Not even the gore has anything to say to that.
The white around me swirls and twirls until I can’t even see the frozen falls I know lie ahead, the rocks, the river or anything else, just snow all around me. And then there’s a crack.
Ice? I didn’t think I was that close to the river. The night was so cold last night, and now with snow heaping on top of everything—
The world tips out from under me as the ice I didn’t know I was standing on breaks. One last gasp of air is all I’ve got before the water closes over my head, swallowing me like it’s been trying to do for all these years. The cold is like a whip against every inch of my skin, my lungs demanding a breath of surprise.
Should I even try to fight anymore? Maybe this is where I’ve always belonged. Underneath the water.
But then I remember that I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive, and I don’t want to be a thing lurking Underneath. Water presses hard against every inch of me, clawing through my hair and pressing at my lips, trying to force them apart. I kick my feet, tear at my bootlaces through the frantic, watery haze of blur and blue and dark and raw cold. I manage to pull them off just as a familiar shouting starts, the voice so much louder than my gore: KICK, it says, taking hold of my arms and legs. KICK AIR SWIM.
But the water presses down, down, down, in on my ears and eyes, almost like a pair of hands holding me under. Like Dad’s hands, his brain so afraid I was going to drown that SS couldn’t remember if that’s what he wanted or what he was trying to stop. I kicked and hit, bit his hands as he held me down, water foaming all around me, the rocks tearing long cuts into my arms as I thrashed.
Ice seems to freeze me over as I kick hard against the current, toward the hole of light I made in the ice above. It’s so close, so close. KICK KICK AIR.
Lungs burning, eyes burning, every bit of me burning even though I’m so, so cold. My fingers find the edge of the hole, and I pull myself up toward it. But the ice cracks, the sharp pieces pressing into the joints of my fingers until it crumbles to nothing, the river current dragging me down once again.
My last breath of air gushes out in a frozen wasteland of bubbles, and the darkness reaches out to pull me down. I can almost see Dad down there waiting for me. It makes me feel warm. Down here, there’s no food to worry about, no sleep to lose, no gores speaking poison in my mind, just the end. So I let the water take me.
CHAPTER 38 Tai-ge
IT SNOWS ALL DAY AS we prepare the Second bodies for our plan to get in the garrison. Mei watches me as we pull the frozen soldiers apart, her lips pressed together in a long line. I leave the one who attacked her in the snow facedown and frozen, his belt still undone.
When it’s time to move, Kasim and I don’t try to hide, walking straight toward the garrison’s north door. There aren’t any guards visible at the entrance, but I notice two in the trees overhead just before we pass them, the feel of guns pointed at me itching across my back. It’s tempered only by imagining their looks of confusion when they see what we’re dragging behind us: one of the bodies, bundled up in a hammock.
My hammock, of course. Good thing I’m not planning to use it again.
A soldier comes out when we’re about fifteen yards away from the door, her gun pointed at Kasim’s head. “Identify!” she rasps through her mask.
“Wu Kasim,” Kasim answers, dropping the hammock’s cords to put both hands in the air. “And our guest from Dazhai.” He nods to me.
The soldier doesn’t answer, whispering into her radio for a moment before looking back at Kasim. “You weren’t supposed to leave the barracks after reporting last night. Your second debriefing is supposed to start—”
“Soon, yes.” He walks right up to her, leaving me to drag the dead man. “I ran into some Sephs while I was doing the long patrol. He”—Kasim points to me—“is part of the team working on the cure. He requested an actively contagious victim for the labs. I knew where to find some from my patrol, so…”
The guard shifts her gaze to me for a moment, her distaste growing as her eyes stop on the jagged hole where my stars are supposed to be. “You can tell when Sephs are actively contagious?”
“I…” I glance back at the body. “Of course I can. Can’t you see the… vein strata?”
“Just let us in. He’s not good at speaking like a normal person.” Kasim shares a grimace with the guard.
She looks out into the forest past me then, as if she can feel Mei there watching, ready to lead any guards we can tease out of this place to where we found the Seconds last night.
