28. Chapter 28
Chapter 28
Andy
Asuka comes barreling out of the room that he disappeared into with Chi just minutes ago, but Chi isn’t following him. I know immediately that something is wrong.
Our eyes lock. He has never made eye contact with me, but now he does. His eyes are wide and anxious, possibly even scared. All of these feelings seem to deepen as he meets my gaze.
My eyes narrow, looking from him to the door. “What the fuck—”
He puts his head down and sprints away.
I rush to the door and listen. The walls are thick so people can fuck in the rooms if they choose, but I hear muffled voices through it. One is definitely a man’s, which means someone else is in there besides Chi.
I put my hand on my gun, slipping it from its holster but keeping it concealed. I take a credit card out of the wad of bills in my jacket pocket and slide it easily between the door latch and the strike plate, cracking it open slowly.
Through the crack on the door, I can see them staring each other down at the foot of the lounger in the study. Asuka’s father stands just feet from her, straining to make his posture tall and intimidating, I can tell. She seems scared and angry but confused, which is what I’m feeling at this moment, too.
I’ve caught Asuka’s father in the middle of a thought, and he finishes as I look on. “You have too much power for a little girl, Chichi Yano. You don’t know what to do with it.”
Chi swallows and seems to shake off her shock. “Have you lost your mind? We are at a party with hundreds of Japan’s most elite. If I say a word about this or someone walks in, you’ll have a lot to answer for. Is this simply because you’re worried I’ll take advantage of poor little Asuka? Because I hate to point this out, but you’re doing the same thing.”
“Of course not,” Asuka’s father spits at her. “I couldn’t care less about what happens to him. He is only powerful because of me, and things will stay that way. He can’t hope to be on his own. His betrothal to you has been nothing but a sham, as you well know.”
Chi is still confused, but it’s overshadowed now by her anger. “Listen, your son is a grown man. We have decided to marry, so—”
“No, Chichi. You have not decided. It might be nice to tell yourself that you’ve made this choice, but your father has steered you just as I’ve steered Asuka. And now, I must steer him a different way.”
He grabs Chi’s arm, and that’s all I need to see before I step into the room coolly, my gun raised and ready. “What in the world are you thinking, Mr. Shimizu?”
He holds her in front of himself and takes out his own gun. I can’t shoot now because I don’t have a clear target with Chi in front of him like that, and he knows it. He narrows his eyes on me. “Ah, it’s you. Her lover. I wasn’t sure if you actually cared about her or wanted to hang off her coattails, but here you are, breaking into a locked room to get to her. You must like her more than I imagined.”
“It’s you and your son that want to hang off her coattails. You’ve lost your chance now, though, holding that fucking thing.”
Through clenched teeth, Chi speaks. “What the fuck is your plan? What is the goal here? My father is dead, and I am the queen. I’m not going to do anything you ask, and whether you kill me or not, it won’t help your standing. There is press crawling all over this building. Whatever you want, this is not the way to go about it.”
He puts his arm around Chi’s neck and tightens it, forcing her to choke. Chi may be feeling annoyance, but I’m honestly worried. There’s no way Asuka’s father came in here without a reason or a plan, and neither of us know what it is yet.
“There is a way. As with all buildings frequented by the wealthiest of society, this one has multiple secret exits that will allow us to leave unseen. There is one right in this very room.”
Chi gulps. We’ve both realized, I think, that Asuka’s father is not going to be swayed into letting her go. She struggles in his grip, but he holds tight, digging the gun further into her temple. “My dear, I don’t want to shoot you here, but I will if necessary.”
“Shoot me? Why? I barely even know you!”
Realization hits me. “You couldn’t have done this with them in the way. You’re part of the Kantoku-sha , aren’t you? Was it you?” This seems the only explanation.
Chi shakes her head at the floor. “You couldn’t have. It makes no sense…”
We both know the answer, but my gun trembles slightly as he says the words. “It was difficult to get it; I’ll grant you that. But they gave me permission to have them killed. And I took it.”
