Not now.
Instead, I tracked Hiro as he headed off. “I’m the bait.”
“You’re not.” He moved in a slow, sure arc through the thickets, no wasted steps, no crunch of gravel. Just another ghost blending into a graveyard.
“I’m the head, Hiro. That means I’m perfect bait. They’ll keep their eyes on me, more than you.”
Hiro sneered.
And I caught the flicker of fear in his eyes that he always tried to bury.
Then he whispered, “Please.”
For a second, something cracked under my ribs.
That was Hiro’s version of desperately begging.
I offered him a small, crooked smile. The kind I only ever gave him. Then I winked. “I’ll be safe, brother. I just met my Tiger. I don’t plan on dying anytime soon.”
I moved deeper into the forest with the twins, keeping myself visible in the moonlight so both watchers could clearly see me.
I knew the plan the second Hiro raised his fist.
We weren’t going to shoot.
Not yet.
Distraction first.
Kaede would draw attention with a silenced shot on the far edge—somewhere it would echo off the bamboo and confuse their sense of position.
Toma would let his chain clink. Just once. Just enough to make the watcher on the ground glance left instead of up.
Daisuke would release a canister of scent-flood—something sharp, fungal, laced with blood and rot.
Nothing deadly.
Just disorienting.
And Hiro?
He was going for the one in the trees.
I didn’t need him to tell me. I felt it. Knew it like instinct. He would climb from behind. Wrap a hand around the bastard’s jaw. Slice through his neck with silence and finality.
And then he’d disappear back into the sway.
Meanwhile, the twins would wait, shielding me.
Those two will be dead soon. The bigger problem is. . .where are the other three psychos?
Chapter seventeen
The Hunt for Traitors
Kenji
The farther the twins and I went, the more grotesque it became.