“That’s not the most interesting part, though. We found Sephs, but not the kind we were expecting.” Kasim pulls the tarp open to show the Second’s muddied City jerkin. “Reds. Not more than a mile from here. He wasn’t the only one.”
The guard holds her position, a twitch pinching at her eye. “Probably fugitives from the City or—”
“No. There’s a company of them, and they’re headed in this direction.”
I nod to back it up. “The City sent out a call for help over the radios not too long ago. I wonder if it was some kind of cover to distract us while—”
The Menghu’s gun swivels to point at me. She gestures to someone behind her. Several Menghu, red tigers snarling from their collars, file out of the bunker entrance. “Check him.”
They look the man over, searching for weapons and I don’t know what else. But he really is dead, and Mei emptied his pockets before we came, so there isn’t much to find.
“What was your name?” the woman finally asks, looking at me.
“I’m Director Chen.” I meet her eyes squarely, hoping it helps. According to Kasim, there is a Director Chen here, a traitor who agreed to help with whatever it is Dr. Yang is doing. He left with Dr. Yang on the heli this morning. I hold my breath, waiting for her to laugh and shoot me in the head. If she’s met the real director, my fancy mask isn’t going to be enough of a disguise.
She looks me up and down, the name registering. Then she waves us in, leaving Kasim and me to pick up the cords to drag the body. “Could we have a bag for this body, please?” I let out a sigh of relief, trying to pretend my request is a normal one. Maybe for Director Chen it would be. “And a gurney, perhaps? This victim is an especially interesting case.” I rack my brain for more First-speech, the things I tuned out at state dinners. “And his unique cerebral… configuration may be of help in our—”
“We’re taking him to the labs,” Kasim interrupts, not looking at me. “There’s something odd about the way SS has been spreading. We need to keep the body from contaminating anyone else. Bag might help.”
The woman’s eyes widen. She rasps something about hurrying into her radio.
* * *
Once the man cocooned in my hammock is zipped away on a gurney, the Menghu who let us in accompanies us as we walk deeper into the bunker. When we near the checkpoint that will take us into the restricted lab section, I run back over my memories of this place, the polished cement floors. The chalky walls. The pinched quality to the air, made even worse by my gas mask. When we get to the labs, it’s exactly as I remember it: The First area is closed off by a set of open double doors, two guards standing outside them. Past the checkpoint there are two main hallways. One for labs, which ends in the refrigerated room through which Kasim thinks we’re going to escape. The other side has rooms and a lab for the First family in charge of the garrison. It lets out by the heli-field and is where I’m going to take Sev once I ditch Kasim.
The guard escorting us moves to speak to the Menghu posted at the door, but stops when all of them salute someone coming up the hall behind us. I turn to see a young man, perhaps a few years older than I am, walking stiff as a rifleman in a parade. The guards, including our escort, stand at attention until he nods for them to relax.
“Kasim?” The newcomer’s hair is slicked down, his cheekbones high, a look of distaste permanently fused across his mouth. The tiger at his collar is black instead of red like those of t
he other Menghu around us, and suddenly I feel as if I’ve failed somehow because I don’t know what that means. “I thought you were confined to the barracks until we get the rest of the details about the extra days you spent Outside.”
Ah. Superior officer of some kind.
“We found Reds in the woods, Captain Lan.…” Kasim shrugs, but his shoulders straighten and he clears his throat. A superior officer with a temper, then. The one they were talking about last night, mouthing off about Dr. Yang not having a cure yet. “And there’s something funny about the way they are infected. This body was priority, but I was coming to you next.”
Captain Lan transfers his gaze to me. “There haven’t been reports of Reds anywhere near here.”
I keep my back straight, my head higher than the captain’s. If I know anything, it’s how to deal with military. “Kasim is correct about both Seconds close by and the odd nature to their infection.” Calm. Formal. Prickly, as if I expect commands to be obeyed before I even voice them. “I’ve already radioed Dr. Yang, and if there aren’t extra security protocols in place by the time he gets here, there will be consequences.”
