Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 101427 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101427 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
I opened my mouth to argue—but stopped. Hiro’s fingers were shaking. Just slightly. Not from fear of dying. I knew him better than that.
It was me he was afraid of losing.
And if letting two silent shadows trail me gave him a fraction of peace, I’d allow it.
Sighing, I checked my watch. Time was passing by so fast. We needed to kill these guys before the bombs.
“Okay.” I gave a clipped nod. “Fine. Let’s go.”
We charged forward.
Chapter sixteen
The Forest that Eats the Dead
Kenji
Fast, we entered my bamboo forest of torture, searching for the five psychotic traitors.
Rows and rows of bamboo stretched up to the vaulted glass ceiling—lush, thick, almost hypnotic in their sway.
Only three feet of space separated each stalk.
Moonlight shimmered on their leaves.
Over sixty bodies were sprawled between the stalks.
Some dead.
Others dying.
Traitors, enemies, spies.
Flies buzzed where wounds gaped.
The bamboo fed on rot and betrayal.
Some stalks had grown jagged at the ends, sharpened like they wanted to taste flesh.
Guns pointed, I stepped over corpses with their legs splayed, jaws frozen mid-scream, eyes still open and wet. Every body told a story I didn’t have time to hear.
One arm twitched as I passed, but I didn’t flinch.
If he weren’t already dead, he’d be soon.
Groans echoed. Bones cracked underfoot. Blood puddled between the stones and moss.
A man lay with his back arched in pain, one bamboo stalk pierced straight through his torso. It had grown through him, roots fed by the blood now pooling around him. The stalk was vibrant green, leaves rustling above his twitching body. Nourished by his agony.
On our right, a body hung upside down from one of the thicker stalks. A bamboo vine had twisted tight around his ankle, wound so cruelly it had cut through the skin, exposing bone. The man’s arms dangled, fingers slack and twitchless.
Blood trailed down his chest, soaking the tatters of his shirt.
And then. . .I felt it.
That shift.
That prickle behind the ears like the air was bending just slightly wrong. A stillness that wasn’t ours. A presence that didn’t belong to me, the Claws, or Hiro.
It scraped down my spine.
A warning curled in my gut.
I didn’t look up right away.
Instead, I let the feeling thrum. Let it wrap around the base of my neck like smoke, tightening, coiling.
Someone is watching us.
That sensation was from a stranger’s eyes, flesh, and breath, hidden within the sway of the bamboo leaves. Eyes. Flesh and breath. Hidden in the sway.
I tilted my head slightly and kept my voice low. “Do you feel that?”
Hiro got to my side and didn’t even blink. His gun remained steady, his focus unchanged. But he nodded once.
“Someone’s watching us,” he whispered back. “Only two. Not more.”
“Two?”
“One’s low, watching from the East. The other’s above us. West side. It feels high. He probably climbed the bamboo.”
I glanced at him for just a second, moonlight cutting across his cheekbones, his face expressionless, but sharp with instinct. He was never just guessing. Hiro knew.
Goddamn.
As usual, my brother wasn’t just confident, he was specific. Coordinates. Positioning. Verticality. He’d heard something in the pattern of breath. Felt a shift in the weight of wind. And let the forest speak to him in code.
Sometimes I forgot how unnerving he could be.
Other times, like now, I remembered exactly why I would never—could never—move through this world without him.
Because I may be the Dragon.
But Hiro was the silence between my heartbeats.
Two watchers. East and high west.
My gaze returned to the forest, scanning the eerie silhouettes of the bamboo stalks. Gritting my teeth against the unsettling sensation of being watched, I put my gaze back on my brother.
What’s the plan, brother?
He was already watching me.
Okay. I see.
Hiro didn’t need to say it. I already saw the plan in his eyes.
“Cut the wind,” I muttered.
He nodded once. “And close the eye.”
That was how we’d always done it. Distract the gaze. Control the air. Let the world think it’s watching you, while death comes from the side.
Hiro didn’t speak.
Just lifted his hand.
Two fingers up. A flick east. A diagonal slice to the west. Then a closed fist.
The Claws scattered.
Kaede peeled left, his bone saw glinting as he vanished behind a thick column of bamboo.
Daisuke pivoted low, hugging the mossy ground, two blades ready in one hand, pistol drawn in the other. Even the damned air seemed to silence itself when he moved.
Toma adjusted his sawed-off and gave a crooked grin—then melted into the shadows with that coiling chain looped around his wrist like it had its own pulse.
The twins didn’t move. Of course they didn’t. One on my left. One on my right. Still as statues. My guards, whether I liked it or not.
I clenched my jaw but didn’t argue.
Not now.
Instead, I tracked Hiro as he headed off. “I’m the bait.”
“You’re not.” He moved in a slow, sure arc through the thickets, no wasted steps, no crunch of gravel. Just another ghost blending into a graveyard.