I sit up all the way, fear bubbling up inside me without even knowing who she’s talking about, just that something’s wrong. Xuan’s next to me, his chest moving up and down with the long breaths of sleep. Aya with her girls from the Heart are all here, the one who is supposed to be keeping watch snoring so loud it echoes off the ceiling.
But when I slide over next to Peishan, it’s not hard to see. In the spot just around the bend in the hall, where the Menghu is supposed to be sleeping, there’s a startling emptiness.
I grope through Peishan’s pack until I find the cool glass and metal of a quicklight and break it, the red light washing clear down to the end of the hall and the door we barricaded. It’s untouched. But when I come back around the bend to where Aya and the others are sleeping to check the Outside door, the Menghu is standing over Aya, a knife in one hand.
My muscles all freeze, the gores beginning to howl again Outside. The creatures outside just want to eat, sleep, perpetuate their species, but the ones inside have learned how to hate.
My body won’t move, brain refusing to make sense of what’s happening right in front of me—the knife, Aya in her stolen mask, the Menghu—not until Peishan beats me to it, sliding between the Menghu and the girls from upstairs.
“What do you think you are doing?” Peishan whispers, her hands up as if she’s being held at gunpoint.
“She killed my friend for no reason.” The Menghu hefts the knife, her balance off because one hand is glued to her mask, keeping it in place. “Get out of my way or I’ll get rid of you first, City girl.”
Aya stirs at their feet, her eyes opening. She elbows the girl next to her, and suddenly they’re all awake, oozing violence as the Menghu brandishes her knife. Her arms look too thin, limp almost, as if the blade is the only strong part left of her.
“We don’t need you,” the Menghu growls, backing away from Peishan and the girls who rise behind her. “Not any of you. You’ll eat our food, take our medicine. We didn’t even need to go up past the air lock because we were fine.…”
I stand when Aya’s gun comes out, putting myself between her and the Menghu alongside Peishan. “There’s no need for that. You are all from the Mountain except Peishan. You’re all from the same side.”
“That was before she got sick.” The Menghu snarls, jabbing the knife to point at Aya. “Before she killed—”
Aya starts to push past Peishan, but Peishan grabs her arm, putting a hand over her grip on the gun.
“Do you mean before Dr. Yang let SS spread through the Mountain without telling anyone? Before he abandoned Aya and everyone else up there?” I turn back-to-back with Peishan, grateful when she stays firm behind me, shoring me up the way I’m trying to help her.
It’s surreal, defending Aya who I saw murder a member of my own team. “What would it help?” I ask, my voice cracking because I honestly don’t know. “What would it help to kill me or Peishan or Aya or anyone here?” Xuan lets out a snore from where he’s huddled against the wall, oblivious. “It would just add to the dead.”
“It would be a life for a life. His life for hers. She took his life, his mask, before he’d even gone cold.…” The Menghu’s hand presses hard against her mask’s filters, muffling her words. “I need that mask more than she does. She’s already sick. Why should I listen to you anyway, cozy with that Red medic? He didn’t even try to help when—”
“Xuan risked his life to come here,” I croak. “If we can’t walk peacefully into the safe haven when nothing is blocking us, then what do we have to look forward to? This is how the war started between the Mountain and the City. Refusing to help each other, assuming the other side would take everything… Wait.” I pull the buckle on my own mask, tearing it from my face, relishing the first taste of stale air in my mouth. Making sure my hair covers my birthmark so this girl doesn’t recognize me and make things even worse. “Here. Take my mask. Just please don’t hurt anyone, either of you.”
The Menghu’s eyes go wide, her knife hand shaking as she looks over my naked face, eyes trailing down to the mask in my hand, extended toward her.
“It’s a time for friends. For trust. For giving. For sacrifice and forgetting. If any of us want to get through this…” I link my arm through Peishan’s, her whole body trembling against me, but she stands firm. “None of you mean anything to Peishan, and yet here she is standing between you. She probably could have gotten out of this mission. Could have stayed safe downstairs, but she’s risking her life to help people she doesn’t even know.”
