The Golden Dragon! Delicious Chinese Food!
That was what the red-and-yellow sign above her family’s Chinese restaurant shouted at Sophie Kim as she swept the front walk.
She didn’t know why it seemed like the sign was shouting—it’s not like there were actual exclamation points on it—or why it was shouted in a bad fake-Asian accent—the Go-din Dwa-gon! Deewricious Chinese Food!—but that was how it was. Every time. The only part that didn’t ring off the insides of her head was the generic red-and-blue neon OPEN sign just beside the glass door.
Maybe it was because the dragon on the sign seemed so excited about everything. He—or she, or they; because Sophie didn’t know anything about dragon gender—was stretched across the white background, tail curled and claws outstretched, mouth open in a happy and decidedly hungry grin, showing sharp teeth and a bright red tongue. Claws reaching for their famous egg rolls, their dad liked to say. Jaws open to eat lazy daughters who slacked off sweeping the front walk, said their mom.
Sophie picked up her broom to dust off the dragon’s feet. She wondered if the dragon was as bored as she was. Or if it was more like her dad, eyes on the horizon and nostrils flared for the sight or scent of new customers. Sophie had liked that dragon when she was a kid. With its eyes, red as rubies, and its long serpentine body covered in yellow scales, it had seemed like their family mascot. A protector. The guardian of the almond chicken. But she wasn’t a kid anymore. And now the dragon just looked kind of … crazy. Happy crazy, like their uncle Jo-Jo when he showed up to family dinners already drunk and laughing at jokes nobody understood, but crazy.
She banged imagined dust off her broom bristles. “Welcome to the Go-din Dwa-gon,” she whispered. “May we seat you near da Go-din kitchen?” She snorted. Her Asian accent was even worse than the customers’. But that seemed about right coming from a Korean-American girl whose Korean-American family ran a Chinese restaurant.
The glass door beside her swung open. Her older sister leaned out.
“Hey. Can you hurry up?” Summer asked. “You still have to top up the spicy oil, and then there’s about a metric ton of vegetables to wash.”
Summer pushed her glasses up—they were forever sliding down the bridge of her small nose—to study Sophie’s broom strokes, back and forth, back and forth, no strength behind them, bristles barely touching the cement. “You are so lazy.”
“Yeah,” Sophie replied. “I’m trying to get the dragon to eat me so I won’t have to wash vegetables.”
Her sister glanced up at the sign overhead. Summer was older by two years, a senior, already promised a nice, fat scholarship to a private college in Michigan. Who wants to go to Michigan? Sophie’d asked when the acceptance package came. It’s fine, their mom had said. A long way from Colorado, but a good school. A school that would pay, was what she’d meant. Nearly full ride. All the Kims would have to cover was a few thousand per semester plus book fees.
“Dad’s ordering a new sign next month,” Summer said.
“That’s what he always says.”
“No, really. I heard him talking to the vendor on the phone, arguing over the price to redesign the dragon. And add ‘try our famous egg rolls’ to the bottom.”
“Don’t let him do that,” Sophie groaned. “How exactly are the egg rolls famous? How exactly is our food ‘delicious’?”
“It’s better than saying ‘authentic.’” Summer snorted. “Mom’ll tone it down. Maybe it can say ‘home of the best egg rolls in town.’ That would at least be true.”
The only other Asian restaurant in their western Colorado suburb was Dragon Wok, a Chinese/Vietnamese place in a strip mall and their egg rolls were horrible. When it had opened, their dad paced back and forth for a month, asking why they were so stupid that they couldn’t come up with another name, why they’d cursed their town with two dragons, and how their Golden Dragon was going to cut the head off that wok dragon and put it on a stick.
Sophie sighed, and Summer started ragging on her again about her sweeping when a black BMW sedan rolling down their block caught Sophie’s eye.
“Oh, here take this.” She shoved the broom into her sister’s hands.
“No. No way.” Summer pushed the broom back, but it was no use. Sophie was already gone, trotting down the sidewalk.
“I’ll make it up to you on the weekend rush,” Sophie called over her shoulder as the BMW slowed and the back window rolled down to reveal Stevie’s lovely face, pink-cheeked and smiling, as Emily snaked her carefully tanned body through the passenger window to wave.
“There is no weekend rush, you little brat,” Summer yelled, but her shout was muted, as if she didn’t want her little sister’s rich friends to hear. Jacob, Emily, Stevie, and Sean were seniors with cars and big houses and no need for scholarships. No need even for applications; they would end up going wherever their parents had gone or wherever their parents sent the money to build a new science lab.
“Kumiko!” Emily and Stevie exclaimed together. It was their little nickname for her, something they’d gotten from an old karate movie. Both girls were older and cooler—and the kind of pretty that wasn’t the least bit threatened by Sophie’s black hair and round cheeks.
Summer shook her head. “That’s not your name. It’s not even Korean!”
“Yeah, well, Summer’s not really your name either, Sung Mei,” Sophie said, and her sister scowled. She had no comeback for that. Sophie really was Sophie’s name; her parents had let go of the last of the traditional stuff for their second kid.
