Quick.
Uncertain.
Uncomfortable.
I'd seen these men gut enemies without flinching. Watched them clean blood from their knuckles like it was nothing more than dirt. But something on my face tonight made them look away.
Perhaps, even monsters recognized when they were standing too close to the abyss.
My jaw ached from clenching.
From holding everything in.
I'd burned Sako's father alive in front of him. The old man who had wept silently through his son's entire confession. The man who had nodded once—just once—when Sako mouthed "I'm sorry" through his broken jaw.
The pregnant sister, I'd released. She'd screamed and screamed as they dragged her away while I torched her husband, and Sako had vomited against the ceramic tile.
One mercy.
That was all I could afford.
I reached out, my hand hovering over the handle.
Arata had stopped screaming by the time Totoro’s flames kissed his mother's nightgown.
He just. . .watched.
His body had gone rigid against the chains, every muscle locked, his eyes fixed on the small woman who had raised him. She was still confused—had been confused since they'd dragged her from her bed.
Her milky eyes couldn't see well in the harsh fluorescent light, and she kept asking where she was, why it was so cold, why her sons were crying.
She never got an answer.
The flame caught the cotton first.
A small bloom of orange at the hem.
Almost pretty.
Almost gentle.
Then it climbed.
"Mama," Arata whispered.
Just that.
Just her name.
She didn't scream at first. The confusion held her still for two eternal seconds—her aged mind trying to process why she was suddenly warm, why there was light crawling up her body, why her skin felt tight and then tighter and then. . .
The screaming started.
But it wasn't hers.
It was Arata's.
A sound I'd never heard from a grown man—high, keening, broken. His throat tearing itself apart as he thrashed against chains that wouldn't give.
