by Cole Gibsen
He placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Rileigh, this dojo is just a front. This is what we do.” He smiled. “Some say that the samurai are cursed to be reborn into every new life as samurai.”
“But you don’t have to go after him.”
His smiled melted. “This is personal. I’ve waited a lifetime to settle this debt.”
“What if something happens to you?”
“Then I die with great honor.”
I crossed my arms. “That’s stupid.”
“You didn’t used to think so.” A smile tugged on the corners of his mouth. “Would it really matter to you anyway? If I died?”
I opened my mouth to tell him no, but the words wouldn’t come. What was it about Kim Gimhae that he could infuriate me at every encounter—yet the thought of losing him twisted fear, like ribbons of barbed wire, around my heart?
Kim laughed when I didn’t say anything. “That’s what I thought.”
“Let me go after Zeami with you!” I said.
He gave me a sad smile. “If you had transcended, I would allow it. You are a gifted fighter, the best I have trained. But you haven’t unlocked all of your skills yet. And you haven’t trained enough without them. There is no way I can risk it.”
“But what if I want to risk it?”
He shook his head. “That’s not your call to make.”
I dropped his hands and balled my fingers into fists, making sure to stand up to every inch of my small frame. “This psycho is after me, and if he hurts Michelle or anyone else who’s looking for him, it’s going to be my fault. How does all of that make this your call?”
Kim cocked an eyebrow. “Rank. More experience. The government. Do you need more?” I opened my mouth to answer, but he cut me off. “Listen to me!” All traces of amusement had left his voice. “I lost you once because I was not prepared. I will not make the same mistake twice!”
All I could do was blink.
“I’m sorry.” He turned away, but not before I could see the pain in his expression. “Take whatever you want from the weapon wall. Just please go.”
Fine. I wouldn’t argue with him, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. I tried to storm off, but he caught me by the elbow.
He leaned in and I felt his lips brush against my ear. “Thank you,” he whispered.
He stepped in front of me and cupped my face in his hands. “Thank you for trusting me. I swear on my life that I will not let anyone or anything take you from me.” He leaned over and his breath, warm on my neck, made me shiver. “I love you, Rileigh.”
Without giving me a chance to respond, he turned on his heels, motioning for the guys to follow, and left the dojo.
35
Kim had said he loved me. And now he was gone.
My heart felt like a stone, puncturing organs and twisting nerves as it sank inside of my body, anchoring me to the overstuffed loveseat in Braden’s living room. There were too many feelings coursing through me to figure out which were mine and which were Senshi’s. My head hurt. I wanted to cry. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to continue sinking down into the cushion until the couch swallowed me whole.
Sitting next to me, Quentin huffed as he played with the chain on his wallet. No one had spoken during the thirty minutes it took us to get to the small, one-story brick ranch in the St. Louis suburb of Webster Groves where Braden lived.
“Well.” Braden slapped his hands against his legs as he sat on the couch opposite us. “No use bringing the bags in, as we might be leaving tonight.”
I nodded, not really paying attention. Instead, I thought about Kim. Actually, it was more like worried. Zeami had killed everyone before. If something happened to Kim … No. I wouldn’t let myself think about that.
I glanced at Braden and found him staring at the ceiling while chewing on his lower lip. Apparently I wasn’t the only one worried. “I’m sure it’s going to be fine. Kim will get Michelle back,” I told him.
He laughed nervously. “Of course. They’re all skilled fighters. It’s not like this is the first elimination mission we’ve gone on.”
Quentin’s eyes widened, and I couldn’t help feeling just as surprised.
His head snapped straight. “I don’t think I should have said that.”
I shrugged, hoping my face wasn’t as pale as it felt. “I’m sorry you’re stuck babysitting me.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m not babysitting you. Besides, Kim is right—I’d be dangerous on this mission.”
“Because you’re worried about Michelle?” I asked.
