Mei pulls open my jacket, takes the knife Captain Bai gave to me, and tucks it into her coat pocket. All I can think is that Captain Bai meant for it to be stuck in people like her, and shame wouldn’t be enough to describe how he’d feel about a Menghu carrying it.
Kasim gestures up toward the road. “I was tailing the unit that just walked into the City. We should have a clear path down. It’ll take us a bit to get to Dr. Yang’s setup, and I was only supposed to be on a routine three-day patrol. We’ll have to walk fast if we don’t want Menghu to shoot us before we even get close.” He turns back to me and winks. “Should be fun. Shall we?”
* * *
When we set our camp the first night, Kasim doesn’t bother with a tent, pulling a hammock from his pack and stringing it high between two trees. He jokes with Mei, the two of them laughing together as he helps set hers just below it. It’s very natural, as if all I’ve seen of Mei is a skeleton’s view of who she is, but now that she has someone to talk to, she’s turned back to flesh and blood. I guess my question about who she imagined talking to last night to make herself feel better has an answer. Maybe just one of many.
Mei has a life. Friends. I only saw her when she was being a spy and sleeping in an enemy’s room. My thoughts scrunch over that, trying to look at it from more angles. She already seemed to know what was going on in the City, if not the particulars. Was happy to leave the moment the opportunity presented itself. Why did she go through the trouble of setting herself up in my room in the first place?
I pull my own hammock out, then look up at theirs swinging merrily above me. Do I set up underneath? In another tree entirely?
I’ve never tied a hammock in a tree before.
Kasim appears beside me, pulling the hammock out of my hands. “Were you going to think it up into the tree, or do you just not like asking for help?”
“I’ll show him how to do it. Tai-ge’s probably scared of heights.” Mei hops up and grabs hold of the slippery fabric, but I pull it back and walk toward the same trees where Kasim set up their two hammocks. She glances over at Kasim before following me, standing at the base of the tree as I start to climb.
“You sure you know how to do that?” she calls up. “Won’t do us much good if a gore comes along and bites you right out of the tree.”
Gnawing on my lip, I gauge the distance from the ground and pull myself up a few more feet, teetering sideways as I try to hold on to the branches and the hammock both at once. Pulling out the webbing meant to tether the hammock to the tree, I loop it around the trunk and start the knot. “So, what’s all this about, Mei? A few hours ago, I was the person you hated most in the universe, and now I’m suddenly ‘your guy’?”
When she doesn’t answer, I look down from the webbing only to find her climbing up the tree opposite where the other side of her hammock is tethered. Once she’s up high enough, she holds out her hands for the webbing that needs to go on that side. “Throw it over, Tai-ge.”
“Tell me what’s going on.”
“I’m helping you set up a hammock.” She snaps her fingers impatiently. “Throw. Webbing. Now.”
I look down at Kasim, far enough away that I’m not sure he can hear us. “He’s infected too, Mei.”
Mei’s hands drop, her mouth one hard line. “Excuse me? You think Menghu have extra germs when it comes to SS and you’ll die just from sitting within breathing distance?” She snaps off the end of a branch and chucks it in my direction. I have to duck so it doesn’t nick the bottom tubes of my mask. “You were born with that thing on, weren’t you? The metal just grew right out of your face while you were still inside General Hong.”
“I doesn’t matter to me that either of you are infected.” I toss the webbing to her, perhaps a little more gratified than I should be that she has to dart forward to catch it, making her branch shake. “If he’s been patrolling out here by himself, he must have Mantis, right, Mei?”
She turns to set the webbing, then snaps her fingers again, waiting for me to toss the hammock’s anchor line so she can link it to the webbing with a carabiner. Once it’s set, she scurries down the tree, fast enough it almost looks like she’s falling. When I get to the ground, she’s already in Kasim’s pack, extracting a firestarter. Kasim’s nowhere to be seen.
