Song Jie doesn’t notice me in his pack while he’s attempting to fill his waterskin. Probably because the rock he was standing on shifted and dumped him onto the thick ice, cracks forming all around him. I don’t find any special weapons or tools from the heli. My hands stall when I find the scored knife, the long one I almost killed him with, stashed at the bottom of his pack.
I zip it back inside, wondering when he exchanged it for the one he used to cut vegetables.
The two of us slide between trees, listening, watching, hiding our footprints as best we can, though there’s almost no point in the mucked-up snow. Song Jie moves differently than a Menghu. Like he’s being hunted rather than hunting. It’s him who hears the crying first, though.
Yuan’s double axes. I scrub at my ears, wondering how much damage those grenades did to my eardrums, disconcerted to see Song Jie go tense a whole second before I knew why. The sound is high, frightened. A child, or meant to sound like one. June—as she was when Sev and I first met her—flashes through my thoughts, her chicken-bone arms and legs barely enough to hold her up.
“What is that?” Song Jie’s voice hisses as he fumbles with the top of his pack, groping inside, then peering through the opening when he doesn’t find anything. Weapons don’t do much good when they’re inaccessible.
I walk toward the sound, Song Jie’s following footsteps quiet enough to be acceptable. The sobs seem to needle straight through my heart, as if I’m absorbing them directly from the air.
When I first see the girl responsible for the sound, she just looks like a child in the snow. A confusing picture because there’s a man sitting next to her, talking to her. But when I draw close enough to see tears dripping down her face, my eyes find the knife he’s stabbing into the snow at her feet over and over as if it’s a game to see how close he can come without nicking her.
We’re supposed to be hiding. Not calling attention to ourselves. It’s almost second nature to look away. File the image with all the other impossible situations I’ve had to walk by in my life, the girl’s ribs sticking out like finger bones in a Menghu’s bracelet.
I almost walked past June, so concerned for my own neck and Sev’s that I didn’t have room to think about hers, but this time I’m running before I even realize, shoving Song Jie to the ground when he tries to pull me back. The man with the knife doesn’t look up, folding like grass in the wind when I hit him shoulder-first, hooking my leg behind his knee and flipping him over. His face hits the ground, but the loud crack that tells me something broke isn’t enough to stop him squirming, bending at awkward angles to get free of my weight. A tremor of pain ripples through my shoulder as I grab hold of the knife in his hand and slam it into the ground.
The man’s squirming intensifies, his elbow twisting under my arm. Pain tears through me as he pulls against my injured shoulder, and I have to let go. In less than a breath, he’s on top of me, the man’s low mutter—something about worms under the ice—like death in my ear. The girl cries out, and everything in me not focused on the man goes on high alert, wondering if she’ll be the one to stab me, but no extra attack comes.
Song Jie’s worn boots appear at the corner of my vision, the Islander wrenching the man off me by his collar. The two of us pin him to the ground, his fingers so tight around the knife I’m afraid they’ll break as I pry them back one by one and then throw the weapon into the trees.
“What is wrong with you?” Song Jie growls, grappling to keep the man down. “We don’t have time for this.”
I step between the little girl and the knife, her eyes wide as she watches us hold the Seph down until his twitching subsides. “Thank you,” the man finally wheezes, as if a switch of humanity inside him has suddenly been turned on. Song Jie lets go, allowing him to roll onto his back. His nose bleeds from each nostril. “We heard someone was down here who could help. Is that you?”
“Help with what, exactly?” I keep the little girl in view. She hasn’t moved, though, teardrops frozen on her cheeks.
He doesn’t try to sit up, each breath expanding his ribs all the way out and then contracting them in until I’m afraid I’ll see his spine. “They said someone here was taking people in.”
