Dead Moon Rising

by Caitlin Sangster

  Sole’s steps slow a degree, and she blinks, one, two, three times. I’d forgotten about her twitches and stares, as if she’s stuck in a loop of reactions and can’t quite get out. But they seem muted, more under control than before. “What do you mean, you need my help?”

  I bite my lip, still not sure how to say any of what happened. The resigned look in Howl’s eyes. The way he told me to go. “I need to get him out of there. And then to get to the City.”

  “The City? Why? Everything except the City Center and a few core blocks have been completely taken over by infected. And what isn’t infected is being controlled by General Hong.”

  My jaw clenches. “How do you know all that?”

  Sole sighs. “I may be only a field medic, but I knew if we were going to stay safe down here, I’d have to be able to keep an eye on what’s happening.”

  I laugh a little, because I’d honestly expected to find nothing but Sole trying to force-feed people Mantis as they tried to bite her fingers off down here. “You’ve helped so many people.” We pass a family, two little kids running back and forth in what looks like a semiviolent game of tag. “I never could have imagined this place. It’s… safe.”

  Sole stops at another air-locked door, accepting a mask from the guards and putting it on before taking me through into a stretch of hallway laced with plastic on all sides and another air-locked door at the end. “I’ve had lots of help.” She nods to the guards who give her a stiff salute as they let us through the air lock to the other side. “Not everyone likes what Dr. Yang is doing, and so they came here.” She looks back at me, tracing the line of my skull with her eyes. “Now that you’re here, maybe there’s hope that it’ll last longer than our Mantis stores.”

  I shudder. “I didn’t come here so you could cut me open, Sole.”

  Something in her expression hardens, a decision calcifying there in her eyes. I can’t blame her for it, but I don’t like it. She squares her shoulders as best she can. “We can talk about this in a minute. You need to see some people first. They’ve been looking for you.”

  “Who…?” But then I shake my head. “I don’t have time to see any people. If you can get me to the City, then we’ll be able to—”

  “No. You need to come see.”

  A thread of surprise begins to unravel the calm sewn so tightly across my face. Sole isn’t the same as when I left her, even if there are blinks and twitches and her fingers clenching oddly at her side. She interrupted me. She’s leading me. She doesn’t care that I said no.

  I suppose war changes people in more than one way. Sole being in charge down here doesn’t seem like a bad thing. That was our plan, Howl’s and mine. Back when we had a heli, a hastily drawn truce between us, and hope that there was more than a ten percent chance of success. We were going to bring the cure back to Sole, because she’d give it to everyone.

  Seems like this Sole would stick in the needle without asking first.

  We walk down the dim hallway then up some stairs and come out in a brightly lit corridor, all the doors flung open with voices chattering between them. A child runs out in front of us, stopping to wave at Sole before ducking into one of the rooms. Sole waves back, leading me to the last door. Inside, there are two beds crammed up against opposite walls, barely enough room to slide sideways between them. Peishan, my old roommate from the orphanage, sits on one bed, two of the kids I left at the Post fighting for a spot on her lap. Lihua is lying on the other bed squinting at the pages of a book, mouthing the syllables as she reads.

  Lihua sees us first, throwing the book down to run at me. “Jiang Sev!” She slams into me so hard my ribs ache as she wraps her arms tight around my middle. I kneel, joy and relief and confusion all flooding my brain. How are Lihua and Peishan here, and where are the rest of the Sanatorium kids I left at the Post?

  “You’re safe!” I pull her back to look at her, then hug her close again, her still-short hair prickling through my shirt. “I was so worried about you and the others.…”

  She pulls away against my arms, wrinkling her nose. “You smell funny.”

  “I haven’t washed behind my ears in a few weeks.”

  Lihua’s mouth drops open. “That’s gross, Jiang Sev.”

  “Sev?” Peishan stands, her voice almost a croak. I stand, wondering what she’s decided about me now. She said a lot of things between me finding her in the Sanatorium and leaving her with the kids at the Post. She told me that I was a killer, a bomber, a traitor. That I’d earned every inch of my star brand. For her, all of the nights we stayed up talking about Tai-ge or the factory or the nuns weren’t worth remembering anymore.

