booths were a rich red trimmed in jet; globular lanterns with flower motifs hung from golden cords over each table; the bar was cherry and gilding and glass. The walls were lined with arched windows, and a shamisen tinkled through the speakers. Men and women in business apparel leaned over tables, laughed politely into menus, sipped dark wine. Everything was polished and hushed and elegant.

My first thought was that Mom was going to kill us for getting murdered here.

I jerked Takeru toward the double doors at the front of the restaurant. Normally I would have trotted toward them without a second thought. Now all the furniture and architecture leaned too closely and I felt like Samwise Gamgee dragging Frodo toward the mouth of Mount Doom.

"Why are you going so fast?" Takeru slurred. "Let's wait for the ambulance."

"No."

"Why not?" he asked.

A man looked up, saw us, turned white. A woman screamed. Someone jumped up out of their booth.

"Stay back," I snapped, swinging my katana toward a grizzled executive in black.

"Is this an act?" someone whispered. "I didn't know there would be an act."

My heart pounded as I shifted Takeru back up on my shoulder. He was slipping down and I was too short to keep him comfortably balanced. My back hurt, my neck hurt, my arms hurt. I was starting to feel the pain from the stabbings—uncomfortable tightness across my scalp, a sharp ache above my right wrist. I had totally forgotten about the damage I had sustained to my arms. The stab wounds had neatly parted my flesh like gaping lips.

"What did you give me?" Takeru asked in my ear.

My stomach sank. I was starting to think terrible things.

"Mom uses it on herself," I said. "You know how your joints don't age well when you fight a lot?"

"Yeah?"

"It fixes that. And she told me I could use it if I were stabbed. Like, it would save your life if you used several of them. But I think you should still see a doctor. It sounds like it's supposed to be a gradual fix, not an instant one."

"I see," he said faintly. He rested his head on my shoulder. His cheek was cold and sticky with sweat.

"Don't give up," I snapped. "If you give up I'm going to follow you into hell and drag you back."

He started laughing a little, then winced because it clearly hurt.

"You don't even like me," he slurred.

"I don't hate you, Takeru," I said. "I mean... maybe if things were different we'd be closer. You ever think about that?"

"Hmmm."

I was babbling now. "I mean, I feel like I barely know you. Like I've barely gotten to know you. And there's something good here, you know? You can't just die before I get to know you."

"Who says?" he murmured. "Everybody dies."

My arm tightened around him. The front doors loomed before us, windows as bright and inscrutable as the eye of god. These led out onto the summer street. I could hear the groan and grind of traffic, the chatter of passersby… the distant howl of an ambulance.

I had just begun to shift Takeru onto my back to grab the doorknob when a silhouette blotted out the light. An Elite draped in black stepped through the doors into the restaurant. He was tall and sinewy, broad in the shoulders and slim-waisted. He wore the armbands of the Japanese faction. There were sai clenched in his fists, the blades jutting out between his fingers. His knuckles were taped up and caked in gore.

I dropped Takeru at once. He collapsed to his knees beside me with fluttering eyes. I lifted my katana, licking my lips. The silence was so heavy. The whole restaurant had gone still. Even the music had gone quiet, lingering in that meditative space between songs.

At that moment, my phone buzzed in my pocket. Without looking, I fished it out and tossed it toward Takeru. It plopped into his lap.

"Answer it," I said, and settled deeply into a back stance.

The Elite did not move at once and I couldn't figure out what he was doing. Waiting for backup? Why? Takeru was useless and I was three times smaller, not to mention carrying a weapon that the sai had a natural advantage against. Waiting for me to make the first move? Nope. I wasn't suicidal. Longing for my brilliant conversation, perhaps? In which case, both of us were fucked.

"What are you waiting for?" I asked at last.

"I don't kill children," he replied.

I shifted my grip on my katana. "I'm not a child."

He didn't laugh, but I could feel his grim amusement.

"Step aside," he said. "I will take the boy. You may go, little one."

Shock hit me. He didn't know I was Takeru's sister.

I don't know why. Maybe I looked different with all of the blood. Maybe the Japanese faction was unaware that I was real. Maybe my grandfather had kept family topics on a need-to-know basis; he certainly hadn't been proud of me. I glanced at Takeru out of the corner of my eye. He was crumpled beside the clamshell case. His hand shook as he tapped something out on my phone. He wasn't even paying attention to me.

