Key West, compared to the rest of the world, is heaven. It’s Margaritaville (before it burned down), it’s the Conch Republic, it’s a place where the rules of living are more common-sense than law. There is no rat-race; there is no race, just living easy. As a result, while we’d had a few cases come our way over the past thirteen years, they came with less frequency than the chaos of the first bar I ran. People were... sane.
New York City, on the other hand, made people like these. When greed came in, people got hurt - and these four had definitely been hurt. Part of me wondered if we should have stayed, maybe started another bar there... maybe helped the Nabikis and Kodachis still out there.
I took one look at Erin, and the selfish part of me said no. Erin was better for being here. We all were. And these four... they would turn out okay. I had to believe it; I’d never seen Mike or Sally falter.
Kodachi was eased down in the chair by Nabiki; as she did so, a younger girl - Akane, she’d been called - stood up. “I guess it’s my turn, huh?”
“Only if you want to, lass,” Mike piped up.
She slowly walked over to the bar, her head bowed in thought, her steps light against the ground. “Um... I’ll take whatever beer you have. As strong as possible, please.”
My eyes widened. I’d taken up some microbrewery - not much, just a bit for some variety - and there was one brew that had more than enough for her...
“Here; try this,” To my surprise, he hadn’t pulled out Paint Thinner; rather, he’d chosen a nice strawberry blonde. She looked at it curiously, then back at him. “I thought you might enjoy it better - considering you can’t get drunk.”
Akane took these words, then nodded; she gazed through the pale goodness inside, then raised her glass, her voice wavering. “To... fear.” We answered her toast; she drained the brew like a pro, then stared at the empty mug as though expecting some major riddle to be answered by it.
I winced as she reared her arm back; the fireplace was already going to need repair, and I dreaded what this throw was going to do. She threw with a force that would send grown baseball players running in fear, and made her own dent in the hearth; I swallowed as some of the outer bricks came loose. Whatever else these girls had, they could probably have one heck of a career in baseball. I wondered if the Marlins would consider a tryout as she began her tale.
“All... all my life, I’ve lived in fear. I don’t think I’ve ever known a day without it. One of my first memories is of being in the house, trying to avoid the girls who worked at Mommy’s place... trying to stay away from their scary eyes. They had these really scary eyes, you know; they’d been controlled for so long that they didn’t feel anything except this dark anger, and it scared me.” She grimaced. “It wasn’t right, I never liked it, and I didn’t want any part of it.”
I watched Nabiki nod slowly; there was something she understood in Akane’s message, but I couldn’t quite pick it up. “Needless to say, I wasn’t Mommy’s best student. I didn’t like working with the potions, and the other magic just... it freaked me out! I... I would have nightmares of beong controlled like they were... unable to do anything... anything at all... without someone’s permission. I could never see who was controlling me... just hear their voice.” She visibly trembled, and steadied herself on the bar for support.
“I... I guess I had reason to fear. One day, I woke up... and found Kasumi ordering me around... and... and I couldn’t help but obey her! I screamed in terror - then Kasumi ordered me not to... and I couldn’t scream any more.” She swallowed; her voice took on a more panicked tone. “She ordered me to sit still... perfectly still... as she painted the tattoos over me. I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t fight back, I couldn’t do anything!”
Nabiki hid her face in her hands; considering what we’d heard before, I had a feeling as to what was coming. “Then... she made me go into a room, and ordered me to obey whatever Nabiki told me to do. I didn’t know that Nabiki was controlled through all of it, too... not at first; I didn’t know how the controls worked.” She swallowed. “Nabiki... apparently had an imaginative mind; Kasumi complimented her on how she did with... with me.”
Akane took a deep breath. “You can guess what happened next - more training, then helping out with ‘the family business’. I didn’t like it, and Kasumi didn’t like my attitude. She once ordered me to go an entire week with a smile on my face. What was I supposed to do, grin while being forced to fuck seven days a week?” She ran her fingers through her hair. “Eventually... she found a far better use for me - killing.”
