Dead Moon Rising

by Caitlin Sangster

  Sinking to the floorboards, I lean back against her mattress, the rusty springs squeaking.

  “I told you to leave me alone,” Mei growls.

  “I know.” I swallow, taking a long breath. “You’re right that I don’t understand. That I should, but I don’t. It’s my fault what’s happening to you now, so, if you’ll let me, I want to help. Until the Mantis comes.” I look up at her. She’s glaring down from her spot on the mattress. “So tell me. Everything you’ve ever wanted to say to someone like me. Say it all, if it will help.”

  Silence. The creak of the rope as she shifts. But she doesn’t say no.

  CHAPTER 21 Howl

  I BUCKLE MYSELF INTO THE seat next to Song Jie, the heli eerily quiet as it flies, almost as if we aren’t in the air at all. “You all knew the helis were there this whole time—weapons enough to destroy the whole City. You could have blown up the entire staging area they were using to kidnap your people.” All I can remember is Luokai saying something about Port North not being a warlike place. But is there really a group of people who would choose to sit back and watch rather than fight off the gores stealing children from their beds?

  Reifa says something to Song Jie, but my interpreter’s mouth is glued shut, the hard lines of his jaw dusted over with dirt. It sticks in muddy splashes where blood soaked his clothing. When he finally speaks, it’s first to Reifa through gritted teeth, though he doesn’t bother to translate for me. Then he says, “It was because of that hangar that the City bothered us at all. Without the hangar, we’d all have been safe.”

  His tone pulls Reifa closer, the two of them arguing in Port Northian, Reifa’s words swift and hard like the strike of a whip. Song Jie recoils.

  “What did she say?”

  “She said…” Song Jie swallows. “She said if not for these helis, I would have been born in the mountains with the rest of the slavers.”

  “They saw you as an outsider. But they trusted you to keep the hangar a secret?”

  “I started long before the raids started. But yes, the Speakers trusted me. They saw me, not just my family tree. That’s their job. Everyone else saw my father, how much he hated the island instead of what I had become. And then, when the bombs came… they only saw an enemy.” His eyes sink to stare at his bloodstained hands.

  My stomach lurches as the heli sweeps sideways. Based on the way Song Jie’s hackles are raised, I don’t think he’s in the right state for prying. Instead, I let my mind race over the story he fed me about the Chairman’s son. How they need to find the most likely places the Chairman’s son would be.

  The places with the highest population.

  Song Jie scrubs furiously at the droplets of dried blood splattered across his hands and arms, all down his clothes. This heli, the plastic boxes I helped carry onto it… This isn’t a mission to find a lost boy. This is a mission to kill everyone who has been killing them. At least, that’s what it is for Song Jie.

  When we’ve once again settled into smoother flying, I swallow the acid creeping into my mouth and try again with Song Jie. “You said you were part of a team that maintained the hangar. What were you trying to accomplish?”

  He presses his forehead against the heli’s thick window to look below us. “The island has known about the hangar since before the war. The techs and pilots weathered the first wave of SS bombs inside the hangar, then came to the island when they heard it was a safe place to shelter.” Song Jie’s voice is quiet, tense. He’s still scratching at the bloodstains splashed across his front, unable to look at them and yet still trying to get them off.

  Worried about one man’s blood when his true mission must be much grander.

  I let my eyes close for a moment, remembering the way he held his gun out like a badge of honor as the Red in the stairwell fell, dead. Was he really the first person Song Jie has ever killed?

  The thought feels hollow in my chest, watching someone else wonder if the intimate and awful feeling of someone else’s blood on your skin will ever go away. Wishing I could forget the first time it happened to me.

  “Are you all right?” I ask quietly.

  Song Jie looks up from scrubbing at his shirt, then forces his hands down to his sides. “I’m fine.”

  “Sure you are.” I rearrange my aching shoulder, holding my arm close to my chest. Switch to the subject from before, wondering if that is easier for him than the blood. “The tech in the hangar was beyond what the City has access to. It’s how you were able to rig those… things up on your towers to keep helis away.” Beyond technology I saw at the Mountain, too, or if it was there, we lost the ability to make it work. The force of the bombs Gein dropped on the old hangar almost blew us right out of the sky.