Chi knows what he means. She seems shocked, but she still can’t hide her rising anger. “What have you done? I was willing to give up my freedom to join with your son! You would have had far more power than you do now! You couldn’t have…”
Mr. Shimizu lowers his lips to her ear as she cringes away from him. “Because I could. Because I was given permission. Because I thought perhaps you would be easy, and I could take you for myself. But you got away. That’s okay, though. I’ll still have everything I want and more.”
He moves the hand on Chi’s arm up to her mouth and smothers her with it. I catch a flash of white through his fingers. He’s got something over her mouth.
“What the fuck are you doing? What is that?” I have to think fast because Chi is coughing and gagging almost immediately, struggling to get free but getting nowhere.
“I think you know what it is. And I think you know what I’m about to do with your girlfriend.”
Chi panics and struggles, trying to pry his hand from her mouth. I train my gun on his head, but she’s moving too much for me to have a shot. I can’t do anything. “If it’s chloroform, that shit is toxic. You could kill her.”
He just stares at me as Chi struggles. “You don’t care. You think you’ll probably have to kill her anyway, the way you killed her father and Daiki.”
Chi gags a few more times, and then her entire body sags, and she goes silent. I study her carefully, but Asuka’s father seems relieved that the squirming bundle in his arms has finally stopped moving. He throws the rag to the floor and pulls her up against him.
He can’t see it, but I notice her wince. From what I know of chloroform, Chi is either faking this or he put too much of the liquid on the rag, and her tiny stature caused it to work way too fast. But I’m pretty sure that she wouldn’t wince if it was working the way it was supposed to. I have some hope now that this is all an act. I just need to keep him talking until I can come up with a plan to get her away from him.
“So it was you. Why?” I’m trying to affect an air of complete nonchalance, but it’s hard to steady my voice. I narrow my eyes and cock my head to try and disguise my anxiety, contorting my face into sincere interest. “Your son was about to inherit her entire fortune and throne anyway. Why would you jeopardize that by killing her father and trying to kill her now as well?”
“Don’t think I didn’t know it was you who broke into headquarters the other day. A tiny girl with a man who clearly has military skill. I saw the surveillance before it went on loop. I knew who it was immediately, and we even figured out that you had gotten something from the computers. She can break the engagement with my son at any point, and that would be the obvious outcome if you had found out.”
Well, it’s broken now , I think, but this situation is too tense for me to find any solace in that. I focus on calming my racing heart, or at least adequately hiding my nerves. “You don’t seem to be understanding the question. I’m asking why you did this at all. What was the point of killing her father and Daiki?”
He’s sneaking looks behind him now, holding the gun to Chi’s head even harsher, and I worry he’ll snap and do something he doesn’t want to do. Well, at least, he doesn’t seem to want to do it here.
“Chaos,” he says, dragging her back a few steps. “Throw it all into chaos, take away her lifelines, and give her a place to go. She was supposed to come to us. Had we gotten our hands on her in the first place, we could have made it happen. She was supposed to agree to marrying my son, and then once her father was gone, come to terms with marrying me. Perhaps she still may.”
I blink at him, trying to comprehend why he thought this might have worked. He must be pushing sixty, and Chi certainly looks and acts every bit her young age. But I suppose he thought it would be easy to manipulate a grief-stricken young woman. He didn’t realize who he was dealing with when he got Chi.
“It doesn’t matter now. Even if chaos ensues, her empire and title won’t be yours after what you’ve done. What, do you just want to kill her because you can’t have it? That seems counterintuitive.”
He laughs again. “So fucking small-minded, you Americans. I don’t burn bridges unless it’s to my benefit, so no, I’m not killing her because of something as puerile as jealousy or anger. No, I’m killing her because if she is engaged to my son in the event of her death, then power transfers to me when she dies. Akio’s son is absolutely not to inherit power, and his wife can’t either. So, due to my standing and my son’s engagement to his daughter, we would be the next obvious choice. It will be put to a vote, but we will have the title in the end.” He heaves Chi up against him, and she winces again, this time in a far more obvious fashion.
