The Ninja's Oath, page 27
Ten minutes later.
I know dawn hasn’t even broken in Shanghai but please respond when you wake. I love and miss you, Lily. I need my practical, loving daughter to calm my frazzled nerves. (Prayer emoji hands)
Two hours later, she messaged me again. It would have been two o’clock for her and six the next morning for me, still knocked out from my drug-induced sleep.
Haven’t you read my messages yet? It must be 7 a.m. in Shanghai. Please respond.
Then.
They’ve taken your father away for neurological tests, something to do with his vision and hearing. Once again, they explained it too fast for me to understand. Am I getting old? Or am I just too scared to listen properly? I wish you were here with a good set of ears.
Then.
I found a bench outside. The waiting is stressful. Can we talk?
Twenty minutes later.
I guess you’re busy. Please be safe. I’m going back inside.
I pictured my mother on a bench with a phone wondering why her practical, loving daughter didn’t care enough to call. How could I have done this to her again? First Rose. Now Baba. I was never with my mother when she needed me the most.
Two hours later.
Still nothing, Lily? Now I’m worried about you! I keep thinking about what you went through in Hong Kong. Falling from that roof. Fighting those gangsters. Getting thrown from that car. Please tell me you’re okay. Every time I close my eyes, I see you covered in blood.
Sensei leaned closer in his seat. “Are you okay, Lily-chan?”
I shook my head. “Baba’s in the hospital and my mother’s alone.”
“Is it serious?”
“She doesn’t know. I’m catching up on all the messages I’ve missed. I’m afraid to scroll to the end.”
Sensei squeezed my hand. “Take your time, Lily-chan. The messages will wait until you are ready to read them.”
“What if I’m never ready?”
“Hmm. Were you ready to be ambushed and tortured?”
“Obviously not.”
“And yet you escaped and saved Suyin.”
“That’s not the same.”
“Then you fought a much more forceful enemy to come to my aid. You could not have prepared for what you did not expect, yet you responded as if you had. Your father’s illness is the same. Whatever enemy your parents must face, you will do what you have always done and fight.”
I considered the memories that haunted my mother from Hong Kong. As bad as they were, they didn’t compare to other battles I had fought since or even before. I thought of Baba. How could I fight something I couldn’t even see?
“With knowledge,” I said, answering my own question.
“And fortitude,” Sensei added.
“Agreed.”
He smiled sadly, eyes shrouded by sorrow and regret, no doubt reliving all he had done. Killing someone he had known since childhood would especially eat at his soul.
“You had to end it,” I said.
“I know.”
“It doesn’t make it any easier.”
“No. It does not.”
He leaned against the van’s wall and left me to my phone. Perhaps one day, sitting in his garden, gazing at the jacaranda blossoms, sipping sencha tea, Sensei would share the feelings that overwhelmed him on this day. For now, he and I had to face our demons on our own.
Ma’s messages continued during her evening about the time I would have woken up in the storage room, worried about rogue ninja coming after her and Baba.
I’m leaving the hospital. I’ll text when I’m home.
Then, 2:00 p.m. Osaka (10:00 p.m. for Ma).
It’s afternoon for you, Lily, and still no message. What’s happening? My heart is filled with dread.
Thirty minutes later.
I washed my face and fixed some tea. I know you’ll be angry, but I can’t stomach any food. Not until I tell you everything that happened today.
The doctors shocked your father with electrodes in a series of neurological tests called evoked potentials. I listened more carefully this time and asked a lot of questions before the doctors had a chance to escape.
These tests measure how quickly and completely nerve signals reach the brain. They can also show problems too subtle for an MRI to catch. Combined with the brain lesions—I still can’t believe they didn’t tell us about those before!—any irregularities they find might indicate some sort of neurological disorder. They wouldn’t tell us what they were looking for. They only said there were many possibilities they needed to rule out.
Your father was having none of that. “Do I have brain cancer? Yes or no?”
Can you hear his voice, Lily? I bet you can. But even his indignation did not compel them to answer beyond, “We’ll know more tomorrow when we see the results.”
What did Shakespeare say about tomorrows? A petty pace, indeed.
They also took more blood. Although I can’t imagine what other tests he might need.
I’m going to leave my phone on beside the bed in case you call. Don’t worry about waking me. I need to hear your voice. I love you, my darling. Please, please, please be safe.
I scrolled up a few paragraphs and reread my father’s words.
“Do I have brain cancer? Yes or no?”
I bit my lips and stared at my phone until my mother’s messages blurred. Although I understood the factors that had led me to Japan, they weren’t enough to resolve my guilt. What kind of daughter abandoned her parents when they needed her the most?
A litany of disgusting attributes stabbed into my heart.
I was as selfish and self-absorbed at twenty-five as I had been as a child.
I hadn’t looked out for my little sister as an elder sister should.
I didn’t honor my parents and grandparents with the filial piety they deserved.
I dropped everything for dramatic missions to save strangers who might see me as the heroic person I was not.
Family was the foundation of my life, yet I crushed it with every decision I made.
The van jerked to a stop. A moment later, the kunoichi opened the rear doors. Despite my knee and ribs, I jumped out the back and scrambled to the apartment as a drowning person paddles up for air.
