Katana (3 page)

Careful,
the voice whispered inside my head,
the battlefield is no place to lose focus.

Since when is the mall parking lot a battlefield?

The battlefield is the ground under your enemy’s feet,
the voice answered.

“Donnie, let’s just go,” the younger brother pleaded. “She’s not worth it.”

Donnie snorted in agreement, but his eyes never left my face. The fingers of his good hand slowly curled into a fist.

“Don’t.” The younger brother’s voice cracked.

Donnie nodded his head dismissively at his brother and lunged forward.

The silk that enveloped my body lengthened until it brushed from my fingers to my toes. Time seemed to move in slow motion as I spun to the side of Donnie’s fist. I turned to face the back of his body.

Donnie stumbled back around. I dropped to the ground and swept my leg around and through his. He looked confused in the instant when his feet were off the ground, right before his head made a sickening crack against the pavement.

I turned back to face the younger brother, casually flipping my hair over my shoulder as I did. The smile was still in place, but I could taste the beginnings of bile on the back of my tongue.

The younger brother pulled out his own knife, but he didn’t handle it nearly as well as his brother. His hand trembled, making the weapon look more like a flopping fish than an instrument of death. “Please,” he whispered.

My body stepped forward.

The blood drained from his face, leaving his skin the color of ash. He stepped back. “I don’t want to fight you.”

“And I didn’t want to fight you three,” I replied, and this time the words were my own. “I
wanted
to go to a party tonight and
finally
hook up with this boy I like. It was the end-of-the-school-year party; the entire junior class was invited. It was pretty much my last chance to see this guy until fall.” I balled my hands into fists. “Guess we’re both out of luck tonight.” My nails dug into my palm, sending twinges of pain up my arm. It was wonderful to feel again.

The little brother took another step back. “But it wasn’t my idea,” he said. “Rich was mad because you messed up his snatch-and-grab. He said he wanted to scare you.”

The smile fell from my face. “How would you like
me
to scare
you?”
I took another step closer.

He took two steps back. “You already do,” he whispered.

“Good.” I stomped at the ground in front of me, and the younger brother dropped his knife and jumped so high I thought for a moment he might pop out of his skin. He twisted in midair and started running in the opposite direction the moment his feet hit the ground.

I turned to check on Quentin, but the voice in my head stopped me.
We must not let our enemy escape,
the voice whispered.
He can’t be allowed to harm again.

I sighed. What was I supposed to do? I was a little over five feet and he had a head start. There was no way I could catch up.

We don’t have to,
the voice answered. I felt the silk stretch out and brush the inside of my fingertips. Before I knew it, I was bent over and picking up the younger brother’s discarded knife. My thumb closed the blade into the metal hilt. My right leg stepped back and my arm rose over my head. I shut my eyes, threw, and didn’t open them until after I heard the thud. When I did, the younger brother lay unconscious four parking rows over.

It was done. I should have felt relieved, but the ropes of anxiety twisted tighter around my chest until I thought my ribs would break from the pressure. Now that I was done with the outward threat, the battle had moved inside of me. My muscles strained against the unnatural presence, my breath locked inside my lungs until, inch by painful inch, the warm silk beneath my skin unraveled, leaving my blood cold in its wake. Despite the warm night air, I began to shiver, the trembling growing more violent with each second until I was sure I was having a seizure.

“Rileigh?”

From far away I heard Quentin talking to me, but I couldn’t respond. My throat convulsed, and as much as I gasped, I couldn’t suck enough air down. I didn’t even realize I was on the ground until I saw Quentin leaning over me.

Darkness seeped along the edge of my vision, and I gave in to the weight pulling at my consciousness. I heard the wail of emergency vehicles, but drifted away even as their red and blue lights tumbled and twirled against the black behind my eyelids. I hung there, clinging to the place that teetered between awake and unconscious, before landing somewhere with no colors and sirens, only the comfort of thick, dark silence.

3

Japan, 1493

S
enshi jolted upright from her sleeping mat, her startled gasp rousing the man next to her.

Yoshido, accustomed to her premonitions, awoke in an instant and grasped beside him for his sword. “How long do we have?”

“The enemy is almost here,” she replied.

He cursed softly as he tied his long black hair into a knot on top of his head. When he finished, he asked, “Are you ready?”

She nodded, biting the insides of her cheeks so her emotions wouldn’t betray her. Yoshido had once commented on her inability to smile. He didn’t know that it was because she was always biting, trying to swallow the dangerous fear that continued to break her guarded surface.

And there was reason to fear with Japan currently at war with itself. Every land-hungry Shogun was sending his armies to take over the villages of peaceful rulers like Senshi and Yoshido’s Lord Toyotomi. As a samurai, Senshi had sworn an oath of blood that she would not let that happen, even if the cost meant her life.

Yoshido stood in the doorway and peered out into the night, the moonlight casting harsh shadows against his angled face. Despite the calm silence, the threat of violence thickened the air like fog. “We should separate. I will go find Zeami, and together we will protect Lord Toyotomi. I need you to go warn the other samurai.”

“Of course,” Senshi answered. Zeami and Yoshido had trained together since boyhood. Together they were an unstoppable force.

“Good. I urge you to locate the twins first. I worry about tonight; I feel a great evil lurking about.”

Senshi understood. The twins were the youngest and had the least battle experience. Yoshido was the leader of their samurai army, and she knew he felt great responsibility for his soldiers.

