More and more snakes streamed in, and something was crashing through the hallway toward us. The Yakuza scattered, firing at the snakes, screaming as the papery serpents wrapped around their ankles and sank in their inky teeth.

“We have to go!” I said. I grabbed Tomohiro’s arm and pulled him up with me, but he crouched back down again.

“We can’t leave him!” We stared at Ishikawa and how pathetic he looked, how the blood was retracing the lines back down to his shoulder now that Tomohiro was pulling him upright, the stark red threading through his white hair.

Tomohiro ducked under Ishikawa’s injured arm and I pulled on the other. Together we adjusted him over Tomohiro’s shoulders.

Ishikawa groaned.

“Sato,” said Tomohiro. “Come on, man, help me here.”

Ishikawa wrapped one arm tighter around Tomohiro. He tried to wrap the other and yelled out when he couldn’t.

“It’s burning,” he rasped. “I-te, i-te!”

“It’s okay,” Tomohiro said. “Let’s go.”

The crashing sound got louder, and suddenly the whole shouji door collapsed into the room, a serpent as tall as me hissing at the shrieking Yakuza.

Ink dripped off his fangs and pooled on the floor.

And behind him, a man dressed in black, blond highlights tucked behind his pierced ear.

What the hell?

Takahashi Jun.

Chapter 16

“Katie!” Jun yelled. He ran toward me, grabbing me by the shoulders; and even though ink-sketched snakes were swarming the room, even though a giant serpent slithered toward the shrieking Sunglasses, all I could feel was the heat of his palms through the cotton of my shirt.

“Daijoubu ka?”

“I’m fine,” I said, “but what—? How—?”

“Yuu,” he said, and at first I thought he meant you, but then he let go of my shoulders and walked toward Tomohiro, taking Ishikawa’s other arm and draping it over his back.

“Takahashi,” Tomohiro said, staring at the giant snake cornering Sunglasses on the other side of the room. “You…

made these?”

“We need to go. Now,” said Jun, and just like that he and Tomohiro started dragging Ishikawa to the collapsed rice-paper door.

I hurried after them, leaving behind the shrieks of the Yakuza and hisses of snakes that buzzed in my ears.

We wound through the building, moving as quickly as we could. Ishikawa groaned as the other two shouldered him through the narrow hallways.

My mind buzzed with the same thoughts over and over.

Because I knew Tomohiro didn’t draw any snakes.

We came out in the same garage; there was the truck. But the garage door was in pieces on the ground, puddles of thick ink oozing across the floor.

“Come on,” Jun said, leading us through the gaping hole of the garage. The humid summer air hit as I stepped out into the smell of night flowers and the hum of vending machines. In the dark, three motorbike engines revved to life and I blinked as the beams of light splayed onto the walls.

Three people dressed in dark clothes straddled the bikes, hands on the handles and helmets shining my reflection back at me. One of the riders carried a beat-up-looking navy duffel bag—I knew it instantly. Tomohiro’s kendo bag, which meant they’d started searching for us at Sunpu Park.

Tomohiro jumped back, but Jun slipped out from under Ishikawa’s arm and raised his hands.

“It’s okay,” he said. “They’re with me. Oi! ” he called to one of them. “We need to get Ishikawa to Kenritsu fast.”

“No,” Ishikawa gasped.

“Are you totally mental?” I snapped. “You’ve got a gun-shot wound, for god’s sake!”

“That’s the point,” Ishikawa said between breaths. “They’ll…

ask questions.”

“So, what, you’d rather die?”

“Satoshi, go to the hospital,” Tomohiro said.

“Yuuto—”

“Please, Sato.”

“I’ll take him,” said one of the riders. She lifted the helmet off her head and held it under her arm. “I’ll cover the questions.”

How is she going to do that? I wondered. But the girl reached out her arm and helped Tomohiro hoist Ishikawa onto the back of the bike.

“Can you hang on?” she asked.

Ishikawa didn’t answer, but the weight of his body pressed against her back. She revved the engine and zoomed into the darkness, Ishikawa slumped over as they went.