He swallowed and seemed to consider the question. “I’m trying not to be. Drew is an exceptional fighter and Kim is one of the best in the world. But now they’re up against Zeami. I can’t help but think about how that turned out last time.”
I had to change the subject. The thought that something might happen to Michelle, Drew, or Kim twisted my insides. “Do you spend much time with Michelle?”
He smiled. “Every day since she transcended.”
“Every day?” Quentin asked.
“Yep. Even though we’d avoid his twenty billion questions, it would almost be a shame to bail before my dad gets home from work. He’s always harping on me about how I need to spend time with people other than Michelle. He just doesn’t get it and he never will.” Braden bit his lip again. “Are you worried about Kim?”
“Yes,” Quentin answered before I could. He folded his arms and leaned back in the couch with a smile. “Are you worried about Kim, Ri-Ri?”
I made a face at him. He knew how uncomfortable I got discussing relationships.
“Are you worried?” Braden echoed.
I could feel myself sinking deeper into the couch. I didn’t know what I was. My emotions were stacked like a game of Jenga, each fighting for the top position, each threatening to bring me to collapse. “I don’t know … maybe a little.”
Braden stared at me for a moment before replying. “Maybe it was because I was a child in the last life, but I don’t think I remember ever seeing you scared before.”
“Not one to wear her heart on her sleeve, our Ri-Ri,” Quentin said.
“Unless she’s angry,” Braden added.
Quentin laughed.
“Hey!” I said. But then I thought about it and shrugged. He had a point. “That may be, but I don’t think I can remember a time when I had so much at stake.”
“You have feelings for him.” Braden grinned.
I laughed, but it sounded more like a yelp. “Honestly? I’m so mixed up, I don’t know how I feel about anything.”
He gave me a sympathetic look. “The whole soul mate thing—you just can’t fight it.” He shrugged. “But who’d want to?”
“Pretty hot, then?” Quentin asked.
“You have no idea.” Braden smirked.
“Gotta find my soul mate,” Quentin mumbled. He shifted in the couch so he could face me. “Would you rather you didn’t know?”
“What do you mean?”
“This soul mate thing seems a lot like destiny. Like this is the path you have to take, and this is the person you have to be with. I, for one, would love some hottie to show up on my door and say, ‘Guess what, we’re soul mates.’ But I can imagine how you, Ms. Do-It-My-Way-Or-The-Highway, would have major issues with it.”
I frowned at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” When I’d kissed Kim in the bathroom it felt like the rest of the world had dropped away. Even time didn’t exist. I could see him as he used to be and as he was now at the same time. If that wasn’t possession, what else could it be?
“Love,” Quentin answered.
I sat up straight. “What did you say?”
“Love,” he repeated. “You told me you didn’t know what we were talking about so I decided to clue you in.”
“Oh.” I blinked several times, relieved he hadn’t been able to read my thoughts.
Quentin turned back to Braden. “When do you think we’ll hear something?”
<
br /> As if in answer, my cell phone began to ring. Braden and Quentin both leaned forward, straining to glimpse the number on the screen, a number I didn’t recognize. I answered anyway. “Hello?”
“Hey, Rileigh. It’s Whitley. You are one hard girl to get ahold of.”
I widened my eyes at Quentin. “Hi, Whitley.” I emphasized his name so the entire room could hear.
Braden narrowed his eyes in confusion, and Quentin walked over and whispered in his ear.
I turned my attention back to the phone. “Sorry about that. My life has been a little crazy lately.”
There was a pause on the other end. “That kind of leads me to my next question. Are you in some kind of trouble?”
A lump formed in my throat, and I struggled to swallow around it. “Trouble?” I gave a nervous laugh. “What do you mean by that?”
“I got some weird note delivered to my house. It warned me to stay away from you. You don’t have some crazy ex-boyfriend or something, do you?”
“Something like that,” I mumbled. I put my hand over the receiver and hissed, “Whitley got a threatening note, too!”
Braden sat forward. “We need that note!”
“We do?”