I lowered my stance and sidled between my brother and the Elite. Breathe. Remember to breathe.

"Little one, step back, for your sake," said the Elite in a gentle tone. "I will win this fight. You know that."

"I won the last three," I said. Last one had been won on a technicality, but whatever.

He chuckled softly.

"Your bravery is commendable," he said. "But I will ask you only one more time. Step away from the boy. This fight does not concern you."

Takeru lifted his head. His face was so white that his eyes looked like the periods on a page.

"Who's Don?" he asked.

My shoulders stiffened. "What?"

"Unknown number, signed Don."

Of course I didn't have time to ask what the message said, because this was exactly when the Elite moved.

His expression was apologetic. I think he could have been dreadfully fast, had he wanted to. But, like everyone who ever saw me, he also underestimated me. His speed was moderate, lazy. His technique controlled, confident. He was the epitome of years of training and experience. He flipped his sai around to use the hilts like clubs. A pity. Properly utilized, he could have hooked my blade between the tines and snapped it in two. I guessed he had summed me up as some housekeeper's child, a dutiful but inexperienced student, overweight from too many sweets.

I overcompensated. Can you blame me? I dashed beneath his lazy swipe—a blow he had intended to knock me aside—and slashed through his knee. His fists whiffed uselessly over my head. Grim delight rushed through me as the leg buckled. He turned, precariously balanced on his one good knee and flipping his sai around a fraction too late. I continued my momentum and slashed his left arm off at the elbow. Blood squirted across the floor, across me. His face went white; his eyes closed momentarily. As he went down, I pivoted behind him, raised my katana, and took off his head. The sharpened steel bit through without hitching. Dark streams gushed across the carpet. The whole encounter took the space of a second.

The restaurant was full of screaming now. I lifted my face to Takeru's. He was gaping at me like a fish. I felt like I was shining.

But of course, Elites always go in pairs.

The front door kicked open. I was still too fascinated with my unlikely victory. I had only made a quarter turn when the staff cracked into my back with brutal force. Pain burst at the epicenter and every nerve in my body fired off like it was the Fourth of July. I lurched over my kill's squirming corpse. From instinct and habit, I ducked and rolled, but there wasn't much room to maneuver in that dining room. I rammed into the legs of a table head-first. My nerveless hands released the katana and for a second all I could see was a white flash and the swimming darkness behind my eyelids.

One rough hand grabbed me by the leg and jerked me up into the air. My knee twisted with a bright panging pop. I didn't even get to see the Elite who was grabbing me. With a violent spin, they hurled me through the plate glass window.

I have been taught to fall. There are ways to minimize the damage you take from various heights and positions. But as I crashed through the window, driving shell-first through the tenuous barrier between light and dark, all I could think was, This is going to hurt so much.

The sudden transition from the dark, cool restaurant to the crushing light and humidity of July was almost as much of an agony as the glass. Disoriented, I couldn't correct my spin. I crashed into a flight of stairs and rolled down them, limbs dead, sheaths jamming into my thighs. Every impact of my shell on the stone was like a lightning strike that lanced through my spine to the tips of every digit over and over again. My knee cracked. I think I screamed, but I was so out of my mind that maybe I imagined it.

I rolled to a stop on the sidewalk. For a second all I did was gasp for breath. My perception was a confused riot of color and smell and heat. I slowly pushed myself up on my shaking arms. Glass tinkled on the cement around me, catching the light. Oh, my god, the blood. The blood. I was streaming with blood. When I lifted my hands, they popped up with a wet sucking sound.

Then the realization hit me. Takeru was still inside the restaurant. Takeru was still inside the restaurant with the Elite and I…

The Elite slammed the door open. It was a woman, face bloodless and contorted with fury. I understood right away what I had done.

I staggered to my feet, testing my balance, testing my body. My right leg was fucked. It buckled if I put too much stress on my knee. The pavement burned through my sock; one of my shoes had flown off, and I had no idea where it was. I swept the back of my hand across my eyes, which were stinging from blood and sweat. I was vaguely aware of strangers screaming, and there was someone asking tremulously if I was okay. Nearby, a bunched group of passersby lifted their phones to eye-level. But nothing existed except me and the earth and the weight of my body…

The Elite sprinted down the stairs toward me.

