Shatter the Suns

by Caitlin Sangster

  “Oh, June.” It’s easy to forget how young she is, after all the planning she’s done, all the sneaking and scouting. She seems as if she should be as small as Lihua back at the Post, the weight of the gun in her hand so staggering I feel as if I’ll break just looking at her. When eyes don’t leave the weapon, I reach out and gather her to me, hugging her close. “I’m so sorry.”

  It’s like hugging a bundle of twigs, all long, bendy lines that don’t give in the least.

  “The ones below heard. Thought the scouts were attacking them. That I was too.” Her voice is barely a whisper. She pulls the outer layer of her Outside patrol uniform off, the coat singed and damp.

  “The Menghu below you all started shooting?” I ask.

  June stows the waterskin and shoves her pack back under the rock. “Some of them followed me. Couldn’t get back here without bringing them, too.” She looks up at the ceiling, and I can see tears glimmering in her eyes, as if keeping them from streaming down will somehow negate their existence.

  We sit in the dark for a while, June chewing on some dried meat and pears. I try to eat, but it all tastes like dirt, so I stop, listening to the frosted wind as it whistles over the snow-heavy tarp above us instead. Something shifts outside, and fear stabs through me. I grope for the knife again.

  June turns to look, but it’s a settled sort of movement, as if she isn’t afraid. She did say Howl was out there, but I’m almost surprised at the relief warm inside my chest when his face appears in the opening. “Everything okay here?”

  So he’s not leaving. At least, not yet. I’m not sure how to look at him. I don’t know if I was wrong or if he was, or if we both were together, or how we’re supposed to exist in the same hemisphere anymore. It’s an awful snarl of confusion that twists deep inside me, tight around my lungs. I don’t know where we stand. I don’t even know where I want to stand anymore.

  Howl doesn’t seem to notice my discomfort, waiting for me to nod that we’re okay before pointing at June. “Get her warmed up, would you? Maybe even break a quicklight if you’ve got one?” He runs a hand along the edge of the shelter’s opening. “If we cover the door, then no one will accidentally see it and things could potentially cheer up a little in here.” He tries to smile, but it doesn’t quite work. “What’s a little death and destruction when you’ve got friends?”

  “How long before they find us here?” I ask. “It’s not snowing anymore, and unless you know something I don’t, it’s hard to hide when people can follow your footprints in the snow.”

  “The whole camp is locked down. I think they’re flying all the Menghu out, and no one’s come up this way since this morning, so I think we’re okay for the night.” Howl doesn’t look at me as he speaks. “And June has proven herself a master of stealth and general woodscraftiness.”

  June’s slow grin takes me by surprise, making my heart want to melt. “Even you couldn’t have lasted out there so long, Howl.”

  “We’ll have a contest later to see.” This time his smile looks almost genuine. “I’m going to go check something. We can figure what to do about Tai-ge in the morning?” He says it like a question, but then goes outside without waiting for an answer. Unless he killed something out there, Howl hasn’t eaten since before I woke up. Or been warm or anything else but a living shadow out in the woods. I concentrate on my sleeping bag, draping it over June’s shoulders, my fingers tracing the City seal embroidered into the side in tiny measured stitches before pulling out a quicklight. Maybe he’s happier as a shadow than trapped in here with me.

  Maybe that’s the way it needs to be.

  • • •

  In the morning, our little safe haven is tucked in tight, like the forts we used to make from blankets and bedsheets back at the orphanage, waiting for Sister Shang to storm our walls.

  Only, Sister Shang is dead.

  Six days until Dr. Yang and the Chairman move north. Six days to get Tai-ge out and to beat them to Port North. Maybe with the fighting last night they won’t be able to leave so soon. Maybe we have more time now.

  June snuggles in next to me, both of us under my sleeping bag and lying on top of hers. It feels safe, because I don’t have to open my eyes to know June is here when I wake up from nightmares. Breathing. Safe.

