Last Star Burning

by Caitlin Sangster

  “A friend from Outside?” Tai-ge’s serious calm cracks a bit. “A sentence I never thought would pass my lips.”

  The line of yellow lights gathers around her, the children from the sanatorium holding hands in a long train with their lights tied to their coats, all masked. One sniffles a little and June stoops to wipe her cheeks with a handkerchief and tuck loose strands of hair behind her ears.

  “Are we safe?” I ask, wondering if we have more time than I think. “The Menghu haven’t found their way down here yet?”

  Peishan’s voice breaks through from the back of the line. “No, we aren’t safe. We only moved because the fight spilled underground yesterday morning. We’ve been peeking out every now and then to grab food and water. They set the hospital down in the Third Quarter on fire. What is going to happen to us now? The walls have been breached; there are Kamari soldiers everywhere—”

  “We’re going to get out of here. Somehow,” I answer. She glares at me but doesn’t argue.

  June speaks again. “Peishan managed to steal some Mantis and a stash of quicklights before the fighting started. We got the masks up there too. All from a bunch of carts headed up the hill, stocked up with all this junk.”

  “Dr. Yang must have started early.” Tai-ge looks at me. “I guess that explains why my father couldn’t get any medicine out of the hospitals.”

  Peishan slumps down on the ground, smiling from behind her mask when June pats her on the shoulder. Purpled circles under her eyes coupled with her bald head make her look sick. Vulnerable. Too young to be scavenging for Mantis in a burning hospital. She and June make a good pair.

  When Peishan catches me looking at her, the smile disappears. “What happened to you? Weren’t you going to take out General Hong’s family or something? You never came back.”

  I ignore her, pulling June and Tai-ge over close so we can talk. However much I want to stop the violence happening over our heads, Tai-ge is right. “So the sewers are blocked down by the Sanatorium?” I ask. “What are the odds of getting out that way?”

  June shakes her head, the darkness around us spilling all over, turning her half machine, half little girl. “Menghu aren’t asking questions, they’re shooting everyone not wearing a Mountain uniform on sight. And there have been bombs down in the Third Quarter, so leadership might be kind of hazy at this point.”

  Tai-ge scrubs a hand through his hair. “SS bombs? Everyone should calm down then. Fall Asleep.”

  “This new strain doesn’t do the same thing to everyone.” I think of Mei, her eyes wide and frightened. She dozed in the hospital, then woke up compulsing. Not like any SS case I’ve ever heard of. And the doctors I overheard down in the Sanatorium seemed to think this strain was capable of moving much faster in the victims. “We might have people compulsing in hours. Maybe less. Picking our way through a whole City of infected isn’t going to happen. And it’s contagious, so no one will be spared.”

  “Then what chance do we have?” Tai-ge’s eyes flick between me and June. “Where is there to go? Infected must be outside the walls too.”

  “What if we go up?” I ask.

  “Up . . . where? Even if we get over the wall at the top of the First Quarter, there’s no way out. It’s just cliffs,” Tai-ge says.

  “Helis are swarming all over the City like starving mosquitoes. They must be still moving in and out of the City heli-field. If we take one . . .”

  June rolls her eyes. “Full marks for thinking big, Sev, but I don’t know how to fly those things and neither do you.”

  Tai-ge smiles, the first inklings of the boy I grew up with showing through his iron mask. “That, my Outsider friend, is where I come in handy.”

  CHAPTER 46

  THE OLD CITY IS A black maze, my limited experience combined with June’s hours down here the only thing our group has to go on. We know how to get back to the fight, but none of us knows how to get up to the Steppe without leaving the tunnels. The roar from the Third Quarter screams louder and louder each time we stick our heads out into open air.

  After another unsuccessful check aboveground, June touches my arm. “Wait until night. Compulsions might have already started, but after dark the soldiers won’t be able to see us. If we can stay ahead of them, we should be okay.”

  Tai-ge looks at her, glimmers of respect behind his expression. “She’s right.” Running his fingers along the metal of the ladder, he shrugs. “And if the infected start compulsing, maybe soldiers will be too distracted to pay attention to us.”

