The Ninja Daughter

by Tori Eldridge

  I shut my mouth. I had crossed the line of civility and broken whatever truce we might have established. Worse, I had listed four specific kills. If he had doubted my video before, he now had to assume I had the evidence to put him on death row.

  “Well?” I said, daring him to answer and careless of the consequences.

  The smirk fell from his mouth. He wasn’t amused anymore. He wasn’t anything. His face had become an expressionless mask. I braced myself for the knife or bullet that must surely be on its way. Instead, he whispered, “Whatever conscience I might have had, I buried in Vietnam.”

  He stared at me, as if he could communicate his meaning through force of will. What horrible thing had happened to him there? He was too young to have fought in the war—at least, not our war. Was Tran Vietnamese? Had he suffered through things unknown or disregarded by Americans?

  I started to ask, but the tension broke, and his amusement returned as if none of this had happened. As if I hadn’t accused him of murdering four people. As if he hadn’t shared some deeply personal secret.

  He stepped closer, and the corners of his mouth twitched into a sad smile. “But that’s not really what you want to know, is it?” His warm breath caressed my face. “No. What you really want to know is…are you like me?”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Everyone who had ever traveled east of LA’s notorious South Central knew the One Ways were bad news. The twenty-eight-block neighborhood north of Alondra Boulevard, where Tran and I had left his car and my bike, was a grid of one-way streets. It was a rare teen who didn’t get pressured into joining one of the many Latino gangs, especially when he or she had an uncle, father, brother, or sister leading the way. Turf scuffles erupted over the slightest infractions. Shakespearean romances incited drive-by shootings. At the same time, innocent children played in their yards and devoted parents did their best to provide.

  All of this represented typical life in the One Ways.

  Simple dwellings, surrounded by chain-link. Cement walls implanted with metal spikes. Bars on the windows—not the graceful kind that bulged on the bottom and arched up at the top as one might find south of Beverly Hills, but bars straight from county jail. And yet, there were no winos or crack addicts sprawled on the sidewalks or hookers shouting their wares from doorways. Young toughs hung around parked cars, smoking joints and talking shit, but they weren’t brandishing weapons.

  So how could I have known what the third house on the left concealed?

  It was painted the same bland color as the ones on either side, a cross between curdled cream and dirt. A cracked cement path led to the front door, and a tricked-out copper-pearl Mitsubishi sat in the driveway. A plastic lawn chair peeked beneath a hillock of weeds so large it could have hidden a couple children and a rusted tricycle. I tried to imagine what the inside of the house might look like—strewn toys, dirty dishes, an exhausted mother asleep in front of a television.

  Tran nodded across the street toward the driveway that ran along the far end of the property. “See it?”

  I did. In the backyard, shielded from view, stood a small structure with blacked out windows and burnt skin for paint.

  “Is that where they are?” I asked, hoping he would say no. The thought of little Ilya in that dark den, subject to unspeakable deeds, made me want to vomit. Or kill.

  Tran nodded.

  I unclipped my knife. “We can’t wait. We have to go in.”

  “Not yet. Look.”

  Two hefty thugs emerged from the back house and strolled up the driveway. Both were Mexican-American, bald, and broad. One wore an oversized purple and gold Lakers jersey. The other had on a brown and black striped crew. Both wore shorts that hung from their butts and stopped mid-calf over white socks and designer kicks. They passed a Mitsubishi and entered the side door of the front house. A blast of Mexican rap faded as the door closed.

  I looked back at Tran. “Now?”

  He nodded. “But remember our agreement: if even one of them sees us, they all have to die.”

  My mouth flinched into a hard grin. Tran had explained the situation during our walk. This street gang was connected to the Mexican drug cartels. If we were seen, we could be identified, and if we were found, we wouldn’t be the only ones who suffered: the cartel would kill everyone dear to us. I nodded my agreement. There was no way I was going to endanger my parents. But I also wasn’t going to leave Kateryna and Ilya to this gruesome fate.

