I brush some of the mud from my arms on to his pristine carpet, letting my thoughts run. Disconnected from everyone, everything. Helix trying to force me to go to Yizhi and the white coats that ghosted after me. My mother being dragged from my subconscious to writhe like a dying snake every time someone recognizes me. “Sure. Everything is fine.”
Dr. Yang glances toward the door. “I’ve asked Raj to take you down to Yizhi for those tests. Just immunizations and a blood draw to check to see what you brought in with you. In the interest of keeping everyone here safe, we need to know what we’re dealing with.” Something in his face is tight, the words too tidy and clean. He’s lying.
With those words, he confirms what I already knew but hoped wasn’t true. I’m not safe here. But I just don’t know why.
I grab the necklace and jump up. “I’d better go, then. My roommate Cale seemed like she might dismember me or something if I didn’t get it done.”
“Raj should be waiting out in the hall.” Dr. Yang smiles, gesturing to the door again. “Cale’s a delightful girl. You’ll do well with the Menghu.” He nods to himself and sits back down at the desk. “Your mother would be proud.”
CHAPTER 25
OUTSIDE DR. YANG’S OFFICE, I run up the hallway and around the corner, barely managing to duck behind a couch as Raj strolls toward Dr. Yang’s closed door. When he’s out of sight, I sprint out of Nei-ge, past the book room, down the elevator, my breaths coming quickly until I’ve put some distance between me and Raj.
Once I feel safe, I pull the envelope of Mantis from my pocket and the rusty red ring falls out onto the floor. I haven’t been able to put it back on my finger. Even if I had, it wouldn’t belong there, reminding me of Tai-ge when he didn’t even give it to me. I string it alongside the jade on the leather cord and stick it back in my pocket. Time to move forward. Tipping the Mantis into my mouth, I swallow it dry, the plasticky pills trying their best to block my throat on the way down.
The moment of safety doesn’t last long. I don’t see any white coats following me until I’m jostling my way through the Core, in the crowds of people still in line to get dinner. Three of them keeping their distance, but there’s no mistaking the way the men are watching me, waiting to extract me from the throng.
One steps directly in my path, tucking his white coat closed as he waits for the meandering stream of people to bring me to him. One pushes through a clot of yellow-uniformed Jiaoyang to fall in line behind me, only a few people back. The third waits off to the side. Ready to move if I run.
I don’t have anywhere to go, to hide. Trying to duck down into the crowd just makes Yizhi number three start in, craning his neck to keep me in sight. And a ratty blond ponytail, right behind him. Cale’s eyes are on me, one hand tucked under her arm, as if she’s just waiting for a chance to pull whatever weapon she has stashed there.
A hand closes on my wrist, the man creeping up from behind meeting his mark. He doesn’t say anything, hand clamped down so tight I can feel the blood flow to my wrist starting to ebb as he herds me toward the edge of the Core’s hustle and bustle. Toward a set of white doors. Yizhi.
“Let go of me.” I say it loud, pulling against his grasp. The people around us shrink back a step or two, but no one looks at me. Their eyes slide away like skates on ice, oblivious to the girl who only moments ago drew stares.
I plant a foot on the ground, pulling in earnest, fear bubbling up through my veins. Another man slides in next to me, his arm going around my waist and breaking my stance. My boots squeal against the stone floor as I try to fight, but there’s no way to combat both as they drag me toward the door. Cale brings up the rear. I can feel her breath hot on my neck.
But a person materializes in front of the doors to block the way, his green Nei-ge coat dark against the sterile white. Howl spreads his arms wide, blocking the way to the hospital. “What do you think you are doing?”
The men don’t let go. Their hands clutch at my shirt, pressing against my skin. Cale steps forward. “We’ve got orders, Howl. She’s delinquent on at least four different immunizations, not to mention the SS levels she’s obligated to—”
Howl cuts her off. “Since when did the Mountain turn into a prison where they drag inmates in for testing? That’s why I left the City.”