From the slowing car, Stevie and Emily waved at Summer in a sort-of-friendly way, then pretended she wasn’t there. Summer wasn’t worth bothering with. She was no fun, always working or studying, and she never gave them the time of day either, even though they were in the same year at school.
“There she is.” Jacob smiled from behind the wheel. Sophie made sure to smile the shy, closed-lip smile he expected, the one he liked. “You up for a house party?”
“On a Wednesday?”
“My parents left for Barbados again,” Emily said, her arms flayed out in exasperation. “Again! Like, they never get bored of that place. So, you coming?” Her green eyes sparkled. Her makeup was always so good, and her skin had never known a blemish, something she credited Sophie for after begging her for Korean skin-care secrets, which Sophie had given, after watching the same ten-step tutorials that everybody watched on the internet.
Jacob stopped the car and got out, like an actual gentleman, and Sophie said, “Just let me clear it with my sister.”
“They’re not really your friends,” Summer whispered, when Sophie returned to her beside the blinking OPEN sign.
“How would you know?” Sophie asked accusingly. “You don’t even know them, do you?”
Summer lowered her gaze. Her mouth had drawn closed in a tight, angry line. “I know you,” she said, and looked Sophie dead in the eyes. Her sister did know her. She knew that Sophie didn’t really like these vapid rich assholes. Except that sometimes she kind of did. They were funny once in a while and, on occasion, surprisingly kind. Besides, even if she didn’t like them, it was hard not to like how it felt to be around them. Their world was not the same world she and Summer had grown up in. Their world sparkled, and everything in it was so easy.
“Look,” Sophie snapped, “just cover for me, okay? And the next time Emily gives me one of her cast-off handbags, I’ll split the take with you off Poshmark.” The last little gift had been a brand-new Dior minibag that Stevie had accidentally bought two of. Sophie had resold it online for two thousand bucks.
“Kumiko!”
Sophie turned and saw Stevie leaning out of the back seat window. She slapped her manicured hand against the BMW’s sleek black paint. “Come on!”
“I gotta go,” Sophie said to Summer, and turned to jog to Jacob. He raised his arm so she could tuck up underneath, and he smiled and gave her a kiss—a surprise right there in front of the restaurant, and Sophie didn’t need to look at Summer to know she’d be scowling.
“Thanks, Summer,” Jacob called. Then he winked. “Don’t wait up.”
Sophie hurried to the back seat without another glance at her sister or the restaurant—not because she was ashamed, she told herself, or embarrassed by the kiss. She just didn’t need any more grief. She got in next to Stevie and Sean. Jacob got back in the driver’s seat and adjusted the rearview mirror so he could see her eyes. Summer said he was only after her to bang an Asian, to mark one off on his international-bang bingo card. Summer thought she knew everything.
“Bye, Summer!” Emily said. She waved before ducking in the car to whisper, “See you at school tomorrow, smelling like General Tso’s.” She turned in her seat—no need for seat belts when you were as invincible as Emily, so she just buckled it underneath herself to stop the car from beeping. “How is it that you’re so sweet and fun, and your sister has such a stick up the ass?”
“Sticks up the ass are good for scholarships,” Sophie replied, and in the mirror, Jacob grinned as the BMW squealed away from the curb. She ignored the crack about General Tso’s, even though she spent hours above the grease traps, too. Emily wouldn’t have said it if Summer weren’t so shitty to them.
Sophie leaned back and looked around the car. Even though they’d been hanging out for a couple of months, Sophie still wondered what she was doing there. Maybe it was just that Jacob and Emily, Stevie and Sean were bored to death of one another. But whatever the reason, it was better than staying at the restaurant all night and getting her fingers slick with oil or freezing them off washing vegetables.
Jacob veered the car onto the on-ramp for the highway, putting the pedal to the floor, pushing the engine harder than he needed to because who cared? The BMW was an old toy already—a gift from one of his father’s clients for Jacob’s sixteenth birthday. One of his father’s clients. Not even his father himself. That always drove Sophie a little crazy—how grotesquely rich did one have to be to buy a brand-new BMW for their accountant’s son?
And how spoiled did one have to be to drive that gift like they were trying to use it up as fast as possible?
“Yo, Kumiko,” said Sean from the other side of Stevie, “next time how about you bring me some fries from that restaurant?”
“It’s a Chinese place, you ass,” Stevie said, and elbowed him in the ribs. “They don’t have fries.”
“We do, actually,” said Sophie. “They aren’t on the menu, but enough people ask for them that my dad always keeps some to throw in the fryer.”
“That’s so sad.” Emily gripped the headrest as Jacob veered across two lanes. “That you have to Americanize your menu like that.”
“Duh,” said Sean. “It’s all Americanized. You think orange chicken is authentic? Have you ever even been to Japan?”
“It’s a Chinese restaurant, stupid,” Stevie said, and thumped him again.
“Yeah,” Sean said, squinting as he gave her a shove, “but who goes to China?”
