My breath caught. That voice. Recognition slammed into me so hard my chest clenched, my heart thudding wild and uneven as a chill raced over my skin.
I gripped the bars, every nerve straining toward him. The torchlight wavered, brushed across his face as he leaned in.
“Jiro?” I whispered.
32
Jiro
“Jiro?” The woman’s whisper cut through the dark like a blade.
For a moment I thought I’d imagined it. How could anyone here know my name? I looked up, hands trembling so hard the tray nearly slipped from my grip. It couldn’t be…
“Akiko?”
It had been little more than a week, but it felt like years since I’d heard her soft, gentle voice—the one that had lulled me to sleep night after night. And now it was here. Real. Alive.
I pressed closer to the bars, desperate for proof I wasn’t dreaming. The torchlight by the cell flickered over her face: those familiar dark-brown eyes, her bangs half covering them, her pink lips. My chest clenched so tight I could barely breathe.
“Tell me that’s really you,” I rasped. My throat felt raw and broken.
For days I’d stumbled through this place half dead, forced to sharpen instruments of war and ready them for their sickening duty. I’d convinced myself this was my destiny, being a slave to Sana, or worse, I’d become another Chopman. I’d begun to write off any hope of seeing Akiko again. Believed that she was gone. That the last year had been the best year of my life, and I’d already lost it.
Oh God—how I thought I’d failed her.
And then: Here she was, in the bowels of this horror pit. I shoved my hand through the bars, fingers reaching, aching for her.
“It’s me, Jiro.” She grasped my hand and pressed it to the side of her face. “It’s really me.”
For a moment, all we did was cling to that touch, finding comfort in each other’s warmth. The closeness said more than words ever could. The aches in my body, the cuts inside my mouth, the endless drudgery, all of it disappeared in her presence.
My words eventually came. “I thought I’d never see you again. I thought I’d lost you forever.”
But then she pulled back slightly, her eyes darkening. When she spoke, her voice was soft but sharp enough to cut me. “Why did you leave me, Jiro? It hurt me so much.”
“I would never hurt you on purpose. You have to know that by now.”
“But my calls, my texts—none of them were answered. The day you went to visit your father, I thought something terrible had happened to you. I went to your home. I needed to know you were okay. And that’s when I found out you’d been visiting him for months.” Her eyes came back to mine, wet and furious. “For months, you lied to me, Jiro. Why?”
Her words stung worse than any blow. I shook my head. “I didn’t lie, Akiko… But it’s true, I did visit my father. And I had a reason that I thought was right… I should have told you.”
“Then why?” she pressed.
I flicked a glance over my shoulder. The Chopmen lingered outside the gate, watching. At any moment they could step in, punish me for even talking to her. I lowered my voice. “It’s not what you think. I needed his help. I didn’t tell you… I couldn’t tell you.”
“Because what, Jiro?”
“Because I needed to find out if your Reina sightings were true. I didn’t want to legitimize them unless I knew for sure. And if anyone could find out if she survived the fire, it was my father. So I went to him, hat in hand, and begged.”
Her brow furrowed. “And?”
“It was hard at first. He wanted nothing to do with me. It took visit after visit for him to even consider it. Finally, he agreed to use his connections and look into it, and he had answers for me… but by then, it was too late.”
“I don’t understand. Too late for what?”
“The reason I’m here. The day I left to see him, to hear what he’d discovered, they took me. Right off the street. That’s why your calls and messages went unanswered. That’s how I ended up here.”
She swallowed, searching my face. “So… is Reina alive?”