There's something you should know about fighting: it's over fast. That means there is often no time for thinking, just trained response. In a moment I knew I could not face her. I could not whip out another weapon fast enough, nor maneuver well without the full use of my legs. So, as the great Sun Tzu would have suggested, I took the high ground. I launched myself off of my single good leg toward the Elite and smashed into her shins. She tripped over me and tumbled down the steps into a parked car, bashing her heel through the passenger-side window. I crashed into the stairs again and rolled onto my hands and knees. Pain spiked and ebbed in flashes, and I sagged half-senseless over my clenching fingers. Despite the agony, the world around me was crisp and clear and bright; I had been blessed with a heightened awareness.

The Elite hissed through her teeth, rolling over onto her feet. She favored her right foot. I wondered what her relationship had been to the Elite I had killed. Brother? Cousin? Lover? Friend?

As she rose, I ran through my options. None of them were good. I ripped my tantou out of its sheath and started to cry despite myself. This was where I was going to die. The whole scene stood out to me so clearly that I could paint it for myself years later. The cars stopping in the street to gawk, the pedestrians, the peculiar light of the sun…

…a bobbing black-haired head in the street. A gait I knew at once. A shout from a familiar throat. The breath caught behind my tongue. I almost didn't want to hope.

Silent as death, Nakamura bounded over the hood of the car. The Elite didn't see her. I saw everything; I saw the nanosecond where Nakamura hesitated before taking a life. Then the wakizashi flashed and bit. A red arc splashed through the air and across the ground. The startled Elite whirled around, pouring blood, more angry than incapacitated, and cracked the end of her bo up into Nakamura's ribs just as she dropped to the street. With a high-pitched yelp, Nakamura hit the tire well. Dickens was only a split second behind her, leaping onto the trunk of the car with tonfaa cocked back under his elbows. My first impression of him was a flush of admiration. He looked sharp as hell, color-coordinated from his t-shirt to his skinny jeans to his shoes. He was too tailored to be real, like an actor in a movie.

But I didn't look at him long. From somewhere to my right I heard Eiji shout, "Watch out!" Then there was a wet thunk, thunk, thunk. The Elite took two kunai in the cheek and the third in her throat, but with unflinching superhuman speed she continued spinning to smash her bo into Dickens' knees.

Dickens leaped off of the car's trunk, almost folding in half, and her bo whooshed a mere millimeter below the dazzling white of his Jordans. Just as quickly, she whipped the bo back down to crack him across the back, but as though he had eyes in the back of his head, he arced his spine and hit the ground side-first. I heard his joints pop. Her bo cracked down on the cement, so close that it pinned down the brim of his ball-cap as he rolled away. Her blood was running down her arm, down the length of the bo, and when she flipped it up she flung bright red drops into the sky. It was pretty, I thought, in a terrible kind of way.

Nakamura had folded up against the car, face white, arms wrapped around her belly. But over the hood of the car came Perez, teeth gritted and gaze feral, and then Daichi and Eiji flanking her with weapons raised. The Elite did not hesitate once. She was after Dickens' blood. Her bo cracked over and over into his tonfaa; he was moving with that prodigious speed that had overwhelmed us so many times in practice. But it was no easy matter. He had sucked in his lips from sheer concentration and his face gleamed with perspiration. I knew that look. He could only win if he could outlast her.

Eiji whipped two more kunai into her lower back, a place where Elite armor rose when the arms were lifted. She took it as though she felt nothing. With terrifying one-minded tenacity, the Elite pursued Dickens between two cars, into the street. A car slammed on its brakes; Dickens jumped back. The driver leaned on their horn and for a split second Dickens glanced at them. It was distraction enough. The Elite swept his legs out from beneath him, and he fell.

I think she would have crushed his windpipe then and there if it hadn't been for Perez ramming into her with the sai, Daichi cracking her in the elbow with whirling nunchaku. She fell. When she hit the pavement, she jerked once as though her ghost had been forcibly ejected from her body, and then lay twitching on her face. The bo clattered beside her body with a staccato hiccup and lay still.

Perez and Eiji hesitated over her body. Their faces were drawn and pale.

"I'll do it," Perez said to Eiji.

