Page 32

Chapter 32

Kaneko

T he jungle swallowed us whole.

One moment, I still tasted salt and smoke, the sting of seawater raw in my throat. The next, the world closed in around me—thick and suffocating heat pressing against my skin as the scent of damp earth clogged my nose.

Everything ached.

My muscles screamed with every step; my ribs burned with every breath. The wreck had battered me against the rocks, and now the jungle seemed determined to finish the job.

Kazashita moved ahead of me, cutting through the tangled undergrowth with the ease of someone who had done this a hundred times before. I hated him for it. He didn’t stumble. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t move like a man whose body had been broken against a rocky shore.

I did.

I stumbled over a root, barely catching myself before going down. My boots sank into the thick mud, making each step an effort, lacing every movement with pain. My arms ached, and my wrists were raw where the rope bit into them. Kazashita had bound me once again.

I wanted to stop. Just for a moment, just to catch my breath, but I didn’t dare.

The pirates could be following us.

That thought kept me upright, kept my legs moving even as exhaustion clawed at my bones. Those men, the ones who were distant dots on the sand, they had chased us into the jungle, hadn’t they?

I hadn’t imagined that. I’d actually seen them, heard their voices, their shouts—too far to see or hear clearly but too close to forget. I had no idea if we had lost them, no idea if they were still searching the trees, waiting for us to falter.

I glanced over my shoulder, half expecting to see shadows slipping through the foliage. I saw nothing. But that meant nothing.

Kazashita must have sensed my unease because he finally stopped, turned, and whispered, “They won’t track us this deep.”

I flinched at the sound of his voice, sharp and quiet in the heavy silence. “You don’t know that.”

He turned from me and began hacking again. “I do.”

His certainty unsettled me almost as much as the silence of the jungle itself. It was too quiet. There were no voices, no footsteps, no sign of the men who had slaughtered my people and dragged me from the wreckage. The absence of sound didn’t ease my fears—it only made them worse.

Because silence meant something else was listening.

I forced myself to focus on the path ahead. My breath was ragged. My body didn’t want to keep going, but my mind didn’t want to stop. If I stopped, if I let my exhaustion take me down, I wouldn’t get back up.

Kazashita moved with ease, barely slowed by the terrain.

I struggled to keep up, not that he seemed to care. He wasn’t leading me with urgency—there was no sense of fear in his movements, no paranoia. He was calm, too calm for a man who might have blood-crazed men on his tail.

He wasn’t worried. Why?

Because he wasn’t the one being hunted.

I swallowed, the rope around my wrists burning with every shift of my arms. He hadn’t bound my feet, hadn’t kept me tethered to him like the others had. Maybe he thought the jungle itself would keep me here. Maybe he was right.

The ground was uneven, slick with mud and tangled with roots. Every step sent a fresh spike of pain through my body. My legs burned, my ribs ached, my vision was still blurred.

I needed rest.

I wouldn’t ask for it.

Kazashita glanced back again, unreadable as always, measuring me. I knew what he saw—a man barely holding himself together, a man whose strength was failing. I gritted my teeth and lifted my chin. I wouldn’t let him see me break. I would not show weakness.

The jungle finally thinned, opening into a small clearing where a narrow stream cut through the land. Kazashita crouched by the water and splashed his face, unbothered.

I hesitated at the edge.

This was an opportunity. He was distracted. If I moved now—if I ran—

Kazashita sighed without looking up or turning back. “Don’t be stupid.”

I stiffened.

“You’re too exhausted to fight me, too weak to run, and you’re too smart to think you’d survive out here alone.”

His voice was maddeningly casual, like he wasn’t even concerned about the possibility of me escaping. Like he knew I wouldn’t.

I clenched my fists. “You don’t know anything about me.”

Kazashita rose, wiped his hands on his trousers, and finally met my eyes. “I know you haven’t stopped looking over your shoulder since we left the beach.”

