by H. J. Lawson
“Take it. And use it, if necessary.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“It’s not a real gun. At least, not the kind you’re probably thinking. It won’t kill anyone. It’ll just put them to sleep.”
I take the gun, a little bit of a thrill running through me as I test its weight and balance in my hands. Last time I held a gun was the summer before my dad died, and we were shooting in the woods behind our cabin in Texas. He was spooked that year, always standing looking by the window. He had heard something in the woods. Mom said it was just animals, and Dad agreed but seemed to do it just to reassure Mom, the worrier of the house.
“How does it put people to sleep?” I ask, trying to get my head back in the moment, and not dwell in the past. The past that controls every part of my future.
“You’ll see.”
Scarlet stands and moves up in front of me, checking both sides of the hallway.
“Why can’t we kill people?”
“It could cause a ripple in time that will change the future.”
I look down at the gun, weighing it in my hands again. “But isn’t our being here, protecting Tora, going to cause some sort of ripple?”
“There are good ripples and bad. What we’re doing will have a positive effect on the future. An intentional ripple. Indiscriminately killing people can cause ripples that cannot be predicted. We could change important events if we kill the wrong person.”
“Oh.”
“It’s complicated,” Scarlet admits as she looks at me. “It all is. But you’ll begin to understand it soon.”
I just nod, trying not to think about it too much.
“Are you ready for this?”
“Do I have a choice?”
Scarlet shrugged. “We all have choices, Parker.”
Very profound.
“Yeah. I’m ready.”
Scarlet pulls a room-service cart out of the housekeeping closet and charges down the hall like she knows where she’s going. I’m a little lost. I wasn’t even sure which floor we should go to, let alone which of the many, many doors the inspector and Tora could be hiding behind. But I follow her, trusting that she knows what she’s doing, just as I’ve done since she ran up to me more than an hour ago.
She stops at a door at the far end of the hallway, not far from the elevators. I watch her scrutinize this door, like she can see what’s going on behind it. I don’t understand.
“What makes you think—”
She ignores me and knocks firmly on the door, room 1616.
Where would a bad guy stay? Of course, the penthouse suite of a fancy hotel.
A deep voice speaks Japanese from the other side of the door,
“He said who is it?” Scarlet says. Scarlet replies back to him, then whispers to me, “room service.” She continues to whisper under her breath a translation of their conversations.
“We didn’t order any,” the man says.
“Well, someone did, because I’m here,” Scarlet replies.
There’s silence on the other side of the door and I think there’s no way they’ll fall for this. I mean, seriously, all you have to do is watch just one movie to know this trick. But then I’m surprised.
The door opens and Scarlet immediately shoves the cart forward, hitting the guy right in the middle of his thighs. He jumps back as another guy pushes the cart over and charges at Scarlet. She lands a punch to his jaw as he shoves her back. And then they’re in the hallway, throwing punches at each other. The man throws aimlessly at Scarlet, who pivots and twirls at each of his punches as if she’s dancing.
She slams her foot into the guy’s lower belly. He goes down like a ton of bricks, grabbing his nuts and cursing in several languages.
Another man comes out the door and charges at Scarlet. I feel like I should do something, but I don’t know how to fight. If I did, I wouldn’t be tortured by Travis all the time. But then another man and another charge out the door. I remember the gun in my hand. I feel like John Taylor in Call of Duty. I aim the gun at the last man through the door and fire. He immediately hits the ground.
“Hell, yeah!” I cry, unable to believe I actually did it. I shot a person.
But then the other guy charges toward me. I back up, hitting my back against the wall. I raise the gun again, but I’m a little too late. He grabs my wrist, but then he goes down. When he falls, I see Scarlet behind him, a gun in her hand now, too.
“Don’t be an idiot,” she says.
“This is so cool! Did you see that? I actually hit that guy!”
“Of course you did.”
“Just like Call of Duty! I’m so much better than Taylor!”
