The Things We Carry
Chapter twenty-six
Nyomi
Kenji’s question kept ringing in my head like a bell being struck over and over.
The overhead light stretched thin.
The tile under my feet drifted.
I almost stopped breathing.
Does he know? Is that why he is mad? How could he know? He can't know.
The thoughts came at me in a rush, tripping over one another, none of them finishing before the next one started. My skin went hot. My heart went cold.
Did somebody tell him? Who could have told him? The Silent Ones? Why would they do that?
The bond throbbed under my sternum. I pressed my palm flat over the place it lived.
My other hand went to my stomach.
If he knows. . .
Nausea climbed up the back of my throat.
My eyes watered, but I would not shed tears. I couldn’t. If he didn’t know, I wouldn’t tell him. If he did know, I didn’t want to talk about it. Maybe, I was a selfish coward. Perhaps, I was weak or wrong. . .so wrong. I killed our baby, so he could win a war.
What kind of woman did that make me?
If he knew. . could he forgive me? I’m still not sure I can forgive myself. . .
The bond throbbed again.
His rage.
His sadness.
His guilt.
The three emotions braided together and pressed against the inside of my chest.
My mouth was dry. My tongue stuck. My teeth wanted to chatter. I set my jaw against them.
I looked at him across the tile and did my best not to sneer. “I don’t want to talk about the sacrifice, Kenji."
He watched me and remained silent.
A nervous tremor started in my knees, traveled up the bones of my legs, and settled in my hips.
"Tora. . ."
I turned away. Sweat prickled at my hairline. A drop slid behind my ear and down the side of my throat.
No. I’m not doing this.
I headed off to leave the room, and he watched. When I walked past him, I gave us a wide berth of space so he wouldn’t grab me. My legs moved toward the double doors. I did not know where I was going, just that I was getting my ass out of there.
As I continued, I heard him move fast behind me.
Hurry.
His massive hand closed on my arm.
Fuck.
Slowly, he turned me to face him and then. . .he pulled me against him.
His body was hard everywhere mine was not. His muscular chest was a wall against my cheek. His strong arms wrapped around me before I could set my hands to push him away. His grip held me in.
He inhaled at the crown of my head.
Long.
Slow.
He drank the air off my hair.
Kenji lowered his head, and his mouth found the skin near my ear. He brushed his lips against my flesh and groaned.
The sound vibrated through me.
Tears left my eyes.
I quickly wiped them away.
He inhaled again along my hairline. He dragged his mouth down the side of my throat. His hands opened at my back and then gripped me even harder.
His lips brushed against the bite marks on my neck he’d made days ago.
Shivering, I sank into him.
My eyes watered some more.
His heat pressed against my chest. His breath moved my braids.
My hands lifted on their own and settled at his sides where the bandages sat under his shirt. My fingers found the ridge of gauze beneath the fabric. My palms pressed there, and I let myself, for one second, be a woman held by her man.
He groaned again.
Then. . .to my shock. . .he let me go and stepped back.
Cold rushed into the space he left.
I almost reached for him, but I made my hands stay at my sides.
He rubbed his face with both hands and then sighed. "You are not leaving until we are done talking."
"I said I do not want to talk about it."
"Yet we will talk about this."
I frowned. "You may be the Dragon of Japan, but you are not the fucking Dragon of me—"
"I am most definitely your Dragon. Never forget that."
I edged back from him. “We won the war—”
“I know that—”
“Then, that’s it—”
“It’s not.”
"Why are you doing this?" My voice was not mine. "It has been a long night. So much was lost. I do not want to do this. Respect that. If you love me. . .just leave it alone. . ."
"Leave it alone. . ." He said it back to me soft and turned the phrase over in his mouth. “Leave it alone. . .”
Then Kenji walked away from me, returning to the chair with the children's books.
What the fuck?
I trembled.
He browsed the stack of children’s books for a few seconds and then picked up a smaller book with a bear on the cover.
He opened it and turned a page. "One night my father was out on business dealing with something. He’d taken my older brother Jobon because. . .he was my father’s favorite. I don’t know what the business trip was about. I was young."
I quirked my brows.
He closed the book, set it down, and touched the other book’s cover. This one had a rainbowed-balloon on it. “It stormed and thundered that night. So bad that I crept into my parent’s bedroom and slept next to my mother.”
I parted my lips.