Senshi moved past him to grab her own sword, but he snatched her by the wrist and pulled her roughly against him. “Senshi, I—”

“No, Yoshido,” she interrupted him, pressing her cheek against his chest. Why must he do this before every battle? He would tell her how much he loved her, and how he always would. He would tell her his love would never die, even if this was the battle that ended his life, an outcome she could not fathom.

She placed a finger against his lips. “We have no time for talk. Tonight we fight, just like any other night. And then later, when our lord is safe and our village secure, we will return to each other and all will be well.”

Smiling, he gently tilted her chin up toward him and kissed her parted lips. “All will be well,” he repeated.

She nodded, reluctant to let him go. He gently pushed her back, giving her one last smile before turning for the door.

Senshi bit down on her cheeks. She knew she had precious minutes left to warn the other samurai, but for the first time, she hesitated. She found herself rooted in place watching Yoshido run, and when the night swallowed the last of him, her heart broke, and she could barely breathe under the weight of despair.

She knew then that she just kissed the man she loved for the last time.

4

H
ow are we feeling, Rileigh?” A stranger’s voice cut through my dream, shattering it like the pieces of a mosaic.

“No!” I opened my eyes and reached for the fleeting image, my heart already aching with a loss I didn’t understand. Instead of seeing the black-haired Japanese warrior, I was blinded by a bright light at a very close range.

Jerking back, a man in green scrubs clicked off a pen light and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. “Sorry about that. I should have given you a chance to get adjusted.”

I tried to grumble in agreement, but my throat was so dry I could only manage a cough. Once the annoying spots left my field of vision, I tried to figure out where I was. Dusty blinds had been slanted enough to allow thin purple strips of predawn sky to decorate the plain white walls and hospital equipment that lay asleep in the corner.

But that couldn’t be right. The last thing I remembered was leaving Macy’s with Quentin and the toaster. After that … I wasn’t sure.

“You are a very lucky young lady.”

I glared at the man leaning over me. He was in his thirties, with brown, curly hair cut short. He looked more like the lead singer in a boy band than a doctor.

“Three men,” he continued. “That’s quite a feat.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, struggling to form words around the grit in my throat.

Before he could answer, a red-haired nurse with bangs curled so high they defied gravity skidded to a halt just inside my room. Her eyes widened and she smiled. “Dr. Wendell, I didn’t know you worked the pediatric wing.”

He cleared his throat. “Normally I don’t, but I took a special interest in this case.” When she didn’t move, he narrowed his eyes. “Will there be anything else?”

She took a step back. “No, I, uh … ” She looked at me. “I’ll check back with you later, sweetie.” She turned on her heels and strode from the room.

“Now,” Dr. Wendell raised a single eyebrow, “am I to understand you are suffering from memory loss?”

I tried to shrug, but it hurt to move my shoulders. “I remember buying a toaster.”

“Which I’m afraid didn’t fare as well as you.”

I followed his gaze to a gray vinyl chair positioned next to my bed and gasped when I took in the torn box taking up most of the seat. Through the hole I could see my own frightened eyes multiplied by the dent gouged into the chrome.

I curled my fingers around the plastic bedrail to quiet the tremors that shook my body. Images came back to me: Weasel’s twisted grin, a knife flashing under the parking lot lights, and the bodies of my attackers hitting the ground. “No. It’s impossible.” I shook my head, hoping to mute the sound of breaking bones that played on a continuous loop inside my throbbing head.

“Rileigh?” Dr. Wendell leaned in closer and peered into my eyes. “Are you all right?”

My mind raced to make sense of it. There was no way I could have fought off three men by myself. I probed my scalp, my fingers searching for a bump or any sign that I’d hit my head. I couldn’t find anything.

“Rileigh?”

I snapped my head up and gave him a seething look. “Of course I’m not okay! Three men tried to kill me last night!” And that’s when it hit me—I wasn’t the only one attacked. The image of Quentin’s face-pirouette seemed to appear from behind a velvet curtain inside my mind. I curled my fingers into my bedsheet as I relived the moment. “Oh my God. Q!” I threw the blanket off of me, but Dr. Wendell placed a hand against my shoulder before I could swing my legs off the mattress. I tried to shake him off. “I have to find him!”

“Your friend is fine—just a little bump on the head.” He released my shoulder and patted my hand once, but I snatched it away before he could do it again. “Easy.” He took a step back and held his hands in the air. “I’m only trying to help.”

I sat back against the pillow. Whether it was intuition, or a side effect from the attack, I was suddenly very aware of the fact that I was in a strange room, alone, with a man who had a “special interest” in my case. Whatever that meant. “You can help by not touching me.”

He frowned. “Well, that’s going to make an exam difficult.” When I didn’t answer, he shrugged and reached for my chart. “Okay then. Other than being a little disorientated, how do you feel physically?”

“Are you kidding me with this? You went to med school, right? I was attacked, I’m in the hospital—can’t you draw your own conclusions?”

Dr. Wendell coughed into his hand in a failed effort to hide an amused smile. “Sure, I could draw my own conclusions, but that’s how malpractice suits are started. I like not getting sued, Rileigh.” He moved the toaster from the chair to the floor and sat down. “You don’t have to answer my questions now. I can sit here and wait until you’re feeling more communicative.” He reached for the TV remote clipped to my bed and flipped through several channels. “Look here, Springer.”

I ground my teeth together as the title sequence played. I leaned over, ripped the remote from his hand, and turned the TV off just as a toothless man wandered onstage to discuss his secret farm romance. As if I wasn’t traumatized enough. “You win.” I sighed. “There was this time in junior high when Q’s mom made JELL-O shots for her Pampered Chef party and we ate ten before we realized they had alcohol in them. I feel like I did the morning after that happened.”