“Excuse the interruption, sir, but have you been listening to the radio reports?” The guard who led us here looks up from her radio, gaze focusing on Captain Lan. Kasim called his commanding officer something else outside, he and Mei both rolling their eyes. Helix, was it? “They just found two more dead Reds and evidence of others passing through.”
Captain Lan’s brow creases. He pulls an earpiece from his pocket and fits it into his ear. “Then get moving, Lieutenant Huang. I’ll be in the control room in…” He looks over the body, zipped in the bag. “What is this?”
“We managed to get a… specimen.” My brain is full of my comrade’s demise, my bullets in his arm and leg, Captain Bai’s knife across his throat. But I hold Captain Lan’s gaze, banishing the image. “I’ve been working with the notes Dr. Yang provided at Dazhai when I heard about these particular Seph… behavior patterns. I was concerned. I’ll have to ask you to lead me to a clean lab immediately or kindly get out of my way. This might provide a breakthrough on the cure.”
For all that I sound like a child lying about stealing honey cakes from the kitchen, my mask is a filter, distorting the words so they sound like sharpened scalpels. It works better than I expected, Captain Lan’s eyes opening wide. “This is something that will help? You said you radioed Dr. Yang?”
I nod. “He’s on his way back now.”
Something in the captain’s eye sparks. “If it truly means the possibility of a breakthrough…” He looks to the guards. “Open the doors.” Then he points at Kasim. “You get back to the barracks where you’re supposed to be. Your reports have been noted and acted on, it seems, without even consulting me. I’ll debrief you when I’m done here.”
Kasim doesn’t move. “You’re going to leave the control rooms when we might be under attack, Helix?”
“Captain Lan,” the officer rasps through his mask, his eyes narrow. “Get back where you belong.”
Kasim looks from the captain to me, but gives a confident nod as if that’s exactly what he wants to do. He walks back the way we came, my heart jumping to the beat of his stride. Kasim wasn’t supposed to leave me alone. All the better.
Captain Lan—Helix—goes through the doors first, gesturing for the guards to help with the gurney. “We’ll get the body to one of the labs first. Progress with the cure has been going so much more slowly than we were promised.”
My mind is running too fast as I try to think on my feet, something at which I have little practice, because plans and sticking to them works so much better.
The device and whatever Dr. Yang has gotten out of it will be important, but I can’t drag a body to his office. And I need the gurney and body bag to get Sevvy out of here. “As I mentioned, I need specific notes in order to begin. Take this body to the lab where Jiang Sev is and… keep his temperature down.” That’s what they do with bodies being used for study, right? Refrigerate them? I can’t quite wish I’d spent more time in the Sanatorium, but for this one moment, I do wish I’d paid just a fraction more attention. “I’ll get the information I need from Dr. Yang’s office and begin in a few moments.”
Helix slows, appraising me. It’s hard to read his expression behind the plastic curls of his mask, but the pause only lasts a moment before he leads me down the left-hand passage, directing the guards with the gurney down the other.
“Which notes did you need to look at specifically?” he asks. “You must have been briefed on the situation with Jiang Sev.”
“Are you questioning what I need?” The words cover the way my stomach drops, not sure what it is he could be talking about. “You’re an expert on brain tissue and medical… science? You like to keep tabs on your superiors’ work?”
Helix’s eyes narrow, but his voice becomes less authoritative. “I was under the impression that the work Dr. Yang had done on the cure wasn’t working. The device we got from the island was empty, and it finally fell to opening up Jiang Sev along with any other cured specimens we could get our hands on.”
That’s consistent with what Kasim and Mei seem to believe. I attempt an unconcerned shrug, mining deep for the right level of condescension. “There could be more to the device than Dr. Yang realizes. He was only a low-level First. Not even admitted to the Sanatorium. We’ve only begun to collaborate on these things, so I haven’t had enough time to educate him.”
