“—that this morning, Hideo Tanaka announced that he is officially pulling two players from the Phoenix Riders, currently one of the top-ranked Warcross teams: their Fighter, Renoir Thomas, and Architect, Emika Chen. No word yet on the reasons behind either decision, although speculation—”
Pulled from the team. All the air rushes out of my lungs.
Roshan and Hammie whirl to face me. “Pulled?” Hammie whispers sharply.
Roshan is quieter, searching my gaze. He seems ready to say something, then decides against it.
I only hesitate one more time. Then I pull Roshan and Hammie in for another hug. “Tonight,” I whisper in their ears. “I promise. I can’t talk about it out loud right now.” Then I break away and say, “The fact that you’ve brought me this box is help enough.”
Roshan frowns, but Hammie gives me an imperceptible nod. She tries to smile. “Will do,” she replies. It sounds like the right answer to what I said, but I know it also means she understood what I meant.
“Miss Chen,” the nurse says as she steps back in. “You have another visitor.”
Roshan and Hammie exchange another pointed look with me. Then they get up and head out of the room. A moment later, the nurse opens the door wider to usher in my new visitor.
Hideo comes striding in, his face a mask of anger and worry. His eyes lock on mine, and some of his expression dissolves into relief.
“You’re awake,” he says as he sits down on the side of my bed.
“You can’t,” I reply, pointing at the TV. My mind is still spinning. “Pulled? Really? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Would you have me keep you both in and risk everyone’s lives?” Hideo replies. “We didn’t know how long it would take for you to wake up. I had to make a decision.” His eyes are dark with fury, although it seems to be directed inward; his expression reminds me of how he looked as he spoke about his brother.
“What about not caving to intimidation?”
“That was before Zero threatened you and other players.”
“How will taking me out of the tournaments stop whatever Zero’s planning to do during the final game?”
“It won’t.” Hideo’s jaw tightens. “But I’d rather not see you involved in it. The whole reason for entering you in the games was for you to have better access to information, but I think you may have collected everything you possibly can from being an official team member.” He sighs. “It’s my fault. I should have taken you off the team a long time ago.”
The thought of abandoning my team and sabotaging their chances at a win . . . I close my eyes and lower my head. Breathe. “I heard Ren’s talking to the police.”
“He’s in custody, yes, and being interrogated.”
I start shaking my head. “You’re not going to get anything out of him that way. His arrest will only alert Zero that you’re on to him, and he’ll move his operations further underground. Hideo, come on. The next time I go to a game sponsored in the Dark World, I’ll have no—”
“You won’t be,” Hideo interrupts. His eyes search mine, dark and resolute. “I’m letting you off the job.”
I blink. “You’re firing me?”
“I’m still paying you the bounty,” he replies. Why does he sound so distant? His tension makes him cold, even hostile.
My head is spinning. But—every locked door has a key. I haven’t found the key yet—I can’t leave now. “It’s not about the bounty,” I say.
“You’ve earned it. The money is sitting in your account now.”
The ten million. I start shaking my head in disgust. “You have to stop doing that. Why do you always think you can just throw money at people and get them to do what you want?”
“Because it was the whole reason why you came here in the first place,” Hideo says, his tone clipped. “I’m giving you what you wanted.”
“What the hell do you know about what I wanted?” My voice rises. I can feel the burn of my cheeks. Flashes of my father appear in my thoughts—then, myself curled in a ball on my foster-home bed, struggling to find a reason to live. All of my Memory Worlds are now gone, deleted, taken by Zero. I can’t look back on my memories of my father if I wanted to. “You think I’m just here for the money? You think you can fix everything by writing a check?”
Hideo’s eyes seem to shutter. “Then we understand each other less than I thought.”
“Or maybe you’re not understanding me.” I narrow my eyes at him. “I saw Zero standing in our dorms before the bomb went off. Listen—he didn’t show up there to threaten me just on a whim, or just because he now knows who I am. We tracked down Ren and have proof that he’s connected to Zero’s mission. You even have him in custody now. That means Zero feels threatened. He thinks we’re closing in, and that’s why he’s lashing out. Planting a bomb means that he’s risking alerting the authorities in an attempt to keep me off his trail. We’ve backed him into a corner. All of the momentum is on our side.”
“And that means he’s at his most unpredictable,” Hideo finishes. “This is someone we still know nothing about, and I am not going to see another bomb go off just because I want you to catch him for us.”
“Just because you take me off the job doesn’t mean he won’t attack again.”
“I know. That’s why I’ve cancelled every dome event.”
“Every dome event? Around the world?”
“I will not have people physically gathering by the thousands in stadiums across the world, not if it poses a risk for them. They can enjoy the rest of the tournaments from the comfort of their homes.”
No, I can’t give up now. My old, familiar panic is rising up again, the terror of seeing the wall go up between the problem and the solution. Of standing helplessly by while danger circles someone I love. There’s something missing here, as if a new development had suddenly changed Hideo’s mind about everything. “You always knew this job involved some risks. Why are you pulling me out now? You’re too afraid of seeing me hurt?”