  Peishan lurches toward me, and I flinch back, wondering if she’d hit me in front of the kids, but instead she throws her arms around my shoulders. Wet leaks through my shirt where her cheek is pressed against me, tears burning into my skin. “They came. The Reds. I thought they must have gotten you and Tai-ge and June.…”

  “We got out okay. We are all…” But I can’t say “safe,” because June’s Asleep somewhere and Tai-ge never was safe in the first place.

  “Wait.” She pulls back, concentrating on wiping her cheeks rather than looking at me. “You knew the Reds were coming? And you left us there?”

  Sole looks at me, the disappointment in her eyes clearly saying that she believes this was all Howl’s doing. I bristle at the thought, but keep my voice to myself. Because Peishan is sort of right.

  I did leave them.

  CHAPTER 48 Sev

  MY STOMACH SINKS AS PEISHAN glowers at me, a new layer of betrayal adding to the ones she already believes are mine. Everything went wrong for Peishan about the same time I disappeared. She got sent to the Sanatorium only days before I escaped the City, had a death date affixed to her name. I may have gotten her out before they could kill her, but I carried contagious SS and a Menghu invasion with me. She’s seen death, and I was the one who brought it all.

  I push back the angry retorts that spring to my mouth. About saving her from Red sharpshooters and First medic students. From the City that would have left her to be shot in the street when the Menghu came, and if the Menghu hadn’t killed her, SS probably would have by now. That I spent the last four weeks stuck inside my own head so she and the others could have access to the cure. But I can’t, not with Lihua and the other kids listening.

  Instead, I change the subject. “What happened? How are you here?”

  “Cai Ayi brought us. The Reds set fire to the trees, but she got us down. Wasn’t happy when she found out about contagious SS.” Peishan shrugs. “We heard about a safe haven taking survivors and came this way.”

  I turn to Sole. “You’re taking people in? Even infected? This isn’t just Menghu who aren’t happy about having to share their roast duck with Chairman Sun?”

  “The closest thing we have to ducks is chickens, and we can’t eat them. We need their eggs.” Sole’s face cracks in what I think is supposed to be a smile, but it looks sort of like a grinning skull attempting to amuse a baby. “We have some Mantis. And now we have… you.”

  My jaw tightens at that, but I press on. “Are the others here? Cai Ayi and the rest of the kids?”

  “Cai Ayi is.” Peishan’s quiet voice is an accusation. Lihua stares up at me with wide eyes.

  I nod. And then I nod again, as if somehow one shaky acknowledgment that these four might be all that is left of the kids Tai-ge, June, and I saved from the invasion wasn’t enough. I stand, suddenly not able to stand being in the room, consequences not just of my actions but of the world and how far it’s fallen too heavy to bear. “I’m glad you’re safe. I… I need to talk with Sole now.”

  “Where are you going?” Lihua’s eyes go wide, and she looks nervously toward Peishan. “You’re not going away again, are you?”

  “I’m… not…” There isn’t a good answer because I don’t want to leave her again, but getting Howl out of his cell and getting the cure means I can’t stay here for long. Maybe not even ho
urs.

  Sole steps forward, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll help Sev find you all in the cafeteria at dinner.”

  Dinner in a cafeteria. So normal and yet so different from anything that’s happened in the last few months. I hug Lihua one last time. “I’ll sit by you.”

  Lihua smiles and pushes away from me. “Only if you take a bath.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  * * *

  Outside the room, Sole leads me quickly down the hall, touching each doorway as we pass. “That little girl needs you,” she says.

  “Alive or with my head split open?” My breaths start catching in my throat as I try to keep up with her, my muscles and lungs and even bones feeling as if they’re disconnected and soft. “There’s a cure, Sole.”