He nodded. “It might give us a clue to where Zeami is.”
“Okay.” I removed my hand from the receiver.
“Rileigh, I thought we had a good time the other night and then I don’t hear from you,” Whitley continued. “First I was bummed. I’d assumed I’d been rejected. But then I get this note and realize there’s a lot more going on. I’m worried about you. Is there something I can do to help?”
“Actually, yes,” I answered. “I’m staying with a friend in Webster Groves. Is there any way you can bring that note over? It might help.”
“Sure thing. What about dinner? Have you eaten yet?”
At the mention of food, my stomach roared to life. In all the excitement, I’d completely forgotten about eating. “That would be great. Could you bring extra for my friends?”
Whitley promised to grab everyone something from a drive-thru. After he took down directions to Braden’s house, he hung up.
“Well, this is going to be awkward,” I said, setting my phone down.
“Why’s that?” Braden asked.
I shrugged. “This whole Whitley thing. He’s such a sweet guy, and I had a really good time with him.” I shook my head. “Things just got so complicated, and now, with Kim—” I let the sentence hang as I lost the words to explain.
“Just be brutally honest, Ri-Ri,” Quentin said. “And when you leave him wounded and broken,” he swung his arms through the air, “I’ll be there to pick up the pieces.”
“Thanks, Q,” I grumbled.
He smiled. “I’m always there for you.”
“Well, I’m going to call Kim and let him know what’s up,” Braden said. He pulled out his phone and dialed a number. After waiting a moment, he touched the screen and ended the call. “Voicemail.”
“Is that good or bad?” I asked.
He shrugged, but his eyes couldn’t mask his concern. “Neither. Kim probably left his cell phone in the car.” He he touched the phone’s screen, dialing again. Another moment passed, and again he disconnected. “Drew, too,” he mumbled.
The knot in my stomach pulled tighter. “What do we do?”
“The only thing we can do,” he said. “Wait.”
36
Rileigh, wake up. Whitley’s here.”
I opened my eyes to find Braden crouched in front of me. Startled, I pushed myself up from my slumped position. I’d just wanted to rest a moment. I hadn’t expected to fall asleep.
Whitley and his amazing dimples flooded my vision as he knelt down in front of me. “Hey there, Sleeping Beauty.” He held up a grease-stained paper bag. “I brought sustenance.”
I smiled at him as I stretched. “Thanks. That’s really thoughtful.”
“No problem.” He smiled and smoothed his hands along tied-back hair. He looked even more like a cover model with his chiseled cheekbones exposed. “It’s the least I can do. I guess you’ve had one hell of a week, huh?”
“That’s the truth.” I took the paper cup he offered me and sucked a long sip from the straw. I wrinkled my nose. “Is this diet?”
Whitley shook his head. “It shouldn’t be. I made sure to ask for regular.”
“Mine tasted funny, too,” Q said from his perch on the couch next to Braden. “I bet the syrup went flat.”
I shrugged and pulled a hamburger from the bag.
Whitley stood up and sat next to me. “Care to tell me what’s going on?” He placed a hand on my knee. “I’ve been really worried about you.”
I stopped chewing and stared at his hand. My skin underneath his palm crawled. Weird. I squirmed away, trying to mask the movement by placing my soda on the coffee table. When I sat back, he slid his arm around
my shoulder.
Quentin and Braden exchanged a glance.
No longer hungry, I balled up the rest of my burger inside the wrapper. “I guess I have a psycho secret admirer.” I stood up and threw the wad into the paper bag on the coffee table. Why was Whitley acting so weird? He was a perfect gentleman on our date, and now he wouldn’t keep his hands off of me.
“What makes you think this guy’s a psycho?” Whitley asked.
I sat back down next to him, making sure I was just out of groping range. “Well, you should know. You received a note, didn’t you?”
He nodded without looking at me. Instead, he reached over and stroked a lock of my hair.
“Whitley!” I jerked back. “What’s wrong with you?”
