I wake up to the sound of gunshots.

                My arm is jerked upward, startling me, and I realize it's Veah reaching for her gun on the nightstand.

                 "We have to go," she says, her face pale.

                  So . . . this is definitely not the good morning I had anticipated.

                  "What? Why?" And I remember how the hotel manager had noticed our handcuffs, had paid special interest. 

                  "They found us," Veah says grimly.

                  Okay, maybe that dire pronouncement is a little short of a soft morning whisper, or a sleepy kiss, or a pina colada. 

                   I scramble out of bed and━Veah is shoving on her jacket hurriedly, as if she's trying to hide━

                   "Your gunshot!" Maybe I faint a little bit. Her hand is suddenly on my shoulder, holding me upright. Her dark eyes peer into mine.

                   Her injury is bleeding heavily, soaking through her bandages and into the white━or really, if you could call it that━blankets of the bed we just slept in. 

                    It looks like a murder scene. Or the morning after my period.

                    "I did that," I moan, closing my eyes, stumbling back a few steps. "You're going to die because of me. Because I can't even stitch a goddamn straight line!" 

                    "Please, shut up," Veah says, arming her guns with bullet casings. But I see the faintest flicker of a smile on her face.

                    My stomach clenches. Butterflies or nausea━who knows at this point? 

                    "Duck," Veah says calmly, and she throws me to the ground a second before a gunshot fires through the motel window.

                    The damn hotel manager sold us out. 

                     None of this feels real. And I'm still dressed in a slutty pumpkin costume━although it's stripped down to the bare essentials. Black leggings. Orange turtle neck. 

                    Veah notices me examining myself and tosses me a shirt. "Get changed and let's go."

                   "We don't have time━"

                   For God's sake, someone just fired through the window of our room, and she wants me to get changed. But she gives me the kind of look that I don't question it.

                   "In front of you?" Stupid question.

                   "Are you shy?" A daring smirk that makes me want to throttle her. But I only meet her eyes as I throw my costume to the ground, letting her see exactly what's beneath the slutty pumpkin.

                   Her lips part. Briefly, I wonder what they taste like.

                  But then she lunges towards me, pushing me to the floor a second time. I wince as I hit the ground. The scent of unwashed bedsheets and grimy dust is enough to make me sputter. But my real worry lays in the fact that Veah is bleeding again━is still injured.

                   She pulls me to my feet a second later, after the sound of the gunshot fades. I have no idea how she knows in the moment before they strike.

                    "Is there another way out of here?" I ask.

                    She raises a single eyebrow. As though I should know better than to ask dumb questions. Yes, there is another way out of here━because I never would have let us stay if there wasn't. 

                    Probably not an exact translation, but it works. She yanks me towards a door I hadn't seen last night, and we stagger through a corridor of buzzing lights.

                   An old woman in a bathrobe opens her door as we pass and yells, "People are trying to sleep over here!" 

                   A man with a scruffy gray beard throws his own door open a second later. "People are trying to fuck!" 

                 The woman's attention shoots to him, and he cowers back in his room.

                  Veah is relentless as we run, dragging me towards the back entrance. The parking lot is outside, and our gleaming, stolen car is waiting for us.

                 But when she pushes the door open, rain beginning to fall, she veers us towards another car. I should have guessed.

                 "Slow down!" I say, breathless. I wasn't built to be a runner. My curves are soft and lush, and they were not earned by competing in cross country.

                 "Come on," she urges, as though she wasn't shot twelve hours ago.

                 Sparks fly as she jams a pin through the door handle of an old convertible. The engine sputters to life, and I hear the sound of yelling in Japanese━men on the other side of the parking lot. They've spotted us.

                Veah still manages to open the door for me, gesturing for me to crawl towards the passenger's seat. As though she is a knight in shining armor.

                "Chivalrous, aren't we?" I murmur as I climb through. She swings into the driver's seat, and I remember to stop breathing as she slams down on the gas.

                 "Hold on!" she says, and the car spins uncontrollably, skittering through the parking lot with a trail of smoke. The Yakuza men stumble back, and one━a six-foot tall, impeccably dressed Asian man━begins to order the others to follow.

                 Veah presses the button for the top of the convertible to close. The men pull out their guns.

                 "A little faster," I say through my teeth.

                 The tallest Yakuza man━the boss━says something that makes my blood chill, although I don't understand what it means.

                 The other men pale. 

                  "Hey, Veah?" I ask, as the convertible top slowly slides over us━too slow. 

                  She looks at me, and she seems unfazed━until I see the slight twice in her jaw. Telling me that whatever he said, it was bad.

                   Gunshots ping against the side of the convertible door. Veah drives us straight into a tree. 

                  "Maybe next time, I should drive," I suggest. And then curse myself, because what am I thinking? There can't be a next time.

                  Veah only grins, until I ask, "What did that man say? The tall, scary one?" 

                 Her jaw hardens. We pull out of the motel's parking lot and into the morning air. The rain is falling harder now, and I feel the last of its kiss as the convertible top closes over us. Shielding us from the bullets that slam against the metal. 

                 "He said━" She slams the brakes before we hit a car. And then speeds forward again. My head spins. "Oh, nothing much."

                 "What did he say?" I say, teeth clenched.

                 Her eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. Dark and heady━an intoxicating stare that makes me lose focus of the road and the rain and the Mafia behind us. Until she finishes, "He says he no longer has orders to kill us."

                  I want to cheer, but the way she says it makes it sound like a death sentence. So I swallow, dread building in my throat, and ask slowly, "Why is that a bad thing?"

                  "Because he has orders to bring us back to Tokyo."

>>>

Has anyone ever been to Tokyo? Because I want to cross that one off my bucket list. Along with London, Peru, that pink lake in Australia, and all of Europe.

From the moon and back,
Sarai