Last Star Burning

by Caitlin Sangster

  Not that I have been down in the prison levels of the City. We call it the Hole: floor after floor of slimy pits and a population of rats waiting for anti-Liberation prisoners to be thrown in. Even thinking about it makes me feel constricted, as though my mind is trapped hundreds of feet underground in the dark—the kind that swallows you whole and never gives your soul back. I take a deep breath and close my eyes, trying to blink the image away as the shadows in the corners of our little room start to writhe. When I open them, little ant-size men march out of the black in serpentine lines toward me, each with a miniature weapon flickering in hand. I blink, and they are gone.

  I swallow. It’s just a hallucination. It’s not real.

  But then I blink again and the little men are back, converging in on one another, melting together to form something larger: fangs dripping down from a gaping black hole of a mouth.

  “What are you looking at?” Yi-lai scoots over next to me, our shoulders are touching. “Sev, are you okay?”

  I blink again and it is gone, but sinking dread blacks everything out. I’m ashamed of the tremor in my voice. “Remember when you asked earlier if I’m afraid of the dark?”

  As if Tai-ge’s angry ancestors heard me, the lights suddenly go out.

  I gasp and grab at Yi-lai, but his voice is calm. “It’s a blackout. Sometimes they enforce power conservation, even up here on the Steppe.”

  The words stick in my brain, but I’m not sure what they mean, lost in the inky black of the little room. The walls close in until I can feel them against my arms and back, crushing my head down toward my knees. My breaths come faster and faster, gulping down black tendrils until they squirm in my stomach, burning and wriggling. Cramps turn to sharp pain as darkness tries to burrow its way back out through my skin.

  I feel an arm close around my shoulders, and a quicklight ignites in front of me. “Sev?” Yi-lai’s voice is too loud. “What’s wrong?”

  Squinting into the light, I try to answer, but the darkness constricts around my throat and I can’t breathe. His arm tightens down around my waist, and my broken ribs scream in protest. Suddenly, all I can think of are the bottles lining the walls above us. My fingers start twitching.

  I jump to my feet, leaving Yi-lai sprawled on the floor. He grunts in pain when I step on his hand to get to the bottles, the dusty glass singing my name in the dark. I need one of the shiny bright blue ones from the top. The blue bottles will save me from those black tendrils inside me. Something in the back of my mind screams at me to stop, but my hands start searching for a way up. I can’t stop.

  The blue bottles are just beyond my reach, so I climb, sending the other bottles sloshing and shattering to the floor. The case shakes under my weight and glass bottles above me fall from their places, breaking against the shelves, bits of glass and droplets of wine raining down on my face and arms. The sharp smell of alcohol fills my nose, curling up into my brain. Glass falls across my coat, catching in the collar and pockets. Holding tight to the case with one arm, I gather the glass splinters together in my other hand and move to shove them in my mouth, but arms wrap around me and a heavy weight bears me to the ground.

  “Let me go! I have to swallow them. I have to get them out!” I thrash on the floor against Yi-lai’s weight pinning my body to the cement. Darkness worms to my insides, tearing holes through my stomach all the way out to my skin.

  “Sev. Stop. It’s going to be okay.” His breath brushes my ear. His head is an unbearable weight pressed against my neck, holding my head down.

  “Let me kill them! Please!” I can feel tears run down my face, stinging where my scratches from before mix with cuts from the glass. If I don’t swallow the glass, I am going to die. I know I am going to die. I am going to die. I know I am. Blue glass. Die.

  Another light cuts into the darkness around us, and a man swears. “Hold her arms!”

  A hand reaches into my coat, and I feel a sharp pain in my hip, fire pulsating out from the bite of a needle. My limbs fall away from me. I am only a bubble of consciousness in the dark room.

  “What in the name of the Liberation were you thinking? This girl could be the end . . .” The words fade out slowly as the room swirls to nothingness.

  CHAPTER 7

  A LIGHT SWIMS OVER MY head. I can hear voices floating around me, but they don’t make sense. A grating voice whispers, “We have to get her out as soon as possible. They are starting to realize that she must still be in the City.”

