By the time Kasim and Mei are out of sight, my steps are already heavy. Running back toward the Mountain soon becomes walking, then trudging. It feels as though Cale has gained a hundred pounds in the five minutes I’ve been carrying her.
A rustling in the bushes off to my right turns my head. Eyeing the leaves as they sway in the wind, fear kicks through me, Cale’s unbearable weight pinning me to the spot. A low growl whispers toward us and something large moves, leaves swirling around its shadowy outline. A pointy nose and black sunken eyes swish through the curtain of vines. The thing’s mouth opens wide in an excited yip, yellow teeth jagged and bloody.
The gore charges us, its graceful bounds lopsided by dark trails of blood running down one of its legs. Cale is on the ground and my gun is out before my mind registers that I am about to be torn to pieces, but my shots ring out in quick succession.
The barreling hulk seems to trip and fall midstride, momentum tangling its legs, sending it to the ground in a heap, nose twitching inches from my feet. It snaps at my boot and I trip over Cale in my hurry to put distance between me and its sharp snout.
It thrashes closer to Cale, eyes on her unmoving form. Hungry, even moments from death. I level my gun, find its eye, the cold metal reflected in the endless black pupil. Fire.
CHAPTER 30
OUR DORMITORY IS SO QUIET. It seems wrong, as if after all the gunshots and death tonight, my room should be part of the war zone. Mei lies across from me with a pillow over her head. As if nothing happened.
Cale woke up as I carried her in. They have her on a monitor in a sterile white room over in Yizhi. No word on SS levels yet, but they are watching her.
She didn’t look at me once. Wouldn’t even ask what happened. I left with her toothy mask in my hands, not sure what to do with it. I didn’t even remember that I wasn’t supposed to be in the hospital until I caught one of the Yizhi workers pointing at me, two more joining with him to watch as I brushed my way out the door.
The team that brought Kasim in took him straight to surgery, but the healthy warmth in his eyes was back by the time they hustled him past me in the hall. He was cracking jokes with the boys carrying the stretcher and winking at Mei.
They have him locked up somewhere too. Just in case.
I didn’t know what to do next, so I followed Mei back to our room. To sleep.
At least Mei is succeeding.
I can’t close my eyes without seeing the gore’s fluid leap toward me, or Kasim’s blood pooling in the dirt all around him, or the Reds sinking to the ground in slow motion. My mind keeps replaying it all over and over until I have to get up.
As I wander up and down the Menghu halls, my bare feet ache with the cold. This whole place seems to be submersed in ice water. I walk until I’m high up above the Core, dangling my feet out over the hundred-foot drop through the railing. The height pulls at me, pressing at my lungs and tingling in my head. It makes me forget all the things lurking just behind my eyelids.
I look up when someone slides down next to me, shifting his legs over the side to kick beside mine. Howl’s eyes have heavy, dark circles underneath them, making him look years older. But he still has a smile for me.
I turn back to the edge, not sure what to say. Howl knows more than what he told me outside. Knows what it is Dr. Yang wants. But he has deliberately kept it from me. Why? He was arguing for people in the City, arguing not to let the Cales and Helixes in the Menghu ranks near unarmed citizens with a gun. I put a hand to my forehead at the thought of Cale, my stomach writhing with the image of her coat burning, the gore’s jagged teeth as it opened its mouth wide . . .
“Are you all right?” Howl finally breaks the silence.
I close my eyes. “I don’t think I ever said thank you.”
“Thank you for what?” His voice is rough. Tired.
“For getting me out of the City. Away from this.” I hold my hand out, scar stark and white against my skin. Helix’s comments climb up into my thoughts, pitched against the argument I overheard in the Heart, demanding to be let out. But the words don’t come, stamped down beneath the gore’s black eyes.
He takes one of my hands, rubbing his thumb across the brand. “Did it hurt?”
“I don’t remember.” I want Howl to be the person I got to know in the forest. The person who carried me away from the Reds when I had a concussion and cried with June when Liming died. I have to trust someone.
And I choose Howl.
