Chapter 50
Consciousness came back in pieces.
“Ow…”
I tried to focus on my senses. It was cold. So cold.
Metal bit into my wrists, and the heat told me I was bleeding somewhere.
The taste of cloth was in my mouth, and it was sour and damp, with a metallic, acidic sensation.
Panic surfaced when I felt someone above me, and they pressed the material over my mouth and nose.
I tried to breathe, and my panic made me inhale too harshly.
Chains rattled when I moved. It wasn’t just my wrists. My ankles were bolted down, too, and spread just enough to keep me helpless. I was seated on a slab that felt like stone beneath my back.
The air smelled wrong here, a strange, sterile water layered over iron and incense.
I heard voices, and they were unrecognizable. It was not The Crimson Carrion and not Kaito.
“Where—am I? Kaito?”
I heard a laugh, and it was controlled and too close.
“He thought he could leave us.”
My heart stuttered.
Who?
Kaito?
“But he was forgetting one thing…you don’t leave The Black Onyx Clan,” he amused. “We are branded in blood. Even when it dries, it remembers and remains.”
A shadow crossed my vision, and the dark figure leaned closer. I couldn’t see them through the cloth, but I felt the attention like a blade at my throat.
“We spilled much of his,” he continued, almost conversational. “But you—” He paused, and I swallowed.
Kaito was dead?
“You are a direct stab to his fragile heart.”
His heart?
My pulse thundered harder.
Not Kaito.
Jedidiah.
I pulled at the chains, trying to fight, but they didn’t give.
The man laughed above me.
“Oh, so you did indeed fall for our false prophet. Hmm, how fortunate.”
“Why? Why are you doing this?” I cried, trying to shake my head and rid the cloth.
“Oh, child, killing him outright?” He seemed thoughtful and laughed, “No. That would be too kind for his transgressions against us.”
Child. Transgressions.
“B…Bishop? Is that you?”
Another rumbled chuckle, and he sighed. “You always were the smartest of all of the foolish men thinking they controlled you. Too bad, really, I can’t utilize you as an asset. Not with that son of yours hidden from me. But make no mistake, Sayuri. I will find him.”
I thrashed against the chains, screaming and kicking my legs.
“No! You will not get away with this, you bastard! You hate Jed, but you are no different! Just a coward hiding in plain sight!”
The echo of laughter made my head throb, and a rush of water poured over my face.
“Returning his heart to him in pieces, however…” his laughter was deep, breaking through my screams. “That will be true justice.”
“No,” I croaked into the cloth. My voice sounded broken, and so far away. “No—”
Someone’s fingers closed around my jaw, forcing my head still.
“But…” I forced the words through my panic and pain. “I gave you Kaito—why betray me!”
Silence fell.
“You bear no different! You betrayed me,” I said, desperation shredding my control. “I gave you Kaito. I kept my end of your deal, and now I’m here in your hell!”
A low chuckle and more water poured down over my face until my lungs screamed.
“Yes,” the voice said gently as I sputtered and tried to catch my breath. “You did present Kaito.”
I heard footsteps, and my panic rose as shadows circled me.
“Two birds,” he continued. “With one achingly easy stone, my dear. Nothing personal to you.”
Something cold touched my cheek.
“You surrendered your leader,” he said. “But your darling priest has already set off to slay him for us. We don’t need to make a deal. We have all the cards, I’m afraid, and you were our biggest pawn.”
The world tilted.
I was…a pawn.
They were going to get to Jed.
“It was Kaito who delivered you to us in exchange for ‘peace,’ the voice whispered with a laugh. “Now Jedidiah will deliver Kaito, and we shall deliver you. It is quite a full circle, Child.”
My chest convulsed.
“Only one thing remains.”
The cloth was yanked tighter around my head, and the men around me held me still.
Water came without warning…cold. It was endless and invasive.
My body reacted before my mind, my lungs burning while my throat spasmed, terror detonating in my chest. I thrashed the chains, screaming, but the water kept flooding in where air should have been.
I tried to scream over and over, but I inhaled water instead.
Hands held my head down until I couldn’t fight anymore.