I laugh. “You say ‘we’ as if your son is going to share his crown with you.”
Mr. Shimizu shrugs, his evil smirk darkening his features further. “He will. I don’t think he will ever marry. I don’t think he’ll ever want to. And have you seen the boy? He can barely tie his shoelaces without falling over. You think he has any idea of what to do as leader of the Yakuza? If he does give me a hard time, it won’t be difficult to get rid of him. He was not born to lead, and this little bitch knew it.” He shakes Chi, and while she mostly keeps her body limp, she just barely opens her eyes to slits. I can now see plain as day that she has put on an act.
Thank you, Hollywood, for making everyone think chloroform works in seconds , I think, as I formulate a plan for us so that we both get out of here with our lives. Now that she can see me, I want to make sure Chi knows exactly what to do.
“How do you think you’re getting out of here?” I question, eyeing the room to make sure his son is nowhere to be found. “I have a gun on you, and this place is surrounded by press.”
“I have a gun also. Plus, I have your little whore girlfriend here. You’re going to let me leave through the emergency exit in this room, or I’ll really kill her.”
“But you’ve made it clear you’re probably going to kill her anyway,” I point out, keeping my voice as even as possible. Chi seems to be getting ready to make a move, her fingertips twitching toward her dress. That’s what reminds me; she has her knives under there. I shake my head, needing more time to make our plan clear. “If only you had waited ,” I say, a little too loud, trying to make it seem as though I’m speaking straight to Mr. Shimizu, but hoping Chi has heard me and caught the message I’m trying to send her.
“Waited?” Mr. Shimizu stills and looks at me suspiciously. I’m afraid he’s catching on, but I have no choice but to continue.
“It’s because you lack patience ,” I say, stressing the last word, urging her in my mind to understand my meaning and wait. Miraculously, her fingers, itching toward the hem of her dress, slacken and go limp again. “You turn left when you should turn right. You should’ve waited for three … three days.”
Now he’s very suspicious, darting his glance around the room in paranoia, backing up quicker toward whatever exit he’s talking about. I know I’m running out of time. His grip tightens on Chi as he clutches her to him, completely covering any part of his body that would cause significant harm if I were to shoot it. I’m relatively certain he’s practiced this. But he can’t help himself; he needs to hear me out to see if perhaps I have some better offer. “What the fuck are you talking about? Three days?”
“Don’t you know what’s happening in three days? She would have been completely unprotected at your house. She was planning to come there and just get this show on the road, you know. She was going to tell Asuka that she didn’t want to wait a minute longer. Why do you think I’ve been hanging around? You know, she’s really out of it right now, but just give it one day. Actually, two would be better, and three would be—”
As I talk nonsense, Chi reaches for her dress, scrunches the material up to reveal her concealment shorts, and draws her knives before Mr. Shimizu has a clue that she’s even moving. Once he figures it out a split second later, she has already gotten a hold of her knives, and he moves to grab her wrists just before she plunges them both behind her and into his side.
She dodges to her right and ducks down, but he moves just in time, and the shot I’m hoping to blow his head off with whizzes right past him. But it seems that he’s in pain, and his attention is completely scattered for precious seconds, in which Chi turns around, yanks the knives out of his sides, and plunges one straight into his chest, jumping on top of him along with it. They crash to the ground as she sinks the other knife into his neck. They are small knives, but it’s clear from the blood spurting out of him that she got an artery somewhere. He chokes around the gash in his throat as I run over and kick the gun out of his hand. She rips her knives out and shoves them right up into his kidneys.
“This is better than you deserve, you piece of shit!” she cries into his face. “But just remember this. Now you will never have my power, and neither will your son. I will make sure that your entire family sinks into the abyss with you. No one will ever remember the name ‘Shimizu’.”
Mr. Shimizu’s eyes go wide, and I know what Chi is saying is truly the worst torture she can impart before he dies. He struggles, trying to reach for his gun while he can barely breathe, but even if Chi wasn’t sitting on top of him, he wouldn’t be able to crawl all the way to the other side of the room before he bled out. In just seconds, his eyes lose focus, and he goes still.