  Sole stops dead in the hall, facing me down. “Spending time with Howl has made you less honest. We both know you didn’t find anything at Port North. Can’t you see how dire the situation is? We need to do something.” Sole’s hand finds my arm, her fingernails biting into my skin.

  “Yes. You have to help me get to the City. Where my mother hid the cure.”

  She shakes her head. “It’s you or them. Those kids, your friends, all of the people down here are going to die if I don’t figure out how to help them. I don’t want to force you into anything.… I tried to force Howl, and that didn’t work.…” Her back hits the wall, and she sinks to the floor, dragging me with her. Her eyelids start to flutter, every breath beginning to gasp. “They’re all… they’re all counting on me.” She looks at me. “Me, Sev. I can’t be trusted to be in charge of anything. How did this happen?”

  I look up and down the hall, trying to pull my wrist free, but her grip is like a manacle, iron tight. “You’re taking care of people, Sole. It’s safe here. You found food and Mantis, and you’re actually sharing—”

  Sole lets her head thunk back against the cement that cuts me off. “We’re trapped down here. And people keep coming, and everyone is looking to me for answers.” A laugh bubbles out of her, cold and hard, and suddenly I’m worried she’s going to take a bite out of my arm. “Look at me, Sev! I can’t do this. Don’t they know that I’m a killer?”

  “If you were a killer, then you’d be the only one down here, Sole.” I extract my arm, rubbing at the marks her fingers made. “Last I checked, killers don’t keep an open cafeteria, even if you don’t let anyone eat the chickens.”

  She pulls something from her pocket, clasping hard so an orange light flashes across the back of her hand. A link. “Now even he thinks he’ll be able to come here. That somehow everything is going to be all right.”

  “Sole, I’m not following anything you’re saying.” I crouch next to her, not sure how to help. Sole has never struck me as the most stable person, but why is she breaking in front of me?

  Maybe she doesn’t have anyone to break in front of. Howl’s gone. The two of them didn’t have anyone else.

  “I told him to stop talking to me, but he keeps writing and writing and writing, not even pretending to be Howl anymore, asking me questions about… everything, about the Mountain and the food I eat and whether I have a partner or a roommate and whether I’m happy!” She throws the link on the ground, sending it skittering across the cement. My brain twists, attempting to figure out what she’s talking about, until I remember the island. Howl and me in the cell at Port North, bent over Howl’s link to send Sole Mother’s notes. The link that disappeared after we slept in Howl’s brother’s room.

  Sole did have one other person who was taken away along with her family: Luokai. Luokai took the link when he heard it was connected to Sole because the two of them used to be a thing.

  Luokai has June. I carefully pick up the link from the floor, hoping the way Sole threw it didn’t do any damage. Luokai will know whether June is awake. Whether she’s alive.

  Sole’s still talking, her hands twisted up in her hair. “Now he’s asking about Howl and the Chairman’s son.…”

  I look up from the link, only seconds from squeezing it, tearing through it message by message for news of June, but I pause. Luokai’s asking after Sun Yi-lai?

  “That’s who those bombers wanted too. The ones Howl brought here.”

  Bombers? Howl did say… I gasp in surprise as something vibrates against my skin just under my ribs, like a bug caught in my clothes. It’s the link, taped to my side. I pull the strip of tape free with a painful yank, then squeeze it in my fist to find a message waiting for me. I told you to contact me within two days. You are out of time.

  I look at Sole, her hair still in knots around her fingers. “Is Sun Yi-lai here?”

  “How would I know that?” She peers at me through her hair.

  “The cure is in the City under the floorboards of my old house. I have a plan to get it that will go much more smoothly if we can find him.” A horrible, undeveloped plan that comes out even more fragmented and ridiculous than it sounded in my head. “The Chairman thinks his son is here, and if he’s right and we get our hands on him, then we might be able to leverage a heli flight into the City. Maybe more help than that, even.”

  Sole shakes her head. “How could any of us trust Chairman Sun? Even if that man hadn’t spent the last decade trying to kill off everyone Outside, how would you even talk to him?” She puts her head in her hands. “And you need to drop all of this gore scat about the cure. If it existed, especially if it was magically under the floorboards of your house, don’t you think Dr. Yang would have found it?”

