Helix’s hand on my wrist bites, as if he has teeth instead of fingers. Two other Menghu I don’t recognize trail behind us. Dr. Yang stops in front of a door, a blocky 4 stenciled across the heavy metal.
The hinges creak as we go inside, Helix’s stranglehold on my wrist relaxing when the doctor asks me to climb up onto the table in the center of the room. This place is a blank, nothing but the table, the walls . . . no restraints, no scalpels, or saws. All Dr. Yang needs is that one syringe.
He slowly pulls the plastic packaging from the tube, fixing a needle to the end of the syringe. Once he injects me, I’ll be aware, awake. Paralyzed. Only this time, I won’t have a chance of waking up. Not until he lets me.
“Helix?” Dr. Yang stabs the vial without looking up. “Would you go notify Dr. Bai we’re ready? We’ll need a short-term feeding tube. Catheter. Same supplies for a typical first-stage SS victim.”
Helix hesitates. “You don’t want me to have them prep the surgery?”
I’d laugh if I weren’t so terrified. What will it take for the Menghu to finally figure out that Dr. Yang can’t cut my head open and extract the cure to SS with a ladle?
Pulling the needle out of the vial with a muted pop, Dr. Yang hardly glances at the Menghu captain, flicking the syringe with his fingertip. “Did you not hear what I just asked for?”
Helix’s eyes flick over me, my clothes torn, feet bare. Still dirty from scaling the walls in an effort to get to Gao Shun and the stone dust from being underground during the attack. I stare back at him, at the dark circles raccooning his eyes, and try to muster a defiant smile. Not willing to let him think I’m frightened of him. That I’m frightened of anything.
Holding Helix’s gaze takes so much concentration, I’m not expecting it when the needle punctures my arm, trails of acid and fire swimming up my veins in a suicide sprint. I gasp, pulling away, and earning myself an extra jab from the needle as it pushes to the side.
Dr. Yang withdraws the syringe and holds it out to Helix, finally glancing over at the Menghu. “Do I need to ask one of the others?”
“No, sir.” Helix’s back almost seems to bend without his permission, giving the doctor a deferential bow. He takes the empty syringe and walks out without another glance at me.
“This is your last chance, Jiang Sev.” The doctor finally meets my frantic gaze. The acid in my arm spreads up to my shoulder, across my chest, and out to my other limbs. I bite my lip, fists clenching weakly. I won’t let this man see me cry.
My mouth is buttoned closed, so many lives sheltered inside. Sole, who has Mother’s research, whatever was in it. Peishan, my old roommate, up in the trees at an old trading post. Lihua, waiting for me to come back with the Mantis that will keep her from hurting the people she loves.
June, Asleep at Port North. I’m not your sacrifice, she said. But she was the sacrifice, the price we paid to Luokai to get the cure.
Howl. Alone and broken. Left on the Port North steps.
Their faces grow fuzzy and soft, fading into the shadows in my mind as the drug takes hold. But I don’t forget them, even as everything about me blurs.
They say power grows from the barrel of a gun. They’re wrong. That’s not power, it’s fear, and fear can be conquered when there’s more to stand for than your own life. True power grows from love and family and friendship. They give you the strength to do what is right even when it is impossible.
Power is standing in front of the gun, knowing how powerless you are, and still refusing to move.
The world goes black around me and I let my eyes shut, stop fighting the hold Dr. Yang’s virus has on my brain.
Power is my silence.
PRONUNCIATION GUIDE
Baohujia
Bow (rhymes with “cow”) hoo-jya
Cai Ayi
Tsie (rhymes with “my”) AH-yee
Cale
Cayl (rhymes with “pale”)
Dazhai
Dah Jie (rhymes with “my”)
Helix
Hee-lix
Hong Tai-ge
Hong (long o, like in “tome”)
Tie (rhymes with “my”) guh
Jiang Gui-hua
Jee-ang GWAY-hwa
Jiang Sev
Jee-ang Sev
Lihua
Lee-hwa
Mei
May
Menghu
Mung (rhymes with “rung”) hoo
Peishan
Pay-shan
Sun Howl
Soon Howl
Sun Luokai
Soon Loo-oh-kie (rhymes with “my”)
Xuan
Shwen (rhymes with “pen”)
Yang He-ping
Yahng (a as in “fawn”) Huh-ping
Ze-ming
Zuh-ming
AUTHOR’S NOTE
In the opening and closing paragraphs of the book, Sev is referencing a quote from Chairman Mao Zedong. The real quote is, “Every Communist must grasp the truth; ‘Political Power grows out of the barrel of a gun’ ” (“Problems of War and Strategy,” November 6, 1938, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 224).