Scarlet shakes her head. “This isn’t some kind of game, Parker. You could get killed.”
“I know it’s not a game,” I scoff at her. “It’s a dream.”
“No. It’s not.”
Just as she says it, I hear a gunshot and my arm begins to burn like crazy. Scarlet shoves me out of the way and charges at a guy who suddenly appears in the doorway. They fight for a minute, Scarlet landing some pretty impressive kicks to his chest and legs. She takes some hits, too. Is it just my imagination, or are her knuckles bruised and bleeding?
I touch my arm and there’s blood on my fingers.
Oh, shit! Am I really shot?
Chapter 20
Panic begins to build in my chest. I squeeze my eyes tightly together. I want to go home.
Darkness swallows me, sucking all the life from my body. I gasp as if the devil himself just spat me out onto my bed… My bed.
My arm feels weak as I spring up from my lying position.
01:00.01 glows from my alarm clock. I’ve been a sleep for a minute?
I fumble out of my bed for my bedroom light.
I was really shot. I look down at the crimson blood on my finger. My body tingles all over, and the gunshot wound stings and burns as if I’ve got sunburn.
Hysterical laugher pours uncontrollably from my mouth. It’s real? I can time travel? My laughter gets louder the more I think about it. I’ve finally gone crazy. No one can time travel. I shake my head as I look into my mirror.
“If I’m crazy, where did I get the clothes from?” I ask myself as I look at the housekeeping uniform Scarlet stole from the hotel. But if it is real, that means Scarlet is on her own and Tora is still in danger. I thought we couldn’t time travel out of the assignment.
Then all my thoughts turn black, and their weight drowns me. If this is real, that means… No, she can’t be. It would mean that Kimi is really dead. And she died for me.
How do I get back there? I can’t let anyone else die.
I can hear my heart pounding in my chest; the sound clouds my brain from making any clear thoughts.
“You can do this,” I tell myself as I look into the mirror.
I click the light off and lie back in bed, putting the blankets over my body, just as I had done before I first time traveled.
What did I do that first time? I look at the clock. 01:02:01—I’ve already been here two minutes. What’s happened to them in that time? I panic, which really doesn’t help.
Hilton, Japan, room 1616. Take me back there, I repeat in my head over and over again.
Goddamn it! It’s not working. I flip around in my bed. Pain ripples through my arm with the movement. Take me back there, my mind wills, pushing through the pain.
The heaviness of disappointment hits me. I can’t do this.
“Parker?” I open my eyes to see amazement in Scarlet’s eyes, then her face swings to the side as she takes a hard punch to the jaw. Her body slams down to the ground with a thud. Vandir’s man snarls at me, and he steps over Scarlet’s lifeless body.
I did it! I’ve reappeared in the hotel room.
I run, not thinking about where I’m going. I push open another door and step inside, closing the door behind me. Inside it is a bedroom, and huddled on the bed are Tora and, I guess, her parents. She’s here. I found her.
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There is a thud of a body against the locked bedroom door. Please don’t let it be Scarlet.
Tora mutters something to her father, whom she calls “Oshiro.” Oshiro’s almond-shaped eyes widen, and he jerks his head to one side. I turn. There are bodies on the floor in a pool of blood staining the cream hotel carpet. The police inspector. A couple of other people I don’t recognize. He stands tall, as if to tell me he did that.
Now I feel that this isn’t some fun dream, and this is real. I want to know what the frigging hell is really going on!
Who is Tora and why is she so important that I would find myself pulled into her life?
“Parker?” I hear a harsh whisper from outside the door.
Scarlet.
“In here,” I say, opening the door just a crack, fearing that there might be more crazy men with guns nearby. “It’s all real. It’s all real,” I mutter, the words echoing in my mind.
“I told you it was,” Scarlet says as she steps into the room. I turn back to the bed where Tora’s father—Oshiro—is again jerking his head to the left like he’s having some sort of seizure; three men dressed in suits, Vandir’s men, step into the bedroom with their guns drawn and pointed right at me.