“Breathe,” someone murmured. “Go on, Yakuza Queen.”
Darkness rushed in.
Then...
Pain.
Air slammed back into my lungs, violent and burning.
I coughed, choked, and retched water and bile through the cloth as my body convulsed again and again.
I sobbed for my lost loves.
“You won’t…win…” I croaked. “You’ll never find my son…you failed…”
“Again,” the voice said calmly.
The water returned, over and over.
Dying wasn’t dramatic like I always feared. It was like a warm embrace. My thoughts scattered, and the chill of the water lessened with every pour.
I thought of them.
Jed’s hands.
My son’s laugh.
The church.
The wax.
The wolf.
ōkami.
Blackness hit me for a brief moment, and I tried to fall into it, but then pain ripped through my body, electrical and sizzling.
“Stay with us,” someone said. “We’re not finished yet.”
I couldn’t feel my fingers or my feet anymore—only the persistent fire in my chest and a ringing in my ears.
Water.
Darkness.
Pain.
Over and over and over.
Each time I came back, less of me returned.
Words slurred in my head, tumbling without any order.
ōkami.
My wolf.
Jujiro
My son.
I tried to speak, but only a broken sound came out.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered into the cloth. I didn’t know if it was out loud or only in my head. “I tried, ōkami. Forgive me.”
My hands stilled.
For a moment, just one….the water didn’t come.
“Did you hear that?” someone said softly.
Another voice answered, pleased. “Yes. She’s breaking. I can’t understand her anymore. “Should we stop, boss?”
“No. Continue. Now.”
Water surged again. My last clear thought splintered apart as my body betrayed me once more.
I’m sorry, ōkami.
I tried.
Keep him safe.
He is yours now.
My thoughts fractured, and only the drowning remained.
“Boss? You sure…she’s…”
“Again!”
Water rushed in again, but this time there was no panic.
Just confusion.
Why was my breathing so loud?
My body convulsed without permission.
Reflex, not fear.
I’m not afraid.
“Boss…?”
Blackness.
Zap!
Air.
Fire.
Hands pounding me back into myself.
“Boss! I don’t know if we should—”
Why?
Water again.
This time I didn’t try to escape.
I forgot to.
Images floated up instead.
My son’s hair.
Jerry’s truck.
A church with candles and wax.
Jed’s mouth on mine.
The water didn’t stop.
I didn’t stop.
I drifted.
The darkness came softer now, like sinking into a mattress. It was comfortable and warm.
Pain yanked me back.
I screamed, or my mouth moved.
Why couldn’t I remember how to fight?
“Boss…she’s….”
“Again.”
I tried to count.
One.
Two.
The numbers melted away with the water and the warmth.
My hands weren’t mine anymore. Neither was my chest. I was breathing, but it was somewhere far away, like it belonged to another body nearby instead of my own.
Thoughts stopped lining up.
ōkami.
Jujiro.
The word surfaced alone, and untethered, my body floating above my convulsing form.
Wolf.
Protector.
I tried to hold onto my last thought, but it slipped through me into the waves.
I love you, ōkami…
The sentence didn’t know where to end, and I was not beginning.
Warm.
Water returned.
There was no struggle now.
Only the weight, and the sound of my heart slowing, like it was forgetting how to beat under the waves.
Blackness didn’t rush in this time. It settled in deeply, encasing me in its warmth. When air came back into the storm, it didn’t matter.
My lungs filled because they were told to. My chest rose because something forced it.
I wasn’t there to agree.
The voices sounded distant and muffled under the crashing waves. They were speaking through walls I couldn’t reach anymore.
“She’s not responding.”
“Again.”
No fear.
No resistance.
Just fading.
Images flickered, uninterpretable, dissolving in the waves as quickly as they appeared.
Blood.
Candles.
Chains.
Jed’s hands were shaking.
My son was calling me.
The name didn’t appear in my mind, and the waves took me with it. The body beneath the chains still moved. The heart still beat. The lungs still filled and emptied.
But the space where the waves brought me was dark.
A deep warmth of black, never-ending waves carried me away.
But this time…I didn’t resurface.