“The Mountain? They haven’t been taking anyone for least a year now. No infected, for sure.” I look back to the little girl, her hands still a hopeless snarl at her waist, then dig for some of the dried meat I brought from the heli in my pack. The skin over her wrists seems to be painted straight on bone, and her cheeks are so hollow I could swear her mother was a skeleton. “If you grip too hard, your hands will fuse together like that, you know? You can relax. I’m not going to hurt you.” When she doesn’t take the meat, I toss it to her, but she lets it fall to the ground, her eyes never leaving me. Clearly food isn’t as important as watching for weapons.
“It’s new since all the helis started buzzing north and SS started spreading. They said there’s someone down there with food, even for infected. You aren’t from there?” The man flinches away from me now, suddenly unsure. “What do you want?”
Sole told me over the link that she was trying to help. “You know where they’re giving out food?”
The man gives a resigned sort of sigh. I didn’t mean to sound threatening. “If you promise not to hurt us—”
“No.” The little girl steps between me and the man. “What will you give us if we help you?”
Song Jie stands up, going into the trees to retrieve the knife. I let him go, raising an eyebrow at the little girl. “Seems like you could do with some extra hands to make sure you get to where you’re going in one piece.”
“He wasn’t trying to hurt me!” It’s almost a yell, turning Song Jie back toward us, his eyes wide. The girl is defiant but still frightened. Ashamed that I tackled her father and she did nothing. That she was helpless to do anything. A feeling I know deep in my bones.
“He can’t help it!” She’s gaining volume. “And if you are going to treat us like slime, then just go away!”
Once I’m sure she’s done, I sit back into a crouch, attempting a deferential expression. “I don’t think you’re slime. I think we’re headed in the same direction, and I’m a little worried I’ll get lost is all. I’ve got a bunch of these”—I pick up the dried meat from the ground where she left it—“and a few are flavors I don’t like. So I guess we could share some of the gross ones, if that would be an acceptable payment.”
Chest thrust out and feet square with her shoulders, the girl’s eyes narrow. But then she looks at her father, taking in his bleak smile. “I’m not a child. Don’t treat me like one.”
Air feels heavy in my chest. I don’t remember a time when there was enough room in this world for children. Not when SS turns fathers and mothers into strangers—into enemies—at will. Not with Reds and Menghu out here shooting down anyone wearing the wrong color.
Not with me standing right in front of her, her father’s blood on my hands. I should have walked away from these two. But the thought makes me sick inside.
“I won’t stop you if you want to go,” I say. “But if we can help each other get to safety, then why not?”
Song Jie’s face is a snarl of indecision when I stand, looking between me and the little girl. But I don’t care.
I trust you. Sev said it, but that matters less than the fact that I can feel something more inside me than just wanting her trust. I didn’t want to shoot those guys on the hangar roof. I don’t want to bomb the City until it’s nothing but ash. I didn’t want to leave this little girl to her father’s knife.
I’m not perfect. But everything I’ve done up until now has been like my feet are on shaky ground, not sure who I’m supposed to be anymore, just that I don’t want to be the person I was.
And now the sun almost feels warm on my face. The snow looks bright and white, despite the footprints and mud and murder lurking just out of sight. It’s not that I have to make the choice to change. I’m already different.
CHAPTER 2
7 Tai-ge
THE AIR TURNS UNBEARABLY COLD. My mask’s filters become so frosted over I’m afraid they’ll clog up and suffocate me. By the time we stop for the night to make a fire, I’m practically in tears, missing the heating system in my room at the orphanage. I sit, warming my hands, and it isn’t until my fingers are tingling with warmth that I realize something has changed.
Mei’s sitting next to me, feeding branches into the fire, the two of us quiet. Kasim is gone.
“We’re here, then?” I ask.
“Yes, we’re here. You and Kasim are going in tomorrow.”
I flex my fingers in front of the flames one more time before tearing myself away from the warmth to take out our cooking pot and tripod. Of course, the two heaviest things we’re carrying ended up in my pack. As I pull out the collapsible tripod, my sleeve snags on the front pocket of my pack, dragging it open.