“I’ve been to China.” Jacob glanced at Sophie in the rearview mirror. “My dad took me to Hong Kong when I was like eight.”
“What was it like?” Emily asked.
Jacob seemed to think for a moment, like he was trying to remember or put it into words. Then he shrugged and said, “Just like Japan,” and they laughed.
Sophie cleared her throat. “Hey, you guys? Where are we going? This definitely isn’t the way to Emily’s.” She watched as a look passed through the car from one person to the next until it settled in Emily’s green eyes.
“You caught us, Kumiko … Surprise! We’re breaking into the Japanese Gardens!”
Sophie’s eyes widened as Stevie and Emily cackled joyfully. Sophie shifted in her seat. She knew they had done things like this before. They bragged about it so often that Sophie gave them fun alliterative categories in her head: Dabbling in Delinquency with Drugs. Sampling Suburban Slum-life through Shoplifting. But this was different. If they got busted breaking into the gardens, it would be no big deal for them—Stevie’s mom was some high-powered lawyer—but Sophie doubted the immunity would carry over to the kid from the Chinese restaurant.
When they reached the Japanese Gardens, Jacob at least had the sense to park outside it and climb over the gate. The way he abused the BMW, she’d been worried he would use the car to ram right through it. Sophie got out hesitantly, so hesitantly that Stevie pushed her a little from behind.
“Come on,” Jacob said, and held out his hand. “It’ll be fine.”
She didn’t take it, but she followed them into the park, definitely the least graceful over the gate. Jacob had to catch her on the other side when her foot got caught and she fell. Emily and Stevie hopped it like ballerinas, then held hands and skipped, squealing happily down the groomed paths, the hedges and shrubs dark on either side, blossoms pulled in for the night. The boys raced ahead, Sean making as much noise as a stampede of cows. Sean, the beautiful moron whose handsome looks and boundless cash could solve any problem. As they passed around a bottle of something, their ease and lack of care spread through the warm spring air, and Sophie relaxed. Everything would be fine. Just another night of drinking and smoking pot. They’d probably get bored of the gardens and leave after twenty minutes.
“Down there,” Stevie said, and pointed to a spot by a brook. “Isn’t it pretty?” They walked down carefully in the dark and sat on the grassy slope above the banks of smooth round pebbles. The moonlight showed a bridge nearby, plus silhouettes of carved stones and a temple in the distance.
“What is that, Sophie?” Emily asked. “Is it, like, a church or something?”
“I don’t know,” Sophie replied. “I’ve never been here before.”
“I’m going to go climb it,” said Sean, and Emily smacked him.
“Show some respect,” she said.
He jerked away and made like he was going to hit her, and she laughed. But before they could actually argue, Jacob gave Sean a shove.
“Just chill,” he said. “Enjoy the moment. Try not to get us all arrested.”
“Whatever.” Sean flopped onto his back and lit a joint, the bottle tucked into the crook of his arm.
“Getting arrested might actually be good for him,” Sophie said, and everyone laughed. Even Sean, laughing around the wet end of the joint, his chuckles gray puffs of smoke in the moonlight.
Sean would never get arrested. There was no karma for people like these. Not even the universe wanted to upset them. And Sophie didn’t want to upset them either. As much as she resented them, she adored them, too. Watching Emily lean against Stevie and share a joint, exhaling smoke like the dragon on their restaurant sign, was like watching a scene from a black-and-white movie. Something about starlets, and glamour, and friendships that last lifetimes. Their lips shimmered and their jewelry sparkled; they were as pristine as the white curves of a sculpted vase. They almost weren’t even real.
So, when Jacob held out his hand for Sophie to follow him across the bridge, she went. And when he had her on her own, pressed against the side of the temple, hidden among the sleeping flowers, and she said, “Hey, I’d rather not,” she wasn’t surprised that it seemed like he didn’t hear her.
She gave his shoulder a small shove. “Hey, I mean it. I’d rather not do this here.”
“Come on,” he said. “It’s the perfect place. It’s why we came.”
“Well, no one told me that.”
He whispered in her ear, pretty, flattering compliments that sounded insincere. But mostly, and this was the thing that set off alarms, they sounded half-hearted, like it didn’t matter if she believed them or not. It didn’t matter if she gave in or not. He would still have his way.
Jacob always got his way.
“I said knock it off.” She forced her hands up between their chests, balled into fists.
“And I said, relax.” He grabbed them and wrenched them back down.
Sophie’s heart started to pound, pumping good, strong blood to her muscles and brain as the night of celluloid perfection evaporated. This was real life and her real body, and Jacob was pressing it against a temple in an empty Japanese garden.
She tested the grip of his hands on her wrists and tried to squirm away, to slide right out from between the temple and his chest. It didn’t work. She barely moved. Jacob wasn’t a big guy, not built like a football player. But he was still strong. Much stronger than she was.
Sophie’s body went rigid as her mind raced, and she felt his grip on her loosen as she stopped struggling. Maybe he thought she’d given up or given in. She didn’t know how he’d think that, when she was breathing hard, so scared she was actually trembling.