I chose him when I pushed the last hope of Tai-ge out of my mind. And Howl chose me back, not caring where it led him, who would be angry. I finally understand what he meant that first day when he told Dr. Yang that I was the only one like him. He’s the only one like me. Banished from the City. Running away from our pasts. We’re both outcasts from the place we once thought of as home.
“I can’t stand the Menghu,” I say. “I think I’m done.”
Howl raises an eyebrow. “You want to go back?”
“No. Not to the City.” There wasn’t much of a life in the City for me even when the Firsts still were willing to tolerate my presence. I can see that now. With an execution order on my head, I’d almost rather let the gores do it than stand under the Arch with my mother watching from above. “I can’t fit here. I don’t want to. If it weren’t for Mantis . . . I just want to go live in our tree house Outside. With huge electric fences to keep everything out.” My own safe haven. Where I can break myself into little pieces in peace.
Howl catches my eye and puts a finger to his lips. He slips a hand into my pocket, coming out empty. “I couldn’t find you on the telescreen. I saw you from down there.” He nods toward the floor stories below us. “You don’t have your ID card, right?”
I must have left it in Jiaoyang before going Outside with Kasim. “No. Are they . . . ?” I look around the way he did, but no one is in sight. He’s worried about our voices carrying. Whispering as softly as I can, I say, “They’re listening, too? Not just tracking me.”
He nods. “We can talk in Nei-ge. Or Outside. But they are definitely keeping tabs on both of us.”
“Why?” My voice is flat. The idea should bother me, but I can’t find any emotion left over to worry.
“That is a very complicated question.” Howl pulls me up from the balcony and we walk down the hall, a tingle sparking up my side as he slips an arm around my waist. He whispers too, now, “Maybe we should ask June about it.”
June? Does he mean he’s reached the end of wanting to stay here too, and this is the safest way to say it?
“Should we ask her?” I glance self-consciously up at the screens around us, wondering if someone is watching right now. Nervousness and an odd fluttering at the word “we” attempt to penetrate the fuzz coating my brain.
“I think it would be the safest option.” He looks both ways. “The sooner, the better.”
I don’t have any fear, the gore attack blocking out what “going to ask June” would mean. No Mantis. Outside. Facing the unknown. “Maybe if I make it through the night, okay? It’s pure luck that I’m not half-digested right now. We can talk about it in the morning.”
Howl’s angry tone surprises me. “I don’t know what Kasim was thinking. If I had known . . .” He rubs his eyes. “That’s why I’m up, actually. General Root wanted to show me the disk Mei brought in. It’s an SS mine, but nothing like I’ve ever seen before. You found them setting the mines near the base of the Mountain?”
“I found them dragging Kasim away by his ankles. The disk was just a bonus.” I shake my head, an image of Kasim’s leg bent askew shivering through me. “Is Kasim going to fall Asleep? And Cale?”
Howl shrugs. “We’ll see, I guess. It doesn’t make sense. The City knows we have Mantis. And the effectiveness of these things would be tiny, only infecting three or four people at the most.” He pulls something out of his pocket and presses it into my hand, then puts a finger to his lips. “I’ll walk you back to your room.”
“What is . . .”
H
e shakes his head, glancing at the telescreen.
It’s as long as my pinkie and rubbed smooth, like a river rock. Thick at one end, it narrows to a point under my fingers. There is a leather strap tied around it. A necklace. I keep it balled in my fist, hiding it from anyone who might be watching.
Night-lights follow us as we walk, little points of illumination dribbling out over our feet. As we pass a closed door, Howl squeezes my arm and taps the sign at the side of the door marked SERVICE.
Meeting his eyes, I nod. I’ll remember where the door is. Are we really going to leave? But what about . . . me? SS?
When we get back to the Menghu collective, he bends in close, lips brushing my ear. “Be careful. Don’t talk about it. Three days from now.” And points back down the hallway.
The service stairs must go Outside to the maintenance grid. I nod and hold up three fingers. Establishment celebrations Mei told me about are in three days. Maybe the Menghu will be too distracted to notice we’re gone. He stands there, grim-faced. I want him to laugh, to smile again. “I had fruit for breakfast this morning. It was amazing. Thank you for convincing me it isn’t poison.”