The bottle of Mantis I stole from the City sits inside the open pocket, cushioned by my half-full waterskin. I pocket the bottle of pills and the waterskin, then carry the pot and tripod over to the fire and set them up. Mei dumps a ration pack into the pot and adds some water, stirring it around impatiently, though it will be a while before the fire is hot enough to cook anything.
“Here.” I hold out the Mantis and the waterskin, already looking up into the trees for a good spot to place my hammock. When she doesn’t take it, I look back down, give the pills a shake. “Did you already take some?”
“No.” She takes the bottle, turning it over in her hands. “Are you in charge of monitoring my medication now?”
“I was just trying to be nice.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m a nice person.” I shrug, throwing the waterskin back into my pack when she doesn’t take it. I unroll my hammock, then go back to looking up in the trees for a likely spot to set the ropes, already shivering at the idea of sleeping suspended in the wind.
“Are you?” Mei asks, and when I look at her, her eyebrow is cocked. “I’m not sure I see it.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” I think of the way seeing Mei with Kasim made me realize how little of her personality I’d seen before. “You haven’t had a chance to see very much of me, though.”
Mei snickers.
My eyes come back down. “What?”
“I just didn’t realize you wanted me to see more of you.” She puts her hands up, looking me up and down before pointing at my tightly laced boots. “Are we starting with ankles?”
“That’s not what I…” But all I can see is that smile of hers. The same one from the first day I saw her outside the heli—too pointed for her to be the good little Second Mother would have invited home for tea. “Right. Where should we put our hammocks?” The freezing cold isn’t the only thing prickling through me. I almost wish I could double up with one of the Menghu just for shared warmth, but Kasim would probably suffocate me on purpose, and Mei…
Mei is still snickering and would take it the wrong way. And now I’m stuck with the idea of me and Mei tangled up in a hammock. I only just keep from rolling my eyes at myself, managing to set my thoughts back on the focused path where they belong. Mei is pretty, and if I were a normal person, maybe I’d think more about it. But I’m not a normal person, whatever that means, and neither is she.
“Don’t worry, Major Hong.” Mei stands up, her freckles lost in the twilight. Bending down, she brushes against me to dig into her pack. I look away, certain my cheeks are too red to blame it on cold. “You might look nice enough on the outside, but I don’t need to see any more to know exactly what you are on the inside.”
The heat bleeds from my cheeks fast enough when Mei pulls out Captain Bai’s knife. Next comes some kind of root, which she begins to violently peel, the skins going into the fire under our cooking pot. “Kasim’ll be a while, so if you’re going to come up with something other than stuttering, now’s the time to fight back.” She waits for a second, and I shrug, not sure if I’m supposed to make uncomfortable remarks about her now. Like an argument, but with more leering? No thanks.
She rolls her eyes when nothing comes out of me but a fog of frozen air. “He was supposed to report more than a week ago, but we’ve got a story that should check out. And it’s Guonian tomorrow, so there’s a good chance any patrols out here will be distracted. Everyone will be wishing they were inside.”
Guonian? Thoughts of warm fire and sticky cakes steam inside my head. Of my parents, my grandparents before they passed on, all of us tucked together at home as if nothing existed but us. A wave of homesickness washes over me at being out here in the snow with no one but Mei for company when I should be safe inside with the people I love most. The moon is dark overhead. I should have remembered.
“Kasim will let me know when to…” Mei looks up from skinning the root, her hands going still when she sees my face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Never been away from home for holidays, Major?” She hefts the knife, brandishing it like the weapon it is. “Or were you wishing for a fancier meal?”
Her words are sneer-free, though, as if she’s actually asking. “I’m fine,” I respond, keeping my voice flat. Life and reality are what they are, and showing discontent only reflects poorly on the one with no self-control.