“I’m too afraid of involving you in something far bigger than yourself, that you didn’t even choose.”
“This is what I do,” I insist. “And I know what I’m doing.”
“I’m not questioning your talent,” Hideo responds, sounding annoyed now. He looks like he wants to say something more, but stops short and just shakes his head. “Right now, all I want to do is minimize any risks, to make sure no one will be harmed.” He looks at me. “You’ve already done your job, Emika. You gave us enough information to know when his operations will happen, and you tracked down someone involved with his plans. It’s enough for us to keep the audience safe. I’ve dismissed the other hunters, too. Let the police take it from here.”
“But you still haven’t caught Zero. That’s not called finishing my job. So if you have a better explanation than that, I’d like to hear it.”
“I’ve already given it to you.”
“No, you haven’t.”
“You want a better explanation?”
“Yes,” I reply, my voice rising. “I think I deserve one.”
Anger flashes hot in Hideo’s eyes now. “I’m telling you to leave, Emika.”
“I don’t take orders from an ex-boss,” I snap.
Hideo narrows his eyes. Suddenly, he leans forward, puts his hand on the back of my neck, and pulls me forward. He kisses me hard. My slew of words comes to a screeching stop. A knife cuts through my rising anger.
He pulls away, his breath short. I’m too startled to do anything except gasp for air. He leans his forehead against mine, then closes his eyes. “Leave.” His voice is raspy, desperate, angry. “Please.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” I murmur.
“I cannot, in good conscience, keep you on this job.” His voice turns quieter. “If you don’t believe any of my other reasons, at least believe this one.”
Before all this, I used to sit on my bed and flip through article after article about Hideo, wondering what it might be like to meet him so
meday, to become as successful as him, to work with him and talk with him and be like him. But now Hideo is before me, exposing some fragile, inner working of his heart, and I’m sitting here and staring back, flustered and confused.
Something is missing. Something he’s not telling me. Had Zero threatened him in some way, too? Had he threatened me in front of Hideo and prompted Hideo to pull me out of everything? I shake my head and hug my knees tighter. My mind spins.
He studies me for a moment. “You and your teammates will be moved somewhere safe. I’ll see you after the tournaments are over.” Then he stands up and leaves my bedside.
27
That night, I sleep poorly. The hospital bed doesn’t fold quite right, and no matter what I do, I can’t get comfortable on it. When I finally do drift off, old memories seep into my dreams, scenes from when I was eight years old, when my life was back in New York City.
I came home from school one day with my yearbook clutched in my arms. “Dad, it’s here!” I shouted as I shut the door behind me. The school had let my third-grade class decorate the book’s front cover that year, and I’d spent the entire past week painstakingly drawing in the elaborate swirls on the cover’s corners.
It took me a second to realize that our home was in complete disarray—strips of watercolor paper everywhere, cut-up clothes in small piles on the floor, paintbrushes and buckets strewn across the dining room table. In one corner of the room was a haphazard dress Dad was working on, pinned to a bust in a dozen places. I threw down my backpack at the front door and looked on as Dad bustled past me, holding a few pins between his lips.
“Dad?” I said. When he didn’t answer, I raised my voice. “Dad!”
“You’re late.” He flashed me a quick scowl as he settled back into his rhythm of work. “Help me get the snow peas out of the freezer to defrost.”
“Sorry—I was finishing up my homework in the library. But look!” I held up the yearbook with a grin. “They’re here.”
I’d thought for sure that his eyes would jump immediately to the swirls on the cover, that he’d break into his familiar smile and hurry over to have a closer look. Oh, Emi, he’d say. Look at your line work!
Instead, he ignored me as he started pinning up another section of the dress. He was humming to himself, some melody I knew but couldn’t quite place, and his hands trembled slightly as he worked. Was I in trouble? I ran through a list of possible things I could’ve done wrong, but came up empty.
“What are you making for dinner?” I asked, trying to coax him into a conversation as I placed the yearbook down on the kitchen counter. He didn’t respond. I gathered up his paintbrushes scattered on the dining table and dropped them back into the brush jar with a clatter then wiped the table clean with a damp cloth. His laptop was open on the table, and I caught a glimpse of a site with numbers in bold red, along with images of dice and cards and a symbol I didn’t yet know was a gang’s sign.
It read, -$3,290.
“Dad?” I asked. “What’s this?”
“It’s nothing,” he replied without turning around.
I didn’t understand yet that it was a gambling site belonging to a criminal ring, but I did know what a minus sign in front of red numbers meant. I sighed loudly. “Dad. You said you’re not supposed to be spending money like that.”
“I know what I said.”
“You said you’d stop.”
“Emika.”
I didn’t catch the warning in his voice. “You promised,” I insisted, louder now. “Now you’re not going to have money again. You said—”
“Stop talking.”
His voice cracked like a whip. I froze, my words withering on my tongue, my face turned up in shock at my father’s expression. His eyes had finally found mine, and the light in them shone feverish with fury, red from crying. In a flash, I knew what had happened. There was only one thing that could turn my father from a gentle, lighthearted man into someone angry and cruel.
He’d heard from my mother.