The man gripping my arm pulls me forward a step, ready to push past Howl into Yizhi. “You know better than the rest of us that we need—”
“Let her go. I’m her supervisor until she makes it past probation. If Sev spreads some terrible disease around the Mountain, I will be responsible. Understand?”
None of them try to correct him, not even Cale. Helix is my supervisor now. But all Yizhi are looking at the floor as if whatever command that made them drag me through the crowded Core is warring with the squares decorating Howl’s throat, the lifetime of First authority striking with every word.
Howl steps forward to grab my hand, pulling me away from the men.
The smile I am accustomed to seeing on his face feels strained. “Try to force her again and you’ll find yourselves Outside.” There’s something more than what he’s saying, the way the men in white shrink back. Even Cale seems afraid.
He leads me away. The people around us part like oil on water, stares following us all the way across the Core. I can’t keep it bottled up, not concerned anymore about who is listening. The look on Cale’s face is just like Helix’s was right after we met and he joked about “not keeping” June because she was a Wood Rat. Howl gave him one look, and suddenly Helix, the killer, was afraid.
Howl’s single star doesn’t mean anything here. He’s part of Nei-ge, but not an especially important part, I don’t think. Why are they all so scared?
Should I be?
“Stop.” I shake his hand off my arm when we get to the edge of the room. “Tell me what is going on, Howl.”
“It’s hard to . . .” He looks around, and then plunges one hand into my pocket, coming up with my ID card. Tapping it against his palm, he looks vacantly at the floor, the walls, the ceiling. “I just need to figure out . . .”
“At least tell me why. You know, or you wouldn’t be fighting against it. Why are they trying to drag me down there? Why is having an ID chip planted in my arm going to hurt anything?”
“Of course it will hurt. Those things are huge. I can’t . . .” Howl trails off, looking around at all the people staring at us over forgotten plates of food. “I can’t stand being cooped up anymore. Let’s get out of here.”
I follow him up the stairs that cling to the glass walls like ivy, up past the greenhouses and over the Core, barely able to clamp the questions vying in line behind my lips. We keep going up and up until I feel as though there must not be anywhere else to go. Howl pushes through an old broken door leading into an unlit, closed-off hallway, the rusty hinges creaking as we go through. Shards of glass crunch under my boots, and the stale darkness prickles in my mind, an answering prickle of fear in my stomach. No hallucinations. Not now, when I need answers.
The door opens into bright moonlight, and genuine, uncontaminated, unused air. The fresh coldness rushes into my lungs as though I’ve been drowning, fossilized in this rock. I feel exposed, as if there’s nothing but miles of open space all around me, but I like it. Like an ant, dwarfed by a star slit sky, the blue-tinged moon hanging precariously on strings. Zhinu and Niulang gleam sadly above us, the flowing river of stars between them twinkling with unshed tears. Being Outside feels real, as though nothing that happened down inside the rock beneath us should matter.
But it does. “Howl. You told me I was safe. I don’t feel safe.”
Howl grabs my hand, leading me out past the door to a narrow pathway that winds its way around the edge of the protruding rocks. My fingers tingle in his grip. We are the only two people on the planet, the only threads of consciousness weaving a pattern into this dark world.
But before we can go too far, I stop, the open space dulling my voice down to a whisper. “Ple
ase. Just tell me. What is going on?”
He stops, the whisper contagious. “It isn’t a secret, Sev. I don’t know what is going on.”
My clothes suddenly feel too tight, restricting my air, pushing at the scrapes and tears in my skin, so newly healed. “You have to know something. Otherwise I’d already have an ID chip, a few extra puncture marks, and . . . what? What terrible things will happen to me in Yizhi?”
“Come on.” He pulls against my hand, leading me farther down the path. “Only Zhuanjias come out here. Part of the maintenance grid around the solar panels. I used to sneak out here when things felt too close. We can talk without worrying about who is listening.”
The Mountain is completely shadowed, the rounded peaks to the north bald against the horizon. A mountain in the distance glitters like a swarm of fireflies over water. The City. Only a month ago I was one of those lights, but now I’m almost nothing. Just a breath on the frozen wind.
