Ink

dark pool near his mouth and I panicked. I grabbed the keitai and put it beside his face, then breathed out in relief.

It was ink dripping out of the corner of his mouth. Creepy, but it wasn’t blood, so I figured he was okay.

I looked at my finger again to see how bad the cut was.

It had stopped bleeding, but the truck was rusty. I hoped it wouldn’t get infected. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a tissue, wrapped it around the cut and pressed my fingers together to hold it there.

I checked Tomohiro again and made sure he was breathing. Then I sat back and stared at the truck, looking for any means of escape.

The keitai screen blacked out again, and this time I folded it up, shoving it into my pocket. As chilling as it was to sit here in the dark, I needed to save the battery.

The truck pulled us forward, and I rocked back and forth in the darkness, nothing to do but wait.

“Katie?”

The voice startled me in the darkness, and I shot forward onto my hands and knees. “Tomo?”

He groaned, and I heard the slide of fabric as he pushed himself up. I lifted the keitai out of my pocket and saw him hunched over in the dim light.

“What happened?” he said, rubbing his jaw.

“You passed out,” I said. “They took us somewhere. I don’t know where. They killed the engine an hour ago, but no one’s come for us yet.”

He moaned, running his fingers through his hair. Even sweaty, bloody and shoved in the back of a gangster truck, he still made my stomach jittery when he did that. He made a face, lolling his tongue out. “Ugh, my mouth tastes like a pen exploded.”

Okay, a little less attractive.

And then he snapped out of it and looked at me.

“Are you okay?” he said, and my keitai blinked out. “Did they hurt you?”

“I’m fine,” I said, folding the phone and shoving it into my pocket. I felt the warmth of his breath as he moved closer, his palms sliding up my arms to my shoulders. The rough cal-luses from kendo practice scraped against my skin followed by the towellike wristband covering his scar.

“What happened?” he said again, his voice raw. “I remember shouting your name, and then this intense… pain, like I was burning alive.”

“I don’t know what happened,” I said. Even trying to think back to it made me shudder. “There was ink everywhere. It made these…wings, on your back. And some kind of ugly, horned face above your head.”

“Wings? A face?”

I smirked. “It scared the crap out of Ishikawa.”

Tomohiro’s voice was stone. “Good.”

“He told them to leave us alone after that. But they didn’t listen.”

“Katie. You have to get out of here.” His cool fingertips traced down my arms, sending shivers up my spine. They rested on my fingers, hesitated on my makeshift tissue bandage.

“Yeah, because I’ve just been sitting around in this truck for fun,” I said. “Like there’s a way out.”

There was silence, and I felt a little guilty for being snarky.

Just a little.

There was a distant sound, a crash not too far away. My heart jumped and I felt like I was going to puke.

“They’re coming,” I said.

“I’ll protect you,” Tomohiro said, squeezing my hands in his. “Go to the back of the truck.” He dropped my hands and stood. A light flipped on outside the truck, a little stream of light filtering between the truck doors. I could see Tomohiro’s hands balled into fists.

“You’re kidding, right?” I said. “They’ll kill you.”

“Go to the back of the truck.”

“Not a chance.” My legs felt like they were made of stone, but I numbly dragged myself toward him.

The doors flung open to blinding light. I’d been sitting in the truck for so long that pins and needles started to spark in my legs. I stumbled backward.

My eyes adjusted and I saw three men, two of them covered in rainbows of sprawling tattoos. They held guns pointed straight at Tomohiro, and the chill spread through me.

Guns are illegal in Japan. Most police don’t even carry them.

Which meant the police would be no match for these guys, even if they knew where to find us.

“Get out,” said the third man, his hands folded behind his back. He wore a black business suit and looked fairly normal—almost pleasant. “And don’t try anything.”

At first Tomohiro didn’t move. My brain practically screamed at him.

Then his feet dragged forward.

One of the guns followed his movement. The other one pointed at me.

Tomohiro’s eyes went wide. “Let her go,” he said.

I blinked back hot tears.

“It’s okay,” the suit guy said, staring at me. He lifted his hand, and the gun pointing at me lowered. “We’re just businessmen here. We’re hoping to come to an arrangement.” He smiled, reaching his hand out to help me out of the truck.

“We don’t want to do anything drastic, either.”

I stared at his chubby fingers until he pulled them back again.

“The thing is,” he said to me, as I sat on the edge of the truck and slid myself down, “we don’t know what he’s capable of. Even he doesn’t know. So we’re just being cautious.”

“Leave us alone,” I said.

The man didn’t say anything, but the tattooed, gun-toting guys motioned at us to get moving.

The room was a big parking garage, and our steps sounded hollow against the concrete floor. They marched us through a side door, into a maze of a house that felt way too big to be in Japan. Golden light filtered through the rice-paper walls as we approached a large tatami room. The shouji paper door stood before us, and as the businessman slid it aside, the full glare of the meeting room shone through the dark hallway.

We stumbled through the shouji, pushed by the men with guns.

There were about twenty men in the room and some tough-looking women. Some of them had ragged haircuts, tattoos racing down their arms and vanishing under their too-tight vests. Others looked friendlier, wearing suits like the businessman and smiling as we entered. Four rows of low-set tables were spread across the floor, some of the men kneeling at them and shoving sushi into their mouths with silver chopsticks. A Mohawked guy stood in the corner chugging a bottle of green tea as he spoke what sounded like rapid Korean with one of the businessmen.

And kneeling alone at one of the tables, looking dejected, was Ishikawa, a big, ugly bruise circling his right eye and three wide scratches across his jaw. His nose had swelled up so much he looked like the cartoon Anpanman.

“Satoshi,” Tomohiro said under his breath, but Ishikawa stared intensely at the tabletop, grimacing.

“Have a seat,” said the businessman, and a few of the others scattered to clear a table for us. Tomohiro and I just stared at him. One of the men cocked a gun and started to raise it. The businessman smiled and gestured at the table with his arm.

I wished I could punch him in the gut. But Tomohiro’s slender fingers curled around my wrist and he pulled me with him toward the table. We knelt down, two tough-looking guys closing in the sides of the table. At least Sunglasses and Cigarette were nowhere to be seen.

“We haven’t been properly introduced,” the businessman said. “You can call me Hanchi.” Tomohiro looked down at the tabletop, his hands still in fists.

Hanchi waited for a minute, looking at us thoughtfully.

Then he drew in a quick breath.

“Well,” he said, “I guess we should get down to it. We’re not here to threaten you, Yuu. We think you are a