“That’s good,” he said, kissing the side of her face as she turned away. “It’s going to be good.”
Sophie grimaced. She raised her hands, alternating from fists to claws, maybe to shove, maybe to grab. She listened to his whispers and thought about just letting it happen. Maybe it would be ok, and Summer was wrong and Jacob really did like her, and she would become his girlfriend, and be able to hang with them a little longer. She tried to relax for a minute, but she couldn’t. It felt gross. It felt wrong.
“Can we seriously not do this here?” She gave him a shove. He just had to get the message. See that she was serious. Then he wouldn’t do what it seemed like he was going to. “Emily and Stevie are right over there—I don’t want them to think—”
“It’s cool,” he said. “They know.”
They know. Of course. Because Sophie wasn’t really part of their crew. She was a novelty. A pet. Let’s take little Kumiko out of the Chinese restaurant for a night. Ask her how to get rid of our zits. Dress her up in our clothes. Take her to the Japanese Gardens so Jacob can do her in her natural environment.
All things she had let them think, and it had worked out pretty well, until now.
“Sweet, soft Sophie,” Jacob whispered, and tugged at her jeans.
He wasn’t even looking at her. He didn’t know her at all, didn’t know that at home her dad called her the golden dragon, for how much fire she breathed and how sharp her claws were.
She grabbed a fistful of Jacob’s hair and yanked it hard.
“Ow!” His head jerked to the side. He blinked at her. “Are you crazy?”
“I said I’d rather not.” She hit him across the face. They struggled, and he dragged her to the ground, and for a few shining moments, her anger kept her afloat. But it didn’t last. He hit her back, and she saw stars. He called her names that sounded more at home on his tongue than the compliments had.
It would have all gone a different way were it not for the sound. The creaking low groan that came from inside the temple.
“Shit.” He froze and looked from the temple to Sophie, and his hands relaxed on her arms like they were friends again. “Did you hear that?”
She took advantage of his distraction to worm her leg up between them and kick hard, hoping to hit his crotch. He yelped and rolled away, and Sophie clawed up from the grass and ran through the gardens.
Not back to the car. Even with terror and anger controlling her body, she knew she would find no allies there. She hid in the woods. She listened to Emily and Stevie call for her, and eventually, Jacob, and even Sean, who called her name like he was bored, like he thought she was a pain for holding them up.
After a few minutes, they got in their car, and when they drove past, Sophie pulled out her phone for a rideshare.
It wasn’t that late when Sophie got home—her parents were still in the kitchen doing prep for the next day’s buffet—so she snuck through the closed restaurant and up the back stairs to their apartment, past Summer’s closed door, and into the bathroom. She switched on the light and locked the door, then looked at herself in the mirror.
She looked like she’d been attacked. But not by a person. Most of the scrapes were from the branches of trees and the Japanese holly she’d fallen into as she fled. Her lip wasn’t split. Her eyes weren’t blackened. Her cheek was going to swell where Jacob had hit her, but not that bad, and she had round cheeks anyway. If she kept her hair forward and her head down, who would notice?
She tensed at the sound of footsteps and said a quick prayer that her mom wouldn’t rattle the doorknob and demand access. But it wasn’t her mom. It was Summer.
“Hey, you home already from playing China doll?” she asked angrily. “Whatever little presents they gave you are mine—you owe me for doing your chores!”
Sophie thought of all the things Stevie and Emily gave her sometimes: Last season’s outfits. Designer makeup they didn’t want anymore. She’d taken it all and never figured on needing it to cover up bruises.
Summer pounded on the door. “Are you alive in there? Or are you still pretending to not speak so good Eng-wish?”
“Very funny,” Sophie said, her voice tough. “Go away.”
“I am not covering for you anymore, do you hear me? You can hang out with those assholes after you finish your work. They don’t even really like you, you know. You’re like a pet to them. And they probably think you know karate.”
“I do know karate,” Sophie half shouted through the door. “And so do you, Summer. You just have to reach deep, deep down inside yourself and focus…” Sophie dropped her hands to the sides of the sink and started to cry.
Strong arms wrapped around her. She didn’t know how Summer had gotten past the lock, and she didn’t care. She just let her big sister clean her up and tuck her into bed.
His goddamned phone was missing. Jacob searched all his pockets, and in between the seats of the beamer. He retraced his steps through his house, and the garage, and down the driveway, even though he hadn’t been out there. Maybe Sean or Stevie had it—he reached for his phone to text them, but of course, there was nothing to reach for. And besides, he knew where it was.
In the grass in the Japanese Gardens. He must’ve dropped it after Sophie went nuts.
He had to go back. She could have picked it up, be planning on using it to … what? It wouldn’t prove anything. And he hadn’t done anything, except he supposed he shouldn’t have hit her. But man, could she fight! Not like that sister of hers who’d barely said no and who was dumb enough to think he was going to keep on dating her afterward. But Summer hadn’t said anything either. That was the nice thing about Asian girls. They were quiet. The worst thing about them was they sometimes kicked him in the balls and made him lose his phone.