There are bottles inside the open pocket, siblings to the single one I brought for Mei. Kasim has enough medicine for both of them. “You agreed to take me to Sevvy with the understanding that I give you Mantis.” I point to the Mantis bottles. “And you called Kasim here instead. Why didn’t you have him shoot me?” I rub a hand across my hair when she doesn’t look up. It’s too long, spiking up and tangling as I try to pull my fingers through it. “If this is an attempted hostage situation…”
Kasim reappears from the trees, brushing his hands across his pants to dislodge bits of bark and dirt, a smile creasing dimples up his cheeks. “Who would pay ransom for you?”
Mei gives him a halfhearted push before turning back to me. “We’re doing what I said we would. We’re going to get Jiang Sev.”
“Why?” I ask. Unfortunately, there’s more truth to what Kasim says than I’d like to admit. Mother might be distressed at pictures of me with a knife to my throat, but I know exactly what she’d be willing to give up to get me back: nothing. Perhaps not even a tear.
Mei puts her hands up in mock surrender. “If you don’t want to come, then walk yourself back up there.” She points up the hill toward the paddies and the City above them, then turns away from me, kicking at the icy dirt to clear it of decaying bits of leaves and pine needles for a fire.
The two Menghu fall into a pattern that speaks of being long accustomed to each other. Kasim pulls out bowls, extracts water purifiers from my pack without asking, then sets off into the forest toward the Aihu River’s roar. Mei’s fire begins to spark, the flames casting an orange glow across her face as she assembles a cooking tripod.
I lower myself onto a fallen log, keeping an eye on Kasim until he disappears into the trees. Mei watches until he’s out of sight, then looks at me. “I need your link, Tai-ge.”
Sticking a hand into my pocket, I have to wonder if she can read minds, because I was thinking of what I should tell Mother. Maybe it’s just another demonstration of me failing to keep my thoughts from scrolling right across my face. “Am I going to need it to call for help?”
Mei stirs the pot in slow circles, and when she looks up at me, her eyes are hard. “We can’t afford Red attention, so I need you to give it to me. If Kasim knew you had it, he would have just taken it and used it. At least I’m asking nicely. Much as I’d like to drench you in blood and leave you for the gores, you won’t be able to help us if you’re dead. I’ll keep you safe.”
She holds my gaze without blinking, and after a moment I nod. It’s a bloody mouthful of a promise, but I believe her. If there’s a chance, no matter how slim, this could end with the cure in my pocket, I’m willing to go a little farther. So I throw the link down on a rock half submerged in old snow and crush it under my boot. For all that she’s suggesting she won’t use it to send messages to my mother, I’m not taking any chances.
CHAPTER 25 Tai-ge
WE HEAD SOUTH FOR A few days, moving quickly. My legs ache, blisters cropping up in the most inconvenient places possible, making every step feel like this is the worst mistake I could have made.
I hear Mei and Kasim whisper at night. Not enough to understand. About Mantis supplies and Menghu patrols and staying under them. Hanging back from the firelight after relieving myself in the trees, I catch Kasim with a link message glowing against his hand, Mei scoffing about how likely it would be that they’d ever see lab results.
“Wait. What lab results? What are they telling you?” I step into the firelight. Kasim’s mouth shuts tight and slips the link into his pocket, but Mei keeps her eyes on me.
“Is it Sevvy? Is she… cooperating? Or are they…” I can’t help but swallow the words down. Mother told me they were doing so
mething to get her to help. “Please tell me. She’s my friend.”
“I have such a hard time swallowing that.” Kasim’s smile quirks. “Sev was too cool to hang out with someone whose collar is buttoned so tight.” He shrugs. “I guess brainwashing goes deep in the City. Glad she got out to experience real people.”
Mei snorts. “Didn’t you hear who she was with on the island?”
Rolling his eyes, Kasim gives Mei’s shoulder a push. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’ve met her?” I ask, forcing my fists to relax at my sides. “Do you think she’s cool enough for your leader to torture her until she gives up whatever it is she’s holding back about the cure?”
