I catch him before he falls.
To everyone else on the street, it looks like I’m helping a drunk. An unsteady man. A boyfriend who had one drinktoo many before breakfast. My arm settles around him, supporting his collapsing weight.
“Easy,” I murmur, guiding him as his legs fold.
I turn sharply, slipping us both into the indoor market entrance just beside us. Fluorescent lights flicker overhead, humming softly. A handful of early vendors unpack crates, too focused on their own tasks to notice anything out of place.
I sit him in the nearest empty chair, angle his body so it slumps naturally, head down like he’s simply nodding off.
He won’t be moving again.
I wipe the blade against the inside of my jacket as I walk away, sliding it back into my pocket without looking down.
Then I cut down a row of stalls—quiet, quick, slipping between racks of produce and shelves of dried fish—before taking another sharp turn into the maze of the market.
No one stops me.
No one calls out.
No one notices a thing.
Exactly the way I like it.
The indoor market swallows me whole—steam hissing from griddles, vendors shouting orders, customers bumping into each other with polite, muttered apologies. The noise alone is enough cover to take down an army.
I head for the side door midway through the building, weaving through the crowd.
Right on cue, Mr. Twitchy barrels in behind me—the idiot with the cannon stuffed in his jacket. I don’t need to turn to confirm; I can feel the ripple of space around him as people instinctively give him a wider berth. Subtle asa car alarm.
I roll my eyes.Of course he followed.
I pivot left before he gets a chance to spot me, slipping between a couple browsing pickled daikon. The air reeks of frying oil, miso, and sweat. Perfect.
Then I see her.
Unlike the obvious dogs outside, this one is actually dangerous: an older woman, pushing a metal cart piled with vegetables. Quiet. Unassuming. But the sleeve tugged too far down her wrist is a tell—all that overeager fabric hiding whatever spring-loaded blade she’s got waiting under there.
She brushes past a stall, and I pluck a mushroom right off the vendor’s heap without breaking stride.
Kenji taught me that one.
A harmless little thing when sautéed.
Deadly in seconds when raw.
I don’t slow. I don’t look at her. I simply reach out, seize her throat, and shove the mushroom past her lips so hard my knuckles brush her uvula. Her eyes bulge. She tries to inhale. Bad choice—she has to swallow or choke.
She swallows.
She recognizes the taste before the bite even hits her stomach. Her pupils blow wide. She staggers, claws at her throat, and runs—searching for a bathroom, a sink, anything to reverse the inevitable.
She won’t make it five steps before her gut lining liquefies.
“Thanks, Kenji,” I mutter, slipping through a narrow path between two ramen stalls.
I’m three strides away from the side door when I freeze.
Because standing dead center in the aisle—tall enough tosee over the shoppers’ heads, turning slowly as he searches—is a ghost.