Groaning, Jacob dragged himself out to his car and drove all the way back to the gardens.
When he got there, he jumped the gate again and winced. He was tired, and his legs were sore, and his crotch ached. He picked his way through the park to the temple and bent down, searching the grass and wishing he had the flashlight that was infuriatingly on his missing phone. And then there was that sound again. The same sound he thought he’d heard with Sophie. Like a groan or the low creak of a door opening—if that sound could come from a throat.
“Sophie?” Maybe she was still here, waiting for him. Maybe they could straighten all this out; maybe she’d come to her senses and changed her mind.
Her shape drew up from the blackness inside the temple, and his shoulders squared with happy pride, impressed with himself and his lingering horniness despite the kick. But the shape in the temple wasn’t Sophie. It was too tall, and the hair was too long, hanging down the shoulders and across the eyes. And Sophie hadn’t been wearing a white robe, had she?
“Sophie?” he whispered again. The woman’s head jerked in his direction, and he gasped. Run, he thought, but his legs wouldn’t move. RUN!
The woman’s black hair seethed like it was full of insects; her elbows jerked like a marionette’s. She hobbled toward him, bent over and moving so oddly, he wouldn’t have been surprised to see her feet on backward.
“Are you okay? Do you need me to call someone?” he asked ridiculously, because she clearly wasn’t, and he didn’t have a phone. He expected his words would make her stop. Make her disappear. Because this wasn’t real. This was a dream.
Her white fingers hooked onto his arms, and she dragged herself up, her terrible face so close, and he smelled water and stone and spices. She breathed that creaking sound into his ears, and Jacob began to weep.
After the night in the Japanese Gardens, school was just like Sophie knew it would be: Stevie and Emily ignored her. They didn’t shout for her to get in their car and go off campus for lunch. Sean brushed past her like she was a ghost, and as for Jacob, she didn’t see him at all.
At the restaurant, she put in extra shifts and covered Summer’s chores, a thank-you for being there that night, an apology for leaving her holding the broom. And it was a good thing, too, because Summer suddenly seemed to have a lot of shifts that needed covering.
A few days later, she caught her sister slipping out the front door just before closing and said, “Hey, where are you going all of a sudden? Is there some secret math camp happening that I don’t know about?”
But Summer only grinned. She looked a little tired, a little pale. Her eyes were bloodshot, and there was something different about her hair. “It’s astronomy club, dumbass. You know I hate math.”
“Stop defying so many of our stereotypes,” Sophie teased, half shouting because Summer was already gone. She sighed and grabbed the broom to sweep the sidewalk. The last thing she expected was to look up and see Emily’s Tesla creeping to the curb like one of those curious white whales at the zoo.
And she definitely didn’t expect the face that greeted her from behind the wheel.
Emily looked like shit. Bags under her eyes and no makeup, and her hair—usually a shiny brown—limp and a little greasy.
Sophie leaned down. Stevie was in the passenger seat, and she didn’t look much better.
“Hi, Sophie.” Emily smiled, but it wasn’t her usual smile. It was shaky, and her lips were dry. “Can we come up and talk?”
“What, like, in my room?”
“Please? We really need to ask you about something.”
Sophie wanted to say no. But it was so oddly fascinating to see them haggard—she kind of needed to watch it play out. “Park up there.” She pointed up the street, then waited while they parked. As they approached, they walked weirdly, their shoulders hunched and their eyes all shifty. Stevie didn’t seem to want to go near the dumpster for some reason.
“We can talk upstairs.” Sophie led them through the restaurant. “Mom, this is Emily and Stevie,” she said as they passed her in the kitchen, Mom wearing her white apron and her hair net, a vegetable cleaver in one hand. “We need to talk about school stuff; I’ll be right back.” Behind her, Emily and Stevie smiled and nodded. Emily did this weird half bow thing, and her mom, confused, did the same.
“So you, like, live up here,” Emily said once they were upstairs. They’d never seen her family’s apartment and were no doubt scandalized by how small it was and that it smelled like fried rice.
Sophie ushered them into her bedroom and closed the door. “So what’s going on?” she asked.
“Have you seen…?” Emily started. “I mean, have you heard of…?”
“If you’re wondering if I’ve heard from Jacob, no, I haven’t.”
“No, no.” Emily pressed her palms against her eyes, hard. “That’s not what I’m asking.”
“Just spit it out, Em,” Stevie snapped.
Emily whirled on her. “Shut up, Stevie! How am I supposed to spit it out? What am I supposed to say that doesn’t sound fucking crazy?”
“She’ll know, or why else are we here?”
“Fine! Just shut up and let me think! Shit.” Emily turned and stepped closer, and Sophie realized that she could smell her, like she hadn’t showered in a while. “Sophie, Sean’s dead!”
“What?”
“He’s dead, okay? We saw it. It came up from under that bridge in the gardens and snapped his fucking neck!”
“What are you talking about? You saw what?” Sophie must have misheard. They must be messing with her. “Look, if you’re worried I’m going to tell someone about what happened that night with Jacob—”
“I knew it!” Stevie pointed a shaking finger. “I told you, Emily. I told you it was his fault. He raped you, didn’t he, that night—?”