Mei puts a hand out to stop Kasim responding. “No one’s torturing anyone, so far as we know. Dr. Yang isn’t doing anything with Sev. That’s why we’re out here.” She gestures at the forest around us. “He keeps promising a cure but isn’t doing anything to get one. We’re all stuck doing whatever he says, just hoping he’ll come through.”
I lick my lips, shivering in the cold. That sounds exactly like something Sevvy said would happen whether Dr. Yang had the cure or not. “That doesn’t make sense. If he wants to finish this whole… bonding the City and Mountain together nonsense, he’ll need the cure to persuade the Firsts and Seconds to go along with it. And what do you mean, Dr. Yang not torturing Sev is why we’re out here?”
Kasim clears his throat. “Who has who trained here, Mei?” She shoots him a dirty look, but it’s the end of the conversation.
Is it possible the two Menghu in these mountains who aren’t aligned with Dr. Yang managed to find me and get me outside the City? Are there more? Sevvy told me Menghu believed it was her brain that could cure us, and Mei as good as confirmed it when we were still in the City. Which explains why Menghu came straight for us when I radioed for help back at the island. They dragged Sev away without so much as a discussion about which prisoner should go where.
Mei asked me how close I was to her. She jumped at the idea of having help to break her out. If Mei believes the cure is locked away in Sev’s brain and that Dr. Yang isn’t trying very hard to get it, then perhaps there was never much to puzzle out about this trek through the woods in the first place.
What if Mei showing up in my room was always meant to end this way?
Kasim appeared long before he should have been able to, considering the short space between the time I decided to leave and the time we actually left. Maybe I presented Mei with a way to make it seem like it was my idea instead of taking me from my post by force. The realization sits like a stone in my stomach.
Mei turns to look at me as I head toward the tree holding my hammock, but I don’t acknowledge her, relishing the feel of cold in my mouth and throat, the rough bark against my hands as I climb.
The cure was in that device. Why is Dr. Yang still telling everyone that Sevvy is the key?
The only option that comes to mind reinforces what I’ve thought this whole time: Sevvy must understand something about that device that no one else does, and, like Dr. Yang told my mother, she’s not cooperating, leaving him with some unfulfilled promises and a sickness he engineered running rampant.
He must be desperate.
The thought makes a heady trill of success run through me. But only for a moment. It doesn’t change where I’m sitting: swinging in a tree above two Menghu who intend to use me to get their hands on Sevvy. They’ll take her, and with it the cure and every chance my mother has of saving what’s left of the City.
Would Mei do that? The chatter between her and Kasim over the days we’ve been walking makes it sound like she knows Sevvy. Could she plan for her death while joking with Kasim and cackling over throwing snow in my hammock?
Mei stands up and goes to Kasim’s pack, pulling out a bottle of Mantis, and suddenly all I can think of is the feeling of cement against my back when she slammed me into the factory wall, desperation in her eyes as she begged for her Mantis back. I’ve seen SS up close now, so maybe I can believe it. Percentages and risks. One girl’s life, even if you happen to like her, traded for everyone else’s sanity.
When Mei sits back down by the fire, I begin to plan. Whatever happens over the next few days, it isn’t going to be Mei and Kasim who end up with Sevvy, the cure, or anything else.
CHAPTER 26 Howl
WE SET DOWN HALF A day’s walk from the Mountain, far enough away Gein can’t push any buttons that will kill hundreds of people. Also far enough that if there’s a high concentration of Sephs still hanging around the Mountain, they’d be unlikely to see us set down. When Gein releases the door and Song Jie pushes it out, a gust of icy air wafts into the heli’s stale interior.
Pine needles and snow. Cold that freezes inside your nose. Something in my chest relaxes now that I’m so close to home again. Every moment by the ocean I felt as if one of my senses had been stifled. Here the colors tell me how old a tree is, how far we are from the Mountain. The branches cluster on the correct side of the trunk, pointing which way is south. I can see again.
But with the familiar smells and colors comes a gritting of teeth, as if there are eyes in the tree watching me. My home, where the chemical tang of SS in my lungs is more familiar than the scent of pine. Where gores are desperate, and people are gores—the sound of wind rustling through the branches makes my skin itch because it might not be wind at all.
