Dead Moon Rising

by Caitlin Sangster

  Only, there’s a trapdoor up there that leads into the room Luokai’s stuck in. He scratches at the door between me and him just like Parhat used to. His knife dug into whatever it could reach. The gore’s voice is so loud. X after x carved into trees, into the ground, into his arms, into you.

  Another wave begins to swell toward us, and my wind strokes through my hair, pushing me toward the canopy. My hands shake as I let go of the pole holding the door shut, sweat slipping across my palm. But I start climbing, pulling myself up onto the metal roof. The wave catches the boat just as I grab hold of the railing above, my fingers screaming as I cling to the metal bars, the boat pitching and swinging wild under my feet. My feet skid across the rusty roof, deep gray Underneath foaming around the boat hungrily as it watches me slide toward it.

  Muscles screaming, I pull myself through the railing and hold tight until the worst of the rocking stops. My eyes skip over the trapdoor, propped open, a yellow light leaking from inside. There’s a low scritch-scratch of fingernails on wood and heavy gasps for air that sneak up through the opening. He must still be trying to open the door.

  Keeping my feet quiet, I creep over to the boat’s wheel and buttons and dials. Biting my lip, I mimic what I’ve seen Luokai do, pressing the red button and turning a key while jamming a foot onto the lower pedal.

  The boat jerks forward, choking to life.

  Grabbing the wheel, I keep my foot on the pedal, trying to straighten our course. It goes slower than two snails, but the boat’s nose obeys, turning back toward land. I grip the wheel with white knuckles, keeping us pointed into the river’s wide mouth, my heart jolting loose every time the water tries to nip and twist us to the side.

  But that’s when the scratching down inside the canopy stops. My throat closes, memories of Parhat, Cas, Tian, of Dad creeping toward me with SS’s ugly snarl. This time there’s nowhere to run.

  Luokai’s footsteps trip toward the ladder. I hold myself perfectly still, my back pressed into the banister so hard I couldn’t breathe even if I wanted to. The strip of metal I pulled from the ship’s railing below digs into my side, the sharp edge jabbing my ribs through my shirt.

  Luokai’s head comes into view at the bottom of the ladder, his head jerking this way and that until he looks up.

  His eyes find mine.

  The gore inside me snarls, but I look away, my whole body rigid as I pretend to be a piece of scrap metal, an extra rung on the ladder, a breath of wind.

  The ladder squeaks as he climbs. One of my hands sneaks into my coat to touch the metal strip. Eyes are one of those things that can make you look threatening. Can remind SS you’re there.

  “Are you okay? Did I scare you?” Luokai’s voice sounds pained, holding more feelings than I’ve seen from him this whole time on the boat.

  The gore hasn’t lain back down inside me, though, isn’t letting me uncurl my fingers from around the metal strip. My wind pulls at me as I turn away from Luokai, gritting my teeth so hard it’s like I’m biting myself. How many days have I been on this boat, eating Luokai’s food, burrowed in the blankets he gave me, remembering how much he looks like Howl and talks like Sev? You can never trust a Seph, no matter how nice they are, no matter how sorry they look after doing something bad. You have to run and run and run until they can’t find you. It’s what Dad should have known all along. Even if it hurt worse than dying when he finally told me to go. It’s what Luokai knew, why he let his family go.

  But I’m not his family. I’m his hostage. His way to a cure.

  Later, when the engine and the sun have gone to bed, I creep into the room where Luokai sleeps. The last few days stretch tight across my chest, the things he’s done for me when he didn’t have to. He’s nice. I know it. And he means well, has kept me firm in this boat every time SS tried to send me into the water. But it’s not enough, because it’s not just Luokai inside his head.

  I pull Luokai’s pack out from under the bed and unzip it slowly enough that it doesn’t make noise, then take the things I’ll need to leave him behind.

  CHAPTER 23 Tai-ge

  MORNING COMES WITH TWO VICTORIES.

  First: two crates of supplies in the square, dropped from the sky as if a pair of cranes brought them in the night. When I check the boxes, the Mantis bottles are on top. Enough to give to Lieutenant Hao for the Thirds he found to get the mask factory running.