His eyes crinkle up at the corners, full mouth curving into that smile I was hoping for. I want him to come nearer, to turn how close we are into something real. I want everything to be right. His fingers sweep the hair out of my face, messy from my unsuccessful sleep.
“You are beautiful, you know that?”
No one has ever said that to me before. No one has even wanted to. I have to look down, closing my eyes for a second before looking up to meet his gaze.
Howl puts one hand to my cheek and kisses my forehead, leaving me unbalanced, but calmer. I couldn’t sleep before because of bloody memories. Now I won’t be able to sleep because of that kiss warm on my forehead.
Helix can go die. I don’t even know what he was talking about. In three days, it won’t matter.
CHAPTER 31
AT BREAKFAST THE NEXT MORNING, Mei is stone-cold, food forgotten in her lap. I take a look around the room before walking over. No one moves toward me, so I slide down onto the step next to her, but something in my pocket sends me right back up.
A bone bracelet. Cale’s, from last night.
I pull out the hundreds of tiny bones, all threaded together with fishing line. I can’t think the bracelet would be very comfortable to wear, with all the pieces sticking into you and catching on things. But to each her own, I guess.
Mei’s eyes fall on the bracelet. “Where did you get that? You shouldn’t have any.”
“Any what?” I hand it over. She holds it in a white-knuckled grip in her lap, resuming her gloomy silence.
Another girl I recognize from the dorms slides in next to us. “You two were shadowing Kasim and Cale last night, weren’t you?” she asks, twirling a bracelet on her arm. Bone, kind of like Cale’s. “Are they going to be okay?”
I wait for Mei to answer, but she doesn’t look up from her eggs.
“Kasim wasn’t out of surgery when I left, but everyone seemed to think he’d pull through all right,” I say. “I think they’re just going to watch them for the next few days.”
Another girl joins us, toying with a necklace, striking ivory against her dark skin. Bone.
They’re everywhere. Another bone bracelet on a Menghu a few steps down. Necklaces, anklets sticking out from underneath green canvas. The pattern is the same on every one, the same tidy rows of bone.
Mei is still clutching Cale’s bracelet as though it’s made of gold. Suddenly, I realize where I’ve seen that composition of bones. In an anatomy book Mother made me read through before she left.
They’re finger bones. Trigger fingers.
Hundreds of pieces wired together at the joints to make each pointing finger. Interlocked, clasped, dead in that bracelet. It couldn’t be. My mind flashes back to that first week in the forest with Howl, the soldier with bloody stumps instead of trigger fingers. And last night, Cale stooped over the dead Reds.
I felt so apart from everyone here, as though I would never be quite comfortable. The rigid military schedule, nothing that belongs to me, and the technology bubbling out of the walls wherever there is space. But that wasn’t why. Looking around with fresh eyes, I see hundreds of dead men. Each missing a finger or two.
I rake Mei up and down with my eyes, looking for her set, but she’s clean. Grabbing her wrist, I pull her up away from the group. When we’re out of earshot, I whisper, “Where are yours, Mei? Why don’t you have any?”
“Any what? What is wrong with you?”
“The bones. The fingers. Everyone over there is wearing a list of people they’ve killed.”
“Oh.” She shrugs, disinterested. “Don’t you know? The Menghu keep track. The General doesn’t like it, but . . .”
“You keep score.” My voice sounds flat in my ears. “Where are yours?”
The question hangs in the air between us, but Mei doesn’t even blink. “I’m still in training. I’m not allowed.”
She leaves me standing there, everything finally clear. Helix’s shoot first, smile about it later policy isn’t a savage exception.
It’s the rule.
They really are going to invade the City. Howl’s argument last night that invasion would be a bloodbath seemed so dramatic, but he’s right. The way Mei looks at Howl’s First mark, the way any of the Menghu talk about the City . . . They wouldn’t be doing it for the Mantis. Invasion would be revenge. A delight. A chance to add to their jewelry collection. It isn’t just Helix and Cale who are the monsters. If the Menghu invade, no one will survive. My fingers find the rusty ring on the necklace around my throat.