  “I know it’s there.” I look down at the link, typing out a quick message to the Chairman. Just arrived. Negotiating help.

  It buzzes almost immediately. You have two weeks to produce my son.

  Howl? I send back.

  Sole is looking sideways at the link, her forehead crinkled, and I’m not sure if she knows it’s different from the one she threw on the ground. It buzzes again before I can pocket it. They’ve announced Howl’s sentence, the message reads. Execution, as we both knew it would be. Yang is trying to draw you out.

  I put a hand out to steady myself against the wall, my knees suddenly made from water, my spine from broken ice.

  “What did he say?” Sole asks, craning her neck to get a look at the message, her eyebrows coming down when she sees it’s not from Luokai. “Who are you talking to?”

  When? I type before answering, taking my time with the characters as I try to think. “We have to figure out where Sun Yi-lai could have been kept if he was here. He must be Asleep the way Mother was, so he’d be somewhere Dr. Yang could have stashed life support. Food and water automatically feeding into him…”

  “Are you telling me that the Chairman knows you’re here? That is the Chairman? Talking to you?” She jumps up from the floor, her eyelid twitching. “You’re just as bad as Howl. You’re going to get us all killed.”

  “He didn’t give me a choice, Sole. And he already knew you were down here.” I hold up the link, the feeling of needing to do something like static electricity dancing through all my muscles. “We can use this to our advantage. Where would Dr. Yang have been able to keep Sun Yi-lai?”

  Sole shakes her head, agitated and walking the width of the hall, back and forth over and over again. “It doesn’t matter much now. If anything broke or jammed or ran out, he’d be dead. Dr. Yang’s been gone for more than two months.”

  Ice settles in my stomach. We’ll have to hope that isn’t the case, because somehow I don’t think the Chairman will accept expired goods. “We can start looking once I’ve gone back to the garrison. Kasim’s still undercover there, right?”

  “You can’t go to the garrison.”

  “They’re going to kill Howl.”

  “Sev.” Sole stops her frantic pacing in one movement, as if I skipped a few seconds of time so one moment she was walking and the next her fingers are once again around my wrist, her blue, blue eyes too close to my face. “The cure is not just sitting in a box somewhere, and there is no way for u
s to break Howl out.” She leans forward so all I can see are her blue eyes. “Are you listening to me? You are the only hope we have to make the cure, Sev. Howl doesn’t deserve our help anyway.” She chokes on the words, letting go of me to cover her mouth.

  “What in Yuan’s bloody name is that supposed to mean?”

  “You know.” A tear wells at the corner of her eye, then streaks down her cheek like a needle against her flesh. “Howl only cares about himself. We can’t risk the limited resources we have on… someone like that. We can’t risk losing you.”

  I stand up so fast she reels back, her hands clenching into fists. “He gave himself up to get me out. He was going to let Tai-ge take me and sit in Dr. Yang’s cells all by himself, just because he thought it might give you and everyone else trying to survive out here a chance. Where does that fit into your story about Howl?”

  Sole bites her lip, silence hanging heavy between us.

  “If anyone deserves our help, it’s Howl.” I can’t let it go—Howl’s story, the way his voice cracked as he told it. “He trusts you. He loves you. And you told him the only thing he was good for was brain matter. That he was too broken to save. When he got to me, he just gave up because he doesn’t believe he’s worth the air he breathes anymore.”

  Sole’s eyes fall, her hands knotting together. “I’ve known him a lot longer than you, Sev.”

  What she’s saying sets a new wave of fury loose inside me. “I’ve known him a lot more recently than you. Look at yourself, Sole.” I grab her hands, pushing them up so they’re right in front of her face. “Are you still a killer? Or are you saving people every day?”

  The link buzzes, so I let her hands drop, my fingers clasping hard around the gadget, desperate for anything that will help. The message isn’t that. All it says is, Two weeks. After that, we’ll come for all of you down there.