Chi is red from head to toe. The blood all over her body blends with the scarlet dress she wears as she looks up at me, an expression of pure exhilaration on her face. “I did it,” she says as I pull her up to her feet. “I fucking killed him.” She grabs my neck in her bloodied hands and pulls me to her. I feel her tongue push against mine as she bathes in the blood of her enemy. She removes my suit jacket in a hurry, letting it drop to the floor, and I feel her beginning to unbutton my shirt.
“Chi, let’s just—”
“Now,” she commands. Just one word, filled with such passion and need. I’m hard immediately, but I know we can’t do this. We simply don’t have the time. There’s a dead body of a very powerful man in here, at a party with hundreds of people and press. I need to get Chi the fuck out of here. It’s nothing short of a miracle that Mr. Shimizu told us there is an alternative exit in here before he died. We’re going to need it now.
“Chi, stop. We have to go.” I try to push away, but she pushes her body against me, clasping onto me like a jaguar, with the ferocity of one, too.
“I want to fuck in his blood, Andy. I want to—” I push her off of me and hold her at arm’s length.
“As hard as I am for you, baby, it is simply not the time. We need to get the fuck out here.”
She blinks hard and seems to come to her senses. She gives a long sigh and sags, seemingly losing steam. She looks down at the dead man at her feet and sags further. “Okay,” she says finally.
I walk over to the place where Mr. Shimizu indicated the alternative exit would be, turning my back on Chi, but find nothing. “I don’t know what he was talking about. I wonder if there’s a code of some sort, or…”
My skin prickles and my ears perk up just before I hear Chi gasp quietly and whisper. “Asuka-san.”
I spin around to see a gun to Chi yet again, muzzled awkwardly between her back and shoulder. I was too preoccupied to even close the door correctly, and he must have slipped in silently.
I do the calculations in my head quickly; if a bullet from that gun went through Chi’s back where he’s holding it at point blank range, it would have a good chance of missing her heart and aorta, but would still blast through at least one large artery. And the chance that it would nick her heart is too close for comfort.
Asuka clearly has no idea what he’s doing holding a gun, but I’m almost more worried about that than I was when his father was holding it. Her father knew how loud it would be and considered the fallout from shooting Chichi Yano and being found out. Asuka has the emotional IQ of a child and doesn’t seem to be thinking along the same lines.
I see a moment later, when he speaks, that I’m right. “You just killed my father. Now I have to kill you.”
I raise my gun slowly, but Asuka is barely even looking at me. He’s focused on Chi. If I’m not mistaken, he even has tears in his eyes.
The gun shakes in his hand. I know he doesn’t really want to do this, and that it’s just irrationality, along with a heaping dose of immaturity. He liked Chi a lot; even I knew that, and I tried not to ever think of them together for a second.
“Asuka-san, you don’t have to do this. We are friends.” Chi speaks in Japanese, trying to do anything she can to soften him toward her.
“I have no friends.” Now he sounds like everyone in this circle — everyone who lives the life of a gangster, politician, or both. He could just be another man in my organization. He could be Chi or me.
“Asuka-san, you know that out of all the suitors, you were my favorite. You were even sweet to me a couple of times, instead of distant and preoccupied. You would make a good husband. Please put the gun down, and we can talk.”
He pushes the gun against her head. I’m seconds from pulling my trigger, hoping that I miss her, but she shakes her head at me, putting up a hand for me to stop.
“No, Andy. Don’t.” I see Asuka’s finger ease off the trigger, and I hold my own fire, too. It would likely not end well for Chi if I shot him this way, anyway. She turns back to her would-be-fiance. “Asuka-san, you do not understand—”
“I understand!” Asuka cries, finger trembling back toward the trigger. Chi winces but stays quiet. “I’m not that stupid, Chichi. I understand now that you were just using me to get what you wanted. You thought I’d be some idiot husband, and you could have your lover on the side.”