We sit in the cold, just looking up at the stars. I don’t want to remember today. The crawly feeling of Helix’s hand on my knee, my heart still skipping back and forth over the feel of the Yizhi’s bruising grip on my arm, the sound of my feet squeaking across the marble floor as those white-coated men dragged me toward the hospital doors. I close my mind, taking deep breaths and refusing to think, peering up into the black. Waiting for Howl to speak.
It doesn’t take long, but it doesn’t feel comfortable, as if he’s inspecting and weighing each word before speaking. “Dr. Yang knows there’s something . . . different about you. About the way SS affects you.”
“My hallucinations, you mean?”
“Maybe the hallucinations.” He leans back, his shoulder brushing mine. “He won’t tell me anything. When he asked me to go see Operations instead of staying with you in his office today, they didn’t have anything for me. He’s trying to keep us apart, keeps trying to get you down to the hospital when I’m not there to go with you . . .”
“Why?”
Howl takes a long time in answering. “I don’t know.”
Goose bumps trill up my arm. Yang was lying to me in his office, but are my hallucinations really worth extra testing? What kind of extra testing? And it seems as if Howl should know, since he didn’t wait until after seeing the doctor to start ducking away from Yizhi. Howl was wary the moment we walked in. Is he lying to me too?
Paranoia. The word sticks in my brain, casting an ugly shadow over everything. It made me angry when Dr. Yang dismissed Howl’s concerns, as if Howl is too wound up in himself to discern between reality and anxiety any more than I can when the monsters creep out from the crevices in my brain. But is it possible that Yizhi really is worried enough about me spreading some disease through their hole in the ground that it’s worth manhandling me down to submit to the needles?
It’s possible. But I know Howl. After our time in the forest, I know when he’s going to smile, when he’s going to look away. The way he bites his lip when he’s thinking. He’s doing it now, lips drawn tight. He’s never done anything that didn’t make sense, that hinted his mind wasn’t quite on the same plane as mine. I don’t understand, but I believe Howl more than I believe the formerly First doctor.
Howl’s eyes are wide open as he looks up at the stars, moonlight giving his dark hair a pearly glow. “I’ve been helping to smuggle Mantis out of the City for two years now, but they’re just hoarding it. This place is supposed to be a new start for anyone who wants it, but they aren’t letting anyone in who drains the Mantis stockpile. That’s why Liming couldn’t come in, why June leaving him behind was the only way. We’re caught in the middle of a game of weiqi, and I don’t even know who is setting the pieces. Or what it would mean to win.” He bows his head and rubs his eyes before looking over at me. “If they give you an ID chip, we’re stuck. They’ll always be able to find you. I wanted to believe we’d be safe here, but it all feels wrong.”
He threads his fingers through mine, something sweeter than fear turning my stomach over. This is why it couldn’t be paranoia. I feel exactly the same. Everything here has been just a little bit off from the moment we met Helix and his prickly smile. Howl sitting next to me is the only thing that feels right. The two of us Outside, nothing between us and the stars. The cold is starting to mist my breath, and wind ruffles my hair across my face. But I don’t want to move. I don’t want to spoil this moment of quiet.
“Sometimes it feels like that’s the only possible future.” Howl draws the words out, as if he knows what he’s saying is wrong. “That I’m meant to end up Outside, alone.”
I can’t answer, the mirror image of what I was just thinking settling in a heavy weight across my chest. The darkness around me is a little too black, still swirling at the back of my mind. Like a hallucination waiting for the right moment to take hold. No one belongs Outside.
Howl pulls my hand close to his chest as he looks down at the trees so far down below us. I can feel his heart beating through the cloth of his shirt and the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, both coming a little too fast. “My brother is out there somewhere. He left. A long time ago.”
“You have a brother?” I stop, pulling my curiosity into check. “I’m so sorry. What happened? Was he part of the purges? After my mother—”
“Something like that.” He takes another deep breath. “I can’t help but wonder if I looked . . . if I went far enough . . . It’s stupid. He’s probably dead.”