  We crossed the street and edged up the driveway to the car. When no one came out of the side door of the house, we continued up the driveway and stopped at the end. Tran nodded toward the back of the main house and spread his hands to signal that the curtains were open. Anyone looking out would see us running across the backyard.

  I shrugged. We didn’t have time for stealth. The Varrio gangsters could come back at any moment. We needed to break into that ugly back house, free Kateryna and Ilya, and get out—preferably without being seen.

  We ran for the door. Tran had a bump key ready, and with practiced efficiency, inserted it partway into the lock and bumped it with the handle of his knife. Then he repeated the action with the dead bolt and we were in.

  The place stank of sweat and semen, which caused my stomach to heave. I swallowed down the bile and closed the door behind me, sealing us inside. Tran went ahead to the left and checked around an accordion screen similar to the one I used to separate my bedroom from my dojo, but larger and crudely built. This one divided the main room into sections—a shabby parlor in front and only Tran-knew-what behind.

  Off to the right was a kitchen with dirty windows and an easy-to-clean rubber floor. Up ahead, a hallway with a bathroom and two closed doors.

  I followed Tran, past the frayed couch, and checked behind the screen. Then wished I hadn’t.

  A double bed dominated the space. Handcuffs dangled from four metal posts. Graduated shades of blood stained the mattress pad—some dark from age, others bright and fresh. A wooden table ran along the left wall. Desk lamps sat on either end, the kind with bendable stems that aimed directly at the bed. If turned on, the white bulbs would shine like spotlights illuminating…what, I didn’t want to consider, especially when I saw the implements available for use.

  “Come on,” Tran said, motioning me toward the kitchen.

  He was right. Whoever had suffered here was beyond our help.

  Please, God, let it not have been Kateryna or Ilya.

  In the middle of the tiny kitchen, we found a butcher block table with an axe in the center. Blood and gashes marred the wood. I turned away. The bathroom came next—filthy but not villainous—which left two more rooms behind closed doors.

  I nodded to the one on the right. Tran the one on the left. Neither of us were holding firearms—me because I didn’t own one and Tran because we couldn’t afford the noise—but we both had nasty blades in hand and a grim determination to use them. If we could rescue Kateryna and Ilya quietly, no one had to die.

  We exchanged a glance and opened our respective doors simultaneously.

  I didn’t know what Tran saw in his room, but what I saw in mine made me want to cry.

  I rushed over to Ilya, lying on his side against the wall, and ripped off his blindfold. He stared blankly in fear until he recognized me, then his eyes flooded with tears. I put a finger to my lips and untied the gag, checking behind me to make sure the hallway remained clear.

  I didn’t hear any noise coming from the room Tran had entered, but was confident whatever he found, he could deal with it on his own.

  I turned back to Ilya and examined his bindings. The bastards had zip-tied his ankles and wrists behind him and secured them to a pipe that ran along the entire side of the room. I cut through the plastic. Ilya struggled to his knees and threw his arms around my neck and sobbed.

  I rocked him gently and murmured soothing words. “I got you. It’s going to be fine. But right now, you have to be quiet. Okay?”

>   When I felt his head nod, I peeled him off my neck. He still wore the navy polo and khaki pants of his Catholic kindergarten uniform. He looked tiny and helpless but otherwise unharmed.

  I helped him to his feet. He wanted to be lifted, but I shook my head and grabbed his hand instead, holding it against my back so he would follow. I still hadn’t heard any noises from the other room. Whatever was going on, I wanted Ilya behind me where he wouldn’t get hurt and wouldn’t be able to see.

  Tran had his back to me, mostly shielding the body on the bed. I recognized Kateryna’s blonde ringlets, but couldn’t see anything else except bare feet and one bare arm draped off the edge. Ilya hugged my thigh and buried his face against the small of my back. Although it would be hard for me to fight with him plastered against me, I couldn’t bring myself to push him away. Not yet.

  “How is she?” I whispered, fearing the worst. Tran stepped aside so I could see. Whatever else had been done to her, Kateryna was alive and awake. Her pink sundress showed no sign of blood and had not been ripped.

