I drag Howl toward a blank doorway, the two of us huddling in the braced space as rock rains down. I’ve only lived for sixteen—almost seventeen—years. I’ve seen more than anyone should be subjected to, thought I was dead more times than I care to count. We’re so close to finding the cure. This would be the stupidest of ends.
But, as the ceiling shivers overhead, the air so clogged with dust that there’s none left to breathe, all I can feel is him. His arm over mine, the warmth of his skin, the chalky dust gritty between us. Something in me settles as I pull him closer, as if somehow us being together will protect us from rock and stone.
I don’t want to die. But I don’t want to live in a world without him either. Is that not answer enough? Howl’s heartbeat pounds under my cheek, his arm around my shoulders and mine around his waist, his sling caught between us. The stone raining down around us seems to thunder and strike, only to leave an awful, entombing silence. A tear burns down my cheek, and I keep my eyes clenched shut, waiting for the world to finish crashing down on us.
But it doesn’t. It sits, watching. Waiting for us to have hope again.
Something inside me settles.
Howl coughs, his chest heaving as he attempts to free it of the dust roaming through the air. “I think I see . . . light?”
I open my eyes to find a glimmer of light dripping down from the stairwell just in front of us. Coughing, I pull myself up from the floor, pulling my shirt up over my nose to filter out some of the dust. Howl attempts to roll onto his knees but doesn’t make it onto his feet until I help him up. Together, we creep over the fallen chunks of stone up the stairs until the trickle of light becomes a thick band, then an actual crumbling circle of light, white-hot and searing into my eyes.
An opening to outside.
Is it possible we could reach Gao Shun from out there?
The opening is the remains of an entrance, the corners all cracked and leaning up against one another, the actual door flapping in a salty breeze. Though the door itself looks as if it might fall to pieces at any moment, the ceiling and the hallway supports seem to be all right. The light filtering through the opening hits a long wooden bench turned on its side. I prop Howl up against the wall, right the bench, then help him to sit, his body seeming almost to fold out from under him, no matter how much he swears at it.
“Sometimes I forget you grew up in the City,” Howl says when his back is against the wall, his head lolling to one side. “I mean, anyone could drag me up flights and flights of stairs, but using the pack as a shield back there was pretty cool. And that book thing at the end? I’d say you’d make a good Menghu if I didn’t think you’d leave me here out of spite. Without a razor, even, since I’m pretty sure it broke when I threw it at Luokai’s head.” He tiredly adjusts his arm, pain flicking across his face. “I’d probably die of itchy beard before anyone found me.”
“I left it in there with him so, one way or another, I think you’re stuck.” I smile, sitting down next to him, barely managing to repress a groan at allowing my overtaxed muscles to relax for a moment. “Lucky for you, I like it when you’re scruffy.”
“You like something about me?” Howl thinks for a second, a flicker of a smile cutting through the strain on his face. “I’m not really sure how to take that. I can understand, of course, I just didn’t expect—”
Another rumble of an explosion blisters through the stone under our feet, a delayed boom filtering through the opening, accompanied by a warm rush of air. That sounded like a bomb, not whatever weapon Gao Shun is using on the helis.
I look back at Howl. “You should take it exactly the way it sounds.” My heart gives an uncomfortable skip, the sweet taste of fear and hope in my mouth. And decision. “I . . . I’m sorry I left you at the Mountain. And tied you up. And was generally awful to you. I didn’t trust you enough before.” Silence coats the air between us, and though I can feel Howl staring at me, it takes me a second to meet his eyes. “But I think I do now.”
“You’re leaving me here, aren’t you?”
The air outside seems too quiet. Poisonous, as if it has already killed anyone else stupid enough to go out and attempt breathing it. “Yes.”
“It’s what I would do.” He presses his lips together, an expression I’ve seen on his face so many times I wish I could just see his thoughts written out as they connect rather than having to wonder. “You don’t have to do . . . that.”
“Leave you?”