A French fry fell from Quentin’s gaping mouth.
Whitley grinned. “What do you mean?”
I stood up, but my world tilted off balance. I immediately sat back down to keep from falling over.
“Oh no, Rileigh.”
I glanced over at Braden, who had pressed his fingers against his forehead. Quentin lay draped across his lap. “We’ve been drugged,” he slurred. He slumped backward like a puppet cut free from its strings and braced himself on one arm. “We need … ” But he never finished. His head flopped back against the couch, unconscious.
I thought I heard Whitley say something, but I was sliding so far inside my body I couldn’t hear anything over the beating of my heart. I tried to stand, but only managed to swing my legs uselessly off to the side.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Whitley leaning back against the couch, very much enjoying the show. I tried to speak, but my mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton. Whatever drugs he had used, they worked fast.
I made one last effort to move but only succeeded in slumping over onto my lap. Slowly, my own weight pulled me over and I crumpled into a heap on the floor. The last thing I saw was Whitley’s reaching hand.
37
I opened my eyes to black. Was I dreaming? The floor underneath me jumped and I hit my head on something slender and metal. I would have cried out, but my mouth was covered with duct tape. Nope. Definitely not dreaming. Locked in a car trunk. Crap.
Still groggy, I assessed the situation. I tried my arms—they were taped behind my back. My legs—taped too. This just got better and better.
The car slowed, the tires crunching over gravel before coming to a complete stop. The engine died, followed by the slam of a car door. With each footstep in my direction, my heart skipped a beat.
The trunk opened and Whitley loomed over me, framed by a starless sky. “We’re home,” he sang. His eyes were wide with excitement. He pulled me from the trunk and slung me over his shoulder like a sack. My heart sank as he walked up the short familiar sidewalk to the front door. He was telling the truth—I really was home.
Whitley walked right in. The door was unlocked, almost like it was waiting for him. He chuckled. “Bet you never thought I’d carry you across the threshold, huh?” He hummed the wedding march as he pushed the door shut with his back. When the latch click
ed, he dropped me onto the floor. Waves of pain danced across my arm as my elbow took the brunt of the fall.
Ignoring my groan, Whitley stepped over me and paced around the room. “Don’t have much time. Need to prepare.” He paused, looked at me, and then vanished into the kitchen.
Once he was out of sight, I frantically tried to free myself from the duct tape, but only succeeded in tearing my skin. The sounds of my screams were barely audible through my covered mouth.
Whitley returned with a shoebox in his hand. He looked nothing like the guy I had gone to the coffeehouse with. His eyes were tiny black dots surrounded by an ocean of white. When he knelt next to me, I saw little beads of sweat perched on his upper lip. He dug into the box. “I need—I need … Aha!” He pulled out a syringe.
A needle! My heart somersaulted before swan diving into the pit of my stomach. Samurai or not, I simply could not handle needles. With every ounce of strength I could muster, I tried to break free from my bonds.
“Shh.” Whitley patted my convulsing body. “You need to relax. That’s why I’m giving this to you.”
Realizing I was wasting valuable energy, I stilled. As the needle drew closer, I closed my eyes, whimpering when the pointed edge bit into my skin. I inhaled sharply as a low burning sensation followed. The world went fuzzy.
I expected to fall unconscious, but instead I felt myself detach and float away from my body. I could see and hear, but my arms and legs were as useless as the air around me.
“There.” Whitley patted my head. “All better, see? Now I’m going to take the tape off of your mouth, so you need to promise to be good, okay? If I leave it on and you vomit, you’ll choke and die.”
I hoped my look was as dirty as I wanted it to be.
He picked at a corner of the tape, then ripped it violently from my face. Luckily, I was too numb to care. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” Whitley said, smiling. “All this time and you were right under my nose.” He playfully jabbed my shoulder. “I can’t believe I ever thought that she could be the one.” He looked over his shoulder and I followed his gaze to find a figure, limp on my couch.