  “They scavenged everything they could from the hangar without crippling it.” Song Jie nods. “The frequency weapons went up within a year of the City helis finding us.” He makes a face in that pause, his jaw going hard again.

  “And no one from the island ever even thought about using the helis once things with the City got unfriendly?”

  “There were always Reds in the area, combing the forest acre by acre looking for it. Whoever walled you up in that city must have had records of the hangar, but no coordinates. We didn’t have enough pilots to use all the aircraft, and taking one would have meant Reds taking the rest.” He settles back into his seat. “But the Baohujia wouldn’t give orders to blow the place up, in case we came up with a way to use them. I lived in those woods making sure the entrance stayed hidden for so long.…” He blinks something back, secrets I have no context to even begin guessing at. “The Baohujia brought me and the rest of the team I worked with to the island right before the invasion, to keep us safe.”

  A plume of smoke marks the sky behind us, though we’ve left the hangar long behind. “Song Jie, if you don’t mind me asking…” The question I actually want to ask tastes like fire sparking in my mouth, but it’s too bold. You can’t ask a person if they’re planning to kill thousands with bombs and expect a straight answer. If he thinks I’m going to try to stop him… There are too many people I stand to lose if I don’t stay on this heli and somehow shape its warpath. “You said the Speakers trusted you. What is it they trusted you to do?”

  “To find a way to end this. To stop the City from hurting us anymore.” There’s a sick kind of weight to the way Song Jie says “us,” as if he has to emphasize that he is not from the City, even to me. “Whether it’s by finding the boy they stole back from us or…” He trails off. But I know the rest of what he meant to say.

  Funny. A few years ago, a bomb to the City Center would have sounded like just the right sort of answer to so many of my problems. The thought churns my stomach now, though. A few years ago, I didn’t know any Firsts except those who’d defected. Not a single Second or Third, except as a shape at which I should aim true. I didn’t know Jiang Gui-hua was a prisoner in a glass box, carving away her days one second at a time, trapped inside her own mind. I didn’t know Sev. I didn’t believe in hope. I believed in my gun.

  The first day I spent in the City, a young man came to bring me dinner, thanking me for dealing with the scum Outsiders. My hand was on my weapon before I could think it through, but I didn’t pull it out. I couldn’t, not if I wanted to stay undercover, so I listened.

  He was no less or more a man than I was. Scared. Worried. And then those horrible words Jiang Gui-hua said to me before she disappeared seemed to lodge in my brain. Enemies look much more human when you see them up close.

  Reifa turns to look at us again, Port North’s quick syllables pouring from her mouth too quick to catch. Song Jie’s eyes narrow, and he looks down again. “She says we’ll be in the mountains within a few hours. The Chairman has made it clear what is most important to him. If we take Sun Yi-lai back, then we can stop this.” He gives a disaffected shrug. “If all those reports about him resurfacing are true.”

  Song Jie doesn’t care one way or another. It’s obvious, for him at least, that drag
ging me along was to get him coordinates for his bombs. Reifa might be silly enough to believe Sun Yi-lai will appear from millions of miles of forest at her call—but then I remember.

  The Chairman did want his son. He had his son. Me. That’s where the reports are coming from. I went to the City to play the part.

  I was glad enough to exchange my silly story for the one Reifa gave me so long as it left me alive and headed toward Sev, but now everything seems so much more complex. What if Reifa’s story is true and the Chairman didn’t stop bombing once I showed up? Didn’t stop demanding. Didn’t stop looking. Did he know the whole time I was a stand-in?

  It makes me wonder about the things Sev, Tai-ge, and I overheard Dr. Yang say to the Chairman while we were hiding in his tent at Dazhai.

  You should have known your power was gone the moment you saw the picture.

  Is it possible Sun Yi-lai is alive? And if the Chairman knows I’m not his son, then why did he let me pretend I was?