“No, you don’t have to try to make things better between us. You don’t have to say anything. I was being selfish earlier. I want things to be fixed, but nothing is that tidy.”
“I want to.” My stomach twists. “What if this is the last chance I have to say it?”
He smiles, an ironic twist to his mouth. “Both of us have lived an entire lifetime of moments where it might be the last chance to say something.”
“I really am sorry for my side of what happened, though. And if this is the last, last chance, I’d rather you knew that than didn’t.”
“I’m sorry too.” He takes a deep breath, all signs of cockiness smothered. “I just don’t want you to say anything that isn’t true all the way. I don’t think I can survive watching you run away from me again, Sev.” He stops, shaking his head. “Sorry, that sounds dramatic. But please don’t tell me there’s a chance here if there isn’t. Or if it’s only a chance. Things are complicated. I think I’ve untangled my side, but if you haven’t . . .”
The question he’s not quite voicing tingles like an invitation at the tip of my tongue. I lean forward the two inches between us and kiss his cheek. Whispering, because even if I know this is right, it’s still hard to say out loud. “If I could take back running away from you, I would.”
He pulls away, a crease marking his forehead. “You ran because of what Sole said. I love Sole; she’s like my sister. And . . . she knew me before I left the Mountain.” He looks down, fiddling with my hand, running his finger down my thumb and along my palm. “There’s more you asked about before.” He looks at me, my memory of that awful morning under the owl’s tree seeming to cloud the air between us. “I couldn’t make myself tell you, and it’s hard to say it even now. The Menghu—even Sole—all think—”
I reach out and cover his mouth. I’m not going to close my eyes and hope whatever it is about Howl that frightened people isn’t there. But no matter what other people tell me, I think I’ve seen pretty clearly who Howl is. And for right now, that’s enough. “I know I don’t understand. I might not even have the capacity to understand who you were and the things you did before.” I let my hand fall, trying to find the words. “We’ve lived very different lives. Had very different choices.” And different reactions to them. Like my dreams and flashbacks. Howl doesn’t have them. But that doesn’t mean he mourns the dead any less. “In the months I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you hurt anyone just because you could. I’ve seen you do the opposite. If you want to tell me about whatever it is that bothers the other Menghu, then you can. But you don’t have to right at this very moment. You said you’re done with lying. I trust you.”
He stares at me, his mouth still open. My heart feels open too, as if I’ve left it standing in the center of an icy swirl of snow, naked for anyone to see. Hoping I’m right. Knowing that I am, but still feeling just how vulnerable it is. I reach out and gently touch his cheek. “I love you, Howl.” And kiss him lightly on the mouth.
Howl barely leans into me, and when I draw back, his eyes seem wet. “I love you too.” His smile is a little too soft and sad, the light hollowing out the dark circles under his eyes, the sharp edges of his cheekbones and the shadows of his long eyelashes.
“I need to go. Whatever was going on out there, it isn’t happening right now.”
“Yeah.” He blinks a few too many times, but then he nods. “Yes. Go. I’d just slow you down.”
“I’ll be back. With the cure. I’m not leaving you this time.”
“Wait. There’s one
more thing we need to be clear about.” Howl takes a moment to find the words. “I really do want to live in a tree house. So let’s not have this be the last chance, okay?”
I can’t help but start to laugh, the sound filling me up, filling us both with something other than gravity. He reaches for me then, and even though I can feel exhaustion and pain riding every line of his body, we hold each other up.
CHAPTER 57
EVERY STEP AWAY FROM HOWL seems to jar against my feet, the space between us yawning wide like an abyss.
When I step into the light, open air swirls in from outside the cracked door. My heart knocks against my ribs at feeling so exposed, as if the next blast from the towers will tip a building directly onto my head.
I square my shoulders. I don’t have the luxury of fear at the moment. June is counting on me. Lihua and Peishan. All the infected in the City, in the Mountain. Howl.
When I look back at Howl, he smiles and gives me a thumbs-up. I do my best to return the smile. Then walk through the door.