Then everything happens so fast I don’t have time to think about it.
One of the men grabs Tora. The other two grab Tora’s parents, her mother screaming as her father speaks quickly in Japanese, begging for his daughter. Tora is wide-eyed, too shocked and frightened to do anything. She stares straight at me as though communicating with me without actually saying anything. And the funny thing is, I know what she’s saying, not from words but from the look on her face.
The man, with his very lethal gun pointed at me, uncovers the watch on his wrist.
I know what’s going to happen. I remember how Clint looked at his watch and then he was suddenly gone.
They are going to take Tora to their present, where there is nothing Scarlet and I can do to help her.
They will not take her; I can’t let that happen.
I fish in my pocket and pull out my knife. Before anyone notices I’ve got it, I throw it at the man holding Tora. To my surprise I hit the target, his eye.
Instantly he falls to the ground, wrapping his hands around the knife, blood angrily seeping down his face.
Tora runs to me.
I shelter her with my body as Scarlet lets out some sort of warrior cry, the sound of flesh pounding flesh filling the room as she uses her Bruce Lee moves to take out the other guy. She must be growing tired, but she lands a couple of good punches and a kick to the guy’s thigh before he gets even one punch in. These guys just aren’t prepared for her ferocity, her determination.
It takes longer than it should, but Scarlet finally lands a blow to the last man’s head and he goes down.
“It’s okay now,” I tell Tora.
She runs to her mother, who cries as she holds her, running her hands instinctively over her daughter as though looking for a hidden injury.
“Thank you,” her father says in heavily-accented English.
I just nod, a little embarrassed by his gratitude.
“You time traveled on the assignment. How did you do that?” Scarlet asks, looking at me with new eyes. Not like I'm a kid getting in her way anymore, but as if I'm someone she needs.
“I will tell you once the assignment is over.” And once I figure out how the hell I did it.
“You did good, Parker,” Scarlet says, coming to stand at my side.
“You too.”
“I always do. But you… that was impressive work with the knife.”
I smile, a little more flattered than I probably should be. But it does feel good to be the hero for once instead of the victim.
Chapter 21
We move to the second room in the hotel suite. The living room is nothing like mine at home; this is way nicer and bigger. Tora and her parents are sitting on the couch, still clinging to each other like they’re afraid if they let go of her, she’ll just disappear.
Scarlet is pacing, clearly agitated.
“Can I ask you something?”
She doesn’t acknowledge me with words, but she slows her movements, which I take as acknowledgement. “She’s safe now. Reunited with her parents. We should have gone back, but we haven’t. Isn’t our assignment done?”
She shakes her head. “Something’s wrong. It’s not over yet.”
Almost as if on cue, we hear the ding of the elevator and the sound of many, many feet.
People are coming.
Scarlet races to the door and looks out through the peephole. Once again, tension seems to spread from her scalp to her toes. Then she runs to the windows. There’s bamboo scaffolding outside, left behind by the construction crew still working on the finishing touches on the building.
Scarlet steps back and fires her gun. Cracks appear on the window and then it shatters.
She speaks quickly to Tora’s parents. The father immediately stands and grabs Tora, swinging her up onto his back. Then he grabs his wife’s hand and pulls her across the room to the broken window.
The wind whistles as it rushes through the window. I can see the fear written all over Tora’s face. I touch the bottom of my chin with two fingers, the universal sign to keep your chin up. Have courage. She focuses on me intently for a moment as she does what I’ve shown her and lifts her chin, the fear slowly draining from her eyes.
“Too many,” Scarlet hisses under her breath as the sound of approaching footsteps continues. She runs into the bedroom for a second, shoving guns into her bag as she comes back. Then she goes over to the couch and tugs it. I see what she’s doing and I grab the other end, helping her push it the dozen or so feet to the door. We wedge it up against the door, the back sitting perfectly against the bottom of the door handle. A second later, the handle jiggles, but the couch is too tight against it to allow any real movement.