  “How did this happen? This wasn’t supposed to be able to happen!” The younger man sounds angry. “Stop trying to manipulate me and just tell me what is going on.”

  “Let me do this.”

  “No. I made my decision. She’s the only one like me.” A picture of the young man, Yi-lai, pops into my head. The Chairman’s son.

  “If I hadn’t come in when I did, she would be dead.” The gravelly voice lowers. “We can’t risk . . .”

  When I force my eyes open, the voices stop. I am lying on my back underneath a bare bulb and shelves of bottles. Shards of glass prickle up through my sweater, a slow drip of sweat stinging my face and neck. My nose is clogged full with the spicy florals of wine, mixed with rusty iron. Blood. The borrowed gray coat lies on top of me, covering me from neck to knees, the coarse wool scratchy against my skin. It’s cold on the stone floor.

  Salt-and-pepper hair and muddy brown eyes slowly come into focus only a few inches away from my face. Dr. Yang.

  “I liked you better this afternoon,” I say as I try to sit up, but my body doesn’t want to move. Every word twinges, shards of glass embedded in my lips and cheek making themselves known. “You are the one who started this ridiculous chicken hunt. Did you set the bomb, too?”

  Dr. Yang glares in a way that says I’m supposed to be quiet. “Yi-lai, thank you for your help getting her away from the Watch, but I can take things from here.”

  Yi-lai, sitting next to me on the glass-littered floor, shakes his head. “I’m not staying here.”

  “Should I be able to move my arms?” I ask. “I can’t move my arms.”

  Yi-lai looks from me to Dr. Yang, brow furrowed as his voice rises. “You’ve been watching her all along. You told me to stay away, and I did. Did you set the bomb? To convince . . . to get her out?”

  My same question, now on Yi-lai’s lips, sends flickers of dread flaming down to my core. Did this doctor somehow frame me for blowing up the bridge? He seemed to know everything about me, even the things Tai-ge couldn’t tell me, things that wouldn’t have gone beyond General Hong’s office or the First Circle until they set the Watch on me. But what would the point of framing me be?

  Silence in the room draws out like a string waiting to be cut. Dr. Yang sucks in his cheeks and says, “That bomb came from a City plane just like they all do. They’re using the situation as an excuse to get Sev out of their hair, and maybe as a warning to . . . others. We can still get her out, but I need you to stay here.”

  “I’m not staying—”

  “A City plane?” I cut in. “So now the City is blowing up its own bridges just to get rid of one teenager who no one likes anyway? Almost killing Hong Tai-ge while they’re at it? That makes all sorts of sense.”

  “That’s true.” Yi-lai’s jaw is drawn tight around the words, each shooting with a violent thrust toward the doctor. “How do you explain that? Not even the First Circle would risk General Hong’s son. Not unless they had some way to prove he finally gave into Fourth corruption.” Yi-lai glances at me. “Sorry.”

  “You don’t think they’d use him as a martyr? General Hong has too much power over the Seconds, so I can very easily see them getting rid of his son as a warning, then using his death to prove that Sev deserved the Arch. This is how they deal with their problems. If SS doesn’t take you down, the next step gets more violent.” He looks at me and sighs. “It’s the same thing that has been happening to you your whole life.”

  My arms still won’t move. What has been happening my
whole life? I’ve never had bombs dropped on me before. And they wouldn’t kill Tai-ge. He doesn’t have anything to do with this.

  Dr. Yang rubs a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “Yi-lai, you go out and join the hunt with the Chairman, and I’ll send word once we’re safe outside the walls—”

  “It’s time, Dr. Yang.” Yi-lai’s voice comes out in a low growl.

  Dr. Yang shakes his head, mouth twisted into a frown. “We had such high hopes for both of you.”

  “Together, you mean?” I can’t help but slip it in. “We’ve only just met. And he thinks he’s too good for me.” I am rewarded by a startled look from both of them, the joke cutting through the tense conversation they don’t feel the need to include me in. “And what in the name of Holy Liberation are you talking about? I don’t know how many times I have to say this, but I am a loyal citizen. A comrade. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “A dead comrade.” Dr. Yang shrugs. “They aren’t even looking to arrest you anymore. The order out there is shoot to kill. You want to die because the First Circle decided it was time? One more traitor to show the Thirds? One more reason for them to keep working down there in the smoke while the Firsts play up here in their laboratories?”