Already, the furious light had started to ebb from his face. “I didn’t mean that,” he said, shaking his head as if confused. “Emi—”
But my own anger had risen now. Before Dad could say anything else, I took a step away and tightened my lips. “She messaged you, didn’t she? What’d she say to you this time? That she misses you?”
“Emika.” He reached for my arm, but I’d already twisted away and was hurrying toward my room. A high-pitched ringing echoed in my ears. The last thing I saw before I slammed my door was the sight of my father standing there before his half creation, alone, shoulders sloped, his figure turned in my direction. Then I crawled onto my bed and began to cry.
Hours passed. Later that night, my door creaked open an inch and I saw my father peek in, holding a plate piled high with pizza. “May I?” he said quietly.
I glared at him from under my blankets as he came in and shut the door behind him. Dark circles rimmed his eyes. For the first time, I realized how exhausted he looked, that he must not have slept well for days. He sat down on the edge of my bed and held the plate out at me. I wanted to be stubborn, to stay mad, but my stomach growled at the smell of tomato and melted cheese, and I dragged myself into a sitting position and reached for a slice.
“Your yearbook looks stunning, Emi,” he said after I’d wolfed down a slice. He gave me a weary smile. “I can tell how hard you worked on it.”
I shrugged, still not ready to let him off the hook, and grabbed a second slice of pizza. “So what happened to you today?” I grumbled.
He stayed silent for a long moment.
“What did she want this time?” I asked. But I already knew. Every six months or so, my mother would contact him because she missed him, only to disappear again. She never mentioned me. Not once.
When I asked again, Dad finally took out his phone. He held it out to me without saying anything. I peered down at it.
My mother had sent him a photo of her hand. On her finger was a large diamond ring, cut into a brilliant square.
I looked back up at my father’s tired eyes.
She was so beautiful. But beauty can make people forgive a thousand cruelties.
We sat for a while without saying a word. Then I touched Dad’s hand quietly with my own. He looked down, away from me, ashamed to meet my eyes. “I’m sorry, Emi,” he said in a small voice. “I’m so sorry. I’m a fool.”
I just shook my head. And when I wrapped my arms around his neck, he held me tight, trying to piece back together the lives she’d left behind.
• • • • •
I STIR FROM my dream, my hands clenched into fists. The time on my phone reads 3:34 a.m., and the TV in my room is still on, cycling through the news.
I lie still in the silence. It takes a long time before I finally relax my hands and let myself sink back against the bed. I watch the news without paying much attention to it. The reporter has already started discussing the Wardraft runners-up wild cards who will replace me and Ren.
“—Brennar Lyons, Level 72, a wild card from Scotland who will now represent the Phoenix Riders as their new Architect. And Jackie Nguyen, a Fighter—”
The reporter’s voice fades into indecipherable noise as my thoughts turn to my teammates. What are they thinking now? The public explanation for Ren leaving was that he had been caught gambling. The explanation for me was that I’d received death threats for news about my relationship with Hideo going public.
Hideo. His declaration replays in my mind, as surely and sharply as if I had recorded it as a Memory.
My eyes wander to the box Roshan and Hammie had given me before they left, and I reach for it again, opening it to run my fingers against the broken ornament shards and scraps of canvas. My heart rate still feels elevated; my chest, still pained.
I punch my fist down against the bed. Zero is going to get away with everything. My thoughts run through all that we’d managed to uncover so far. Coordinates of all the major cities where Warcross
tournaments were going to be held. Disrupted patches inside each Warcross world in the championships. A file that had self-destructed; an assassination attempt. And a soundtrack Ren had created, potentially to be played during the final Warcross game.
So many pieces. I repeat them in my head until the news cycle on the TV has finished and starts all over again.
Then, a new message appears in my view.
My thoughts scatter for a moment, and I glance at the note to read it. How did this message get through? It’s not from someone I’ve approved. In fact, there’s no tag on it at all. I hesitate—and then I reach out to tap it.
For you, from one hunter to another.
That’s all it says. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. From another hunter? Somehow, one of the other bounty hunters had found a way to hack through my own shields. They know who I am.
My head jerks up to the security cam in one corner of my room’s ceiling, wondering if they are hacking it to watch me, and then my attention goes back to the message. It has an ACCEPT INVITE? button attached to it. I sit up straighter. Then, with trembling fingers, I decide to accept.
A virtual figure materializes a few feet away, his hands and arms hidden behind armguards and gloves. His blue eyes are stunningly bright. A jolt hits me as I see his face.
It’s Tremaine.
He raises an eyebrow when he sees my shocked expression. “Hello, Peach,” he says, a sneer spreading on his face. “What an honor.”
“I—” I start, then stutter to a halt. “You’re one of Hideo’s other hunters?”
He offers me a mock bow. “I looked just as surprised when I found out about you.”
“How did you get a message through my shields?”
“You’re not the only one with a few tricks up your sleeve.”
“Why are you contacting me? Why are you showing your face?”
“Relax, Emika. I found something that you might be interested in.” Before I can ask him what it is, he reaches up and makes a swiping motion with his hand. A file materializes between us, hovering in the air like a glowing blue cube.