Page 124 of Dragon 7

“Fuck you.” Fast, I drew the blade across his throat.

Deep.

All the way through.

In one long unbroken motion that opened his throat from one side to the other. The strength went out of him all at once.

When I let go, the Fox's head settled back against the riveted metal and our father did not move again.

The baby girl watched it happen.

Then she was gone.

Silence rolled into the cabin behind the wind.

The engines hummed under the floor. Air poured through the open hatch and the two small holes the bullets had torn.

Reo's voice carried back from the cockpit. “The pilot is turning us around!”

The Lion bombed Tokyo? Not Akiro or our father. That. . .makes more sense, but. . .

The plane banked slow beneath us and started its long arc back toward the island.

Kenji stood beside me. His chest rose and fell.

The Fox lay open at our feet, and Akiro lay crumpled at the base of the dented wall, and there was nobody left on this plane who wanted us dead.

It was done and I was exhausted.

Forget about the Lion, bombs, and Tokyo for now.

I let out a long breath.

Kenji spoke, “We won.”

“We did.”

Then, someone sobbed far behind us.

I turned toward it.

One of the twins sat on the floor in the red light. He had his mask off.

Yuki.

He had his brother, Aki, gathered up against his chest, and the kitsune mask was still on Aki’s face, gleaming, golden-toothed, grinning the way the artisan had carved it to grin.

Yet, a bullet hole was right in the center of Aki’s throat.

Blood spilled out.

No.

Aki shook in his arms. Small tremors ran the length of him. His matching kitsune mask had tipped back. His masked face pointed up at the ceiling at an angle a living man does not hold his head.

“Please. . .say something. . .” Yuki’s bloodied hand went back over the bullet hole, trying to stop more blood. “Aki? Aki?”

Yuki reached up with one hand and pulled the mask away from his brother's face. “Don’t go. . .you said you wouldn’t. . .”