  The thought of waiting makes my skin crawl, memories of Cas, Parhat, and Mei too close to forget. “We have to go now. You don’t understand, Tai-ge.”

  June shakes her head. “But I do. We can at least back up against a wall down here and keep watch. We can hide. Infected can’t follow compulsions to hurt us if they can’t see us.”

  I meet her eyes, stale memories shady on her face. The pressure of being trapped pushes in on me from all sides. But there is nowhere safe. So I nod.

  • • •

  We stay underground until darkness falls completely, the sky a purpled bruise fed by smoke from the burning factories. Even in the shadows, I feel as though our every move is being watched, as if soldiers are waiting to drag us onto the bloody cobblestones only a few streets away. We make our way up the Steppe until homes loom over our heads like fairy-tale castles, a First family name spelled out over each door.

  Silence dampens everything up this far, everyone from this part of the City either fighting or evacuated or dead. Of all the homes we could hide in, there’s only one with a clear view of the heli-field: the house of the god. Of all the mansions we could break into, at least we can be sure the Chairman was one of the first to be flown out. Or killed.

  The battle going on seems miles away, a whole world apart from the quiet glamour of the Chairman’s home. His is the last in a long line of colossal homes that perch on the cliff that ends the Steppe. Tai-ge stares out through the window that overlooks the heli-field, nose almost pressed against the bubbled glass.

  It feels odd to be back here, where it all started. I have to stop myself from trudging down into the basement to sit on that wine cellar floor. To remember the bottles, Howl’s desperate bear hug to keep the shattered glass from my mouth, the comforting words that everything was going to be all right. He didn’t know that it was impossible. That even the elaborate dance he choreographed to get me to the Mountain as a sacrificial lamb wasn’t going to be enough payment to resume his old life. Fooled by Dr. Yang, just like the rest of us. It almost makes me feel sorry for him.

  Almost.

  On the main floor, a set of three windows stand two stories tall, looking down on the thousand-foot drop of bare rock. June is busy ransacking the house, filling bag after bag with food from the cellar. Other things too, like paper and pens, knives, batteries.

  “For bartering,” she says when I give a questioning look to the matched set of knives she is wrapping in paper. “There must be someone out there who wants them.”

  She loads everything into my pack, eyeing the book Howl gave me with interest before throwing six cans of peaches on top of it.

  The minutes tick by, and we all watch Tai-ge play lookout, waiting for a heli to land. Waiting for the chaos that must be boiling down in the Third Quarter to bubble up and spill into our laps. Helis buzz in and out, the huge balloons of gas fluttering over propellers, pounding the grass circle with torrents of air.

  Peishan sits on the other end of the window, looking out over the rest of the City. Her fingers tap against the glass with pent-up energy. The roiling black cloud down by the factories drifts up toward us, the old brick-and-timber buildings bright spots of flame in the early morning air. A black mass bulges out from the smoke, hordes of people running to and fro like rats swarming on a trash heap. Every second, the flames push the crowds closer and closer to the streets that lead up toward the Steppe.

  I can’t watch anymore. I can’t think about the shots
being fired, the families dying in their beds because I didn’t move quickly enough, because I couldn’t stop Dr. Yang, convince General Hong to end the violence . . . and that I am up here, cured, while infection spreads through the riots going on down there. I can’t think about what will happen to us when the crowds find us, Menghu and City alike calling for our blood. So instead of envisioning the rioting crowd breaking over us in a wave of violence, I look down. The height tingles through me, my imagination replacing all the real danger with the cliff just on the other side of the window. What it would feel like to fall, air rushing by, catching my lungs in a gasp . . . I can face this fear.

  Tai-ge gives a shout, pointing at a newly landed heli, red-clad airmen rushing to connect a fat tube into its belly. “That’s our ride,” Tai-ge yells. “Everyone get ready to run.”

  Men scurry back and forth under the huge machine, ducking their heads under the twin propellers and hosing down the glass deck, the great circle window an eye that watches us. I can only hope the pilots are less observant. I step up to join Tai-ge at the window.