  Second: Soldiers have arrived at the base of the rice paddies below the City. A concentrated mass of black dots so far below us they look like ants, only with better formations. They’ll be here before nightfall, which means Mei and I will be leaving in the confusion.

  I haven’t told Captain Bai that I’ll be disappearing for while. Hope is a fragile thing, especially since it isn’t just the captain’s good opinion at stake. I have no doubts that if I stretch this man too far, it will end in Mother appearing here in the City, disappointment on her face.

  When I sit him down in the cafeteria, I’m not sure what to say at first, running through the words in my mind over and over as if I can somehow change one or another to make myself sound more like Mother. Confident. In control. Having more facts but choosing to keep them to myself.

  Instead I say, “I need to go away.”

  Captain Bai sits forward an inch, though his face doesn’t change. “Sir?”

  “Not for long, I hope. An issue has arisen that I need to address. Personally.” I duck my head, attempting to meet his eyes the way he isn’t supposed to meet mine, but for once he keeps his gaze focused on the table between us, brow furrowed.

  “I’m confident you will be able to continue with our objectives,” I continue. “You have more experience directing men than I do. Now we have some food and Mantis to bargain with for when Lieutenant Hao comes. The soldiers arriving should be bringing more resources as well. You should be all right until I get back.”

  Captain Bai cocks his head. “The General is very… generous.”

  The question underneath fills me with dread. “She—”

  “Excuse me if I interrupt, sir.” Captain Bai’s cold eyes lift, finally connecting with mine. “But she wouldn’t have sent supplies if I’d been the one asking.”

  My hands clasp together under the table, and it takes all the self-control I own to separate them, let them hang at my sides.

  “I’ve seen quite a bit of forest Outside. I’ve seen the camps out there and the people inside them.” Captain Bai glances toward the window, other buildings too close to see much of the City from here. “And I think this is the first time I’ve felt as if a commanding officer raised in the City may have seen some of it too.”

  My mouth hangs open, my tongue dry.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with the General, Major Hong. Or with the Chairman, or with the camps, or with anyone else.” He leans in, keeping his eyes locked to mine. “Only that something isn’t right. But I believe that you won’t let us die.”

  “I’m going after the cure.” I savor the words in my mouth, trying them out. “We went to Kamar for it and were too late. I believe I know where it is.”

  He nods, as if that makes perfect sense. “I knew they wouldn’t have sent us into Kamar for nothing. The invaders took it? And your little assistant is going to lead you to it?”

  I open my mouth, not sure what to say. To contradict him when he’s right? It’s sort of gratifying to realize that Mei’s just as bad at being a spy as I am at handling one. “How did you know?”

  The captain’s hand dips inside his coat and pulls out the knife he used to cut open the growth regulator bag. “I’m a fighter, Captain Hong. A soldier. A leader, when required. Not a man of politics. I don’t have to see the whole picture to know there are things happening that don’t make sense. That it’s not only loose ends that are being left behind these days. If you know more than I do and know how to fix it…” He holds the knife out to me. “You be careful with that girl. She’s not wearing her bones, but it’s not difficult to see she’d like t
o add yours to them.”

  Mei’s eyes didn’t open before I left this morning, shadowed underneath though she managed to sleep after I talked to her. She didn’t talk back much, but the sound of my voice seemed to help. Almost like she was pretending I was someone else. Someone she could trust to get her to sleep before another compulsion came. Last night it made me want to know more, to find out who a Menghu trusts. Or, rather, who Mei does. To understand more than her history working on a City farm, which led her to the Menghu. But, in morning’s light, it’s easier to forget that Mei has a history, likes and dislikes. Fears. Much easier to remember the way the point of her knife jammed against my chest through my coat.

  Captain Bai places the knife on the table in front of me when I don’t take it. “Protect yourself, Major. We’ll have a Mantis lab secured by the time you get back. Maybe we’ll be using it to make a cure instead.”

  I take the knife, the weight of it like a mantle spreading across my shoulders.