“No,” Sophie said, her eyes narrowed. “Though it wasn’t for lack of trying.”
That shut them up.
“But if he didn’t…,” Emily murmured, and looked at Stevie.
Stevie stared at Sophie hard. Then she said, “But he tried, didn’t he? I think that’s still enough.”
“Enough for what?” Sophie asked. “What are you talking about?”
She watched, mystified, as Stevie pulled out paper after folded paper, things she’d actually printed out, and spread them across Sophie’s bed in an unhinged trail of internet research. On them were pictures of a pretty Asian girl and photos of the Japanese Gardens. Early sketches, too, plans from before the garden was complete.
“We thought Sean was just joking around. Or that we were seeing things,” Emily muttered, pacing. “But we saw it, Sophie. We saw it kill him right in front of us, and we weren’t on anything!” She pointed her finger when she said that, like she was daring Sophie to call her a liar.
“Someone killed Sean,” Sophie said carefully. It couldn’t be true, but something had definitely happened; she’d never seen them so disheveled. “Did you go to the cops?”
Emily pressed her fists to her eyes like Sophie was being frustratingly stupid. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Like what?”
“We ran,” Stevie said. Her voice was low; she still sounded more angry than scared. “It was the only thing we could do. We just hoped that it wouldn’t follow us. That it couldn’t follow us out of the gardens.”
“What couldn’t follow you out of the gardens?”
“Her.” Stevie leaned down, and her finger struck the girl’s photo. “Haruko. In 1911, she was raped and killed.” She reached for another paper. “Her dad was this big land developer. He went crazy afterward. Killed himself. But before he did, he built the gardens as a memorial to her. And that temple.” She pressed her finger into the paper so deep, it was like stabbing, and Sophie leaned in.
“That’s the same temple we were at,” she muttered.
“No shit!” Stevie grabbed pages in her fists. “And it woke her up, do you get it? It’s like Jacob was singing her song! And now she’s in our mirrors and under our cars and fucking everywhere!” In a rage, she tore the photograph of Haruko and let the pieces flutter to the carpet. “He just had to go back to the same place,” Stevie growled. “The same temple in the same garden where he did Summer last year. He just had to be sick and sentimental, and now we’re all going to die!”
“What?” Sophie asked. Jacob and Summer? That couldn’t be. “But … my sister didn’t even know him,” she said quietly.
“Well.” Stevie snorted. “She used to.”
“She never told me,” Sophie whispered. It made sense suddenly, how certain Summer had been that Jacob was a creep. How much she seemed to hate them all. Summer had tried to warn her. Sophie just hadn’t listened. “Wait. If Jacob did that to my sister at the same temple last year, then why didn’t this girl or whatever wake up then?”
Emily blinked. “Because they were, like, practically dating. It wasn’t like what he tried to do to you.” She grabbed Sophie by the arms. “Listen, we’re sorry, okay?”
Sophie glanced between them. They didn’t seem sorry, mostly scared, and Stevie was mostly pissed.
“We didn’t think he would—we didn’t know—it just never occurred to us that you wouldn’t want to.” Emily’s green eyes wobbled. “But now there’s this thing, Sophie, and it’s after us. And we need your help.”
“My help? Why?”
“Because it’s a Japanese revenge ghost!” Emily flapped her hands in Sophie’s general direction. “You must know how to stop it!”
Sophie looked from Emily to Stevie. “A Japanese revenge ghost?”
“Look, we know how it sounds,” said Stevie.
“Yeah, like you can’t get enough of messing with your little Kumiko.” Sophie pointed to the door. “Just get out. I’m not going to say anything. Nobody would believe me if I tried.”
“Sophie.” Stevie pressed her fingertips to her temples. “It’s not about that, I swear.”
“It probably doesn’t matter anyway,” said Emily. There were real tears on her cheeks, but Sophie had seen that before. Emily could cry on command, to get a new iPhone or to get out of doing something she didn’t want to do. “We haven’t seen or heard from Jacob since that night. We tracked his phone to the temple, and that’s…”
“That’s where she got Sean,” Stevie finished in a flat voice.
Sophie took a deep breath. She was about to shove them physically through the door when Emily screamed, “The mirror!”
She pointed to the vanity behind Sophie.
“What?” Sophie asked, but Stevie shoved Sophie face-first onto her bed before she could turn to look. Stevie grabbed Sophie’s aluminum softball bat from the corner and swung it with a cry. The mirror shattered, and glass shards went flying. Downstairs, Sophie heard her mom shout to ask what had happened.
“You broke my mirror!” Sophie cried.
“Is she gone?” Emily shrieked. “Is she gone?”
“No, she’s not gone,” Stevie shouted at her. “She’ll never be gone!” She held the bat aloft, ready to swing at anything. They had actually lost it. Sophie had to get them out of her room. Out of her family’s home. She looked down and caught a sliver of her reflection in a piece of broken mirror. The swelling in her cheek was gone, the scratches from the shrubs healed. It was like nothing had even happened. But she was still the dragon, even if she didn’t have the battle scars. She didn’t know why they were playing this prank or what their endgame was, but she didn’t care.