Just outside, there are crumbly remnants of a patio, the rock cracked and sunken in what’s almost like a crater. Beyond that, a rickety cobbled street winds up what seems to be a mountainside, the path more stairs than pavement. There aren’t any soldiers that I can see, so I’m not sure where the blasts were coming from. I step outside and edge around the hole, finally peeling my eyes up from the damage to find uninterrupted gray. The sky and sea fill my whole vision, so large I might as well be a tiny insect perched on the bald face of a cliff with nothing between me and the endless horizon. My stomach drops as if it’s already falling the thousands of feet down to sink into the waves below.
I turn from the awful height, setting my feet on the winding path up the island’s mountainside. Sharpened bits of rock press into my palms as I use them to help me climb. A heli buzzes overhead, making all the hair on my arms stand up as I wait for a bomb to come screaming toward me, or for the tower, whatever it does to swat it down. Nothing happens, though, the roar of propellers merely sending gusts of air to pull at my hair. Up above where I’m perched, cliffs rise up to form a tall central peak, one to either side a bit lower as if they’re bowing. All three are shaped by sweeping lines of tiled roofs clinging to their sharp faces, stairs crawling up and down and between like overgrown centipedes.
My stomach turns at the thought of climbing. Even without any doomed aircraft buzzing overhead, the height reels me side to side until I’m afraid I’m falling even though my feet are still firmly planted on the ground. Alongside each stairway cut into the stone there are chains bolted into the mountain’s face, a lifeline of balance for me to grasp as I crawl higher and higher up. The statue I saw from across the water stands placidly below me, a woman with her arm raised. Her hand has been broken off, cracks riddling the lines of her flowing hair and dress. Port North’s protector standing up against the storm.
After climbing for a few minutes, I stop to catch my breath. Luokai said Gao Shun would be up at the top, manning one of the towers that peels helis from the sky. Holding tight to the chain, I crane my neck to look up the mountainside, rewarded by the sight of a single red-tile roof tucked into a crack in the stone higher than any of the other buildings. Clay figurines of dragons guard its eaves, a metal-mesh disk of some kind peeking out from behind them.
If I weren’t so terrified of the cliffside behind me, I’d be confused. How could something so small protect this place?
By the time I find the right pathway leading up to it, my hands are shaking and every inch of me is coated in sweat. The stairs leading up to the house’s open-air balcony are almost a ladder, the chain handrail hanging limp on either side.
No time to be afraid. I swallow, stare hard at the slippery stone under my fingers, and climb. The house feels almost like a pulsing beacon above me, everything I’d hoped to find here hidden away inside.
The cure . . . and my family.
The word just doesn’t mean everything I hoped it would. It’s all right, though. Mother was mine. June and Howl belong to me too, the same way I belong to them.
Did my mother ever come up to the top of this mountain floating on the sea? Did she look down at these tile roofs and think they were beautiful?
Pushing the stone-hard breaths threatening to clog my lungs, I climb until my muscles burn, the bag with the book in it banging against my hip. A heli drones past, and one of the side towers begins to hum. A high-pitched shriek screams across the sky, and the rock under my hands and feet begins to shake. I grab hold of the chain with both hands, the metal links digging into my neck. Below, I hear something crumble and fall, the frequency catching a piece of Port North and rattling it to bits.
But before the sound can adjust and catch the heli’s propellers, something changes, the tone rising to an ear-shattering squeal, like an animal with a knife at its throat, knowing death is about to stab through it. The awful sound cuts off abruptly, and I chance a look out at the tower, only to see the mesh disk at its top, so sturdy and straight only moments ago, teetering over from its perch and falling the hundreds of feet below to tear a cluster of buildings from Port North’s steep slope.
I hazard another glance over my shoulder, the whole side of the island like a waterfall of roofs below me, punctured by smoking holes where helis have crashed to the ground, or where the frequency weapons took houses and glass. Looking across at the tower on the other side, I realize there’s no dish at the top, the weapon already a dead piece of metal lost below. The heli above me lowers down onto the gray expanse of bridge that connects the island to the mainland, soldiers pouring from its belly like ants from a nest before the craft is even properly settled.