  * * *

  When I bring Mei a dose of Mantis, she grabs the pills from my fingers and swallows them dry, though I have a cup of water for her in my other hand.

  “Untie me,” she says once the pills are down. I kneel next to her, the knots resisting when I pull them apart.

  Mei lets out a long sigh when her arms are free, pulling at her bootlaces, though for some reason I don’t think the sigh has anything to do with tight shoes. Once one is off, her fingers massage her bare ankle, then pull off her sock, going after the arch and ball of her foot. She has dainty feet, her toenails painted light pink.

  “Stop looking at my foot. It hurts,” she snaps as she starts unlacing her second boot. “I’m assuming if ‘Sevvy’ is enough to make you abandon your post here, then you aren’t planning just to check in with her. If you try to get her out, is she going to be happy going with you?”

  Taken aback by her straightforwardness, it takes me a while to find words. “Is a few weeks of Mantis really enough for you to abandon your post and help get her out?” I finally ask.

  “Just answer me.” Mei pulls off the boot. “Would she trust you?”

  “Yes.” The lie makes my shoulders go stiff. It might not be a lie. I’d hope that in a secured Menghu facility, Sev would put aside our differences long enough to follow. I just can’t make any promises about what would happen once she was Outside, breathing the air that wedged so much space between us in the first place.

  “Good.” Mei reaches for the cup of water. She downs it then drops it on the floor between us, wiggling her toes out in front of her. “That company of Reds you called in is getting here tonight, right? We’ll leave as they come in.”

  I blink, but refrain from reminding her that I’m the one who is supposed to be in control. “That was what I was thinking.”

  “I’ll meet you down there. You bring the supplies.”

  I sit back, watching as she massages her other foot, her eyes pinched closed. Why isn’t Mei more conflicted about getting Sevvy away from Dr. Yang? It makes all of this seem much dirtier, as if I’m somehow now a part of Mei’s plot instead of Mei being tied to mine.

  Perhaps “dirty” is the wrong word. If Mei is interested in finding the cure—not leaving it in a Menghu-secured base—then what does that mean? I watch her wrinkle and unwrinkle her nose, rubbing her foot.

  Of course, there’s always the possibility Mei will try to kill me before we’re even out of sight of the walls.

  “Is that below you, finding your own pack and supplies?” Mei snaps. “Or am I going to have to sneak through all your stupid guards and pack your clean socks myself, Major Hong?” The return to my title after so pitifully using my name last night grates for some reason.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be my assistant?” I take the cup and stand, rolling the thin plastic between my hands. “I’ll expect you and all my things down at the wall when we open the gates.”

  It’s uncomfortable, watching her hands clench, and for a moment I’m glad there’s nothing within throwing distance. But then her wide mouth closes in a grimace. “Sephs and Reds, that’s the worst joke I’ve ever heard.”

  Jokes are too hard. They leave everyone wondering what is true and what isn’t. I decide not to try it again.

  CHAPTER 24 Tai-ge

  I WAIT AT THE TOP of the stairs on the wall, looking down over the rounded peaks that line the horizon like jewels in a crown. A familiar view that leaves me with a pit at the base of my stomach, not sure when I’ll see it again.

  The soldiers who trudge up the switchbacks and through the gates are too quiet, their eyes jumping from the crackling torches to the empty buildings staring down at them from above. Shouldering my pack and looping the extra one for Mei over my shoulder, I walk through the gate.

  “My assistant and I will be over by the Sanatorium inlets,” I call to the soldiers standing guard on either side of the polished metal and stone. “So please don’t do any reckless shooting in that direction.”

  “We don’t have the bullets, not even for the unreckless kind of shooting, sir,” one answers. The other keeps her eyes straight forward, the two of them accepting my explanation without thought.

  I turn away from them, from the gates, from my home, and walk toward the first switchback, every step on the steep grade jarring. Mei is waiting for me just around the bend. She takes the pack I brought for her and starts down the hill without speaking, somehow able to balance her pack and keep from walk-running down the hill the way I’ve been doing.