  On the other hand, Howl came back sometime during the night and is lying with his back brushing mine, barely enough room in the little space for all of us to lie down. Even if it is a little creepy that he managed to come in without waking me, I don’t shrink from looking at him when I sit up. He’s not asleep, just tracing the lines of the rock wall with his eyes. He looks sort of cold even bundled up in his coat, but he didn’t pull Tai-ge’s sleeping bag out or try to share a corner of mine.

  “Did you find . . . ?” I can’t ask the question. The owl said enough last night. Tai-ge’s absence might as well have turned my heart to lead for how heavy it feels in my chest. But if Howl had found Tai-ge . . . even if he’d found him bloody and facedown in the snow, wouldn’t he have told me already? “What chance do we have of getting Tai-ge out?”

  “I’m not sure.” Howl rolls onto his back to look at me, putting his arms behind his head, his elbow just missing June. “How much do you trust him?”

  “He’s alive? For sure?” How did Howl get into the camp? Is that where he’s been this whole time? I push that thought away, hungry for his answer.

  Howl nods. “No room for doubt.”

  The weight inside me lifts, and I have to dull the urge to go outside and push the owl’s nest from the tree. Whatever the old stories say, it’s just an owl. No one died last night. No one is going to die. I breathe again, my lungs finally working again, feeling the silly smile on my face. Howl’s eyes narrow, waiting for my answer to his question. “What do you mean, how much do I trust Tai-ge? I trust him as much as . . . I can, I guess.”

  “He knew where the packs were, right? You didn’t stash them without him?” Howl pulls a hand out from under his head to point at Tai-ge’s pack, still stuffed beneath the rocky overhang. “He’s sort of . . . militant, isn’t he? How is it you convinced him to steal a heli and fly you out of the City?”

  “I think gunshots and SS spreading like fire in a bomb factory did the arguing for me.”

  Howl closes his eyes without answering, as if he’s playing through something in his head. June stirs next to me, then rolls out from under the sleeping bag. She gropes around until she finds her now-empty waterskin, pulls mine and Tai-ge’s out from our packs, then crawls through the shelter’s door. When I transfer my attention back to Howl, his eyes are open again, watching me, expression suspiciously blank. “I found something that I’m having a difficult time explaining to myself. Perhaps you and June can provide context?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll explain as we walk. If Tai-ge . . . well, we shouldn’t risk staying here.” Howl sits up, the skin under his eyes smudged and dark with lack of sleep. He pulls Tai-ge’s pack out with a jerk, flinching when the fabric of the outer pocket tears. “I’ll carry this. Help me pull down the tarp.”

  June stands just outside in an unblemished patch of snow, gathering bits of ice into the tops of all three waterskins. When she sees us pulling the packs out behind us, she drops the snow and runs to put the waterskins in each. Together we gather up the tarp covering the ground inside, then unmoor the corners of the top tarp, dumping bits of tree and the snow massed on top of it that masked our hiding spot. She doesn’t ask any questions, whistling to herself in a way that’s more air than notes as I fold up the tarp, then roll it into a tight cylinder to strap onto my pack.

  We walk toward the river, Howl going slow, listening, and telling me to stop more than once before we even reach the banks, while June slithers on ahead.

  “So, what did you find?” I ask, stopping yet again as we get to the half-melted coating of snow frozen over the river. The water peeks out in gaps and cracks through the snow, hurrying under the drifts where ice held it up from
the water. If it weren’t so loud, I’d be frightened of mistaking the icy floes as solid ground. “Are they holding Tai-ge inside the camp? Is he okay?”

  “They’re not holding Tai-ge.” Howl nods to June as she sneaks back, and the three of us set off along the river’s patchy edges. “He and another Red trekked out to the heli last night.”

  “Is that where we’re going?” Another jolt of relief runs through me. Tai-ge’s alive. Not a pile of ashes in the bottom of some prison, or sitting in line, waiting for the headsman. Damn the stupid owl.

  But then the information starts to marinate in my head. “Someone must have recognized him and known he’d be able to lead them straight to the heli’s landing site,” I venture.

  Howl leads as we start up the side of a hill, our path climbing high above the river and its rushing torrent. “He’s not a prisoner so far as I can tell. Just him and one other Red. In the heli.”