  “I’ve only been working with the Watch for a few months, and they don’t do training on models with passenger room,” he whispers. “But it’s the only one big enough for all of us.”

  Everyone shoulders at least one bag, even the littlest girl, who can’t be more than five, walking lopsided under her load. Eight little kids, all with gas masks strapped tight over their faces to keep SS far away. Tai-ge pulls one of the masks over his chin, then hands one to me.

  “I don’t need this, remember?” I ask.

  He wordlessly points to my birthmark. We can’t hope to take the heli by force. That leaves the chance that they’ll recognize Tai-ge, but not the rest of us. Not me. I pull the straps over my hair, feeling the rubber pull out a few strands as it settles across my nose and mouth like a muzzle.

  The street outside is bare, but June pulls up sharp as we step onto the cobblestones. “There, there, and there.” She points. I squint over at the buildings where she is pointing, but nothing special jumps out at me. Tai-ge jerks his head in a nod as he unholsters his gun, whispering, “Run. I’ll cover you.”

  She collects her charges around her like a mother hen gathering her chicks, checking each set of small hands to make sure they have something to throw. They jog down the street with Peishan in the lead and June bringing up the rear, then take a sharp turn toward the heli-field. A figure breaks from the early morning shadows, sprinting after them. June shoots him down without a blink.

  A chill runs through me, the man’s body lying twisted in the street not twenty feet away. Two more figures spring away from the building across the street, headed straight toward us. Tai-ge aims for feet and legs, bringing both down before we take off after June.

  A bullet sings by my ear, burying itself in the cobblestones a few feet in front of us, Tai-ge dragging me along as I try to see where the assault is coming from. Two more bullets find the walls behind us before we can duck into a doorway.

  “Seconds? Protecting the airfield?” I pant, dumping some of the cans weighing me down. “Or Menghu?”

  “Either way, someone doesn’t want us out here.” He peers around the doorway, jumping back when a shot rings out, exploding in a spray of pebbles.

  “I think June and the others are okay. They’re already around the corner.” It seems like such a small distance. Only another fifty yards. Fifty yards that might as well be fifty miles as far as the snipers covering the airfield are concerned. I peek back out, expecting another shot, but instead there’s a man in the street. Walking toward us.

  “We’ve got to go, Tai-ge. Can we make a run for the heli?”

  Tai-ge nods, and we burst out of our hiding place, running from doorway to doorway. But no fire comes. Not a single bullet. When we get to the end of the street, I glance back again. The man is following us, only a dozen or so yards behind.

  I miss a step. It’s Howl.

  “Holy Yuan! Move it!” I yell, wrenching Tai-ge around the corner and leading him in a full sprint down the middle of the street. As Howl breaks around the corner, Tai-ge pulls me through a doorway into an open hangar, the large door open on the grassy field where the heli’s twin propellers beat at the air.

  June waits by the far wall, arms outstretched over the cluster of children. I can hear Howl yelling from outside, still in hot pursuit. Slapping my hands over my ears, I run across the open space. Tai-ge is right beside me, both of us almost crashing into the wall, unable to stop our sprint. June’s gun is out, but she’s confused as she points it back toward the door. Toward Howl.

  Two men come barreling in after him, gas masks secure over their Menghu jackets, so I don’t recognize them. Howl’s hands are empty, and his run is an off-center lope, like the wounded gore that charged me Outside. He’s still yelling, but I can’t hear, the reality that June and Tai-ge are about to shoot blocking everything else out.

  I reach for Tai-ge’s arm, grasping to pull the gun’s ugly nose away from its target.

  But it’s too late.

  Five blasts lash out from either side of me, the crack of the bullets ripping through me as if I’m the one in front of the gun instead of Howl. Tears squeeze out from my closed eyes, but I can’t look, horror freezing me to the cement floor. Wishing inside that it really was a misunderstanding. That Howl really did love me, that he came for me just like Tai-ge did. But it isn’t true, and the young man lying on the ground in the middle of the hangar can’t say anything to change that.