  When we first sight trees poking up from the roadside, Mei runs ahead a few steps, pulling something out of her pocket, and in a flash I know she’s checking her link. The one I was supposed to steal before I took care of her.

  Unease blasts open inside me. Is this a trap?

  She only glances at the message written in light on the back of her hand before it’s back in her pocket. But then, instead of continuing down the road, Mei hops the ditch cut into the ground and is out of sight down the mountainside before I can make it to the ditch’s edge.

  I pull the gun from my coat and stand at the edge of the crevasse, my heart pounding.

  Her head appears over the lip at the edge of the road, brow furrowed in annoyance. “Come on, Tai-ge. Or is it too hard to think and walk at the same time?”

  My name. Just by itself. Every time she uses it, it feels different somehow. It was almost a slip the first time, and then a plea. Now it feels as if she’s stripping away all my titles, making me into something infinitely smaller. I do feel smaller Outside.

  Following Mei down the mountainside is about as undignified as I’ve ever been. I’m only comforted by the fact that she is also doing a sad half-slide, half-scramble, grabbing scrubby pine branches for balance. When the ground levels out a bit, Mei weaves between rough-barked trunks, looking up and around as if whatever she’s after might be perched up high in the branches of a hundred-year-old tree—but apparently not these, because she continues on, confidence in every step.

  Even with my senses all on high alert, I don’t see the man waiting for us until Mei is running toward him, practically hopping the last few steps to throw her arms around his neck. He catches her around the middle, bulky pack and all, lifting her off the ground and spinning her around once with a theatrical groan. “Mei, my little infected bug of a friend, look at you infiltrating the City and spying and still coming out in one piece!”

  The gun’s out of my coat again, pointed directly at him even with Mei a barrier between us. The man notices, but dismisses me, taking his time putting Mei down and then throwing an arm over her shoulders before he looks me up and down. His naked face is plastered over with a smile that prickles across me, very similar to my memories of seeing a gore up close for the first time.

  “Didn’t I teach you to disarm Reds before you take a stroll with them, Mei?” He glances over to her, short enough that their eyes are even, though he’s twice as wide.

  The hints of good humor I saw all over Mei’s face befor
e are all suddenly in full bloom, dimples creasing her cheeks like parentheses around her smile. “This is our guy, Kasim.”

  Their guy? I don’t let the gun waver, holding it steady on the City seal embroidered into Kasim’s jerkin, the fabric straining and creasing across his chest and arms the way it wouldn’t if it had been made for him. His collar is absent of stars. “Who is this person?” I demand.

  “She just said my name. Did you not hear…?” Kasim looks from me to Mei with an exaggerated swing. “Did he not hear you? Or is he one of those people who doesn’t listen very well when girls are talking?” He snaps his fingers, pointing his attention back to me. “Maybe all those bombs you dropped on your own people compromised your eardrums.”

  “Mantis for Sevvy, right, Mei?” I have to force my jaw to relax, the muscles threaded through my neck up to my temple aching. “How does he figure into our deal?”

  “This is the only way getting to Jiang Sev works.” Mei’s smile almost hurts now because it seems to be full of sharp teeth. “You want to come, you play by our rules. Starting with giving Kasim your gun.”

  “How am I supposed to believe you’re going to take me to her?” I hold the gun steady, wondering if my soldiers above would hear gunshots and come looking for me. Unlikely.

  “Because I told you I would.” Mei raises an eyebrow. “What’s she worth to you, Tai-ge?”

  What’s Sevvy worth to me? It’s not the girl herself I’m after. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself. Sev made it perfectly clear she’d prefer never to see me again. The cure and the end of the war, however, are worth my life and everything else I’ve put on the line to be out here. Taking a long breath doesn’t slow down my heart ticking the way I want it to. But I lower my weapon an inch, then let it fall by my side, a sick feeling blooming deep in my chest.

  “You do have him tamed. Very nice work.” Kasim’s exaggerated smirk of approval makes me want to hit him. He lets go of Mei and walks toward me, favoring his right leg. His uniform pulls tight over some kind of brace underneath, but that doesn’t stop him plucking the gun from my hand and zipping it into his pack.