  A sick sort of fear overlays the prickles rushing up and down my arms. June turns to look at me, calculation in her eye. She knows Tai-ge wanted to go back as well as I do. Did walking under the Chairman’s flag take Tai-ge too close to the edge of the hole where I threw the Reds, his family, and the whole City with them?

  The owl’s ghostly call seems to echo in my ears. There’s more than one way to die. But I don’t want to believe the bits of Tai-ge that left him itching for rules and schedules and the correct uniform-pressing techniques could have suffocated the parts of him that are mine.

  I shake my head as we walk. Tai-ge said he’d be right beside me. He wanted to find the cure. He couldn’t have turned sides. And what’s more, Tai-ge has never lied to me, has never done anything to make me believe I shouldn’t trust him. Whatever is going on, it isn’t because Tai-ge is turning us in. Not voluntarily.

  At least, I hope not.

  “If you’re worried something is off with Tai-ge,” I say, choosing each word carefully, “then why are we headed straight for him, Howl?”

  Howl doesn’t answer for a second, concentrating on his footing as the mountainside becomes steeper, the ground threatening to slide us into the frozen water below. But when he finally looks back, I can tell the delay was more for thought than slippery ground. “I assumed leaving Tai-ge behind wasn’t a palatable option for certain members of our party. And I promised we would help him.”

  Howl stops on a relatively flat stretch of ground and scuffs his foot in the snow, trying to dislodge the crust of ice built up on his boot, and accidentally teeters sideways. “Am I wrong? Everyone’s okay with dumping Tai-ge? If they’re really moving out in six days—”

  “We’re not dumping anyone. If Tai-ge switched sides, he would have led soldiers to the packs, not the heli.” I shoulder past him to walk with June. The side of her mouth quirks up in a shadow of a smile, but she keeps up the pace, picking her way through the rocks. “What are our chances of extracting him? Or of even taking the heli back?”

  “Very good chance we could do both. That’s what I’m worried about. Why would they send just one Red to find the heli with Tai-ge? We know the Reds have been looking for you.”

  “You think it’s a trap? But not one that actually led to where Tai-ge knew we were going to be.”

  “You’re right.” Howl shrugs. “But he isn’t restrained. He walked out of there with no weapons, and last I heard he was laughing at his new Red friend’s jokes. What’s your theory? That he miraculously escaped, but didn’t come back to us? That the Reds somehow missed the heli in the snowstorm, and he went back to make sure it was safe before coming to get us?” He swears, almost losing his footing, sending a miniature avalanche of snow down the hillside before finding it again. “Or how about this: Dr. Yang heard Tai-ge got captured. He knows you’re after the cure. If he’s smart, then he knows he gave you a deadline and a very good reason to find quick transport. Seems like a good way to bet on where your competition is and eliminate them.”

  I feel my brow begin to furrow, not liking the cheery accusation. “The Reds definitely saw the heli,” I reply carefully.

  “Oh, you’re sure about that? Sorry, I didn’t realize you were telepathic.” Howl grins at me when I look back at him, and I don’t like how many teeth are showing. “Why didn’t you say so before? You can just intuit the cure out of Port North, so we don’t even need to look at the maps or get the key back from Tai-ge.”

  The key. Howl thinks Tai-ge has the encryption key. That’s why we’re headed toward the heli, why Howl’s even still here. I brush my pant leg, feeling to make sure the metal disk is still snug in my pocket, hating the aftertaste of disappointment rank in my mouth.

  “My telepathy was supposed to be a secret.” I pitch my voice down a few degrees and raise my hands for effect. “But now my senses are telling me how much you wish a Wood Rat and a Fourth would sew your mouth shut, then leave you hog-tied in the snow.”

  “You want to try it?” Howl steps closer, between me and the steep rocks jutting out over the river, Tai-ge’s pack unbuckled and hanging lopsided on his shoulders. He’s uncomfortably near, still towering over me even though he’s down the slope. The last time he offered to fight me was over an apple, and for some reason I’m just as unsure this time if he’s serious. “You think your telepathy is working well enough to save your life if Tai-ge’s two stars cut deeper than years of being too scared of his mother to touch you—?”