Chi licks her lips, her eyes flicking from Asuka, back to me, then back to Asuka again. She wants to lie — completely deny that everything he’s saying is true. But instead, she swallows, takes a deep breath, and sags with her exhale. “Yes. I thought it would be mutually beneficial for us.”
“No, you didn’t,” he says, angry tears welling up in his eyes. “You thought it would be beneficial for you .”
There’s a sadness that mars Chi’s petite features as she considers her next words. She drops her head and nods. “Yes, I did.” She swallows, looking truly apologetic. “Asuka… I… I’m sorry. I’m sorry that everyone used you. But I understand being used. It’s a fact of our lives. If we don’t use others in this kind of life we live, they will use us. But your father was using both of us. Did you hear any of what he said? He threw you right under the bus. He said he would have killed you if you had posed a risk to his power.”
The gun shakes as Asuka grits his teeth hard. The fact that he has waited this long makes me hesitate again. We are locked in a standstill.
Finally, he speaks. “So what? Your father used you too! We are all pawns, Chichi Yano. He loved me. The only person in this world who did. And now he’s dead because of you .” It’s pretty obvious that we won’t be getting anywhere with Asuka today, but Chi’s hand still pushes out toward me rigidly as she stares directly into his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she says, a tear rolling down her cheek. “That’s what happened to my father, too. Your father killed him , Asuka. He was going to kill me . But we don’t have to continue this. You and I don’t deserve their baggage. We don’t.”
Asuka ponders this for too long, and every bone in my body screams for me to shoot him as he closes his eyes, but Chi keeps her shaking hand out at me, pleading with this one movement for me not to. So I wait, even as the tension ratchets up higher and higher. I wait, even as he shakes his head. But finally, he closes his eyes tight. His finger tightens on the trigger as he says, “No, I have to—”
I shoot.
The bullet ends up in his face as he shakes his head. He falls backward to the ground.
“No!” Chi cries as I grab her out of the way. “No, Andy, no!”
I grab her face in my hands, forcing her to look directly into my eyes. “He was going to kill you, Chi. And now we really have to go. We’re lucky that no one came in here on the first shot I made, but there’s no way we’ll—”
Suddenly, there’s a silenced shot that does not come from my gun. Chi’s entire body jolts into mine and I know immediately. She’s been shot.
I grab her, spin her out of the way before Asuka gets off another round, and shoot him square between the brows. This time, I watch as the lights go out of his eyes to make sure he’s dead.
But Chi has been shot, and now it’s she who’s choking and gasping for breath through the pain. The same calm demeanor that always comes over me in times like this takes over and instead of looking at her eyes, which I’m sure are terrified, I check her back.
It seems to have missed her spine, but the entry is through the lower back, and there’s an exit wound just under her ribs. If I leave now and get to a place where I can call the other men and an ambulance, that could take too long. I have no choice. I have to appeal to the billionaire who is throwing this party and ask if they have a doctor on site. Sadly, many billionaire’s have to travel to their own parties with a small medical team just in case of an attempted assassination.
I ignore the sounds of her terrified, labored breathing and try not to look into her eyes. I know I can’t show any worry at all; I have to be strong for her right now. “Hey, you’re fine. You’re gonna be fine, just do not fucking move.”
I accidentally catch the look in her eyes as she whimpers loudly, putting a shaky hand to her midsection and bunching her dress up there, hoping it will help. A thousand emotions flicker over her face besides her obvious terror: slight disbelief, concentration, and some sadness I can’t quite place. I don’t have time to wonder about any of it.
I hold her securely to me, careful not to bump her or shake her as I walk. As I approach the door, I have just a moment’s thought to the fact that our lives will change if I walk out this door with her. I will effectively be admitting to having something to do with the dead men in this room. I will be making it clear that she does as well. I’ll throw her entire life upside down.