I inhaled sharply, my pulse hammering.

“They are not following us, Kaneko,” he said simply, turning back to the water. “Not anymore.”

I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t believe him, but I still sank to my knees by the water, because I had nothing left. The cold soaked into my hands as I cupped it to my lips, washing away the taste of salt and blood.

It wasn’t enough. Nothing would be enough.

Kazashita sat back, resting his arms on his knees. He didn’t speak again. He just watched me and waited. When I refused to acknowledge his words, he shook his head, stood, and resumed our trek.

Kazashita called another halt after what felt like an eternity of hacking through the jungle. I had no idea how much time had passed. The weight of exhaustion pressed against me, my limbs heavy, my muscles screaming.

Kazashita dropped onto a fallen log with a tired exhale, sweat soaking his once-pristine shirt. His steady, unbothered pace had finally slowed, but that offered little comfort. If even he was starting to feel the strain, it meant we weren’t out of danger.

I stayed on my feet, leaning my back against a thick tree trunk, my arms crossed despite the raw ache in my shoulders. I wasn’t ready to let my guard down—not with him, not with the jungle, not with the ghosts of the men who might still be following us.

The jungle pulsed with life. The shrill cries of birds, the rustle of unseen creatures slithering through the underbrush, the distant growl of something too large for my liking. Every sound made my skin crawl. Even the plants seemed to move, twisting and bending in the shifting light.

Kazashita must have noticed my unease earlier in our journey because he had stopped every dozen paces to listen, his head tilting at the faintest sound. He was always scanning, his fingers twitching about the hilt of his katana at every snapped twig or distant rustle. I caught myself holding my breath each time he stilled—waiting, waiting, waiting—for the sound of men crashing through the trees behind us.

But it never came.

Or at least, it hadn’t come yet.

I wasn’t convinced we weren’t being followed. More than once, I felt something watching us, just beyond the reach of my vision. A shape moving between the trees, a shadow vanishing the moment I turned to look. I didn’t mention it, but I did catch Kazashita glancing over his shoulder.

Had he seen it, too?

As the sun dipped lower, Kazashita finally slumped to the ground, his breathing shallow. His face had gone pale beneath a sheen of sweat, and his shirt was glued to his chest.

“You look like hell,” I said before I could stop myself, finally dropping to the ground a few yards from my captor.

His voice came out hoarse. “I will live.”

He shifted, rolling his shoulders, but his arms trembled with the movement. “My muscles are throbbing. I need to rest. We still have another couple of hours before we reach the village.”

I narrowed my eyes. Another couple of hours? I wasn’t sure I had another ten minutes in me, much less hours of slogging through muck and vines. How large was this blasted island?

“Really? Another couple of hours?”

Kazashita exhaled, rubbing his temple. “There is no way to avoid the smaller camps closer to the village, but we should go around them as much as we can. It will be safer to approach after dark.”

Safer.

The word rattled inside my skull, rattled against the image of the slaughter at the beach, of the pirates ripping through my town, of the men who would have used me like I was nothing but an object, a piece of stolen cargo to be traded away.

I pulled my knees to my chest, resting my chin on them.

I had always been the one with the answers, the one who could find the path forward when others saw only dead ends. Yoshi used to laugh about it, calling me his oracle, saying I saw the future better than most men saw the road before them.

Now?

I couldn’t even see the next step—and the thought of Yoshi brought fresh pain, different pain, one that seared into me far deeper than any cut or bruise. It had only been days since I last saw his face, and already his image was fading in my mind’s eye. How was that possible?

I vanquished those thoughts. Survival had to come first. Escape second. Yoshi third, if I could even find a way to get back to him. If he’d even survived the attack.

That thought may as well have been Kazashita’s katana burying itself deep in my chest. I covered my face with my palms and tried to stop tears from forming. Oddly, focusing on my physical pains, exploring what body parts might need attention when we arrived at Kazashita’s mysterious village, helped distract my heart. Unfortunately, the trick only worked for a moment.