Let them mess with their little Kumiko. Let them see how Kumiko can mess right back.
“Okay,” Sophie said, and Stevie turned, surprised. “If what you’re saying is true, and if she’s real, she can be banished with a Buddhist-consecrated sword.”
“Where … where do we find that?”
“My dad has one hanging in the restaurant. Let’s go.”
A Buddhist-consecrated sword. Stevie nor Emily said anything when Sophie took the sword off the restaurant wall and brought it with her into the back seat of the Tesla, so if their grand plan was to get her alone in the gardens for Jacob to humiliate her again, then she at least wouldn’t be unarmed. The sword was dull, just for display, and never once touched by a Buddhist, but it was pretty heavy, and she was pretty sure she could beat the hell out of him with it if she had to.
By the time they got to the gardens, it was dark. They got out of the car, and Emily hugged herself and shivered even though it wasn’t cold. She took a deep breath and started to climb over the gate again, with much less fervor than the last time.
“Wait, why do we even have to go?” Stevie asked, lingering by the Tesla. “Sophie’s got the sword. She can take care of it.”
“We’re not going to ask her to go alone to save our asses,” Emily hissed. “And besides, it’s after us. Do you want to stay alone by the car, or do you want to follow the sword?”
Sophie clambered over the gate, ignoring their argument. It was just a park at night. There was nothing out there, nothing after them. Though she had to admit they both really could be actresses, the way they were carrying on.
“It came out of my mouth when I was brushing my teeth,” Emily whispered. “All this long black hair, like I couldn’t breathe, like it was going to choke me—”
“Like you were a big cat,” Sophie muttered, shouldering the sword. “Tell me more. About Haruko.”
“What more do you need to know?” Stevie asked. “Is the sword not going to work?”
“Well, is she buried here?” Sophie asked casually. “Like, are her remains here? Or is this the very spot that she was murdered? All these are important details.”
“We don’t know any of that,” Emily said. She glanced over her shoulder and flinched, moving so close to Sophie that she thought Emily was about to ask for a piggyback ride.
“All right.” Sophie turned. “Enough of this. You got me out here. So where’s Jacob? Where’s Sean? What’s your big plan to humiliate me?”
“We’re not trying to humiliate you!” Stevie shrieked. “What is wrong with you? Why don’t you believe us?”
The temple loomed behind them as Sophie waited, but neither Stevie nor Emily said anything more. They just clung to each other, bewildered eyes big as dinner plates.
Sophie sighed. She turned back around and kept walking as Emily and Stevie gripped the back of her shirt in their fists. They were so unnerved, or so good at pretending to be, that even she held her breath when they walked inside and adjusted her grip on the sword handle.
There’s nothing in this temple, she reminded herself. Probably not even Jacob and Sean. The idiots would have gotten bored with this game and wandered off after ten minutes.
“Come on out,” she called, and took a step. Her shoe slipped in something wet. She looked down.
Something wet and dark. And thick … Her eyes adjusted and followed the path of it through the temple as Stevie turned on her phone’s flashlight, and Emily screamed.
It was blood on the floor. And on the walls. More blood than Sophie had thought could fit in a body. And it hadn’t been splashed or dripped, but slathered, like a bleeding corpse had been dragged back and forth, up and down, all over the place.
“Where’s the body?” Stevie asked. “What happened to their bodies?”
“Jacob’s phone!” Emily gasped. She spotted his phone lying on the floor and raced to it, then tried to unlock it even though it was covered in blood. What did she expect to find? Explanatory texts? Snapchats from beyond?
It could still be a joke. That was what Sophie told herself as she held the sword in her shaking hands. It could be red paint—except how to explain the smell? Maybe it was cow’s blood, easily collected from a butcher shop. They could have done it all themselves, and Sean could be in a bush somewhere, filming her reaction.
“Okay, this is no longer funny,” Sophie said. “Where are they?”
“Are you blind?” Emily shouted. She gestured to the walls.
“Emily! Behind you!” Stevie gripped Sophie’s shoulder hard enough to hurt as Emily spun to see the shape in the corner.
Sophie couldn’t believe what she was seeing. And she couldn’t see it very well because Stevie seemed unable to make herself shine the flashlight straight at it. But even in the shitty light, the white robe and the long black hair were clear. So were the eyes, shot through with red veins. Whatever it was took a jerking step toward Emily.
“Kill it,” Stevie screamed, and pushed Sophie forward. “Use the sword!”
“This isn’t real; my dad got it in a gift shop!”
“But you said—you lied! Why would you lie?”
“Because ghosts aren’t real,” Sophie shouted.
“You bitch!” Stevie spat as she backed away. “We came to you for help!”
“And why would you do that? This is a Japanese revenge ghost, and I’m Korean, you shits! And I was born in Boulder!”
