A shot echoed across the yard.
Sen opened her eyes just as her father jolted at the sound, turning to look over his shoulder.
On the other side of the house, her mother screamed.
Sen’s father whirled around, eyes flashing with alarm. Even her father hadn’t been ready for the day of his death, it seemed. He ran off toward the house, toward her mother and brothers, the family he still cared for.
It was the same feeling as when he’d looked away so Torazo could slay her like a hare. She no longer deserved his rage, for she was no longer his daughter. To him, she was no different from the trees that guarded the property, the lightning bugs that swarmed the windows at night, the solid wood and rusted nails of the house behind the sword ferns. She was no one, and so she was free.
Sen turned to Lee, who was struggling to rise to his feet. She knelt beside him and grabbed his shoulder to turn him over, taking in his sickly pale face, his gray lips.
“He hurt you,” Sen said, eyeing the bandage on his hand.
He shook his head quickly. “Wasn’t him,” he said, his words slurred as he leaned into her.
The sounds of shouting and footsteps came from the edge of the clearing.
“We have to go,” Sen said. “I’ll find somewhere safe for you, then I have to find my brothers.”
Lee groaned and clutched her robes with his good hand, but she lifted him to his feet and dragged him onto the porch. He held her tight as they walked up the stairs, around the porch, back to Sen’s room.
“I can’t go back,” Lee said when they reached the door, suddenly pushing back against Sen as if he’d only just realized her intentions. “My dad called the police. I can’t go back to him.”
“If you don’t go, you’ll die here,” Sen said, flinching at the sound of gunfire in the yard.
“So will you,” Lee said, tightening his grip on her sleeve. Tears cut through the dried blood on his cheeks.
“I was always going to die here, Lee,” she said. “This is where I need to be. You never would have met me if I hadn’t died here.”
Lee shook his head, letting out a low sound of frustration. He was leaning fully into Sen now, his legs trembling. She tensed as her mother screamed again. She had to go help her family now.
“I’m sorry, Lee,” she said, lowering him to the ground. She shoved her dresser aside and opened the door. When Lee made no move to leave, she pushed him through.
He was weak and dizzy from blood loss, so he fell back with little resistance. He called out for her, but she slammed the door closed and shoved her dresser in front of it.
I’ll meet him again one day, she told herself.The way back to Lee is through death.
The thought steadied her enough that she managed to wipe her tears on her sleeve and draw her sword, rushing out the back door into the yard.
Her father was attacking a group of soldiers by the gate, blood already staining half his face. Still, he cut their heads off as easily as bamboo shoots. To her left, her mother screamed as two soldiers tied her up, forcing her face into the dirt.
Kotaro sat in the middle of the yard, crying and pounding his fists into the ground. Sen ran toward him, scanning the yard for Seijiro.
Another gunshot tore through the yard, and Kotaro exploded.
His head burst open, red chunks of flesh and brain spraying across Sen’s face. He flopped forward, his cries silent, blood pooling fast beneath him into the pale dirt.
Seijiro screamed and hopped down from a tree, runningtoward Kotaro, but another shot rang out and his abdomen burst, blood and organs spilling past his fingers. He fell to his knees, a surge of blood rushing past his lips before another shot tore through his neck and he flopped forward, his head hanging on by only a thin tendon.
Sen stumbled back. This had to be another one of her horrible dreams. She couldn’t tear her gaze away from the ruined remains of her brothers, even when nausea nearly brought her to her knees.
Even though she swore to die on her feet, she found herself drawing back into the shadows, a hand clapped over her mouth to hold back the scream that was building inside her.
Only an hour ago she had thought she didn’t fear death. But now she could imagine her flesh unwrapping itself from the force of a bullet, could imagine in exquisite detail the pain of bones splintering away.
Footsteps rounded the side of the house and Sen threw herself beneath the porch, rolling into the wet soil and darkness. The soldiers’ footsteps thundered above as they tore through the house.
This is why I became a ghost, Sen thought, a coldness settling through her bones.Because I trained my whole life to be a hero, but in the end, I died a coward,just like my father.