  I turned back to Ilya. “She’s okay.” When he looked up at me with those big half-moon eyes, I almost dropped to my knees to hug him. Almost. We weren’t out of danger yet. I pried his fingers off of my thigh and held him back with my hand. I needed room to move.

  It was a good thing I did because, at that moment, the front door rattled.

  I shoved Ilya into the bedroom with Kateryna and Tran and darted across the hallway into the bathroom.

  If trouble was coming for Ilya, it would have to go through me first.

  Chapter Fifty

  Tran waited just inside the doorway of the back bedroom, where I had left him to guard Kateryna and Ilya. He glanced at me and nodded. I nodded back then peeked out my doorway to see what was happening. I caught a flash of a purple jersey disappearing into the front room as his buddy in the brown and black striped crew marched through the front door.

  “You always blaming me,” Striped Crew said. “Maybe you left it open.”

  “No way.”

  I swallowed a curse. I had intended to re-lock the door on our way out. Clearly, I should have locked it on the way in.

  I heard a loud thump and muffled curses, it sounded like he had knocked over the accordion screen and was trying, unsuccessfully, to set it right. He groaned and hissed and cursed the same word over and over in escalating volume until the screen—or so I assumed—crashed onto something solid and triggered a domino effect of clatter, thuds, and shattering glass.

  Striped Crew followed him into the room and out of my sight. “What the fuck? That shit came from Carlos’s mama’s house. Hijo de puta! Why’d you break it?”

  The house shook as something hard pounded into the wall. “Will you shut the fuck up?”

  “You shut the fuck up. You the one making all the noise.”

  “Go check on the kid.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the fucking door was unlocked.”

  “I told you, I locked—”

  “Just check on the fucking kid.”

  “All right, already.”

  “Wait,” Purple Jersey said, then dropped his volume too low to hear.

  I glanced at Tran. He shrugged, then held up his throwing knives. I nodded my understanding and crouched low. Tran did the same. Both of us were ready to launch a silent attack, but neither of us wanted our heads and chests at the expected level in case the Varrios led their charge with bullets.

  When an arm holding a pistol came into view, I slashed up his wrist and down his belly.

  It was Striped Crew.

  The pistol fell. Striped Crew grabbed his bleeding gut. I sliced back across his thigh, hoping to sever his femoral artery, but the blade caught in his baggy shorts. As I yanked the karambit free, Striped Crew hammered his fist into the side of my neck and pounded me to the floor like a sledgehammer.

  He had struck the vagus nerve—one of twelve cranial nerves that sent messages throughout the body. I had experienced this strike many times at the hands of my teacher. When targeted perfectly, the body shut down and crumpled to the ground, giving the attacker precious seconds of vulnerability on which to capitalize. Although I doubted Striped Crew had hit this nerve intentionally, the results were the same.

  My vision blurred. My head throbbed. Striped Crew loomed over me—arms bulging, fingers splayed, blood dripping from his gut—ready to tear me apart. I needed to get up, but my legs wouldn’t obey. My arms, on the other hand, worked fine. The security ring on the handle had kept the knife in my hand, so I slashed the thug’s calf, right below the hem of his shorts and above the rim of his fancy kicks. He shrieked, teetering dangerously above me. Legs working once again, I crab-crawled back to avoid getting crushed or smothered.

  Behind him, Purple Jersey shifted from one side to the other, looking for a clean shot. “Get out of the way!”

  Striped Crew crumpled to his knees. Purple Jersey took aim. I rocked to the side, hoping to take my head and heart out of the path of the bullet, but there was nowhere to go. I was trapped in a four-foot hallway, less than ten feet from the gun. Purple Jersey would have to be the worst gangbanger in all of Los Angeles to miss this shot.

  In a last-ditch effort, I swooped forward, flattened my body on the rubber floor, and waited for the bullets to tear through my back.

  No searing pain. No coughing blood. No silence of death.