He traced the balloon on the cover with his finger. "That stormy night a woman snuck into our estate. My father had given her a key to the back entrance of his office so they could privately meet right under my mother's bedroom as she slept."
I blinked.
He moved his hand from the book and turned his attention to all the empty beds on his side. "That night she came to my mother's room, dripping wet. Completely deranged.”
He raised his hands and stared at them. “She held a knife and screamed over and over, waking us up.”
I widened my eyes.
"So terrified, my mother and I sat up in shock.
The guards should have stopped her. I did not know if she had killed them or what.
Again. . .I was too young to know these things.
. ." He let out a long sigh, left the stack of books, and stopped at the discarded IV line near a bed.
"This crazy woman looked at my mother and said, ‘I know now that he will never leave you. I will never be enough.’"
I stood there on the edge of this story, needing to know how it ended.
"Then the woman sliced her wrists right there in front of us. There was so much blood. . ."
A tremor went through my legs.
"I screamed. My mother yelled for staff.
The woman died instantly. The staff took her away and cleaned up.
My father returned days later." Kenji left the IV line.
"To this day I do not think my mother ever told my father this.
I do not know why I think this. Maybe because they always kept secrets from each other.
I was too young to understand what was really happening between them.
And. . .by the time I was old enough to ask my mother, I knew better than to bring up that sort of heartbreaking memory so.
. .it was our. . .unspoken secret. Mine. Hers. The staff's."
Kenji walked toward me, stopped three feet in front of me, and placed his gaze back on the scratches decorating my arm.
"Then Hiro came to the house one weekend. You must understand that my father did not want to claim Hiro, but I remember my mother arguing with him about Hiro for weeks. Their yelling would keep me up at night. She was never adamant about much, but when it came to Hiro, she demanded that he grow up with me. . .”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I was just a kid happy to have a baby brother. Due to my father, Jobon was never around enough to play with me.”
I tried to picture Kenji and Hiro as young boys.
“Hiro came. He was tiny from being underfed.
His clothes were dirty and had tons of holes.
My mother began to attend to Hiro immediately—shopping, a big bubbly bath, having the chef make all his favorite snacks while trying to sneak in nutritious things.
And he was just overwhelmed by how big the place was and all the people in it.
And. . .I remember that when it was time for him to go on the first visit.
. .he shivered, got close to my mother and me, and looked up at the stairs. "
Kenji’s expression turned sad. "My father was there too. Hiro pointed up to the third landing and shivered. ‘Why is that woman with bleeding wrists staring at you, father? Why is she so sad?’"
My heart broke.
Kenji gave me a sad smile. "My mother gasped. My father yelled at him for being an idiot. But I knew right there in that moment that my little brother, Hiro, was an extraordinary individual."
He lifted his gaze from my arms to my face. "And tonight my brother told me I lost my baby girl."
No.
I fisted my hands at my side.
“All night Hiro saw a baby. She haunted him through the battle.”
I stepped back. "Did Hiro say what she looked like?"
Kenji shook his head once. "He passed out afterward."
"Is he okay?"
"He is. The doctor said he was exhausted and needed to rest. He’s at the hospital being monitored."
“I want to see him.”
“When he wakes.”
“Okay.”
"Now my questions, Tora."
I bit my lip. “Kenji. . .”
"When did you find out you were pregnant?"
"Barely twenty to thirty minutes before the sacrifice." My voice came out shaky. "They said. . .a little tiger spirit was above me. Waiting for the baby to have a heartbeat and then the spirit would enter."
His eyes did not move from mine. "The pregnancy was very early?"
"Y-yes."
He took that in.
Every emotion he owned rose through the bond at once. Rage moved under sadness. Sadness moved under grief. Guilt rose around it. All of those emotions pressed against the inside of my chest.
"Everything happened so fast." The words tumbled out ahead of me. "People were being evacuated. I was terrified something would happen to you, Reo, Hiro. . .everyone. I wanted to help and I—"
My hands began to shake again. I looked down at them like they belonged to somebody else. "No. . .I don’t want to do this. . ."
"How did the sacrifice happen?"
I looked at him. "Why?"
"I want to know."
"Why do you want to know? I feel guilty enough. I feel horrible. I feel wrong. I feel like the pain of losing her will stay with me forever, and I don’t want it to.
I want it gone. I want to just live my life and move on, and I don’t know if that will ever happen.
I don’t know if I will ever be me again. . ."
He started to walk toward me.
“No.” I stepped back and put my hand up. "You’re angry with me."