A pair of hands grabs my shoulders, and I spin around to fight them off, tripping over my boots. At first all I see is a woman in a white coat, her arms coming up defensively when I wrestle my way out of her embrace. But it’s Sole, the concern in her eyes at war with the way her mouth twitches into that odd grimacing excuse for a grin. “You’re so pale,” she says. “What’s wrong?”
I don’t have anything to say, the burn of realization still coursing through my veins.
“Still in shock from last night? Deep breaths, Jiang Sev.”
I want to run as my eyes latch on to each new set of bones on the people around me. Run and tell Howl that we can’t wait another three days. I have to keep Tai-ge from becoming just another trophy, fingers stripped down and bound into a bracelet at some Menghu’s wrist.
“I heard you stood down a gore to protect your roommate. Cale, right?” Sole is still talking. Oblivious to the twitch that keeps jerking her shoulder up toward her head. She used to be one of them. Killers. “You two must be close.”
“Close?” I shudder the thought away. I don’t even remember pulling the trigger last night. That thing just folded up in front of me like a paper doll in a fire.
“And you’re already taking keepsakes.” Even her voice is cold.
“Keepsakes? Like those bracelets?” I ask.
“I don’t think I would have stuck my hand in a gore’s mouth.” She points to the long white tooth hanging from a leather cord around my neck. Howl’s gift from last night. It seemed as though it was meant to be a secret when he pressed it into my hand, but I haven’t discovered anything exciting about it. After staring at it for a long time this morning, I threaded my mother’s piece of jade and the rusty ring onto the leather next to it. After some thought, I added my star pin and put the necklace on. Past, present, and future.
“Is that what this is?” The thought of the gore’s long, pointed teeth spearing toward me makes me want to take the thing off and wash my neck. “Howl gave it to me.”
“Howl gave that to you?” Sole leans forward, her eyes hungrily taking it in. “City Howl? The Howl you came in with?”
“Yes. Are there other Howls?” I shift uncomfortably, covering the necklace.
She shrugs, eyes latched on to my hand sheltering the tooth. Someone taps my shoulder, and I’m gra
teful, wanting to get away from that intense stare. That is, until I look up and see Helix.
“You’re needed downstairs. Now.” His face is carved into an eternal frown.
Mei is waiting for me by the door. “Cale didn’t wake up this morning. She’s Asleep.” Horror leaks through the cracks in her voice. The Mountain isn’t letting infected in. . . . What if contracting SS means Cale can’t stay here anymore either? The way Dr. Yang was talking about stockpiling Mantis last night makes me think the odds aren’t good.
“And Kasim?”
“They won’t tell me what’s happening with Kasim.” Mei swallows. “He’s awake, but something’s wrong. They won’t let anyone see him. Yizhi asked us to come down to Cale’s room. They’re hoping we can help them figure out what was going on with those disks.”
I shake my head, starting to back away, but Helix is right behind me. I can’t go to Yizhi. Not after all this time running away. Not even knowing what it is they want from me. Not with all the dead walking around on display. “They won’t need me.”
But Mei drags me through the door, Helix following close behind. A pair of Menghu are on the other side waiting for us, and I catch one with a hand on her gun, crowding in after Helix as we start toward the doors that lead to the hospital.
• • •
The white walls in Yizhi make everything seem cold. Medics sporting gas masks flow in and out in a constant stream, all giving Mei and me a wide berth, squeezed onto a bench in the corner of the room.
Mei’s angry reserve from this morning seems to have sucked her dry, her head lolling sleepily against the wall as she draws crosses down her leg with one finger. Cale looks pathetically small under her blankets in the center of the room, dwarfed by the large hospital bed. Like a child.
I feel like an unwilling spectator at a fight, waiting for the bloody show to start. I can’t just sit and watch while Cale’s heart monitor beeps slower and slower. But pacing the short length of the room isn’t helping. Why are they keeping us down here? It could be weeks before she wakes up.
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