She swallowed. “I was scared. And angry. And had a lot of emotion inside. She... she realized what a beautiful tool it was, and ordered me to channel it into the hit jobs I was ordered to do. I was good, but messy; I’ve never been subtle, and I didn’t feel like being subtle now.”
Her shoulders slumped. “I... I needed out. I didn’t have Nabiki’s imagination for it; I thought it was impossible to go against Kasumi. So... I chose my own way. After completing a hit on the 30th floor of a high-rise building, I broke the window, tossed the body out... then followed it down.”
She took a deep breath. “I fell for maybe 7 or 8 seconds... I can’t even begin to describe to you the freedom I felt. Kasumi wouldn’t order me around anymore, I wouldn’t have to fuck or kill for her... I was free. There was no fear in dying; I was already dead, I knew that from the eyes I saw in the mirror every morning. Do you know how beautiful that felt? How incredible? No fear - none!” Tears started to roll down her face. “Those precious few seconds were the best moments of my life - because my life was supposed to be over.”
Her fist clenched as she hovered around the bar; I winced at the potential damage it would cause. To my relief, she pulled back, and stepped away. “I fell three hundred feet... and all I got was a large bruise over my back. When I got home... Kasumi gave me special punishment, because I’d tried to kill myself... then gave me another tattoo, ordering me not to ever try again.” She unbuttoned the collar of her blouse, and pointed to a triangle. “This is probably the only reason why I’m not dead right now - that, and the fact that I’m so tough. I even thought about punching a hole in the plane that took us here, just so I could dive in and drown; Kasumi was gone, but I...”
The talk was clearly draining her; she leaned against a chair for support. “I’m so scared - still scared. I’m scared that Nabiki or Nodoka-kaasan will enslave me again, even though I know they’d rather die than do that. I’m so scared that whatever organization Kasumi was with will hunt us down. I’m scared that I’ll wake up one morning to find Ranma making a meal out of me. I’m scared of even the smallest decision, afraid that Kasumi might somehow control me even now.”
“Have you tried screaming since you were freed?” Erin asked quietly.
Akane blinked at her. “Um... no. It had been so long...”
Erin smiled. “I find it quite cathartic when I’m angered or frustrated by something. Though I usually go out to where no one can hear me before doing so.”
I blinked, and nearly slapped myself on the forehead. Erin... with raising her, I had to throw the book out. She knew more than me from the day she was born. In some ways, she seemed more rational than I could ever be. A dark thought crossed my mind: Did we expect our child to be different to such an extent that we made her hide part of herself?
I looked into Zoey’s eyes, and saw the same questions. No matter what, we were going to have a long talk with our daughter in the near future.
Akane looked at Erin carefully for a moment, as if realizing something for the first time. A trace of a smile crossed her lips; it soon vanished, however, as her lips turned in the opposite direction. My eyes widened as I realized what was about to happen.
The first scream that came had no words to it; it changed in pitch every second or so, at Akane’s guidance, as she touched every part of her soul that needed release. She stopped for a moment after ten seconds, then continued, this time lacing her scream with obscenities that made everyone, including Mike, blush. This particular tirade continued for the better part of a minute, as we watched with a mixture of horror and fascination.
We were watching a lifetime of torture pouring out all at once.
I’m guessing she finally ran out of obscenities; the force of her own voice had thrown her to her knees, gasping for air. She blinked, looked up at Zoey, and gave probably the first genuine smile I’d seen from her. “Thanks. I needed that.”
“You’re welcome,” she replied; I looked between the two, at the similarities and differences. Neither was normal, not by any stretch of the imagination, and both likely feared where their place would be when they grew up. Erin would always have a home here... but I had a feeling she would choose her own place, one day.
Hopefully, so would Akane. She eased herself back to her feet, and staggered to the table.
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(Posted Sun, 05 Jan 2003 00:10)
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