My body ached, but my mind was worse. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw their faces: men and women I had known my entire life, ones who had raised me, scolded me, laughed with me. Now they were dead. Or wished they were.

From my hiding place during the attack, I had seen what men were capable of when they thought no one would live to tell of it. I heard the screams. The sounds of steel sinking into flesh. The cries of those who fought, and those who couldn’t fight anymore.

I had never imagined such horror could touch my world. And yet, it had.

A scraping noise pulled me from my thoughts.

Kazashita was cleaning his katana , running a cloth down its length, slow and methodical. I frowned, my mind sluggish, momentarily confused. Where had he found a cloth? Then I noticed—his sleeves were missing, torn away, the fabric wrapped around his hand as he wiped the blade.

I swallowed, my throat dry.

The man was an enigma. A pirate, yet refined. A killer, yet careful. He had been my captor, yet somehow, I wasn’t afraid of him the way I was of the other madmen.

Why?

I studied him in the fading light.

His face was too smooth for a man who had lived the life of a wakō . There were no scars. He didn’t wear the pirates’ hardened sneer. His lips, even now, curved slightly, as if he was on the verge of amusement despite everything.

His shoulders were rounded, arms well-muscled, chest full and strong. Many of the pirates aboard The Worm bore the strength of those who’d spent a lifetime working with their hands, but Kazashita’s physique appeared more deliberate, as though he shaped his body to his will, to be more . . . I wasn’t sure . . . pleasing ?

Who was this man?

The scraping of the cloth against steel stopped.

I quickly looked away, heat rising to my face. Had he caught me staring?

A moment later, the sound resumed, as if he had decided not to acknowledge the moment, whatever it had been. The silence stretched between us before I finally spoke, the words leaving my lips before I could stop them. “What were you going to do to me?”

Kazashita paused, glancing up, the blade still resting in his hand.

I clenched my jaw, forcing my voice to remain steady. “Before the wreck. On the ship. What was supposed to happen to me?”

His eyes met mine, unreadable.

“I was ordered to keep you safe,” he said simply. “To ensure no harm came to you before we reached Bara.”

I scoffed. “You said that while shoving me into a closet.”

“Better than shoving you into the sea, was it not?” Kazashita exhaled, slow and measured, before finally answering. “My taichou was going to sell you.”

The words settled in my chest like ice.

I had known it—or suspected it—but hearing it spoken aloud made it real.

“And you were going to let him?”

“I was his first mate. His orders were law.” His gaze fell, and he hesitated. “I would have been the one to lead you onto the platform.”

To stand there while men bid for me.

Bile rose in my throat.

Kazashita was still watching. I saw something—something flicker in his eyes before he looked away.

Shame?

No, it couldn’t be that. The wakō knew no shame. They had no honor, no fear, no hesitation. That was what I had been told.

And yet, Kazashita had protected me.

He had kept the worst of them away. And now, in this moment, he did not deny that he had been part of it, nor was he making excuses.

“Now?” I asked, my voice quieter. “Will you still sell me?”

Kazashita’s jaw tightened. “No. You are no longer a prisoner of The Worm . The ship is no more, and my taichou with her. We are both free.”

I let out a bitter laugh and held up my still-tied wrists. “Free?”

He lifted a brow, then climbed to his feet. I flinched back as he drew a knife from his waistband and held it toward me. Mouth quirked in his infuriating amusement, he reached down, lifted my wrists, and sliced through the cord binding them.

“See? Free,” he said as the rope hit the jungle floor.

I stuck my chin out, determined to refuse him even a minor victory. “We are trapped on an island full of pirates who want to kill us. That doesn’t sound like freedom.”

Kazashita sighed, running a hand through his damp hair. “Kaneko.”

I looked up.

“I will protect you.”

I wanted to call him a liar.

But I had nothing left but his word.