Her eyes widen. What a dirty mouth you have, she whispers.
Veah ?
She looks at me, and I think I am forgetting something.
What can’t I remember ?
It was important. I know it.
A diamond fixture on the wall several feet away explodes into a thousand red-painted pieces. A head rolls over the floor.
I hesitate, searching her face, and settle for, Don’t you dare think of making me a widow. Although I do look good in black.
Gunfire ricochets against the wall behind us. A chandelier crashes to the ground.
You look too good in black, Veah says, leaning back down to graze my ear. No one would be able to keep their hands off you if you were a widow. I’d be very, very jealous.
Then I guess that means you shouldn’t die and make me a widow. A man’s scream is cut off by a gurgle, and then a thud as his corpse hits the floor. More bullets crack against the table beside us. Besides, you’d be in heaven. What are you going to do about it, if there’s someone hitting on me while you’re dead ?
I’ll be in heaven ? Veah laughs. What gave you that idea ?
You think you’re going to hell ?
Her voice is whisper-soft against my neck. I think, she says, that heaven is no fun anyway. If all the sinners are in hell, I bet it’s a party.
A gay party, I breathe. With rainbow lights.
Hey, lovebirds ! Ren shouts. We’re kind of in the middle of a massacre !
Veah springs to her feet, as swift as wind, and fires carefully into the distance. Hitting her mark. After seven shots, she empties her gun of the casing and tosses it to the floor. And next, she pulls out two swords from behind her back.
How have you had swords on you this whole time ? I hiss.
The corner of her mouth tilts. No offense, Kaya, but you’re the most oblivious person I’ve ever met.
Behind her, a man lets out a Japanese battle cry and hurls himself towards her back
I am ready to scream her name when she turns, as casually as though he was asking for the weather, and decapitates him.
All that with just a slice of her sword, I think.
Where can I get one of those ?
Mai yells, Kaya, watch out !
I turnjust in time to see a man pulling the trigger.
But before I even process it, Veah knocks over a table. She is so fast she may as well be harnessing lightning. It takes her less than a heartbeat to kick the man’s knee out, and in the next second, she has driven her sword like a spike into his head.
I was wrong.
There is one thing hotter than a girl in a suit.
And it’s a girl in a suit beating a man to death in my honour.
Is that violent ? I wonder.
Then I realize what I forgot.
I didn’t tell her I loved her.
Mai is dragging me by the arm, urging me to follow. Come on, Kaya. Veah will kill me if anything happens to you.
No, I say. My decision is made. I’m not going anywhere. That’s my girlfriend out there, and this is my fight.
Okami disappeared when the chaos broke out five minutes ago, Mai tells me hurriedly. We have to go. She knows you were the one who poisoned her !
She’s on the loose ? Like hell I’m leaving !
And what are you going to do about it, Kaya ? Put a bullet in her head ? You’re not ready for something like that.
I yank my arm away from her. Don’t tell me what I’m ready for or not.
Veah’s gun is still in my back pocket. I can do this.
For someone with a genius-level IQ, you’re a real fucking idiot ! Mai says.
I glance at Veah, who moves like a hurricane between the members of the Mafia. With a blur of silver, I hear the echo of their screams. Red splashes the walls. All around us, there are bullets and swords and stars. Mayhem. I can barely hear over the noise, but my eyes search the crowd for Okami’s sky-blue kimono anyway.
She can’t get away. Not again.
Distantly, I wonder about the girl with the drug in her veins. The girl with the adrenaline that must now be pumping through her, giving her superhuman strength.
Where did she go ?
If she escaped in the chaos . . . good for her.
If we don’t do something about Okami, I say to Mai, then all of this will be for nothing. We’re never going to get a chance like this again. And she can’t be gone. I saw that bloodthirsty bitch. There’s no way she’d turn down a battle like this. We just have to find her.
The problem is, Mai hisses, that the Italian Mafia are against the Yakuza now. And the Yakuza are against us.
So everybody here wants to kill us ?
As if in answer, a chandelier above us shatters.
Glass rains down. I taste blood.
Mai drags me further, knocking out a man with her elbow between his eyes. Yes, Kaya, she says patiently. Everybody here wants to kill us.
Well, considering the level of my IQ, I’d say those are not great odds.
We have to, I plead. If we don’t, she’ll come after us. She’ll hurt Veah in the worst way possible. What if she goes after her parents again ?
You heard about the hospital trick, Mai says, her eyes flickering as if this is a surprise. As if this is information she didn’t think Veah had confided in me. Okay . . . I get it, Kaya, but . . . if Veah found out . . .
It doesn’t have to take long. We just have to hit her head oror
Kill her ?
If it comes to that, I say grimly.
Fine, Maiko grits out. Her stare flashes to Veah again, who now has her sword against one of the Yakuza’s throats. Fine. Let’s do this. Fast.
A glint of sky-blue weaves through the crowd.
Okami’s kimono.
There ! I say, grabbing Mai. She went there, into the bathrooms !
Oh, God, she mutters. Look at that.
And I lookas a circle of three or four of the Yakuza forms in the hallway. As though they are protecting Okami from outside.