He let go of her wrist and, before she could raise her arms to defend herself, he cracked the butt of the pistol against the side of her head. The shock was numbing. She stumbled and fell again, her ears ringing. She thought she was going to black out.

Katsuro grabbed her and hauled her up for a second time.

“Please,” she said again. “Please.”

He raised his hand again and backhanded her, moving so fast that she had no time to dodge it. She tried to push Katsuro away from her, but had no leverage. He pushed her again, and she felt the glass of the large windows against her back.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “The bag split—I nearly died. I texted you. You didn’t come.”

She looked for something else that she might be able to use as a weapon, but there was nothing.

Katsuro raised his hand again, but more slowly. He brought it to the side of Sakura’s face and used his fingertips to stroke the tender skin on her cheek.

“Do you know how much trouble you’ve caused me?” he said. He smoothed away a tear from her cheek and then put the pistol down on the bureau.

“I’m sorry.”

His hand slid down to her jawline and, with a sharp movement, he clamped his fingers around her neck. His right hand joined his left and he pushed hard, sliding her up the window by a couple of inches. She groped for his forearms and clung to them, trying to pull herself up to relieve the pressure on her neck. Her feet flailed, searching for purchase, something to relieve the pressure, but they found nothing and banged hopelessly against the glass.

She struggled to speak. “Can’t… breathe.”

“You think this is how you see Yamato again?”

Her lungs emptied. “Please.”

Katsuro pushed harder, sliding her further up the window until his arms were locked. Her muscles ached as she tried to lever herself up against his forearms, trying to keep her weight off her neck. The effort was significant and she was tiring fast.

“Give me a reason why I shouldn’t kill you.”

She tried to speak, to beg for her life, but nothing came.

Katsuro adjusted his grip, digging his fingers into the soft tissue on either side of her neck. Sakura’s peripheral vision bent and wobbled, and then the edges started to go grey, throbbing with her pulse, expanding and flooding her field of vision as the periphery got darker and darker and darker. She could taste blood in her mouth and felt a pain at the tip of her tongue; she must have bitten down on it. All she could see now was a narrowing circle of light in the centre of her vision. She closed her eyes tightly, trying to conjure an image of Yamato before the circle closed.