“Katie,” Jun said, gesturing to another of his companions,

“go with Ikeda. She’ll take you back to your aunt’s place.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“I don’t think they’ll come after you. Ikeda will stay with you if you’re worried.”

I stared at Jun. I definitely appreciated the fact that he’d followed up on my call, busted us out of Yakuza hell and was now giving us an escape, but I had questions burning in my mind that wouldn’t go away.

Why didn’t he call the police?

How did he know where to find us?

Where the hell did those snakes come from?

“I’m not sending Katie home alone,” Tomohiro said.

Jun grabbed a fourth motorbike, shiny black and parked in the shadows of the Yakuza building. He swung his leg over and revved the engine to life.

“Yuu, you may still be in danger. If you stay near Katie, she is, too. Get it?”

Tomohiro balled his hands into fists and looked down at the pavement.

“You don’t get it,” I said. “I’m in danger whether he’s near me or not.”

“What do you mean?” Jun said.

“Nothing,” Tomohiro said.

“Look,” said Ikeda, “we can’t stick around here.”

“Yuu, come with me,” said Jun. “I know somewhere safe you can go for now.”

The anger and fear boiled inside me. I couldn’t take it anymore, all of them talking like I wasn’t there, like I wasn’t part of this. Wasn’t it me that snuck into Toro Iseki with Tomohiro, watched him sketch the dragon and the wagtail and the horse? I’d been through just as much as him. I’d seen the way he struggled between his passion and his curse.

What had Cigarette said? I was an ink magnet. I was making the ink do things. Niichan said I was connected to the Kami. I was definitely part of this, and there was no way I could just go home.

I walked up to Jun and sat behind him on the bike.

“Wherever you’re taking Tomohiro, I’m damn well going, too.”

Jun stiffened, the bike idling underneath us, kicking up smelly fumes that flooded my nose.

“Jun,” Ikeda urged. “We’ve gotta go.”

“Okay,” Jun said at last. “Hold on.”

I nodded and wrapped my arms around his waist. His skin was warm and hard through his shirt, and I knew Tomohiro was staring at me as he sat on the bike behind Ikeda. I kept looking forward, not letting him know I saw him watching.

What was I supposed to do, let go of Jun and fall off the bike?

Jun only had one helmet, and he plunked it down on my head before we took off. We lurched forward into Shizuoka traffic, zipping in and out of the lanes. I’d never ridden on a motorbike, and before I knew it, I was pressing myself against Jun, my knuckles white as I clutched at his shirt rippling in the humid breeze.

“Where are we?” I shouted over the roar of the engine.

“Yakuza meet-up place in Aoi Ward,” Jun said. The red light turned blue-green and we raced forward. “About an hour from Shizuoka Station.”

Only an hour north of Sunpu Park, then, an hour from home.

“How did you know where to find me?” I yelled. My hands felt like they were slipping, and for the hundredth time I readjusted them around his broad frame.

He tilted his head back, the blond highlights whipping around in the wind and the traffic lights sparkling in his silver earring.

“I’ve had a few run-ins with them before,” he said.

What was that supposed to mean? Like the knife incident with Sugi? I remembered what he’d said then. I don’t like gangsters. I looked back at the other two motorbikes and watched them zip after us. Ikeda and Tomohiro passed us, his arms wrapped tightly around her.

Well.

“Jun.” The wind whipped my words back at me. “Did you make those snakes appear?”

“What?” He sped up.

“The snakes!” I said.

He didn’t say anything, which was answer enough.

Which meant he was one of them, too. He was a Kami.

My mind reeled. The ink at the kendo match—he must have realized what it was. I thought back to how he’d pressed me in the convenience store, in the stations, on the way to school. How’s Tomohiro’s wrist? I always knew he’d done calligraphy. Would you get him to show me his drawings sometime?

Damn. It was all a trick, and I’d let it all pass over my head.

How long ago did he figure it out?

I tried to think of anything that gave Jun away. Was there ink on his hands? Did he have a notebook with him?