The tower above me is silent.
I felt the island shake before, the rumble and crack of bombs on stone. These aren’t the first helis to have gotten by. Somehow, Dr. Yang must have gotten to the two shorter towers.
I turn back to the ladder and climb with a renewed fervor. The house is only twenty feet above me. Ten. Two. Until I pull myself up through the gap in the balcony rail and lie there panting until my arms stop trembling. I roll over onto my knees and crawl toward the door on the other side of the balcony.
The building looms down at me, and I wonder if there are people behind the empty windows, the gaping door, waiting behind gun sights to see if I’m one of the soldiers who steals children, who sends a terrible disease to unfold in their ranks. But no shots come. Something sharp stabs into my palms when I get to the door, but I don’t pull myself up from the ground until I’m against one of the long wooden benches just inside, my bag a lump under me, the wooden carving of a dragon and phoenix decorating the back poking into my cheek.
After a moment, I sit up and look around. There’s a control panel of some kind with a telescreen displaying waveform. A fan set into the wall, the blades silent. But there’s no one here.
Am I too late? Did this tower already fall to whatever venom Dr. Yang has injected into the other two?
Luokai said Gao Shun would be here. That she’d have the device. I pull myself into a crouch, pushing up from the floor onto my feet. Even if Gao Shun is hiding, even if she’s dead, I am not leaving this place without the last thing my mother left for me in my hand.
Most of the furniture in the room has been upturned in the chaos. The sharp edges and points pressed into my hands and knees are shattered bits of clay, the remnants of broken cups, and what I think may have been a teapot. My boots crush the brown clay shards as I go farther in, splintered remains of wood and torn papers littering the floor. It’s a graveyard of picture frames. They couldn’t all have been shaken from the walls and still have this building standing upright, could they? It almost looks as if they’ve been pulled down from the wall and left to gasp their dying breaths on the floor. I pick up the one closest and almost drop it when my mother’s clear gaze looks out at me from its crumpled rice paper. Blood from my cut palms leaves an ugly red smear across the bottom of the portrait, as if my touch has kil
led this memory of her, tainting the cool grays and blacks of the watercolor with blood.
Just underneath there’s a wider canvas, the frame still mostly intact. A man with storm-filled eyes, a woman with a round face, wings of gray streaking her hair. Next to them, my mother and father sit, a little girl on each of their laps, the high collars of City uniforms brushing their ears. Our ears. Mine and Aya’s.
It’s in my hands before I even process picking it up. Aya’s eyes, her eyelashes so much longer than mine. Her lips and her blunt nose. I thought I’d forgotten her face, but she looks just the way she feels in my heart. Like my sister. I’m so lost in this family that has been gone for so long that when the shards of pottery crack under a boot behind me, I almost don’t hear it.
Almost.
I pivot, my fingers digging into the heavy picture frame as I swing it around, the woman who was sneaking up on me dodging back to avoid its sharp corners. But unlike a Menghu or a Red, who probably would have shot me, she freezes, one hand covering her mouth. Her eyes drop down to the painting in my hand, my dead family’s faces between us like a shield.
When her eyes meet mine again, a jolt of recognition fizzles through me, my muscles contracting. She’s the same woman who came to warn the village to evacuate, who looked as if she could somehow belong to me. And now, closer, it’s so obvious she does. Her eyes . . . She looks like my mother. I glance down at the painting too, finding the face of the older woman I assumed was my grandmother between streaks of my blood running down the canvas. It’s the same face as the woman before me, only Gao Shun’s hair isn’t threaded through with gray, her face only touched by lines instead of cut through.
We stand staring at each other, waiting for the other one to say something. My aunt’s cheek is marked, the swirl of color under her ear dark against her skin. Like Mother.
Shatter the Suns Page 41