  The feeling is starting to come back to my right hand, my fingers twitching through the pins and needles as I consider what Dr. Yang just said. What is this City worth to me? I’ve spent the last eight years trying to prove my traitor brand wrong. Looking up at my mother and spitting with the rest of them. And did it ever help? They’ll never see me as anything more than a traitor’s daughter, a Fourth. A living relic of Mother’s treason, SS walking. I feel around under the coat, looking for my knife, wondering if it will be enough of a threat for Yi-lai and Dr. Yang to let me go. But it’s gone.

  Dr. Yang continues over my thoughts. “Who will benefit if you stay and die? What do you think they’ll do to the orphanage? To Tai-ge?”

  I’ve always known my being a Fourth is reason enough for anyone to suspect me of any crime, but for some reason the reality is much harder to reconcile in my mind. The City is just; the City is perfectly ideal. The City didn’t kill me eight years ago, when Mother disappeared. They let Father take care of me up in our big house on the Steppe while I was Asleep. Might have even let him live if she hadn’t come back and marked him as too close to her to be trustworthy. They didn’t kill my sister . . . well, not because of her four stars, at least. If there was no hope for someone like me, then why would they have spent so many years feeding me, teaching me, trying to set me on the right path, if my death was always the end goal? I believe there is justice in this place, and I want to find it. “I haven’t done anything wrong. And I won’t betray Tai-ge or the City like she did. I am not like her!”

  The words cut across a silent room. I hadn’t realized I was yelling. Dr. Yang and Yi-lai both look down, embarrassed.

  Dr. Yang’s grating voice is quiet, almost too low for me to hear. “Do you really want to find out whether anyone else feels that way? You aren’t the first person to be used as a warning to families who aren’t compliant. Incentive for the Thirds to slave away for sandy bread and dirty water until they die, so long as they believe they need to be protected from what’s going on Outside. But Kamar doesn’t exist anymore, Sev. The City is killing itself. Your own sister . . .”

  I shake my head, cutting him off. What could the City possibly gain by lying about the war? I need someone to tell me what is really going on. I need . . .

  Yi-lai finally looks up, catching my eye. “What the doctor is saying is true. If you go to Tai-ge, they’ll just kill him, too.”

  PART II

  CHAPTER 8

  PULLING MY NEW ARMY-ISSUE coat a little closer, I brace myself against the wooden side of the trailer to keep myself from bouncing into a pile of jagged-toothed saws. Fur lining the hood tickles at my nose, a sneeze building uncomfortably in my throat. Yi-lai sits with his legs spread out in front of him, leaning against an army pack, the frame sticking out above his head. He almost looks bored, just staring at the ceiling.

  Yi-lai’s right about Tai-ge. If the City really was trying to get me under the Arch, and Tai-ge tried to help me, he’d probably end up kneeling under the ax along with me. It happens all the time.

  The truck pulling us wrenches to a stop, and this time I can’t save my shoulder from banging against the side. My head swims with exhaustion, but my brain won’t shut off to let me sleep. Two days alone in the wine cellar gave Dr. Yang time to arrange a way out. Two sleepless days to pace the length of the tiny room, wondering when the door would break down and Reds would pour in like bees swarming an intruder.

  Yi-lai only came in once, right after Dr. Yang left, holding a pair of tweezers. I lay there staring up at him for an hour or more while he picked glass shards from my lips and face, the blue and green pieces from the bottles making a bloody pile next to me. I stopped him when he reached for one of my hands to do the same. It hurt, but I needed something to do myself. He mostly left me alone after that, only opening the door to pass food along, to leave a bucket for when my bladder began to press. But every now and then I heard him move on the other side of the door, as if he was just outside, sleeping across the doorway.

  We haven’t talked about what happened. The bottles and the glass.