I craned my neck to look over his shoulder, but the bike wobbled underneath us. He wasn’t carrying anything with him, but that didn’t mean anything anymore, not after I’d seen what Tomohiro could do without drawing anything.

Or more like what the power could do to Tomohiro.

But that was with my influence. So what were the chances Jun could do that? Pretty slim. No, there had to be some paper involved somewhere.

Jun was tall and I didn’t want the bike to flip as I shifted around, so I gave up and slouched behind him, resting my head against his shoulder to avoid the strong winds batter-ing my face.

Then I noticed the way his arms bent to grab the handlebars of the motorbike. At this angle I could see the muscular curve of his kendo-champion arms.

And I saw it on the inside flesh of his left arm, near his wrist.

A kanji carved into his own skin, fresh welts rising on the pink surface of the strokes.

Snakes.

The blood drained from my face as I stared at the carved kanji. It moved in and out of view, Jun oblivious to the fact that I’d noticed it.

It made me sick to think he’d carved it into his own skin, even if the wound wasn’t much deeper than a paper cut.

But he’d saved us. He’d told me to come to him if I ever needed help, and now I understood why. He’d figured us out a long time ago. Had we been so transparent?

We made our way south, the roads starting to look more and more familiar. The streets were almost deserted and I pulled my keitai out of my pocket to check the time. Just past 2:00 a.m., but adrenaline pumped through my veins as the lights of conbini and vending machines whirred past us.

I saw it in the distance when we stopped at a red light, the walls and tiled roof in shadow, away from the glare of the city lights. There was no mistaking what it was. The traffic light flicked to blue-green and we sped toward it.

Sunpu-jou. The castle at the heart of Sunpu Park.

Jun slowed down, the bikers killing their headlights and coasting forward as the castle rose before us.

A sign hung on the end of the bridge to keep cyclists out.

The castle always closed at night; if you stayed late at Suntaba for clubs, you had to cut through the southern or western bridges.

Jun stopped in front of the bridge to Sunpu Castle and shut off the engine.

“Here?” I asked. The others had already climbed off their motorbikes, twisting them around the wooden barrier placed to deter after-hours cyclists. Jun didn’t answer at first, lifting himself off the motorbike and waiting for me to do the same. I tugged at the straps of the helmet, shoving the heavy black plastic into his waiting hands. He hooked it around the handlebars. “You think we’ll be safe in the middle of the night in the deserted park where they first nabbed me? Are you kidding?”

Jun looked at me with curiosity, then pointed at the tall glass tower at the southern end of the park, its glossy windows dwarfing Sunpu Castle. “Under the nose of the police headquarters?” he said. “I think we’re safe from them here, yes. And who said anything about deserted?”

He turned to cross the bridge, and that’s when I saw them, the others dressed in dark shirts and jeans, clustered at the door of the castle and peering out at us. There were seven of them in all, parting to let the motorbikes through and into the courtyard. I stood there in the cool air, listening to the crunch of the gravel under the tires.

Tomohiro stepped toward me as I folded my arms across my chest.

“What the hell is this?” I said.

“That’s what I want to know,” he said. He rested a hand on my shoulder and it sent a jolt through my body to feel his fingers closing around me, to feel the warmth of the pads of his fingertips.

Ikeda and the other rider waited behind us.

“You need to get moving,” she said to us. “The Yakuza might not be far behind. We’ll be safe in the park for now.

Safer than out here, anyway.”

I peeked at Tomohiro, but he looked more unsure than I was.

Jun turned around, waiting.

We stepped forward and clambered across the stone bridge.

Fish bobbed up and down in the dark waters below, sending ripples spinning through the murky water.

Our sneakers crunched on the gravel as we passed through the giant doorway of the castle.

Ikeda and the other rider followed, pulling their bikes up to the others and dropping Tomohiro’s kendo bag beside the mini makeshift parking lot. Then a few of Jun’s friends pulled at the giant castle doors. The slabs of wood groaned as the doors ground shut.

“Are you allowed to do that?” I said, but no one answered me.