  “You never got to finish going over those maps with Gein. He needs coordinates for the places we’re most likely to find the boy.” Song Jie unbuckles his restraints and walks over the packs, extracting the papers Gein showed me earlier, the unmarked south where everyone I know is sheltering. My enemies. My friends. Family, as much as I can claim Sole after so many years of us taking care of each other. Sev’s down there somewhere. It’s only June back at the island who is safe from this heli’s bombs. “You’d better show us City coordinates. Those and coordinates for any farms or outposts where he could possibly be held.”

  Reifa sits next to me, her eyes narrow. When she turns to Song Jie and says something, his face goes stony. “She says you don’t believe me.”

  I put my hands up, keeping my face blank. “About what?”

  He listens for a moment after translating my response, and Reifa’s voice softens as she speaks. She puts a hand on mine, squeezing it. “She says it isn’t just you who fears for the people you love. That she’s here because the Chairman’s son is hers.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I don’t like the weight of her hand on mine, but keep myself from pulling it back. When she speaks, I hold her eyes, trying to keep from blinking. Telegraphing trust, the way I know she’s trying to do to me.

  “She says he was frightened. Brave.” Song Jie’s voice bottoms out, not a single drop of emotion to spare for Reifa. “Then someone stole him in the darkest part of night. We tracked him into the foothills, but whoever took him had a boat. Moved him up a river too quickly for us to follow. Toward your mountains.” Reifa looks out the window, the light painting her dark braids silver. “He’s out there somewhere. Away from her when they should be together.”

  Song Jie sighs. “She says she loved him.”

  “Are you saying… you’re Sun Yi-lai’s mother?” I pull my hand back, not able to keep the skepticism from my voice. The Chairman’s wife is dead. Her picture was on his wall, watching me every moment I was there. I found him sitting with it more than once with tears on his cheeks.

  “Weren’t you listening, slaver?” Reifa sits forward with a huff once Song Jie has translated. “The boy is not her blood. He was hers because she chose to… to love him.”

  Suddenly, the way she’s looking at me makes sense. She’s trying to show me that she means it. That she cares about this kid, as if that will stop all the doubts I must have now that I’ve seen her bombs destroy a hillside. I have doubts aplenty, but not for the reasons she must think.

  I look away from her, hating that she’s trying to use me. Trying to pretend her purpose is full of love and warmth, not revenge and destruction. In that moment, my heart seems to beat too fast, as if it will break over the idea of this little boy. The Chairman’s son. He was alone just like I was. Like Song Jie, who she can hardly look at. How much better could she have treated the next hostage entrusted to the island?

  But, despite my doubts, I find myself wanting to believe for once that she’s telling the truth. That there are good people in the world. Sev’s mother tried to step in on my behalf. Told me she wanted me when no one else did. But Sev’s mother was an aberration on this cold Earth. Reifa’s eyes are dewy as she looks down at her hands, and I listen until my ears hurt, willing myself to hear through the translation to her real voice as she speaks.

  Song Jie stands up. “She says she’d do anything to find her boy. To make him safe again.” He walks toward the captain’s chair, unable to sit still through what he must know to be lies.

  “That’s very… sweet.”

  Reifa gives a decisive nod as if she’s the one who ended the conversation instead of Song Jie, then picks up one of the of plastic boxes they loaded onto the aircraft while Song Jie and I were getting the door open. A bomb.

  She stows it in the side compartment, then ferries the rest into the little room until they’re all ready to drop. I swallow, my throat dry as I look down at the map Song Jie gave me, wondering how I can possibly get to Sev while keeping Reifa, Gein, and Song Jie from killing everyone else. Is there a balance? Balances and acceptable human life cost are what make monsters of men.

  Looking up from the papers, I run through the words once, twice, three times before finding the right ones, lies like berries in my mouth, tasting sweet and sour. “There’s a little problem with landing close to the City.”

  Song Jie looks up from the console. “What do you mean?”