  I’ve never had an SS compulsion before. Never. They keep us so medicated that compulsions aren’t a problem at the orphanage. But sometimes with the new Mantis resistance, there are near accidents, like with Peishan. Sometimes it’s worse, and no one notices it until it’s too late. My own sister was shot down by the Watch like a rabid dog. She had been running through the streets with an ax. Now I know what she must have been thinking. My brain knew that my body was going to kill itself, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  I’ve never been frightened of what I am until now. The bitter aftertaste still bites more than two days later.

  Life with no Mantis? It is worse than my fear of the dark. Worse than living in a City of people that hate me. Worse than a traitorous mother opening my veins, then abandoning me to a life of hard labor and infection she inflicted on me. Worse even than watching my sister die. Now I know what the monster inside of me looks like. How can I survive knowing any moment it could come back?

  Unless I go with them to Kamar, I doubt I’ll see another Mantis pill beyond the ones in the pack Dr. Yang shoved into my hands before slamming the back door of the trailer shut. If Kamar even has Mantis. Isn’t that why they keep attacking the City? They’re after our Mantis stores. When I run out of pills, I’ll have no way to stop compulsions. I’ll be a danger to anyone within reach. I know compulsions aren’t always violent, but it will only be a matter of time. How can Yi-lai take me Outside, knowing that in a week, a month, I might wake up with my brain wiped of everything that made me Jiang Sev, replaced by a killer?

  I almost ask him. But looking past the breath misting out in front of my face, I notice Yi-lai’s head lolling against the wall.

  He’s asleep.

  You’d think someone who grew up sleeping on a feather bed would be a little pickier. Or that in the face of escaping with an infected fugitive, he might be a little more worried. But no. I find some space in my nest of self-loathing to be annoyed.

  The trailer gives an impressive jolt as we go over a pothole, sending me crashing into him. We both roll back and rub our heads.

  “I thought we were on the same side!” Yi-lai complains.

  “I’m still not sure which side that is, Yi-lai,” I reply. I still have no idea why the Firsts’ most beloved son would willingly choose to leave the City, especially for a traitor like me. Dr. Yang has been so adamant about Kamar not existing, but he has yet to even hint at some other destination. Our Outside patrollers are fighting someone out here, even if the doctor and Yi-lai don’t like the name the City has given them. The bodies strung up on the City Center prove it.

  After a few minutes, he nudges me. “You can call
me Howl, if you want. I’ve never cared for Yi-lai. My dad called me Howl when I was little, and it stuck. I guess I had a good set of lungs. Yi-lai is just what old people call me.”

  I shrug. “Okay. Howl. You know my name.”

  “Kind of an odd one. Sev.”

  “No worse than Howl.” I stare down at the floor. I don’t even know where my mother came up with the name Sev. Just another thing that set me apart from all the obedient, compliant workers down in the Third Quarter.

  Hours later, my stomach is sloshing back and forth with every turn of the serpentine switchbacks until I’m about ready to offer up the coat and all our food for a breath of fresh air. As if Dr. Yang can read my mind, the truck sputters to a stop, the trailer fishtailing a bit in a series of sickening jerks. Voices from outside set my heart jumping. It is hard to tell, but they sound like Reds.

  Through a crack between crates, Dr. Yang’s head appears in a blaze of late-afternoon light at the back of the trailer, his face unreadable and dark. He is saying something to a harassed-looking man with two red stars decorating his shoulder. Howl and I are tucked behind a huge box of rusty, broken nails, out of sight.

  “If there were anyone back here, they would have jumped off a long time ago. I told you, we’re just harvesting wood to rebuild the bridge Kamar blew to pieces a few days ago.” Dr. Yang’s tired voice skids across my high-strung nerves, my skin prickling as I wait for a gun to level in my direction. “There’s a side door too, if you want to check that.”

  The Red shakes his head, voice surprisingly deep. “We’ll have to have you unload everything so we can go through it.”

  “Fine. I don’t have anything to hide. . . .” His voice fades as he and the Red walk around toward the front of the trailer.

  He doesn’t have anything to hide? I curl up as small as I can, trying to control the fear gnawing at my insides. How could Dr. Yang have walked us right through a checkpoint? If he wanted me to live so badly, then why . . . I look up as Howl waves to get my attention.