Helix nods slowly, his jaw tense, as if someone with City stars educating an Outsider isn’t to be borne, but he refrains from arguing with me. Yuan’s ax. This isn’t going well. When Helix opens the door to an office, all I can see are tidy piles of papers, some smeared over with ink and calculations of some kind. No sign of the device, worthless or not. “Captain Lan, would you mind…” I bend down to pick a paper that’s fallen to the floor and find a gun barrel in my face.
Ah. Captain Lan is a jumpy fellow. I can’t blame him.
I stare at the gun, the barrel less than an inch from my forehead, Helix’s finger on the trigger. Apparently, he doesn’t trust someone from the City to be doing anything other than trying to kill him.
Which, if not exactly true, is close enough.
Putting my hands up slowly, the paper I picked up in one of them, I wait, my insides all squeezing so tight I cannot breathe. Helix holds for a second, but then lowers the gun with a casual air, gesturing with it for me to stand. As if guns and what they do don’t bother him much anymore.
Going to the desk, my mind whirs, but nothing new appears to supplement my lack of plan, only repeating over and over that I have to get rid of Helix, find the device or any notes in this room about it—
A knock sounds against the door and I act before I can think. In the split second Helix’s chin turns toward the door, I pull the gun from inside my coat and slam it into the side of his head. His gun comes up, but my fingers are tangled in his mask, pulling it sideways with one hand while hitting him again with the gun. Still he comes at me, an angry roar caught in his mouth, and I barely manage to smash the gun directly into his temple. The Menghu captain’s eyes roll back in his head, and he sags, limp against the desk.
CHAPTER 39 Sev
FIRM MATTRESS PRICKING INTO MY spine. Cold fluid flowing in through my IV, spidering up my arm and into my body. Everything is the same in this dark forever I live in, the one Dr. Yang will keep me in until I give up.
But when I hear a pained grunt, then the violent slam of a heavy weight hitting my door, I know something has changed. The door’s hinges squeak, and quiet feet slide into the room, something heavy dragging after them. A body? More than one. And then the soft whir of a gurney’s wheels.
All the hairs across my body stand on end as the person leaves the gurney and walks over to my bed, the imaginary feel of eyes looking me up and down making every inch of me strain to move.
“Sev?” It’s Howl’s voice. Howl. A hand touches my shoulder, then smo
oths up to my chin. Mother’s voice inside my head cheers, even as she’s crying because what can Howl do other than get caught?
Dr. Yang is going to kill him.
“I have serum to wake you up. Sole made it.”
Sole’s alive? And making medicine, so that means… But then the tube in my arm jerks to the side as Howl screws something into it.
Panic. He knows the serum killed Mother. I know she was Asleep for much longer than I have been, but still, what if the serum kills me, too? I don’t know why it killed her, just that Dr. Yang seems to think there’s a way to avoid that problem now, and I don’t know what it is.
He takes a deep breath in, and his hand touches my arm, running up to my shoulder. The mattress under me shifts as he pulls himself up next to me, the cushion pressing down so my body lists to the side. “We have about ten minutes until the guard patrolling this section of the garrison passes. I’ll take you on a gurney so people will think you’re a body. I’ve got a door jacked open, then I’ll give you the medicine right before we sneak out. That way, if it does anything weird to you while it’s taking effect…”
Like kill me? He moves, his side brushing mine. Howl. The one person I had to see again. Who, after everything, I knew would come if he was alive. But I can’t bypass the white-hot, burning fear that, if he gives me the serum, I’ll only get to see him for a few minutes before I’m dead.
Another deep breath, the buttons of Howl’s coat pressing into my ribs. “Today’s Guonian. Did you know that? I thought it was going to be another one alone.” He shifts as if he can’t stop moving, and when his arm presses against mine, I realize he’s shaking. “Do you remember the story I told you about the star who married a qilin herder? It was that first night we were Outside—there was a gore howling, and you were afraid.” I remember that night, him pressed against my side, laughing at his own story as if the world was a game and he was the one telling me the rules. “I’m the one who needs a story now.” He breathes deep, twisting again on the sleeping pad next to me. “But you can’t tell me one.”
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