  “You know there’s a new contagious strain of SS, right?” I unbuckle myself from the seat, able to catch a glimpse of the side compartment as I bring the maps to rest next to Gein on the console. It’s crammed with rows and rows of padded shelves, the plastic boxes we brought from the hangar only a fraction of what’s in there. It sends chills up and down my spine, not even knowing what or how much I’m up against.

  Making a fussy show of smoothing out all the folds and wrinkles in the map, I wait until Reifa comes to stand next to the pilot’s chair, Gein swiveling toward me to listen as Song Jie translates. “The whole mountain area is choking on SS. City forces are in refugee camps outside the walls, others are looting and killing anything that moves. If you want to find the Chairman’s son, you’re going to have to trust me.”

  CHAPTER 22 June

  IT TAKES A FEW DAYS’ travel to get to the river that is supposed to take me and Luokai to the Post. At its mouth, the current tugs at our boat, trying to push us back out into the open ocean. The very idea—even looking into that flat, gray horizon—feels like old meat in my stomach. So. Many. Ways. To. Drown. The wind sits beside me, chilling my hands where they stick out from my cuffs, but I’m glad she’s there.

  Luokai does something to the engine to make us go faster, his eyes on the white-ridged waves curling around us. He must sense the fear in me, because he breaks the careful silence between us, as if noise is some kind of medicine for distress.

  “Tell me how you ended up with my brother.” He actually smiles, sort of. Luokai’s face is too calm for a smile like Sev’s, which was always full of warmth. Or Howl’s, half dangerous, half joking. “Or maybe just who you are. I only know you’re named June because Howl told me.”

  My wind twists toward his voice. I like that she seems to like him, even if she isn’t always the best judge of people. She chose Dad, after all. But that was before SS. I’ve got new family to take care of me now.

  The gore chuckles. Howl and Sev watched Luokai infect you and did nothing. You call that taking care of you?

  “I think you’re a qilin in disguise.” Luokai’s voice comes again. The water is choppier here, and he’s speaking so slowly and calmly. He must be able to see the way the waves make me grip the boat’s railing, my knuckles white. “My mother used to tell me stories about them. Shy creatures so peaceful they refused to bruise grass by walking over it. You have to be lucky to have brought my brother back to me.” The Speaker cocks his head, the gesture so Howl-like that I have to blink it away. “You aren’t hiding horns, are you?”

  I’ve heard of qil
in before, and they didn’t sound so peaceful. A story of teeth and claws that made Howl look at Sev to see if she was paying attention, and Sev blush and look up at the stars as if she wasn’t. Howl must have heard about the beasts from his mom too—the same person, maybe even the same story, but he and his brother heard two different things. I scan the water, the river lapping up at the sides of the boat like a great tongue straining for a taste. I shrink lower on my bench, staring at my boots.

  “If you’re a qilin, then maybe we’ll have enough good luck to—”

  I look up as Luokai’s voice squeezes tight in a watery gag, our boat jerking to the side as he does something to the engine. The water begins to push us sideways, the engine coughing into silence. Luokai stills, just like Parhat always did when SS whispered into his ear.

  And that’s when I realize that Luokai wasn’t talking for me. He was talking to distract himself from a compulsion.

  The gore inside me howls. Nowhere to hide. No way to run. Water water WATER caging me in. For a fraction of a second I grope for the length of metal inside my coat, but then reason comes back into my brain, and I lurch toward the poles tethered to the side of the boat, fingers shaking as I untie one.

  Luokai jerks out of his SS-induced stupor, slithering down into the covered portion of the boat. He slams into the door just as I shove against the other side and stick the pole through the handle to jam it shut.

  The handle rattles, but the pole holds. A wave hits the side of the boat with a hollow slop, the water around us choppy, the current pushing us away from the river mouth. The next wave is larger, rocking the boat sideways.

  My fingers don’t want to let go of the pole keeping Luokai inside the room and me safe on the deck, but the next wave throws me to my knees, almost toppling the boat.

  I go on my toes, straining for a look at the boat’s controls. If I don’t do something, the water will swallow us down. Maybe if I climb over the canopy, start up the engine the way I’ve seen Luokai do, then point us toward the river—