So Eiji helped Dickens to his feet. Perez straddled the body and felt for a pulse, then stabbed up through the base of her skull to make certain the job was finished. She looked away when it was done. Without looking back, she pinned the enemy's bo beneath her arm and trotted toward us.

By that time I had risen to my feet and, using the banister for balance, limped halfway down the stairs. I felt and looked like shit, but I was grinning so big that my face hurt. My squad rushed up to my side, tennis shoes squeaking on the marble. Perez and Eiji heaved Nakamura to her feet. We met down on the sidewalk. Our heads knocked together as we bunched up. Enfolded in the warm safety of my squad, blinded by light and blood, I thought I knew what a pack of wolves felt like.

Someone started laughing—I think it was Perez. Soon all of us were laughing, although it was more of a nervous tic than anything else. Dickens grabbed me by the arm. I leaned into his side. He smelled like an excess of Axe body spray.

"Watanabe!" he said. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine!" I said. "I'm so happy you're here."

"You're talking like we were gonna let you die out here!" Perez said.

"Um," Nakamura said softly. "Guys. We're not alone, you know."

We lifted our heads. Traffic had dragged to a standstill. Down the street, motorists were beating on their horns. Passersby had taken refuge in stores and beneath awnings and in tittering groups. Phones everywhere glinted at eye level, stretched over heads, peeked between bodies. There was a scattering of nervous applause, like we had just put on a super violent Cirque du Soleil.

"Well, shit," Perez said softly. She shrank down a little.

"We'll think about it later," I said. "Takeru is really hurt. We need to get him to a hospital now."

"Wait, Takeru's here? Where?" Perez asked.

"In the restaurant."

"Okay, I'll go get him," said Daichi. "Eiji?"

"Coming."

"We should go together," I said. "No splitting up. The Japanese faction could be anywhere and... I don't know how many there are."

"We'll be fast," said Eiji. "Don't worry." He winked.

"Can you pick up my katana?" I asked. "It's... somewhere in there."

"Sure," Eiji said.

"And there's a black plastic case with him!" I said. "Get the case, too!"

"Right, right!" Eiji said without looking at me at all.

With that, Eiji and Daichi rushed up the stairs three at a time. I watched them go with a throbbing heart.

"We shouldn't split up," I said.

"They'll be right back," said Perez. "It won't be long."

"We should get out of here," I said. "Like now."

"It won't be more than a minute," Perez said, patting me amiably on the back of the head.

"Ow," I said under my breath.

When the doors opened again, Eiji and Daichi were balancing Takeru between them. God, he looked awful. His arms flopped on their shoulders, his hands empty and limp and black with blood. It was at that moment that I felt I had forgotten something important, but for the life of me I couldn't think of what it was. Daichi had the case and Eiji had my sword. Surely it was one of those.

Wiping the worst of the gore off of our weapons with our t-shirts, we gathered our wounded and stumbled away across the street. Nakamura leaned on Perez, and Dickens had thrown my arm over his shoulder. My heart throbbed at his touch; his skin was as hot as fire. When we passed the dead Elite, none of us looked.

There was an ambulance idling in traffic, its wailing siren calling us in. The stalled cars were beginning to shift again and honked at us when we staggered in front of them. Dickens flipped them off.

"Oh my god, I totally forgot," Perez hissed. "Weapons! Everybody who's going to the hospital, hand 'em over to me."

"What?" I asked, clamping my hands down on my katana's hilt.

"They're illegal! The cops are totally going to take them from you."

Perez jerked her chin. We all looked up. About a block away, two police cruisers flashed their lights. The driver of the foremost cop car was leaning all the way out of his window. At any point he or his partners could emerge, all armed with guns.

"Oh," I said, and fumbled at my belt.

"Let me do it, Watanabe," Dickens said. Two snaps and my belt hung in his hand. I couldn't meet his eyes.

"Can you walk the rest of the way?" Perez asked Nakamura.

"Sure," she said faintly, and offered up her own belt.

Perez threw the belts over her shoulder. Daichi surreptitiously took Takeru's sai and flipped it to her as well. Perez nodded to us and rushed off through traffic. The policeman shouted at her indistinctly from his car, but she disappeared into the crush of curious pedestrians and was gone. There was nothing for us to do but slog on toward the ambulance. I could have cried when we drew up beside their bumper. EMTs threw the doors open as soon as they saw us, a man and a woman. They might have been young or they might have been old; it was difficult to tell. Their faces were haggard, their movements weary and deliberate, but their hair was lit up by the fluorescents on the ceiling, and in my elevated sight they were as glorious as angels.