I think that might be a quote from one of Chairman Sun’s pamphlets. The idea that it’s a lying murderer’s words that occur to me first makes me feel sick to my stomach. “When we’re done here, I’d really appreciate having that knife back. Captain Bai loaned it to me.”
Mei wipes it clean and stuffs it in her pocket. “I don’t think he’ll—” Her voice cuts off abruptly as she swivels toward the trees into which Kasim disappeared.
“What?” I ask. “Did you hear someth—”
“Shut up. We’ve got to move.” She hisses, kicks dirt over the fire, and then, using her coat to protect her hand, she pulls the pot and the cooking tripod from over the still-flaring wood and hides them behind a rock. Taking my cue from her, I stomp at the flames until they’re dead, a note of panic singing high inside me.
She grabs her pack, gesturing for me to take mine, so I throw my pack’s straps over my shoulders and then pick up Kasim’s, hugging his things to my chest as I follow her into the darkness. Wind whistles between tree trunks, icing my cheeks and forehead, but it isn’t long before I see the glow of another fire in the trees.
We leave the packs behind a boulder—Mei runs an eye over Kasim’s things as if by touching them I’ve somehow violated something sacred—then head toward the fire. Once we’re closer, I make out three shapes huddled around the fire, a bird roasting over the flames.
Mei puts a hand out to stop me, her gloved palm against my ribs. I pull away, tucking my coat closer around me. “I thought we were staying away from Menghu patrols,” I whisper.
“You think they are Menghu?” She raises an eyebrow as she looks back at me.
I squint into the darkness, and my eyes find a falcon-and-beaker insignia etched into the closest soldier’s coat. They’re Seconds. Like me.
CHAPTER 28 June
THE BOAT’S ENGINE WHINES AS we power against the current, the river’s shore dressed in six feet of ice on either side. The air feels frozen around me, like we’re stuck tight in a chunk of solid ice.
After cold like this, snow will come.
When I first see the signs I’m looking for—the cairns at the side of the river that point people toward the Post—I know it’s almost time. I run through my plan one more time, trying to look at it from other angles so I can find the ways it could be pulled to pieces. But then I can’t think, because the boat is whining in the current, white rapids visible ahead.
“I thought we had a few more miles.…” Luokai goes silent—his replacement for curses. He drops the anchor and hops down to the deck, pulling one of the poles free from their lashings to push us away from an ice-crusted rock. The current shoves hard against us, grabbing for Luokai’s pole, the water foam
ing around us like a sick gore’s mouth.
He doesn’t notice when I pull out the pack I’ve had under the bench. I’m sure he knew it was there, but even if he isn’t as horrible as I’d first thought, he’s still stupid, like most people. And now he’s wrestling with the pole, attempting to right the boat instead of watching me.
I drag out the extra pair of pants I stole from Luokai’s pack.
The most important thing if you fall into the water is to stay afloat. Dad’s voice—the one I made up for him after he learned to use his hands to talk—creeps into my head. I remember that day clearer than I’ve ever remembered anything. I’ll show you how to tie a float.
Using the long strip of metal I tore from the boat’s railing, I fold the waistband of Luokai’s pants over it once, then twice more, bending the metal in to hold the sharp folds in place. I only manage to get part of the knot done in the first pant leg before the words come back.
It’s silly. Aunt Tian’s voice this time. She’s not going to fall out. We have to go north before the farm’s guards realize we were here, and if you delay the boat any longer—
Dad pointed toward the shore, telling Aunt Tian to go away, but nicely. Because Dad was nice. Aunt Tian even smiled back before she left us standing there, ankle-deep in the river, the sandy bottom rough against the soles of my feet.
Then he held up a spare pair of pants.
The deck lurches under me, the boat’s nose tipping sideways toward the rock, water splashing up over the railing like memories and fear. I finish tying the knot with a jerk, then put the open cuff of the other leg up to my mouth, blowing into it until the fabric balloons into a float.
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