  I jam my elbow into his side, then slam my shoulder into his chest, meaning to push him over. But, even with gravity on my side, Howl doesn’t go more than a step down, quickly finding his footing, his hands twitching as if it’s only self-control keeping them at his sides.

  “How about you pretend my friend’s life matters for a second.” I square my shoulders, looking down at him from my higher spot on the trail. “He’s the only reason we didn’t just leave you back at the Post with your head tied to an anthill.”

  “Ants aren’t very active during winter last I checked.” Howl adjusts the pack on his shoulders, his dark brown eyes unapologetic. He puts his hands out, practically begging for me to come at him. “What’s it going to be, Sev? Are you going to push me off this rock? Or are we going to talk this through like adults?”

  “If you’re too scared to help Tai-ge, there’s no need to put yourself at risk. Is this what you’re after?” I pull the encryption key out of my pocket and hold it up, Howl tipping his chin back so it doesn’t jab him in the nose. “You have the maps in that pack. You have whatever it is you gleaned from eavesdropping in the heli. If you’re going to take it, just take it.”

  We stare at each other, the rumble of the river loud below us.

  “I’m not—why would I try to take that away from you?” Howl finally says.

  “You want the cure. For Sole to fix things at the Mountain.”

  Howl scrubs a hand along his scalp, pulling at his hair. “That does seem like the best plan at the moment, yes. But I wasn’t there for whatever happened with your mother. She sent you specifically to go looking for . . . however it was she documented the experiments she did on me and you, right? I have a feeling that will carry some weight once we find them.”

  “We?” I pocket the encryption key and fold my arms. “Why shouldn’t I push you into the river right now, Howl? I’d sleep better if a member of the group wasn’t a proven liar.”

  Howl presses his lips together, the skin around his mouth lightening from the pressure. “I’m not a Jiang, so I might not be able to get her papers. But you have the disadvantage of having spent almost zero time Outside.” He shrugs. “June’s helpful, but she’s a lot better at running and hiding than she is at elbowing people in the face. I have connections. Training. Motivation to get the cure. I can help you.”

  June coughs from up the trail as if to remind us that she’s there.

  I take a deep breath, trying very, very hard not to throw up. It’s true. Not about elbowing people in the face, but there’s no way we would have found the encryption key so easily last night without him
. I wouldn’t have gotten out of the camp at all. June would probably still be playing duck, weave, and shoot with Menghu. And I wouldn’t have known about Tai-ge and this Red at the heli.

  “I’m not saying that we should pretend everything is okay. It isn’t.” Howl lowers his voice, glancing at June and fiddling with the straps of the backpack. “But finding the cure sort of takes precedence at the moment, wouldn’t you say? We probably have a better chance on the same team.”

  The same team. I swallow down the bile rising in my throat, trying to forget the last time he said that to me seriously. Right after we first got to the Mountain and I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay. He’s right about our group needing help, but some kinds of help are too dangerous.

  Dangerous enough you already left him to die. The thought unwinds in my mind, leaving me feeling hollow, my insides about to collapse. I left him at the Mountain. I left him on the ground in the hangar, Tai-ge’s and June’s guns still smoking.

  I’ve spent so much of my life hating that people kill each other. Couldn’t shoot Seconds, even the one who broke June’s nose, or the ones who I saw break a Menghu’s leg and drag him back to their campfire. I could hardly pull the trigger to kill a gore when it was running at me, and yet Howl has brought out something much darker inside me. As if all those years I worried SS would take control, that the monster inside me would be all I was . . . it wasn’t SS I should have been worried about.

  It was me. Me making a decision about who gets to live and who gets to die. Then walking away, as if it somehow isn’t my fault.

  Is that better or worse than what the Menghu do, cutting trigger fingers from the enemies they’ve killed to remember each one? At least they own what they’ve done.

  I take a deep breath and meet Howl’s eyes. “If we find the cure, how can I trust you to not run off with it?”