Homecoming - Chapter Fourteen

Kaori easily cleared the back of the house. There was no one there. She slipped into the grand, ostentatiously decorated foyer and stopped at the base of the ornate marble staircase with a frown.

Something wasn’t right. Why was no one there? She’d checked the utilities, and this was the only Kuroda compound running hot at the moment, with electricity, gas, and water consumption through the roof.

Her inner debate, whether she’d fallen for a decoy like a rookie or whether she simply should use the opportunity of no one being around to try and find Noemi, was broken by the sound of an explosion that rattled the windows and shook the ground beneath her feet.

“What the—”

Another, smaller explosion, followed by the rather unremarkable pop-pop-pop of small-caliber gunfire, answered by the thunderous roars of a revolver. The distinct, unmistakable sound of a Colt Python in the hands of someone who knew how to use it.

Kaori’s eyes swam with tears.

Ryo.

He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t have come; she told him not to come. Not like this. Not like the old days, not back into darkness and oppressive memories and guilt. Yet, here he was.

Because of her.

Helping her.

As always.

Despite the seven-year-long radio silence. Despite everything that happened before. And after.

Rushing footsteps from above, down the stairs, brought her back into reality. The cavalry was coming. Not the good kind, though.

She quickly dashed to the side, pressed her back against the wall, and sought refuge behind a thickly leaved plant.

Six muscled thugs ran down the stairs and out the double front door, guns drawn, but were quickly felled by rapid gunfire from a large-caliber pistol.

The silence that followed was interrupted by another boom, and the floor beneath her feet shook again.

A cackle, then Mick’s voice “What are you shooting at, moron?”

A deep harrumph followed by Umibozu’s mumbled “Something moved.”

Mick cackled again. “You just wanted to blow up something, didn’t you?”

“Shut up, Angel!”

“I feel you, buddy. I also thought there’d be more resistance.” Mick huffed. “What a bunch of pussies.”

“If you two ladies are done,” Ryo snapped and walked into the foyer. Though she was still half-hidden by the plant, his eyes immediately zeroed in on her. “Thanks for waiting, Kaori.”

She moved away from the wall, swatting one of the leaves away as it brushed her shoulder. “I told Saeko not to call you.”

“Just like you, she does whatever the hell she wants,” he replied calmly, his eyes running the length of her. “Are you okay?”

She shrugged. “Just peachy. As Mick observed, there wasn’t much resistance.”

He glared at her. “You’re lucky there wasn’t. What the hell were you thinking?!”

“Don’t yell at me!”

A man, decked in full tactical gear, ran in through the front door. “What the hell, man?” He glared at Ryo. “You demanded the SWAT team for this? You three took care of it all by yourselves. And judging by the destruction outside, you had a bit too much fun.”

Mick slapped him on the back. “You have no idea how long it’s been, Tanaka. Cut us some slack.”

The man shook his head and rolled his eyes. “All because of some chick.”

Kaori blinked. “Excuse me?”

The man in tactical gear blinked. “Umm…You must be Makimura Kaori.”

She opened her mouth to let him have it, but she was suddenly grabbed from behind. The grip wasn’t particularly hard or bruising, but the gun pressed against her cheek made her pause a bit.

“You little bitch,” Kuroda hissed in her ear. “You’re so much more trouble than that slut sister of yours.”

Gun or no gun, no one disrespected her sister. “You have no idea,” she snarled, grabbed his wrist, and bent it. Hard. He howled and dropped the gun. She quickly turned, pulled the taser out of her pocket, pressed it against his neck, and let it rip.

His entire body locked up. Then he dropped to the floor twitching like the little worm he was.

Kaori kicked the discarded gun away, then glared at Tanaka. “You were saying?”

The man, eyes wide, lifted his hands in surrender. “Absolutely nothing.”

“Good. Why don’t you make yourself useful and arrest him while I go look for my daughter?”

And she regally took the stairs, with Ryo at her back, no doubt grinning like an idiot.

“You’re lucky she didn’t pull out her mallet,” Mick said, a smile in his voice. “Cop or no cop, you’d be a pancake by now.”

Umibozu grunted. “She never used the mallet on me, that’s for sure.”

“Your loss,” Mick countered. “It was a privilege afforded to the most deserving.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Tanaka asked, following them up the stairs.

Kaori didn’t hear the rest. Stopping at the top of the stairs, her breath lodged in her throat as Ryo turned the air blue beside her.

The entire upper floor of the house was turned into a makeshift hospital with glass-walled rooms, each with a hospital bed and a slew of medical equipment. Some beds were empty; some were occupied with children and adults in different states of suffering.

“Excuse me,” a gaunt nurse of indefinite sex addressed them nasally. “You can’t be up here. This is private property of Kuroda Inc., and—”

“As far as I can tell,” Kaori interrupted, “none of Kuroda-san’s companies are registered in the field of medicine, health care, medical products, or devices.”

“Which means this whole operation,” Ryo continued, “is illegal.” He turned and hollered down the stairs. “Tanaka, get your ass up here!”

The moment Tanaka, in all his SWAT team glory, complete with a police badge emblem in the middle of his Kevlar vest, appeared at the top of the stairs, the nurse burst into tears.

Kaori snapped her fingers in front of the nurse’s thin nose, and the wailing temporarily stopped. “Where is the girl?”

Sniffle. “The girl?”

Kaori gritted her teeth, wanting nothing more than to deck the weepy idiot. “The girl they brought here yesterday.”

“Oh, she’s in there.” A long, thin finger pointed toward the wooden door at the end of the hallway. 

Kaori rushed ahead, ignoring whatever the nurse said next, with Ryo hot on her heels.

“It looks sturdy,” he commented as they stopped at the door.

It did look sturdy. It was also the only wooden door on the floor. She tried the knob. It didn’t budge. “It’s locked.”

She turned toward where the nurse started blubbering something about dead people buried in the garden, but Ryo chimed in first. “Umi-chan, c’mere.”

Relief flowing down his features, the man grinned at Mick, who had his hands full of a wailing nurse, and joined them at the door with a grunt.

“It’s locked,” Ryo explained.

Umibozu nodded and kicked the door in.

“Noemi,” Kaori cried and rushed to her daughter’s unmoving form laid on a large bed with an ornate headboard. She took her into her arms, shook her, but the girl remained still. “Noemi, wake up, baby. Please, wake up.” She turned her tear-streaked face toward Ryo, still standing in the doorway. “She’s so pale,” she sobbed. “Why won’t she wake up? What did they do to her?”

“The nurse says she was forced to sedate her when they brought her here,” Mick replied as he joined Ryo at the door with a grave expression. “Adult dose. And again just a couple of hours ago.” He dropped a tiny vial in Ryo’s palm. “Show this to Kazue, she’ll know what to do. We’ll stick around. If what the nurse says is true, we have a clusterfuck on our hands. You two better get going, I’ll call Kazue to expect you.”