Reifa was less than happy to hear about the Mountain, the Menghu invasion of the City, the refugee camps, the many places fictional Sun Yi-lai could be. Song Jie looks even more grim, as if his job went from plucking a dandelion out of the ground to gathering its seeds one by one where they’ve blown on the wind.
He shivers when I join him at the door, the two of us peering out into the frigid landscape. “You’re sure these Mountain people will help us find where City camps are located? You’ve had contact with this Dr. Yang person who is in charge?”
“I was spying for them when the invasion forces went to your island. I got hurt just as news came in that SS was spreading. That’s why I had to get back.” I lean out, anxious to get moving, “They’ll have all the information we need on where the Chairman might be.” Lie.
Reifa slips in next to me, her eyes narrowed on the open door and the endless expanse of white beyond, listening to Song Jie’s translation of what I’ve said. Sole might know where the Chairman is, I suppose, but it’s doubtful. She’s the only person who might know where Sev ended up who will also be willing to share that information, though. Also, the only person who can help figure out how to keep this death heli grounded.
Reifa taps my shoulder and holds out her hand as if she wants something. I look at Song Jie.
“She wants the guns. The one you took from her and the one you took from me.”
“I dropped both when we were taking off.” Lie. I dropped them very conveniently into a compartment at the back of the heli. “Let’s go, Song Jie. You and me.”
He blinks, and Reifa’s scowl is sufficient enough to suspect she knows what I’ve said.
I point toward footprints marring the snow, though they’re at least a week old. “Can you imagine?” I ask, keeping my spot in the doorway. “Hundreds… maybe thousands of people, all like your Speakers. Infected, but with no Baohujia to stop them when their brains go funny. Doesn’t help that the surge in infections is probably making any soldiers out here even more jumpy than usual.” I step down into the snow. “You know we can’t take Reifa and Gein with us. Not if we want to live. They’re too loud, and they move too slow. You’ll have to persuade her.”
Not a lie. I don’t know what we’ll find out there. If Sole is even still right in the head, or if we’ll find her an empty husk with bite marks up and down her limbs.
Song Jie’s huff of annoyance comes out in a cloud of condensation, a front, because he still won’t meet my eyes. But he nods, scrubbing at his shirt again, though the brown stains have sunk in deep.
“It doesn
’t get easier.” I say it quietly because it is a lie and it also isn’t.
He meets my eyes, letting his hands fall to his sides. “No? You didn’t hesitate.”
“I didn’t enjoy it. I killed those men to save your life.”
“Oh, is that why?” He looks me up and down and can’t meet my eyes again, a shudder rippling up his spine. “I know what you are. You can’t hide it from me.”
I look out into the trees, Song Jie’s words crawling under my skin. I didn’t kill him when I could have. I didn’t kill any of them. I’ve been trying to do right.
Is Song Jie correct? Is that what I am? Born to scare the crap out of people?
It’s what I was, and it stained me deep. But I can choose to be something new underneath. I’m not what he says. I’m not like him anymore, a vessel of revenge, expecting people to accept me because of my crimes and not despite them. I hope that’s not a lie.
I keep hold of his arm as he tries to push past me. “Go through the storage on the heli. If there’s equipment on this thing that’s going to help us get through this alive, I want it in my pack.”
Song Jie blinks, jaw clenching tight as Gein pushes by him into the snow to poke at it suspiciously with one finger. But then he looks out into the frozen woods, the chill turning his cheeks ruddy and his nose flaring as if can smell nothing but urine, gore scat, and a thousand shadows harder than his own. Fear of the unknown: a tool known to break even the bravest of men and women.
Not a lie.
* * *
We walk for hours, the stark outline of the Mountain like a monument to the dead against the sky. I take us by way of the river so we can refill our waterskins, but also so I can see what my home has become. It was always dangerous out here, but the prints, the trash, the blood splattered across the snow… It’s hard to believe there’s anyone left breathing. The air is the kind of cold that bites straight through you, an arctic chill before a storm blows in.
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