I needed my mother. I needed to atone.
The moment I connected to our apartment’s Wi-Fi, I hit the video icon and called Ma. She answered on the second ring. She took one look at my battered face and burst into tears.
I held the phone to my forehead.
And cried.
Sixty
I rose from the floor of the tiny bedroom where I had tried and failed to sleep. My mind wouldn’t stop and the aches had set in.
The doctor Tran had arranged to treat us in the apartment had confirmed Sensei’s diagnosis of my bruised clavicle, my bruised and possibly cracked ribs, and my thankfully not broken knee. He had sterilized and stitched up my wounds, rewrapped my entire body, put my arm in a sling, and given me antibiotics and a high-potency non-steroid anti-inflammatory to take. I declined the fentanyl, morphine, and oxy he had brought. I hurt worse than I ever had in my life, but the pain caused by drug traffickers and opiates made me abstain.
Thinking another NSAID might help, I opened the door and left Suyin snoring in the twin bed—although Uncle had offered his room to her so I could sleep in comfort, he had snored so loudly, Tran sent him back to his room. With everything Suyin had endured, I insisted she take the bed. Even the softest mattress wouldn’t have eased my battered body and heart.
I crept into the main room and found Sensei sleeping in perfect silence on a mat, hands folded over his lower abdomen. He had used ki energy on me to promote faster healing and reduce my pain. Was he stimulating his own life force energy while he slept? We would need more than Reiki to quiet the demons gnawing at our souls.
The silence helped.
The apartment was as still as when Tran, Uncle, and I had first entered it three days ago. So much had happened since we touched down in Osaka, more than I—or anyone—could have foreseen. My body suffered. My heart suffered more. Silence gave the illusion that I could reset time and choose a different course.
The illusion dissipated as quickly as smoke.
Despite my keen hindsight and renewed familial vows, I was still Lily Yong Shing Wong. Names influenced their bearers in unexpected ways. My floral first name reflected my belonging with my mother and sister, Violet and Rose. My father had sacrificed his Norwegian surname to smooth my mother’s filial debt. Belonging and sacrifice bookended a powerful middle name, one my maternal grandfather had believed was too strong for a girl. Courageous Victory. Had my Yong Shing name driven me to the ninja heroics that separated me from home?
I welcomed the sting of a thousand bees as every nerve in my body fired. Not every nerve. Only the ones on my left.
I looked away from my teacher, lying on the floor, to find Tran watching me from the couch.
He reclined on a cushion with his hands folded on his navel above the waistline of his cropped kimono pants. The shadows cast from the urban glow accentuated the angles of his face, chest, and calves. No such aid was needed for his eyes. His piercing gaze would have found me in pitch darkness.
Had he heard my thoughts?
Did he understand my guilt?
He and I shared more than I cared to admit.
Tran rose like the mist—one moment reclined, the next, seeping into my pores and lungs. He breathed into every space, in and around me, as if he belonged. As if I had invited him inside.
In full knowledge of the danger, I raised my face to his.
Never had I experienced such a kiss. Not with Pete. Not with Daniel. Not during my most secret moments and unrestrained dreams. Tran savored my lips like his last meal on Earth, then devoured them as if he had waited all his life to taste the sweetness of my mouth. Pain leaked from my body as he infused me with passion and took his fill without permission or request.
I knew I should stop. He was not the man for me. This was not the time or the place. Yet, as Sensei had done in battle, I gave way.
I glanced at my teacher who appeared fast asleep. I didn’t believe it. Neither did Tran.
He led me toward the kitchen, caught me when I stumbled, and scooped me into his arms. Safe behind the counter, he lowered me gently and kissed every wound: My cut and bruised face. My tender clavicle and shoulder. The knife gashes on my arms. The bandaged ribs clearly visible through the sheer fabric of my sleeping tank over shorts. My swollen but, thankfully, not broken knee. He met my gaze between each kiss, not with the sorry compassion one shows an injured child, but with respect and acknowledgment for the price I paid in battle. Wounds were inevitable. Suffering was a choice. Rather than wipe away my pain, Tran focused my attention entirely on him.
I slowed my breath as his hair caressed my thighs, afraid to distract him from the next place he might seek. A needless concern. An earthquake would not have deterred Tran from his goal.
From villain to comrade, J Tran had charted his own course, tracked me across the world, protected me in secret, risked his life and resources for the sake of my friends. How foolish to believe he could ever be contained or controlled. Tran did as he pleased. Meanwhile, his disquieting fascination had evolved into something more. I shuddered in ecstasy. Not just for him, but for me.
Two months earlier, I had questioned if Tran’s darkness reflected my own. Now, I saw us for who we truly were—warriors, survivors, two chambers of the same heart.
As he hoisted me onto the counter, I clasped his hair and sealed my answer with a kiss. Whoever he had been and whatever he had done, in this moment, J Tran and I were one.
Sixty-One
“You didn’t have to come to the airport with us,” I said.
Sensei bowed. “I was not here to welcome you to my country. I wish to properly send you home.”
“You’ll return to California?”