  Even with all the justification coursing through my brain, I take a step toward him. Howl couldn’t be the unmoving mass lying on the floor, just a bundle of clothing, an empty shell. My friend. My . . . something else. Something more. Every fleck of blood I have cleaned up over the years in the orphanage, every bone I set flashes through my mind like some sick catalog of experiences I wish I could erase. None of those fixes look anything like the holes blasted through Howl’s coat.

  But then his head jerks to one side, shoulder twitching up toward his neck.

  Someone grabs my hand before I can go any closer, dragging me out into the open field. Tai-ge’s yell to the Reds refueling the heli is lost in the deafening racket of propellers. Two men look up from underneath the great white craft, immediately heading toward us with guns out. But when Tai-ge pulls his mask down, they slow. Lowering the guns, the man closest to us gestures for Tai-ge to follow.

  June keeps a hand on her hood, posted at the bottom of the ladder to help the kids find their feet on the way up. Peishan stands at the top, pulling each one up and setting them down on the floor. The two Reds watch us warily, glancing from Tai-ge to the sorry train of shaved children as though they are starting to realize that even Hong Tai-ge shouldn’t be allowed to cart along such a ragtag entourage.

  As June puts both hands to the ladder to follow the last child up, the wind from the propellers tears her hood back, curls whipping around her face in a golden tempest. The Reds start back, guns trained on her obviously foreign figure. I jump between her and the metal barrels. Tai-ge is at my side, barring their way to her.

  One of the soldiers darts forward, and I crash into him, pulling the gun down. Time slows as I wait for the other to shoot. Pins and needles dance across my skin, every nerve prickling as I steel myself for the bullet.

  But nothing comes. Instead of a shot, the ground starts to grumble underneath me, the deep throb of hundreds of feet pounding against the dirt reverberating up through my bones. The Red underneath me pushes me off, scrambling for the ladder leading up to the heli as men and women pour out across the field toward us. A blast of fire arcs up over the hangar, greedy fingers tearing into the wood and metal supports, huge columns of smoke making an X across the sky.

  Struggling up from the ground, I look up in time to see June kick the Red trying to climb the ladder in the face, her eyes darting across the sea of people sprinting toward the heli, panic pinching at her mouth. “Get up here now!”

  I rush
to comply, Tai-ge at my side, but we’re only at the bottom rung of the ladder when the crest of the wave breaks over us, terrified screams mixed with the roar of soldiers setting about their horrific work. Shots zing past as Tai-ge wraps his arms around me and presses me face-first into the ladder, trying to block the deluge. June scampers up to the heli’s hatch, shoving children in ahead of her. Once inside, she peeks down at us, her hand twitching toward the door control.

  A man howls, his hands grasping around Tai-ge’s protective hug to scratch at my neck and shoulders, but before the Seph can do more than gnash his teeth, he falls under a blow to the head. People are pushing up against us, the metal grid of the ladder pressing painfully into my chest and ribs, and between Tai-ge trying to protect me from the violent crowd and the ladder, I can’t unpin myself to climb.

  Tai-ge shoves back against the press of swinging arms and weapons, giving me an opening to wrench myself back from being pinned against the ladder and climb. The crowd slams back up against him by the time I’m free, so now it’s his chest crushed up against the metal rungs, but I hold a hand down to him, helping to pull him up from the mess.

  Up. Away from the rioting mass of humanity and violence, but they never seem to get any farther away, men and women crowding up after us, throwing one another off the ladder and snaking up to catch at Tai-ge’s boots.

  June’s hands reach out to grasp mine, her nails digging into my skin and the hatch’s metal lip biting into my stomach as she pulls me through. By the time I turn to help Tai-ge, rioters from the ground are trying to climb over him into the heli, and all I can see of him are his white-knuckled fingers barely attached to the ladder.

  Together, June and I grab his wrists, dragging him the last few feet, pruning the frothing mass with our feet. When the door swishes shut, several arms and legs catch between the door and the wall, flailing until I can push them out of the heli to let the door whisk closed.