Haru: Her system was full of drugs. They’re not sure why she survived. Some of the drugs are used on mentally ill patients to help control them.
David: Sounds like some science fiction story where the government tests their drugs on unsuspecting women.
Action: The pieces of the puzzle come together for Haru. She realizes that it’s Jason (David) who is taking the girls.
Haru: It’s you!
David: Oh, Emiko. You were just too curious for your own good. I never wanted your sister to be this way; I’d hoped she was stronger. From the beginning, I wanted her to be mine, but she and her friends made it clear that I was beneath them, so I marked them as my butterflies. My plan was to slowly change them so they would want me.
Haru: You drugged them and took them from the parties.
David: That was the easy part. The parties were the perfect cover. It wasn’t a problem for a guy to pick up a drunk girl and take her home. No one even gave me a second look when I helped them leave the party.
Action: Haru realizes that she is in danger. David gives her a smile, and she tries to run, but he is too fast. She feels a needle in her neck, and everything fades to black.
That was where they ended the next-to-last episode. I thought the writers were evil, doing a cliffhanger like that. Their writers must just be malevolent to end it with no resolution.
◊◊◊
It was strange to play the bad guy, but I had a blast. Haru played up the frightened damsel in distress to the hilt. The director evidently did not think highly of Americans, because he kept mentioning how terrible we were and making other snide remarks. Hana translated for everyone, and they were appalled.
Cassidy wanted to see me do the final scene, so everyone was on set for it. It was a fight scene with Ricky. In my first movie, I’d spent several months learning all my moves. Granted, there were more fights in that one, but they sprung this on us only a few hours before we were to do it. Ricky had done this type of scene before, so the director was confident we could pull it off.
I remembered what Hana had said about Ricky’s feelings about his girlfriend and me. I’d tried to keep my distance from Haru, but we were in a lot of scenes together, and she was happy with the publicity we’d generated together. When she’d wanted to talk off set, I noticed that Ricky wasn’t far away. I made sure nothing could be construed as inappropriate when we were together, but I didn’t get the feeling it had done any good.
Cassidy found me before the climactic scene.
“Protect yourself. Accidents happen, and I don’t want to have to explain to my dad why we’re not winning state this year because you let him hurt you.”
“I’ll be careful and keep your dad happy,” I replied.
“Don’t be that way, David. You know I care about you deeply. If you get hurt, I might have to hurt everyone involved.”
That was my ninja girl. I gave her a hug and kissed the top of her head.
“I love you, too.”
She gave me a shove that I took as her saying she loved me back.
Ricky and I had choreographed the fight scene. He was to find me with the four girls drugged and in cages. It was right out of one of their manga stories where the mad scientist is experimenting on girls. Haru was to give it away as Ricky snuck up on me by calling for help.
“Action!”
“Help,” Haru moaned.
I turned to find Ricky almost on me.
“You will pay for this,” he said menacingly.
He pulled his service revolver, but before he could get me in his sights, I made two long strides and kicked the gun out of his hand. The look on Ricky’s face seemed to be genuine shock that I’d pulled it off. I fell into a fighting stance.
“I don’t think I will be paying for anything,” I taunted.
“You Americans come here and steal our women and our best jobs,” Ricky seethed.
This wasn’t in the script. Now I was totally on guard.
“I’d heard that. That was why I came,” I joked.
He didn’t seem to think it was funny.
The fight started as planned. Ricky was pulling his punches, so I thought I might get out of this unscathed. He knocked me down and got me into an armbar. If you’ve ever watched mixed martial arts, the armbar is when you have your opponent on their back and your legs over their chest with their arm between them. The idea is you hook your arm around their elbow with yours and pull back with all your might. If done correctly, they will either tap out, or you’ll dislocate their elbow. I was ready to tap out when the rules changed.
“I’m going to end your sports career,” Ricky quietly hissed between his teeth.
Thank God he’d warned me. If he’d just cranked back on my arm without the little speech, he would have injured me severely.
Cassidy had worked with me on what to do if I ever got into this situation. My first action was to grab my hands palm-to-palm to prevent him from easily getting my elbow overextended and breaking my arm.
I used my strength to push against his leg that was closest to my head. At the same time, I rolled away from him and used my legs to help me turn so my head ducked under his thigh. I was able to keep hold of his arm as I rolled him onto his stomach. Then I jerked hard on his arm and heard him cry out. I let him go and bounced up onto the balls of my feet. He got up, and it looked like I’d dislocated his shoulder. I cringed when he popped it back into place. That had to hurt.
I was surprised they hadn’t stopped the scene. I had no doubt Ricky had planned to attack me for real. As hard as it may be to believe, there were batons lying around. We soon had them in our hands.
I’d practiced a lot with Cassidy, who was much quicker than Ricky. I concentrated on defending myself. Ricky quickly tired, and in a last-ditch effort, launched into full attack mode. That left him open to my counters.
The way the scene was supposed to play out was Ricky was going to kick the shit out of me. Before he could make his killing strike, the Police Special Forces would storm the room. I was to dive through the window that overlooked the water where I would disappear. The window was made of breakaway glass, and I would land on a big foam pad, but it would look like I’d gone into the water.
I did as Cassidy had trained me and cracked him across the bridge of the nose to stun him. He dropped his batons and came at me. I decided that I shouldn’t just pound him with batons since that didn’t seem sporting. Cassidy would kill me later, but I dropped them. Blood was now running out of his nose. I don’t know if he imagined he was Rocky, and this was his big comeback scene, but I was having none of it. The man had tried to end my football and baseball careers. I did a bone strike to the side of his head, just behind the ear.
He wasn’t quite sure what was happening and shook his head. I followed it up with a left-right combination that blackened both his eyes as his brain shut down and he collapsed. The police burst in, and I dove through the window. That part was a lot of fun.
When they finally called ‘cut,’ they discovered that Ricky was out cold. Cassidy and Paul grabbed me and hustled me off the set.
“Props man, that looked awful real,” Kent commented.
“It was real,” Cassidy said.
“He tried to hurt me, so things got real from that point forward. Let’s get out of here before they decide they need a second take,” I suggested.
“They haven’t needed one yet,” Hana commented.
◊◊◊
We drove to the hotel so we could check out and I could shower. We were on the red-eye back to LA. As we were getting ready, Hana came and found me.