Emily’s mouth dropped open. Both girls screamed. Maybe Sophie screamed, too; she couldn’t tell. What she did know was that they pushed her down as they ran for the car. Face-first into Jacob and Sean’s cold congealing blood. They took the flashlight, too, but she could still hear: the creaking moan, the dragging footsteps.
Sophie shoved herself up and ran, sword in hand like a baton in a relay. Emily and Stevie were way ahead on their long legs, screaming their heads off, so they probably didn’t hear her when she called, “Wait! Don’t leave me!”
The Tesla’s lights came on, and Emily threw it into gear. She backed up without looking and nearly hit Sophie when she peeled out of the parking lot, the car bouncing as it jumped the curb.
“Damn it!” Sophie spun around, breathing hard, ready to convert to Buddhism and do what she could with the sword. But there was nothing there. No shambling ghost with too much black hair. No blood. No croaking, wheezing groan.
Curiously, she looked back at the white Tesla as it sped along the curving hill road. What was it Stevie had said? She was everywhere now. In their mirrors. Under their cars.
“Jesus Christ, Emily, shut up! Just stop screaming!”
Stevie jerked the wheel of the Tesla and slammed down the accelerator, taking her anger and fear out on the car, the stupid, so-called self-driving thing that she could barely keep on the road. It was Emily’s car, and Stevie was scrunched behind the wheel—she had longer legs, and there hadn’t been any time to adjust the seats. She shouldn’t be driving at all, except Emily was clearly in no condition.
“What are we going to do?” Emily moaned. “Stevie, what are we—?”
“Shut up! You’re going to shut up, and I’m going to drive us the fuck away from here. That’s what we’re going to do.” Stevie swung the car out onto the main road without braking, making the tires screech and the Tesla slightly fishtail. “Then we’re going to find ourselves some real help and stop this bitch from—”
Her words cut off abruptly as the driver’s side window shattered and a thin pale arm snaked inside. The ghost pulled itself up from the underside of the car, clinging to it like a spider, and Stevie finally screamed, too. She fought the ghost for the wheel, trying to steer through the cold, iron-strong grip of the dead girl’s fingers as they clamped onto her face.
“Em, help me!” she cried, but Emily only screamed and screamed, pressed against the passenger door. The ghost lurched in farther through the window, and the front seat filled with that sound, that goddamned creaking sound, and all that seething black hair, and the scent of water, and stone, and cooking spices. As Stevie looked into those wide bloodred eyes, she hit the brakes too hard, and when the ghost jerked the wheel, she heard the tires squeal before she felt the car flip.
I’m not wearing my seat belt, she thought detachedly, just before her head crashed through the windshield.
Sophie flinched at the rubbery screeching of tires and the loud crash when the Tesla went off its wheels and started to flip. After the noise ended, she ran forward a few steps. The car had landed on its back, one headlight broken, the wheels spinning in the dark.
Sophie stood in shock, half expecting to see Emily open the door and curse out the inconvenience of the wreck. But it wasn’t Emily who crawled out. Or Stevie either. Emily and Stevie were dead, as dead as Sean, as dead as Jacob. Much more dead than the white-clad thing that slowly made its way back up the road toward Sophie in the parking lot.
I should leave, Sophie thought. I should run. But run where? Back to the restaurant, to bring the ghost home? To the police station, where they’d call her crazy?
She watched the ghost amble closer with its jerking steps, the white robe so bright in the dark, it was like a patch of fog. But the closer it came, the less its legs jerked, and the less white it was, until it was just a shape, a person, and just walking.
Until it was just Summer.
“What?” Sophie breathed. Her sister’s hair was still wrong, and her eyes were still wild. Her face was still too pale.
“Don’t be scared,” Summer said, and Sophie almost laughed. “It’s just me.”
“It’s not just you,” she said, and Summer did laugh.
“No. It hasn’t been ‘just me’ since last summer, right down there.” She turned to look into the garden, at the silent shadow of the temple.
“How? What—?”
“I don’t know. I think she took pity on me. Or maybe she knew that she had to stick around so it wouldn’t happen to you.” Summer’s bloodshot eyes narrowed, red as rubies. Her nostrils flared, and her hair gave an irritated twitch. “I knew what he was up to when he picked you up. It was right there on his face, like a dare. Daring me to do something about it. So I did.”
“Summer,” Sophie said weakly as Summer moved beside her to look down at the wreck of Emily’s car.
“And they say we’re bad drivers.” She clucked her tongue and reached out to wipe Jacob’s blood from Sophie’s cheek. Sophie tried not to jerk away. The night was quiet, too pleasant for all the death nearby and too normal for the thing standing at her side, the thing that had exacted a revenge she hadn’t asked for, the thing that both was and was not her sister.
“Everything’s okay now,” Summer said, and sighed, almost fully Summer again, the same annoying, bossy Summer she always was. Their dad had never called Summer the dragon. Only Sophie. She watched warily as her sister reached into her pocket for her glasses and put them back on, balanced on the small bridge of her nose. “But be careful, Sophie.
“Once I leave for Michigan, you’re going to have to take care of your own shit.”