"What happened here?" asked one of the EMTs as he lowered the gurney.

"My brother got stabbed," I said. "Some… some guys from school."

"Where'd that happen?" asked the woman.

"Up in the Tower," I said, pointing back up toward the apartment.

"Is there an adult with you guys?" asked the woman. Her smile was fretful. A clipboard hung in her fingers, pen clipped up at the top.

"Adult?" I asked.

"We can't treat you without consent from your parents," she said.

"Or legal guardians," added her partner, who squatted beside her.

We all stared at him with our mouths hanging open. Cool air blasted into our faces from the bright white interior. The single gurney creaked to the floor and rested there, just within reach. I could have stretched out and touched it.

"But my brother's going to die!" I said.

"I'm sorry," said the female EMT. "It's the law."

"You mean you're just going to let him die here?" Eiji asked.

"This is bullshit," Dickens snapped.

"If there isn't a guardian available," said the woman, "we will get the police to accompany you to the emergency room."

My entire squad recoiled. I felt like someone had sucked all of the breath out of us.

"Pardon me," said a man from behind us. "I came as quickly as I could."

We all turned as a single unit. Behind us, standing between two idling vehicles like he had simply risen out of the ground, was a heavyset man in a hoodie, jeans, and work boots. A frayed strip of dark fabric had been wrapped around his face, perhaps the remnants of a t-shirt. His clothes were clearly harvested from thrift stores and dumpsters. In the summer heat he looked absurd. But that voice. I knew that voice. I knew it better than anyone else's on the entire Earth.

"Dad," I whispered. And then my voice rose, higher and higher. "Dad. Dad! Dad! Come sign their stupid paper!"

"You're the father of these children?" asked the EMT.

"Yes. They called me but I was only just able to get here." He turned his clear, cool eyes to mine. "I am so, so sorry I'm late, Saya."

There was something so heavy, so huge in that apology. I started crying big, stupid tears.

"Daddy," I said, and dropped Dickens' arm. The squad had all leaned back, staring up at my father with huge eyes. Dickens' hands opened and closed on the memories of his tonfaa. But I didn't care what they thought. I hopped one-legged toward my father with my arms outstretched. He rushed up to me, caught me up, and pressed his mouth against my ear.

"Saya, Saya, my baby, I missed you so much," he whispered. He kissed me on the forehead, on the nose. "Let's get you patched up, huh? Huh?"

He had never spoken to me like that before, not even when I was a baby. He'd always spoken to me like I was a little adult. I had memories of him telling me to "use reason" when I was about three. So to have him talk to me like this was almost unbearable. I didn't even know it was a mannerism I'd wanted until he used it. I locked my arms around his neck, pressed my body as closely to his as I could, and bawled into his neck. Just cried and cried and cried. I didn't care who saw me and I didn't care where I was. All I was aware of was his heartbeat and his breath and his smell and all of those other things I had taken for granted so many months ago.

I was only half aware of where we were as he approached the EMTs.

"Where do I need to sign?" he asked.

"Here, please." The EMT's voice carried an unspoken question. I couldn't tell what it was, nor did I care.

"What's the patient's name?" the EMT asked.

"Ah... Takeru Watanabe," said my father. "He took his mother's name."

"I see."

The pen scratched on paper like a mouse at a wall.

"Are we going to take your daughter today as well?"

"I will drive her to the emergency room myself."

"Are you sure?"

Dad spoke so quickly that he ran over the end of the EMT's sentence.

"Yes," he said.

A rustle of fabric and a soft groan as one of the EMTs lifted Takeru out of the Yamaguchis' arms. I was good as gone, almost completely senseless with the boundless, upswelling joy. No one existed but me and my father. All pain was secondary. It was going to be all right now. It was going to be okay.

"Is there anything else we should know?" the second EMT asked as they lowered him onto the gurney.

"Yes!" Daichi said. "Don't forget Nakamura."

"What?" Nakamura asked distractedly. She was still doubled over in pain, arms wrapped around her belly.

"She's probably got broken ribs," Eiji said. "Or worse."