But I have this all-consuming feeling that if I don’t do this, it won’t matter what happens, because she won’t have a life to turn upside down. I’m certain this wound will be fatal if not treated very quickly. And if she dies, God help me…
I kick the door open without another thought. People immediately look in my direction. They line the hallway; it seems some have heard the commotion, but no one came in. I know crazy shit happens often at these parties. I guess I shouldn’t be too shocked that all of these people have come to see the show but haven’t interfered. That seems to be the typical rich-person response, as far as my memory serves. I guess Japan is the same as America in this way.
But someone will have to do something. I will force them. I speak in Japanese, looking around at the gaping faces, my expression severe and commanding. “She needs a doctor. Immediately.” Just then, Chi turns slightly toward the crowd to clutch her chest, finally forcing a howl of pain out of her mouth, and I fear if I can’t block out her painful gasps for breath, I’ll buckle under the pressure threatening to push me into despair. As she turns, her hair falls from her face to hang from my arms, and her features are on full display. Now everyone knows; this is Chichi Yano. Luckily, this spurs one young woman into action.
“My uncle,” she says, her gaze breaking from mine and looking over the banister to the crowd. “ Oji-san !” she yells out for him. She begins descending the long staircase, looking wildly for this man. “ Kaito-san !” This is the name of the man throwing the party. I thank karma for making his niece curious enough to eavesdrop and worried enough over Chi’s title to help.
I follow her down the staircase while Chi clutches my shirt with one hand and her own chest with the other. I know she’s trying to speak to me, but I also know from the few words I allow myself to absorb that they are words I don’t want to hear. So I keep going forward as she gasps out my name through high-pitched squeals of pain. “Andy, it’s—it’s okay…”
“Shhh, stop talking. You’re going to make it worse,” I say harshly, and I swear I hear some exasperation in her next breath. That’s good. If she’s annoyed with my dismissiveness, she can’t be… dying.
The young woman’s uncle is found a moment later, and the doctor just a moment after that. His eyes widen when he looks at who I have bundled in my arms.
“ Kanojo ni okotta koto? ” I curse myself for taking precious seconds to piece out his meaning. My brain is becoming more and more scrambled as Chi tries to push out words, and the seriousness of this situation threatens to break through my carefully practiced fa?ade of control.
I finally figure it out a moment later: He has asked, What happened to her? Such simple words, but it’s harder and harder to know exactly how to answer. So much has happened to her. But he wants to know what is physically wrong with her. So I tell him.
I answer in English, praying that he’ll understand and speak it back to me. “She got shot. Lower back, from the ground up. Exit wound just under the right side of the rib cage.”
He barely touches her, but glances over the wound with a critical eye. “It likely grazed the liver. This is a very serious injury. We don’t have time for the hospital; she needs perihepatic packing immediately. We have to take her to the infirmary here first before transferring her.” He looks up at me, and her time ticks away as he asks, “What happened to you?”
I look at him in confusion as he presses a button on his phone to call the medical personnel necessary, and he nods to my shoulder. I look down at the blood pouring over my shirt. I’m shot — the bullet that went through Chi must have gotten me too. Now that I see it, I feel the fiery pain, but it still barely registers through my worry for Chi. Just one thought comes through the tumult: thank God Asuka’s aim was complete shit, or he could have killed both of us.
I need to make sure they don’t even consider me until Chi is taken care of. “This is Chi Yano here — she is all that matters. You don’t even think about treating me until she’s okay.”
I’m aware as I can be that there are cameras encroaching, and an enormous crowd has grown around us. One medical professional comes out of the woodwork, but there is no stretcher or brace, so he tells me to keep her steady in my arms as he checks her gently. He rattles off some medical jargon to his friend in Japanese, and they nod at each other gravely.
“You will save her,” I say, knowing that the look on their faces means something dire indeed. “You will fucking save her, or I swear to God, I will make it my mission to kill everyone in the Kantoku-sha .”
Their eyes go wide at my declaration. They are shocked that I even know about this little fucking club they probably belong to. “Yes, I know. And I will out you all to these cameras, to your enemies — to the entire fucking world. You save this girl, or you will all be sorry, I swear.”
