Page 175 of Caution to the Wind

“She has four hours give or take, if they buried her alive,” Bat told me as I passed him. “We’ve got time.”

Not enough of it.

The six brothers I’d sent to the Fraser River joined us after half an hour of searchin’ and then Jiang arrived with three men loyal to him, clad in suits that were destroyed the second they sank their knees into wet soil.

One hour.

Two.

Three.

We had a system, but there were too many fresh graves and the unrelentin’ rain had turned everythin’ to brown soup. I was startin’ to have trouble breathin’, chokin’ on the terror that was risin’ like lava inside, burnin’ me up from the inside out.

’Til I saw the gravestone.

Hai Lung 1937-1989.

The same name as Old Dragon’s wife who’d passed away not long after they’d immigrated to Canada.

I didn’t believe in coincidences, but the ground seemed undisturbed, the grass brilliant green and wet with dew.

Still, I couldn’t move on. Droppin’ into a crouch, I fingered the grass as I tried to figure out where the fuck that monster would’ve buried my girl.

It was then I noticed it, the demarcation in the grass at the edge of the tombstone. I followed it with my finger, walkin’ back on my knees to trace the rectangular shape. My mud-caked fingers dug into the edge andwrenched.

The grass came up in a neat fuckin’ rectangle and beneath it, freshly churned earth.

I tossed the grass and started diggin’, vaguely aware I was yellin’ out for my brothers as I buried my hands in the earth. Dirt rained over my shoulder, beside my knees as I dug and dug, my nails breakin’ on stones, skin peelin’ back over rock and roots. They started to bleed, but I didn’t notice.

“Rocky, Rocky.” I wasn’t even aware I was yellin’ as Wrath and Dane dropped to their knees beside me and dug too. “Rocky, come on, love, please be here for me.”

I started to fuckin’ despair as we dug out three feet then four, ’til finally, my finger stabbed into wood.

A plain coffin, the wood still bright yellow and new.

A roar rose in my throat as I dug faster, Bat with us now and Curtains, Kodiak, Lysander. My brothers diggin’ into the edges of the coffin so we could lift the lid.

When enough dirt was cleared, I could hear the dull thud of impact behind the lid.

“ROCKY!” I bellowed, workin’ hard, finally able to try to pry the lid off.

When it wouldn’t budge, even with Bat and Dane tryin’ to help me, boots slidin’ in the mud, fingers slippin’ on the wet wood, I took out my axe.

I could hurt her, if I wasn’t careful, but it’d been too long with her in that box buried in the fuckin’ earth, and they could’ve hurt her, too.

So I swung, wedgin’ the axe in the foot of the coffin, breakin’ it open with the first crack of the blade. Another hit, mud flyin’, my boot givin’ way to mud so I fell to my knees.

But it was enough.

Usin’ my hands, I splintered the wood apart from the hole I’d made ’til the lid finally gave way from the base and popped open. I grunted, my brothers at my side, as we shoved the lid off the coffin.

And there she was.

My Mei.

My Rocky.

Blood splattered over her face and caked around her fingernails and knuckles from tryin’ to pry at the lid from the inside. Dressed in her black satin gown like a funeral shroud.