Caught

32.

I didn't get very far. Maya caught up with me in a flash, grabbed my arm and swung me around with a force I had never expected from such a delicate woman.

"What are you doing?!" She shouted at me. "You promised Shira you'd keep going!"

I pushed her away hard. With my eyes fixed on the hotel towering against the dark sky, my hands shaking and my heart pounding, I started running again.

She wouldn't let me. She dug her nails into my forearm and dragged me to the side of the road.

"I'm going back," I snapped at her, trying to shake her off.

My adrenaline was surging through my veins, my pulse was racing. I wanted to fight, I needed to fight.

"No," Maya said.

The precious time was running out.

I could have easily got rid of her. I was bigger and stronger than the girl, but she was persistent and I did not want to fight with her and hurt her. After all, she was my best friend.

"You don't understand!" I shouted instead, hoping she would listen. "He's been hit, he could be hurt. I have to go after him, I have to!"

"No, you don't understand," she fired, pushing me around the corner of one of the houses so we weren't standing in the middle of the road like sheep about to be slaughtered.

"I get it, you love him, I'm not blind. But going back is just plain stupid. You won't even get to him. They'll shoot you as soon as you get near the hotel. Taira, please think."

I stared at her in despair, unwilling to admit that she was right. I couldn't get to him. He was surrounded in there. Maybe he was already dead.

The helplessness came crashing on me.

"Shira stayed behind to save you," Maya continued insistently. "His sacrifice would have been for nothing if you'd come back now and get yourself foolishly killed."

All my fighting spirit left me and was replaced by excruciating agony. I glanced at the phone screen, the call had been cut off in the middle. With trembling fingers, I dialled the only number in the mobile's memory. My heart pounded like a drum as I waited to see if I could get through to him.

"The number you are calling is not available..."

I smashed the phone against the concrete wall. It flew to pieces. I dropped to my knees, feeling Shira's katana resting on my back as an irrevocable reminder of his mortality.

I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't go on.

"We have to go," Maya insisted, but I was barely aware of her. Everything suddenly lost its meaning.

"I saw him get hit. He's dead," I whispered, devastated.

The young woman leaned over and said with certainty, "He's not."

I looked at her numbly. Did she think she could comfort me with that?

"He's not dead," she repeated firmly. "Listen."

But all I heard was the sound of distant gunfire. I shook my head, not understanding.

"If he wasn't alive, they wouldn't be shooting. They're still fighting."

Her words lit a small spark of hope in me. Yes, the fight was still on. Then Shira had to be alive. Perhaps wounded, shot, but alive. And still fighting.

But hope quickly left me when I realised the desperate situation he was in.

How much longer could he fight? How much longer could he go on like this?