They look at each other again, and I’m heartened to see them more hopeful this time as they begin to discuss their plan of action. They are speaking too fast with too many medical words I don’t understand, but it’s similar to what I’d be able to parse out in English anyway.
“Andy, look at me, p—please.” Chi’s sweet whisper finally gets my attention as I kneel on the ground with her in my arms, waiting for the stretcher. It feels like it’s been hours, but I’m sure it’s been less than two minutes since we left the room. Time is ticking down, though, and we only have so little of it before she…
“It’s okay,” she gasps out. I can tell from her dilated pupils that she’s in shock, but there is still pain etched into every line of her face. She does look a bit scared now, but there’s something else in her expression. Something like… like acceptance. And I fucking hate it.
“It’s not okay. Nothing is okay. Not until you’re closed up and back to 100%. You better do everything you can, you understand me, Chi? Everything you can to pull through this. Don’t even think of leaving me.”
“But—but…” She has to pause again as tremors wrack her body. She begins again once they subside. “My father… and Daiki…”
“No. You belong here. You have a purpose here , Chichi Yano. They want you to carry on. And you—you better promise me—”
At that moment, a man in a white coat begins shoving a brace over Chi’s neck. She grasps my shirt as they begin to remove her from my arms; she has one last thing to do. Tears run down her face as she lifts her head, grazes my lips with hers, and pushes loud, clear words out against my mouth for the crowd and cameras to hear.
“I love you, Andy Scutari. Just you.”
In a moment of what I would believe to be dramatics, if not for the dire circumstances we are in, she lets pain wipe away her senses, falling limp in the medical professional’s arms. Cameras flash and click all around us, even though the guards try to keep them back. I know they got what they wanted. And likely what Chi wanted them to get as well.
The doctor and his team whisk her away as I follow behind. They try to hold me back, but she’s not going anywhere without me.
The setup they have here is second-to-none. Even the infirmary in Chi’s brother’s mansion, where I recovered from the gunshot wound I got just weeks ago, pales in comparison.
Even though Chi has passed out, they give her a quick shot of a sedative and then hook her up to an IV and a blood pressure cuff. Her blood pressure is falling quickly and they end up having to give her another shot to stabilize it, from what I can gather from the Japanese being spoken around me. Things are starting to go hazy around the edges, but I push on, watching through the window as they treat her.
“Andy-san,” a voice from next to me says as I grip the sill so hard my knuckles go white. “You must also receive medical treatment. You’ve been shot in a part of the shoulder that is not often fatal but can be without intervention. It won’t just stop bleeding on its own.”
“I can’t let them shoot anything into me, Akihito. I need to make sure I supervise this until she is well enough—”
“She will need for you to be alive and well, Andy. She will need to lean on you when she makes the hard choices that will come from tonight. Do you understand?”
I think about what he’s just said and look into his eyes. He cares about her — her happiness and her well-being. Certainly not as much as I do, but he has her best interests in mind. And he’s right.
“How long has it been?” I ask.
“Approximately fifteen minutes since you were both shot. You have been bleeding a lot, which is not good for your body, but more worrisome is infection. I suppose if you don’t want pain medication, then just stitches and a one time shot of potent antibiotics—”
“That. I’ll take that.” I follow him until Chi is nearly out of sight, but then stop. “I’ll need to be near her. You’ll have to find a bed where I can see that she’s okay.”
Akihito sighs, but walks to a medical professional to speak with him. They look familiar with each other and speak Japanese in low tones. Then Akihito puts his hand out to a bed across the room from Chi. “You may sit here. We will need to transfer both of you to the hospital soon anyway. It is not entirely apparent yet whether Chichi-san will need surgery or if she will even become stable enough for such a measure.”
“She still isn’t stable?” I ask, feeling restless with the knowledge.
“No, but they have stemmed the bleeding for the time being, and it seems that nothing much can be done for the liver. There is no repairing that. We need to just wait and see. Stabilize her and cross our fingers for the best.”
I swallow down fear and nausea, stare at her steadily from across the room, willing her with everything I have to be okay. I hope that if there is anything she can feel right now, it’s that.