Page 105 of Cunning Lies
He punches my ear and the red and brown rocks spin around me. I find my gun, but before I can aim, he lunges forward and pulls Vi into a headlock, keeping her imprisoned between the crook of his elbow and his other hand. Her face pools red, and with the way his hands are positioned, all it will take is one jerking movement, and he’ll break her neck.
“Drop the gun,” Jay says. “Fight me like a man. Isn’t that the honorable way to do this? The yakuza way? Fairness. Equality. The samurai’s code.”
I don’t care about honor, but when I aim the gun at Jay’s forehead, he shoves Vi in front of him, using her as his human shield.
“How good are you at shooting?” he asks. “Because Vivian here is pretty good at being my shield. I’ve been using her for a long time now.”
A tear slips down her cheek. She pulls at his arm, and he loosens the grip around her neck, giving her a small taste of air before he goes back to choking her again.
“Drop the gun or I’ll kill her right now,” he says.
I don’t have time to think. I lower the gun to the ground, then lift both hands in the air. Jay shoves Vi out of his way as he leaps toward me. Vi loses balance, tripping over a rock and landing in the dirt. She coughs, struggling to breathe, but she pulls herself up to her hands and knees.
She’s okay.
Jay’s fist hits me at full force. He caught me off guard, and it worked. I fall, hitting my head on a rock on the way down. I punch back but I’m disoriented and everything shifts around like I’m slogging through mud. Jay pins me to the ground. I try using my legs to sling him off of me, but his punches rail into me. Blood trickles down my lips, and I’m on my back again.
I should have brought backup. I should’ve done a lot of things. But I couldn’t risk what Dice and Ronin could have done to Vi. I look around for her, but my vision is blurry. I can’t see her anywhere.
I hope she took my car and ran.
Jay picks up a large rock in his hand, the size of a football, and raises it up in the air. I keep my eyes open, waiting for the last moment to strike. He’s playing dirty, using a rock. The damn hypocrite.
“Thanks for taking such good care of her,” he says. Then he swings the rock.
A gunshot snaps through the air, and the rock crashes next to my head, breaking in two. The bullet echoes around us, mixing with the thunder booming overhead.
A red hole paints Jay’s head. He locks eyes with me for a second, his expression blank, before he collapses on top of me.
Vi stands behind him, her elbows locked as she holds the gun, still aiming at Jay’s corpse.
CHAPTER34
VI
Storm cloudsbellow overhead and I jump out of my skin, but I keep my hands around the gun, the muzzle aimed at the back of Jay’s head. Kenzo slides out from under him, leaving Jay face down in the dirt, and I can’t look at Jay anymore.
He’s not coming back.
I close my eyes, giving the gun to Kenzo. My whole body quivers. I know I’m in the desert. I know I’m with Kenzo. But that gunshot replays in my mind and I’m back in that six-year-old body, sitting in the driveway, waiting for my parents to come out of the house, to tell me that everything is alright.
But nothing is alright. I scream through my sobs and the emotion tears through my soul. The thunder rumbles above us again, and I spin around, finding my balance. It was my fault my parents died back then, and now, it’s the same thing all over again.
But I know the truth now. Jay hired someone to kill my parents. And now, I’ve killed him.
“It’s okay,” Kenzo whispers into my ear. He clutches me against his chest, dirt and blood smearing my face. His gait wavers—hitting his head on the rock must have disoriented him—but he still holds me like he’ll do anything to keep me safe. “It’s okay,” he says again. “I’m here. No one’s going to hurt you.”
A fat raindrop splatters on my arm, and a shiver runs through me. In a matter of seconds, the rain pounds into the ground. My pulse accelerates, my insides quivering. Kenzo huddles around me. He shoots out a few texts on his phone, water smearing the screen.
“Tomo and Cherry will be here soon. But this is gonna be a flash flood,” he says. “We’ve gotta get to higher ground.”
“Why can’t we go into the storage facility?”
“You need two keys to get in. It’s never a solo job.”
The rain pummels into us, painting the desert in darkness. Soon, we’re higher up, and there’s a little dugout in the side of the rock formation, giving us enough space to stay semi-dry, as long as we stay flat against the wall.
My eyes backtrack to Jay’s corpse. Muddy water sloshes around him and ringing fills my mind. Lightning flashes above us, but I can’t hear the thunder clap over my anxiety. My mind is a tangle of thoughts. I don’t want to look at Kenzo when I know, so deeply now, that I was wrong. But the words come rambling out.