“That won’t hold them long,” Scarlet says.
“Then we'd better go.”
I run to the open window where Oshiro, with Tora on his back, is just stepping over the windowsill, followed by his pale and shaking wife.
My adrenaline is pumping. I can’t even begin to think about what’s happening, about what will happen if we don’t make it, now that I know it is all real. All I can think about are Tora’s eyes that keep looking at me like I’m the only one who can protect her.
We have to save Tora. I don’t know why. But I know it’s more important than the fear that has begun to take root deep in my stomach.
I’ve never been brave, but this is the moment to be brave.
We rush down the bamboo scaffolding that’s wrapped around the outside of the hotel. Even though I’m not scared of heights, this is frigging scary. I grip the bamboo which, to my amazement, is strong. Thank God. Tora and her parents are in front of me, with Scarlet behind me. I know the moment the bad guys break through the door of the hotel suite because there is a loud crash and a lot of swearing. A part of me wants to press my hands to Tora’s ears, keep her from hearing such vulgar words, even if most of them are in English and she can’t understand them.
And then someone’s at the window.
He yells at us; I guess telling us to stop. Maybe they will give us a head start and we can use the elevator instead of climbing down the outside of a very windy building.
Scarlet yells, “Faster.”
I run as fast as I can without risking tripping over my own feet.
A whizzing sounds passes by my ear. “They’re shooting!”
“Yeah. Run faster!”
“Why can they shoot at us if we can’t shoot at them?”
“Because they don’t care what happens to the future!”
I look at Tora. Her face is snug against her father’s neck, but her shoulders are shaking. She’s scared. I’m scared, but seeing how afraid she is makes me run faster, makes me move up behind her and her father to shield them as much as I can with my very thin b
ody.
The scaffolding is set up on a slight angle so that it is continuously working its way down the side of the building. Once we reach a certain point, it stops just working its way down the front of the building and begins winding around the other side. We are nearly to that corner when another bullet whizzes past me. It’s so close that I can feel the breeze against my cheek. I worry for a second that it might lodge itself in Tora or her dad, but it passes them by, too.
And then Tora’s mother is around the corner and we aren’t very far behind.
I move closer, my feet doing something of a dance as I try to run and slow down all at the same time. I press my hand to the small of the dad’s back, urging him forward. But even as I’m going forward, he’s stopping, and we nearly topple each other.
“What are you doing?” Scarlet demands.
“That’s a good question,” a man’s voice answers.
And that’s when we see them, a group of men standing on the scaffolding. It’s Clint and Bruce, and behind them are men naked from the waist up, shirtless men with massive tattoos displayed over their chests, their bellies, their arms. They’re the tattoos Mr. Conrad talked about in class yesterday. What did he call them? Irezumi. These men are members of the Yakuza, and the men that were holding Tora’s family hostage were, too. Mr. Oshiro belongs to a rival gang.
The tattoos cover just about every inch of their muscular bodies. They look like they have just stepped out of prison, where they spent their whole lives training for today.
Chapter 22
Scarlet moves up in front of Tora and her dad, pushing the mother back behind them. I watch as Tora’s dad hands off Tora, pushing her toward her mom, and he moves up beside Scarlet. That’s where I should be, I realize. I should be beside Scarlet, protecting these people, because that is the assignment. That is my purpose.
I touch Tora’s little hand and move up.
The men’s tattoos stare at us like they have thoughts and opinions of their own. The tattoos really are impressive. I find it difficult to pull my eyes from them, especially this one that depicts a beautiful geisha with the most intense eyes. The work is amazing. I’ve never seen anything quite so beautiful in all my life… not that I go out of my way to look at tattoos, or art for that matter. But it is beautiful. Almost as beautiful as my sweet Clara.
