“What the fuck, man?” James said. And now he was angry, and this was better to Lee because at least now James understood the way he felt.
James probably thought Lee would try to shove him again, had braced himself to shove Lee back if he grabbed his armagain. But Lee did not fight like James’s crew buddies or an athlete or a man. He fought like an animal.
Lee grabbed James’s shirt, his fist closing around the stain, and with his other hand, he grabbed James’s hair, yanking him forward. James tried to right himself, but he slid on one of Lee’s pencils and his weight fell onto Lee. For a moment, James’s face was pressed close to Lee’s heart. Lee could feel his breath, was sure James could feel his heartbeat.
He yanked James back by the hair and smashed his face against the railing.
The sound rang all the way down the corridor, again and again, an echo of a note Lee could not name. A strange, wet song.
It was easy after that.
Lee played the note again and again, sparks of blood flying, teeth clattering onto the tile. Lee couldn’t stop, even when some part of him knew it was enough, that the problem had been solved because the problem was gone.
The eclipse passed, the darkness closing its mouth because it was too full, and Lee began to realize what he’d done.
He stood in the silent hallway in a pool of blood. Lee Turner was an empty room and wondered if his heart was even still beating because everything was so, so quiet. Worst of all, he had held the truth in his hands, and now it was gone, and Lee could not remember why he had killed James Baldridge.
He inhaled a shuddering breath and tasted salt on his lips.James’s blood, he realized. He was tasting James, like some sort of strange kiss. They had shared death, which was so much more intimate than love.
Lee fell to his knees in the blood and wanted to scream but knew the sound would draw people, so he screamed silently inside of himself. He blinked hard, rubbed his eyes with bloodied fists as if he could wake himself up. And when he realizedthis was his world now, he picked up one of James’s eyes in each hand.
Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.
James was staring at him, even now. Both eyes were bright red, burst blood vessels, oozing through his fingers. Did he understand the importance of the stain now? Because Lee didn’t, not anymore.
If he called the police and turned himself in, they would put him in a mental hospital because sane people killed for love, money, revenge, or jealousy, but Lee had none of those things.
Or, Lee could keep this moment a secret.
He cleaned up the hallway meticulously, hid the body, ran away from school. James would become a missing person, but by the time anyone started looking, all the evidence would be gone. They would never suspect Lee because he had no motive, and eventually the case would go cold. Lee could carry the secret inside of him, lock it somewhere in the dark cellar of his thoughts.
Lee didn’t even realize he’d made his choice until he was on the airplane to Japan, his palms stinging from bleach. He’d hidden the body somewhere dark and safe, where no one would ever find it. No one would ever look.
Chapter Nineteen
Sen
Sen’s father told her to save the head. It would be a present for Lord Shimazu, on the day he rose again.
She’d cut down many bamboo stalks and imagined they were the throats of her enemies, but bamboo did not have eyes that stared back at her in accusation, or gray lips that gasped for air that wouldn’t come, or sweaty hair that clumped up with blood. She held the severed head of the spy up by its hair, and even though breath no longer whistled through his ruined windpipe, his eyes seemed to track her.
Can he still see me?Sen wondered as she stood in the forest before the grave she’d dug.Can he still think and cry and suffer?Decapitation was supposed to be a swift end, but no one would truly know if that was a lie, for the dead couldn’t talk.
Well, except for Sen.
She held the head up to the moon, and as white light spilled across the slack face, a strange surge of energy rushed through her.
I did this, she thought.I cut this man down as easily as the bamboo saplings, and now I’m holding his head in my hand. The concept seemed as natural as the moon rising each night, like she had been destined to stand here in this moment—victor, conqueror, warrior.
The wind rose to a mournful high pitch as it swirled around her, blowing the dead man’s hair around his face. Sen needed to hurry and clean up so she could return to Lee, but she couldn’t seem to unclamp her hand from the dead man’s hair. More of it blew in front of his face, whispering across his lips, and in the shifting moonlight, Sen swore his mouth moved.
Sen thought of the bodies of hares that twitched even when cut to pieces. Humans were only animals, so surely they were no different. She raised the head closer to her face and tugged the hair back from its lips.
And then, clear as the unbroken stream of moonlight blaring across her face, the dead man’s head whispered to her.
No one leaves this house.
Sen gasped and dropped the head. It rolled onto its side and the eyes slid closed, bloody lips smearing with dirt and leaves sticking to the cheeks. Her hand, which had been clenched tight and unmoving as a stone only moments ago, now trembled uncontrollably. She took a steadying breath and wiped the sweat from her brow, then kicked the head for good measure.