Not knowing is almost worse than my sister dead in the street. At least I know where she is. What kind of father is the Chairman that he’d lose two sons to the forest? What kind of place is the City that the Chairman could banish his own son and that none of us would ever know? That Howl could have disappeared for two whole years, and instead of telling us, the Chairman pretended all was well. Howl wanting to know about my family—about Aya—suddenly makes more sense.
“I’d bet he’s still alive. If he’s anything like you.”
“What am I like?” Howl is looking down at his knees now, tracing the square on his collar with one finger. “Do you know?” His face is strange in the moonlight. “I don’t know if I do. We came running here, and I was sure . . . but the way Nei-ge is handling infection and . . . other things . . . It really is just us. Us against everyone else.”
Just us. That should be a scary thought. But it isn’t, because for the first time it isn’t just me. I’m not alone anymore. Even in the middle of whatever the Mountain is trying to do. It isn’t just me, waiting for the firing squad to have a slow weekend.
“You are . . .” The things I am thinking are hard to say. “Strong. Ready to give up everything for what is right. I don’t know how you ever went back to the City. Knowing that you could die any minute if they found out what you were doing. I don’t know how you left again either. Your family . . .”
He shakes his head, cutting me off. It must still hurt too much to talk about what he left behind. Or what he’s looking for. There’s barely enough room for the two of us to sit, our feet dangling over the edge of the narrow walkway, so close I can feel every breath as it fills his lungs.
“Do you think we should just run?” he asks. A joke, but there seems to be a subtle underlying question there.
Would surviving Outside be any different from the life I’ve already lived? Alone with the trees instead of alone in an overpopulated City or under a thousand tons of rock, hiding from danger I don’t understand? Running away from what Jiang Gui-hua has made me.
“If we left . . .” Howl and me running would turn into Howl running away from me, or whatever SS would leave of me. A gore’s harrowing laugh floats up to where we are sitting, raising goose bumps on my arms. One of the many kinds of monsters that live Outside. I’d be one of them.
Howl turns a little to look at me. “Could you leave everything behind? Live Outside?”
“Leave what behind? There’s nothing to leave. Except Mantis. And you.” My stomach twinges, embarrassed at the admission. It’s hard to
say, but undeniable. Something between us fits. The way we talk, the way we sit, the way we think. It doesn’t make sense, but that won’t make it go away. I don’t want it to go away.
Howl’s hand tightens around mine. “You already have friends here. Mei. You’ve even got Helix drooling after you like a wolf stalking a flock of geese.”
I give a grimacing smile. “Even if that were true, the analogy follows. He’s probably sharpening his butchering knives right now.”
“And you’re joking.” He almost laughs, but doesn’t move away, looking me straight in the eyes. “Most of your life has been balanced against an ax, and yet you still had a joke to tell or someone to cheer up.” He looks away, discomfort creeping into his voice when my brows begin to furrow with questions about how he would know one way or another from his pedestal up on the Steppe. “Dr. Yang made me promise to stay away from you back in the City, but I knew you. I wanted to, anyway.”
She’s the only one like me. That’s what he said the first night we met. I still don’t know what that means, but I don’t know how to ask. It feels too close, as if asking what he meant will sound like I’m asking a very different sort of question.
Our noses are almost touching, and I have to look down. Something stirs inside of me and I want to reach out, to let all this electricity out of my body. He’s so close, the static air humming in between us.
“Why?” he asks. “When everything is wrong, why are you still smiling?”
I think for a second. “I never thought feeling sorry for myself did much. Knowing that things are hopeless and lying down for the ax are two different things. My life has always been mine, even back in the City when I didn’t have any control over when it ended. No one can tell me who I am or what I am capable of. Not my mother, not the Firsts, not even you.”
The silence feels heavy, as if what I said should be offensive. Or laughable. But instead, Howl brushes a hand across my cheek.
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