School of Secrets (The Perkins School for Self Improvement #1)

Epilogue

The cottage of Yoshi Tanaka, near Harvingdale, Maine, United States

"He's in over his head, the fool," the old man says, glancing around the room at the assortment of people gathered there.

The two teenagers in the corner both nod in agreement. The taller, a boy by the name of Marco Wen, scowls in distaste. The girl, the old man's grandchild, doesn't dare do more than agree.

Yumi watches her grandfather and his supporters without feeling much at all. She still remembers the times when she and her sisters were young, when her grandfather would tell stories of his childhood in Tokyo. She loved listening to those stories, until one day her grandfather changed.

He found a darker use for his abilities, and he pulled people into his web of lies.

Yumi followed him, too, because he'd always been close to her. She couldn't earn the same respect her sisters could, and though he scorned her for it time after time, Yumi stuck with him.

Yumi had a conscience once, but she'd learned over the years that listening to it wouldn't get her anywhere.

She doesn't always agree with her grandfather, or her possessive boyfriend for that matter, but in the long run she knows it will pay to be compliant.

She'll earn respect the way her grandfather has, and one day she'll be able to stop apologizing to him for the insignificant person she is.

Yoshi Tanaka looks around, his gaze lingering for an extra moment on Yumi.

"He has to be dealt with before he opens his mouth." Marco speaks up this time, taking in the fifteen or so others in the room.

Yoshi nods.

"Can you take care of him? Will they listen to you?" he wonders, "This is a brave idea you have, but how do you know your own army would not turn to slit your throat instead?"

"I know they won't," Marco declares boldly, "if they don't listen to me, they listen to Amber Greene. It's why I preserved her, why I brought her back as fully intact as I could. She leads them, and she answers to me."

Yoshi nods.

"As soon as that foolish headmaster opens his mouth," he says, "he's dead. I'll bring them, you give me the word."

"Yoshi?" a balding man in the corner asks, looking purely terrified to speak his mind in front of Yumi's grandfather, "Why must you kill the man? He's a forty-something with big dreams and no abilities. He's harmless."

"He's inconvenient!" Yoshi fumes, "I tire of worrying over him and who he's going to tell. He mustn't tell anyone that young Marco is responsible. The child is too valuable to us. We cannot lose him, his ability, or his army."

Yumi presses herself against the wall, noticing that he didn't mention her in the list of the valuable. If someone found out she was involved, it wouldn't matter.

She is the disposable one, the one her grandfather could keep on living without.

Yoshi's questioner hasn't been pacified.

"What is the point of all this?" he wonders, glancing around like he's just realized where he is, "You say Marco joined you because he's looking to take control, to pave a greater future. Why, then, must the rest of us watch others die on the way to this future?"

Yumi's grandfather scowls.

"Chaos," he says, "we're looking to create chaos."

As though they've known each other for years instead of months, Marco is able to complete the old man's statement with his own.