"Oh, yeah," she said faintly. "But I... my parents aren't here."

"Back to the car, then," said Daichi. "We'll get the driver. Come on, it's not far."

"I can help," Dad said. He shifted me over to the left and extended his arm. "Give her here."

Nakamura looked so small and twiggy beside him. She hesitated, sizing Dad up with unmasked fear.

"You're the kappa," she said in Japanese.

"That's right," Dad replied. "But I will not hurt you."

Her eyes went to mine. I nodded, sniffling.

"It's okay," I said softly.

He leaned down, and she leaned into his arm with a pained expression. She sat in the crook of his elbow, and he lifted her up with a grunt.

"I'll take the rest of the children to the ER with me," Dad said to the EMTs. "We will meet you there. Which one are you going to?"

"Bellevue. Give your information to the front desk and they'll direct you."

"Thank you." Dad bowed. "I am more grateful than I can say."

With that, Dad strode off through honking traffic, up to the sidewalk. My squad pattered behind him like a gaggle of geese.

"The police are coming for you," he said in a calm voice. "I suggest that all of you scatter as soon as your friend is in the car."

"Are you really a turtle?" Dickens blurted out. He raked Dad over and over with his eyes as though struggling to see through his clothing.

Dad didn't meet his eyes. "Something like that."

"Are you taking Saya away?" Nakamura asked.

Dad's arm squeezed around me. I whimpered.

"Where is your car?" Dad asked.

There was a small explosion of explanations from the group. The boys eagerly rushed forward, pointing down the street. Nakamura raised her miserable eyes to mine. There was knowledge in them that I couldn't refute. I had feared for the longest time that I would have trouble deciding between my parents, but the realization that I would no longer be subject to my mother's overwhelming darkness… it was like someone had unlocked my shackles and thrown them aside. It was like the sun breaking through dreary winter weather. It was the purest kind of relief I had ever felt in my entire life. I should have felt guilty, but there wasn't room in my heart for that.

Nakamura was dropped off in her car, a posh SUV with a uniformed driver. Perez was waiting beside it, our weapons stowed in the back. When she saw us approaching, her gaze flicked from my dad's face to me over and over. I was pretty sure she had guessed his significance by the time he had dropped Nakamura off.

"Are you guys coming?" Nakamura asked in a small voice. I had never thought of her as a child before, but she struck me as one in that moment, all bent over and small with pain.

Dad hesitated. "Our kind can't go to hospitals," he said softly.

"What's going to happen to her, then?" Eiji asked.

Dad looked down at me. I met his eyes without blinking.

"I want to go home," I said in a quiet voice.

His eyes crinkled up in a sad, wet smile.

"Then that is where we shall go," he said softly.

"What about her things?" asked Perez slowly.

"Give them to me," said Dad, and extended his arm. He took the black case and looped my weapons over his shoulder. Then he bowed to the children in the car. I closed my eyes. I couldn't look at them anymore. And with that, he strode off through the creeping cars to the sidewalk. We stepped between two buildings into shadow. The shielding darkness fell over us.

As Dad walked, I started feeling steadily worse. First I lost the sharp clarity and descended into a muddled fog. Then I started feeling the agonizing pulse in my hip and knee, both of which twinged with every bump and sudden stop. My back hurt in an indescribable way—a dull and throbbing ache that spread into my shoulders and hips and down into all my joints. My clothes clung to me like a second skin, and in the heat and sunlight soon hardened to the consistency of canvas. Soon I could feel every wound, every bruise, every point of glass. Sweat burned. It hurt to breathe and to close my eyes. Even the blood clotted up in my hair tugged it in painful directions. Everything hurt. I cried quietly and tried not to sniffle. Dad gently stroked my arm.

Dad stopped about three blocks away and leaned out, waving once. A white car squeaked to a stop beside us. It was the car that we had picked up in Texas, but with a new paint job. The only thing that hadn't been changed were the black fabric seats. Donatello sat in the driver's seat, cloaked in a dark winter coat. His smile did not extend to his eyes.

I saw my reflection in the shining white door. My makeshift bandanna was red with blood; my hair was clotted with blood; my clothes sagged with blood. My blood and Takeru's blood and an assassin's blood. Before me was my uncle, the smell of family, and a secure cab.

I relaxed. I closed my eyes.

I let go.