  I pushed up onto my knees and looked beyond the hulking body of Striped Crew, still gripping his bleeding gut, to see Purple Jersey waver on his feet. He gurgled the noises I had expected my own throat to make and pressed his hands around the blade that protruded from his throat.

  Tran’s throwing knife had hit its mark.

  Blood spurted through Purple Jersey’s fingers. Try as he might, he couldn’t seal the wound. But one of his hands still held the gun. If he fired it, whoever was in the main house would come running.

  Tran shoved me aside. He had seen the same threat as I had and was on his way to disarm Purple Jersey before the weapon discharged. Unfortunately, that also meant he had to get past Striped Crew.

  The beefy Varrio swung a backhanded fist at Tran and turned to follow it with a hooking punch. Tran could have stopped him easily, but it would have used up precious time. Instead, he slipped underneath the Varrio’s attack and ran for the greater threat—the man with the knife in his throat and the gun in his hand. With nothing to stop the force of his hook, Striped Crew fell against the wall, giving me a clear view of his dying buddy—eyes crazed with fury and blood spurting from his throat—as he aimed his pistol at Tran’s face.

  Tran leapt. The gun fired. I gasped.

  I couldn’t tell if Tran had been shot, but I knew the alarm had been sounded.

  I dove forward and used the momentum of my shoulder roll to launch a double kick into Striped Crew’s gaping belly wound. I leapt to my feet. Before I could even react, Tran slit his throat.

  He sheathed his knife and drew the SIG Sauer from his holster. “Let’s go. We don’t have much time.”

  I clipped the karambit onto my waistband and grabbed the gun from Purple Jersey’s lifeless hand. Although I didn’t own a gun, Sensei had made sure I knew how to use them. Not surprisingly, this one was an FN-57, a popular choice among Mexican drug cartels who also favored AK-47s and grenade launchers. Lucky us.

  Tran went to clear the yard. I ran for the bedroom and found Kateryna and Ilya huddled behind the bed. I grabbed Ilya’s hand and yanked him to his feet. “Come on!”

  Kateryna screamed at me to let him go. I didn’t listen. At this point, all I cared about was Ilya. She could follow or not. I didn’t have time to protect them both.

  We had just exited the front door when a gun fired. I hunched over Ilya and raised my weapon, scanning for the threat. In the center of the yard, a Varrio gangster crumpled to the dirt, his forehead marred by a bloody hole. Two more ran up the driveway from the main house.

 
I shoved Ilya behind me. “Get back in the house!” Then I ran for the tree. With Tran on the left and me on the right, the gang members had two targets to shoot and two sets of bullets to dodge. Equally important, neither of us were in firing line of the people we were trying to protect.

  Bark sprayed off the tree a foot above my head. I leaned out the opposite side and fired back. Although I didn’t expect to hit anyone, I hoped that if I kept up the pressure, Tran would. He took advantage of the cover and fired one shot, and one body thumped against the car. Another Varrio cursed in Spanish and yelled for backup.

  We didn’t have much time.

  I ran back to the little house for Ilya and Katerina as Tran darted across the yard to the driveway, firing in quick succession. Another Varrio died, chest jerking and arms flailing with every impact. When I reached the driveway, Kateryna yanked Ilya away from me. The message was clear: Don’t take my son from me again.

  I nodded my understanding and led them behind the car. “Stay low.”

  As Tran crept along the wall of the main house toward the side door, I covered him over the car’s roof. The coast was clear. I wanted to get out while we still had the chance. “Let’s go,” I whispered to Tran, then motioned to Ilya and Kateryna.

  Stupid move.

  Two more guys charged out the door, this time armed with AK-47s. They caught me standing directly in front of them with my head perched over the car’s roof like a pumpkin on a fence. Someone was going to die.

  Although guns were far from my weapon of choice, I had gained enough skill to be able to hit a two-hundred-pound man in center mass at ten feet. Unfortunately, my bullet only made this man angrier.

  I shot him again, this time in the face.

  The act so unnerved me that I paused, just for a second, but long enough for the other man to turn his sights on me. I didn’t have time to aim. I pulled the trigger and prayed for luck.