The military camp in this book is named for a commune that was held up as the ideal during the Cultural Revolution in China as what communism really meant. Supposedly, self-reliant workers turned the invertile soil of the area into productive land relying solely on hard work, with little oversight or help from the government. Mao said, “In agriculture, learn from Dazhai.” Dazhai’s methods soon became the standard for all communes regardless of local conditions, which did not turn out well.
The statue on Port North was inspired by Mazu, a sea goddess worshipped in Southeast Asia. Though there isn’t any religion actively being practiced in Port North, the City, or the Mountain, hints of what came before the Influenza War are still there.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Acknowledgments are both fabulous and terrible to write. Putting them on paper makes me feel warm and fuzzy about all of the generosity and true friendship in my life and reminds me how lucky I am to know so many lovely people. On the other hand, it makes me anxious because I’m afraid I’ll forget some of them. So, if your name isn’t here and it should be, know that it’s because I was having a selfish, blank sort of moment, not because I don’t appreciate you.
First of all, my editor, Sarah McCabe, and her use of all caps and italics and general ANGER at certain members of the Shatter the Suns cast, is probably one of my favorite things that has ever happened. It’s so nice to have fictional people to hate. Working with an editor in general is such a learning experience, and I count myself lucky to have one who is so smart, who is so quick, and who I actually like. Victoria Wells-Arms is next on my list for believing in me and this series before anyone else did.
David Field and Aaron Limonick gave me the best cover an author could ask for. In fact, the whole team at Simon Pulse is the absolute best to work with, and I can’t go without mentioning them: many thanks to Mara Anastas, Chriscynethia Floyd, Liesa Abrams, Jessica Handelman, Michael Rosamilia, Katherine Devendorf, Rebecca Vitkus, Sara Berko, Lauren Hoffman, Caitlin Sweeny, Alissa Negro, Anna Jarzab, Jennifer Wattley, Christina Pecorale and the rest of the Simon & Schuster sales team, Michelle Leo and her team, Nicole Russo, and Samantha Benson. These are the folks who make dreams come true.
Without my fabulous writing group, Kristen, Cameron, and Dan, this book would have never quite started breathing, and Sev would be significantly more prone to sexual innuendo (even if it was unintentional). The Wellies: Rebecca, Elizabeth and Hillary, who muscled through the second draft of this book and didn’t even spit in my hair when they saw the word count, and also McKelle George, who did a last-minute read for me when I was in full panic mode. For that, and for all of you, I am forever grateful.
Thanks to the members of the writing community here in the Valley who spend so much time pepping each other up and being the best sort of people to hang out with.
The people most deserving of acknowledg
ment are, of course, my family members. They put up with me and my books on a daily basis. To my kids, who have already started writing books of their own and disappear into their rooms to have “writing group,” I can’t wait to see what you do with yourselves. My husband makes writing possible, listens to all of the weird things that come into my head without thinking I’ve come undone (and is able to tell me when I haven’t come quite undone enough), and doesn’t mind when I get up in the middle of the night to write things down. There aren’t enough thanks in the world for such a perfect, wonderful partner in life.
And thank you to all the readers who fell in love with Sev, June, Howl, and Tai-ge and came back for round two to see what kinds of new messes they could get themselves into. It still blows my mind that other people get lost in the world I made up in my head.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author photo by SHERRI SANGSTER
CAITLIN SANGSTER grew up in northern California, moved to Xinjiang when she was eighteen, and has been fascinated with how much she doesn’t know about the world ever since. She graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in Asian Studies and is the person you avoid at parties because she will probably start talking about Shang dynasty oracle bones. Caitlin lives with her husband and four children in Utah. Visit her at caitlinsangster.com, @caitsangster on Twitter, or facebook.com/caitlinsangsterauthor.
Simon Pulse
Simon & Schuster, New York
Visit us at simonandschuster.com/teen
Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Caitlin-Sangster
ALSO BY CAITLIN SANGSTER
Last Star Burning
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
SIMON PULSE
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
First Simon Pulse hardcover edition November 2018
Text copyright © 2018 by Caitlin Sangster
Jacket illustration copyright © 2018 by Aaron Limonick and David Field
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Jacket designed by Jessica Handelman
Interior designed by Mike Rosamilia
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sangster, Caitlin, author.
Title: Shatter the suns / by Caitlin Sangster.
Description: First Simon Pulse hardcover edition. | New York : Simon Pulse, 2018. | Series: Last star burning ; [2] | Summary: “Sev must decode her mother’s last words to find the cure to Sleeping Sickness before Dr. Yang can use it to blackmail people into submitting to his rule”— Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018007370 (print) | LCCN 2018014769 (eBook) | ISBN 9781481486187 (eBook) | ISBN 9781481486163 (hardcover)
Subjects: | CYAC: Epidemics—Fiction. | Fugitives from justice—Fiction. | Survival—Fiction. | Fantasy.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.S263 (eBook) | LCC PZ7.1.S263 Sh 2018 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018007370
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