“Eventually. My parents are in their nineties. I have not seen them in forty-three years.” He lowered his head. “I must care for them and atone.”
“What about the scroll?”
“I will do what I can to reconnect with the ninja community and restore my teacher’s reputation. This may require extensive travel throughout Japan. I do not know what damage Ichiro may have caused or what stories they will have heard.”
“About you?”
“About all of us. I may need to train and teach here for a while.”
“To prove yourself?”
“Myself and my teacher’s lineage. The Tashigi clan were more than exceptional spies. They had strong spiritual roots in the Iga mountains. Although the deeper teachings and magic must remain secret, I can share enough to establish the empowering benefits, history, and honor of our clan. If I am successful in repairing our reputation, I will show the initial section of the Oku-hiden scroll to the soke of the most influential houses. This will authenticate my claim as Tashigi Sensei’s heir.”
Sadness weighed in my heart as I listened to his words. An heir had responsibilities to continue a lineage. Sensei might feel obligated to stay in Japan, help Tashigi’s widow to recover her property, and re-open the school. The more I heard, the more I believed he would stay. After all, the only student he taught in America was me.
“Shall I water your orchids?”
He bowed. “Yes, please. If the travel becomes too much, take them to your apartment and care for them there.”
I nodded stoically, then drew him into a hug. “Thank you. For everything.”
His strong arms squeezed me back. “It is I who must thank you, Lily-chan. A teacher rarely has the honor of guiding such a special student.” He pushed me gently away, clasped his palms, and bowed. “Arigatou gosaimashita. Thank you for enriching my life.”
I bowed deeply and turned to Uncle before the tears came. I hated farewells, especially one I never expected to give.
Uncle held out his hands to forestall any emotional assaults. “I’ll return to the restaurant as soon as I set things right in Shanghai with my mother, cousins, and Suyin.”
“Take the time you need,” I said. “Family comes first.”
He scoffed. “You are more like family to me than any Chang. Even so, there is much to be done. It is possible my sister will not want to remain with her husband after he turned his back on Suyin. If so, I will need to find a new place for her and my mother to share.”
“The FFC apartment?”
He shrugged. “I hate to lose another income property.”
“Where else could you put them?”
“I could evict my longtime tenants in the Shikumen house and move my mother and sister into the rough apartments below. Uma might prefer it, but I fear Meimei would stay with her husband and the rich lifestyle he can provide. Regardless, that option is not acceptable to me. Even if I renovated those floors, I refuse to place my mother in a subservient position to her late husband’s cousins. She’s suffered that humiliation long enough. I want her to feel honored and comfortable for the rest of her days.”
“Why not bring her to Los Angeles?”
“She would die from misery. I will have to put her, Meimei, and probably Suyin in the FFC apartment where you and I stayed. Or I might sell it and use the money, along with what the government pays me for the Qiaojia Road house, to find a decent place for them to live and another property for me to rent. It won’t bring in the same income, but at least Uma and my sister would be safe.”
I couldn’t imagine what this sacrifice meant to Uncle or how it would change the future for him and his wife to have their revenue streams cut in one trip. As hard as that might be, the situation with the Scorpion Black Society would be worse. They had helped him in Hong Kong, on my behalf, to balance a debt. Now, he owed them new favors for their help in Shanghai. After moving across the world to escape a criminal life, my father’s entrepreneurial cook might be forced to become Red Pole Chang once again.
“What about Qiang?”
Uncle scoffed. “My ungrateful brother will never appreciate what it cost me—what it cost all of us—to help him recover Chyou.” He shook his head and sighed. “But, as you said, family comes first.”
I placed my hand on his shoulder. Uncle exemplified the filial devotion I aspired to achieve. “You’re a good brother, son, cousin, and friend.”
He shook his head. “You and I are much more than friends. Thank you for coming to my aid. I know what it cost you to stay with me and not return home. I will light joss sticks for your father. Tell Vern I will come back as soon as I can.”
I stepped back with a nod to avoid wrapping him in a hug. Then I said goodbye to Suyin in Mandarin and warded off her effusive thanks. I hoped she would find a reputable company to work for in Shanghai, far from the gang in Hefei.
And then there was Tran.
He stood apart from the others, waiting for me to say my goodbyes, raising his pointed brow in question when I finally met his gaze.
I flashed to my first impression of him at the courthouse. Even with his back to me, I had recognized him from the news photos by his relaxed fighter’s stance, utterly still and confident, despite the scrutiny of his preliminary trial. He had worn a tailor-fitted suit as he did now, minus the armor padding that had protected him during the battle with the Kufuku-kai. His long, wavy hair and stunning good looks had struck me then as they did now.
What could I possibly say to him after last night?
“Don’t wrack your brain, K. This isn’t goodbye.”
“It’s not?”
He smirked. “I will always know where you are.”
“Know. But not be?”
“Would you invite me to Sunday dinners if I stayed in LA?”
“Hmm. It might be worth it to watch my mother struggle to be polite.”
A glint shone in his eyes. “I make better impressions on mothers than on fathers.”
I coughed out a laugh. “Baba would take one look at you and skin you alive.”
