Sako began to beg, words tumbling over each other in a desperate flood. "I'll tell you everything! Everything! Please! My sister is pregnant! Please, Kenji, I'm begging you—"
The elderly parents of my Eyes didn't understand what they were looking at.
But their sons did.
Arata had gone rigid. His body locked. His breathing stopped.
And Itsuki. . .well. . .Itsuki pissed himself.
The dark stain spread down his pants, urine splashing against the tile floor, pooling beneath his feet. He didn't seem to notice. He was staring at Totoro with the glassy eyes of a man whose mind had simply. . .left.
Gone somewhere far away.
Somewhere flames couldn't reach.
I walked toward the flamethrower and ran my hand along its barrel.
The metal was cold.
It wouldn't stay cold for long.
"Now," My voice went calm. Patient. The voice of a man who had all the time in the world. "Shall we begin?"
I turned to face them.
Flick.
Flame.
"Who wants to talk first?"
Chapter forty-six
The Smell of Burning Flesh
Kenji
Three hours later, I stood in my war room’s shower, and the water was scalding.
I didn’t want to return to Nyomi covered in so much death.
Therefore. . .I must have stayed in that shower for another hour, letting the heat burn away the smell of smoke, gasoline, and charred flesh.
I'd scrubbed my skin until it was raw.
Changed into fresh clothes.
Brushed my teeth three times.
But some stains didn't wash off.
Some memories didn't rinse down the drain.
“I’m so sorry! I love you. I thought I was helping!” Mami screamed as the flames first touched her skinand began to crawl up her body like a hungry parasite, blistering everything it touched. The way her mouth opened—not to scream yet, but in pure disbelief, as if she couldn't understand what was happening.
Eyes bulged in their sockets, swelling outward. Then, clouding over with a milky film. Her arched brows crisped away in a puff of acrid smoke. Hairline receding in a wave of orange as her scalp bubbled, split, and charred.
And her gaze liquefied too.
