One man had been stripped naked and tied to a central pole. Dozens of tiny bamboo shoots had been stabbed into his skin—arms, thighs, stomach, chest. Not deep enough to kill. Just enough to puncture and fester.
Each shoot had splintered inside his muscle, curling beneath the surface like barbed hooks.
His mouth hung open in a frozen scream, lips blistered and blue. His tongue had been sliced clean. Reo’s work, no doubt. My Roar had placed the man’s tongue neatly on a silk napkin at his feet—folded, elegant, obscene.
Only my Roar would think to present a mutilation like a dinner course.
And even crazier, the man wasn’t dead.
His lashes fluttered. His stomach heaved in tiny jerks. The shoots had missed his vital organs on purpose. I didn’t recognize this man, but I trusted Reo and knew he deserved it.
We stepped over another man clawing at the ground.
One of his legs had been impaled by a black bamboo tree. Blood soaked the moss in wide rings. His nails scraped uselessly at the ground.
He murmured in Japanese, “Please. . .please stop this. Give me. . .mercy. . .”
I frowned. “Quiet him.”
Aki moved without a word, stepped forward, slid behind the man’s head, and wrapped the garrote wire once around his throat.
Aki didn’t let go until that final twitch came of the body surrendering.
Mercy delivered.
The wire unspooled. Aki stepped back into position beside me.
And then just like silently planned, the forest cracked open behind us.
First came the muffled thump of Kaede’s silenced shot, sharp and clean. A punctuation mark.
Next the chain. Toma’s metallic serpent clinked once—just once—and then came the first scream.
Wet.
Gurgling.
A gun fired.
Then the unmistakable sound of someone hitting the moss-covered ground. Lots of screaming came next.
Daisuke and the rest are torturing him. Good. That should draw out the others.
I turned my head west, just in time to catch a silhouette of my brother racing up the bamboo like a goddamn shadow withmuscle. One hand gripped a stalk, the other flicked upward with a blade.
He was fast.
Fluid.
Unnatural.
His body arched in the air, knees bent, blade out. Death, climbing toward the stars.
The second man will be dead soon.
And that’s when I felt it.
Wait a minute.
