Removed – Chapter 37

I don’t know how long I’ve been unconscious, but clawing myself up out of the black is difficult, so I must have been under for some time. Voices around me waver, distorted by the pain in my head. Cool air fills my lungs. My arms are airy and cold too, and, when I shift, I can feel needles in them. My eyes open and blink but the light is too bright for them to focus.

Sakai’s face shimmers in the glow of a hospital lamp over me. “Stay still. You have kidney damage and a concussion. No surgery but you’ll need time to heal.” His warm hand comes down on mine, and his friendly touch is grounding. I’m so cold my teeth chatter, and my body shakes.

“What… what happened?” I try to swallow but my throat and tongue are completely dry. “Where’s Jiro?”

A tear escapes my eye before I even know I’m crying, but once I start I’m unable to stop them from flowing.

“Shhh, he’s okay. Seriously. He came through completely in one-piece. Four stitches in his arm. That’s it.”

He’s relieved for a second, but the sadness and worry return quickly to his face. Whatever he has to tell me, the news is bad.

“Mark?”

“We lost…” His voice breaks. Oh no. “Koichi and a few other men.”

My body seizes up, and I squeeze his hand so hard I think I’ll break his fingers.

“Koichi. How?” I’ll never see Koichi’s smile again. Never fight with him again. Never laugh at his jokes again.

How will I ever face Mariko? She’ll never forgive me.

“Matsuda. Oh Sanaa,” he says as he grabs my hand and presses it to his mouth, “I’m glad you killed him.”

I shake my head. No. It wasn’t enough.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry!” I shout it. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was here! I’m sorry I caused this!”

The machines hooked up to me are beeping and screeching. I hear the pounding of footsteps entering my room as Sakai is pushed aside by Ku 2 personnel. Ignoring the chaos, I try to remove the IV from my arm. I want out. Want to be away. Time to run.

Sakai tries to hold me down. “Don’t. Please.”

A nurse rushes over from the dark, and my world is black again.

I shift through a fog of voices and movement but stay asleep for what feels like months. It doesn’t matter because I don’t care. I just want to see Jiro again, hold him, and tell him I’m so sorry for everything. Nothing I say will bring back Koichi, but I want to do it nonetheless.

Finally, when I wake, my head is foggy with sleep, but, within a heartbeat, I freeze still. Something is wrong with my room. Last time I was conscious, I was in a hospital, and I am not there anymore. I hold my breath long enough to hear nothing but complete silence.

My neck is so stiff I can barely move my head. Lifting my arms, faint bruises dot the inside of my elbows where the IVs were. When I rub my face and search the top of my head, my hair is still gone. No one has touched it since the fight, and it’s a ragged mess. Great. I’m sure I look fantastic.

Cautiously rising from the bed, I clutch at my ribs where Matsuda kicked me. Ow, that hurts. I lift my shirt and all along my side and lower back is a purple and green bruise so large it makes me sick just looking at it.

A quick glance around reveals a plain room: nothing but four walls, some automated dresser drawers, a door, and the bed which I am currently sitting on. This place is too bright, clean, and orderly.

Wait, definitely too bright.

A thin, wide, rectangular window over the bed is letting light into the room. Light from outside. I haven’t seen daylight since my trip to Ku 10.

I get up to look out the window, but I’m a hair too short even standing on the bed. Wow, the ceilings are high here. The walls couldn’t be more than two and a half meters tall in my apartment, but here they are over three.

Ow, ow, ow. Stop standing, Sanaa.

“Hello?” No response. “Excuse me! Is anyone here?” Still nothing.

What now? Without a terminal on the wall and no one to ask, I will have to investigate. I walk to the door but hesitate. I have little in the way of clothes on. In the dresser are plain sweaters, shirts, pants, undergarments, and socks. Another drawer contains slippers. I grab a sweater and a pair of pants and pull them on slowly, carefully. Everything hurts.

I move back to the door and take a deep breath. I don’t think I’m in danger — the last person I recognized was Sakai — yet the idea of opening the door and going outside is paralyzing. I’ve been through too much lately, and now I’m paranoid.

My hand hovers over the handle, but I open the door quickly and breathe a sigh of relief. In front of me is a hallway with two doors along its length and an auto-hamper along the opposite wall. At the end of the hallway is an arch leading to an open room. I open each of the doors and find another empty bedroom and a bathroom.

The light coming from the open room is blinding, so bright my head hurts and my eyes water. I stumble into the wall, unable to get my bearings before continuing. I have spent the majority of my life under artificial lamps, and this is overwhelming, especially with my brain banging away in my skull.

“Where am I?” I say aloud. The giant picture window in the main room answers me.

The view reveals a high, rock mountain overlooking desert as far as I can see, rolling, long dunes in every direction but the cliff this house is embedded into. Terrifying blue sky looms over the ochre sand with the sun perched directly overhead. Weakness and confusion bring me to my knees, the pain of my healing injuries forgotten as I try to piece together my current situation.

I’m alone, in the desert, and I have no idea how I got here.

I push out a long breath and close my eyes.

“Mark Sakai, you are a dead man.”

Ping!

Wait a second, what was that? Is there a tablet in here? I tear my eyes from the window, and on the table behind me is a tablet I walked straight past.

When I pick the device up, a faint lightning bolt symbol illuminates on the table’s surface indicating a charge point. Who knows how long the tablet’s been sitting here at full charge pinging and waiting for me. I take it out of sleep mode and one message is sitting in the inbox. The Nishikyō Net is unavailable so I have no other access to anything.

The message is from Sakai:

“Sanaa, please don’t be angry with me. I know you must want to kill me right now, and I don’t blame you. I’ve brought you here to protect you while Jiro, Usagi, and I work our way through the Taira ranks and flush out everyone responsible for the attack at the theater. I can’t keep you safe at home right now, so this place will have to do. You will need to be patient with us. I hope the process won’t take long, but I won’t rest until they are taken care of.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t leave anyone here with you. This house is only designed for short stays. There’s not enough storage space for food for two people, and really, I need every spare person here to help. I know how angry it’s going to make you. I’m sorry, again. So there is food in the refrigerator and freezer, enough to last a month, and books and music on the tablet to get you through. I won’t be able to communicate with you until we can retrieve you so please be careful and take care of yourself.

“Jiro misses you…”

Gods damn you, Mark Sakai! How can you do this to me? How can you drop me in the middle of the desert, alone, and leave me a message that Jiro misses me? I’m going to punch you in the face next time I see you.

With a deep breath, I pick up the tablet from where I just tossed it on the table.

“Jiro misses you, as do Beni, Mariko, and I. Your aunts are fine too as is the rest of the family. Please don’t think any of this is your fault. It’s not. So much of this is history, history of anger between our clans. Taira was always the volatile one. Maybe once they’re subdued, we can live on in peace.

“We’ll be back for you soon. Rest and recuperate. We still have a long way to go together.

“I love you. Mark.”

I sit down at the table and stare out the window.

Dammit, Mark. You had to go and tell me in print that you love me. Now I can’t be mad at you anymore.

I sigh and put my head down on my arms.

Oh Mark, I hate to admit it right now, but I love you, too.