Peishan pulls her arm away from me. “No, you came because you didn’t have to, Sev. Is that the point you wanted to make? That you’re so fabulous to risk yourself instead of playing the I’m important and don’t have to do dirty work card? I just want everyone to calm down.”
“Let me go back to sleep, all of you, or tomorrow you’ll be less a medic.” Xuan’s voice runs ragged through his mask filters. He waits for a second before rolling over, his back to us. “None of us are good or bad. None of us want to die. There’s no instant karma that lets good people survive and bad ones die. We’re all just here. It’s random and unfair, so let’s leave it at that and get some rest. Sev, if they don’t listen to reason, just let them kill each other. We’ll just leave their bodies here, and they can see if it makes them feel better.”
His weary tone falls flat between us, the tension bubbling down as we all look at him, the packs of medicine we brought from above piled around him like pillows. Peishan doesn’t move an inch behind me, her hands still firm on Aya’s gun. “I don’t want anyone else to die,” she whispers. “Not you”—she meets the Menghu’s eyes—“or any of you.” She can’t quite look back to acknowledge Aya or the two girls flanking her on either side. “I’ve seen you do impossible, brave things. You are people I want to know. I hope there’s still a chance that’s possible.”
The Menghu blinks too slow, taking in Peishan’s trembling lip, the way she fights back tears even as she firmly keeps Aya’s gun pointed at the floor.
The Menghu lowers her knife. Reaches out and takes my mask. Closing her eyes, she holds her breath and lets her own mask sag away from her face. Placing mine over her nose and mouth, she turns away, walking to her spot by the barricade, out of sight.
I swivel to face Aya. “You didn’t have to kill that man upstairs. You didn’t have to threaten us.”
“He would have killed me. The rest of my team did die, all because you all came up here.”
“If you had tried talking to us instead of attacking us—”
“You gassed us. None of you wanted to talk. Would we be here with you, headed downstairs, if I hadn’t stood up to you?” She leans forward a hair, her teeth bared. “None of us would be fighting at all if they had let us all go downstairs in the first place.”
“Just stop!” There are tears trailing down Peishan’s cheeks now.
I hold myself very, very still for a moment before I step back. Aya rolls her eyes, but she puts her gun away. It’s true what she says, only there isn’t enough Mantis or food for everyone. If there were enough, the City and Mountain never would have started fighting in the first place. Or maybe they would have, and it would just be about different things. About the places we live, the food we eat, or the language we speak. It seems like there’s enough reason to push the Chairman from his throne because he didn’t just want to live, he wanted everyone else’s lives too. Is that what power is, squeezing others until they rise up and bite, only to take your power for themselves?
Is that what we are? When there was safety only a few hours away, food, water, a bed to sleep in, still the Menghu drew her knife. Aya didn’t apologize, didn’t back down, didn’t curl up and wait for forgiveness.
And I understand why.
Maybe this is all we have to look forward to. Even if I find the cure, Sole makes it, and we give it to everyone… maybe they’ll keep their uniforms and their scars and their grudges and find new reasons to kill each other.
&nbs
p; In fact, if we don’t give them good people to follow, I know they will.
I settle next to Xuan while the girls from upstairs huddle close to one another across from us as if they can’t bear to sleep alone. One of them stays up to keep watch. To my surprise, Peishan slides to the floor next to me.
“You’re brave,” I whisper.
She swallows. “I’m still mad at you.”
I nod, too tired to argue.
Peishan looks at the floor, her hands still shaking. “How did the world turn into this? Death and knives and guns and…” She takes a shuddering breath. “I feel like one moment we were alive and happy, even if it wasn’t easy. You and me, the other orphans. We had lives. And then in one day, it became… this. Unlivable. The worst.”
All I have is another nod. Everything is the worst. If I can’t even help two people who grew up in the same community stop and listen to each other, how can I even begin to help the people Outside? The ones who have been shooting at each other with no remorse since the day they learned how to fire a gun.
Peishan leans forward to touch my arm. “I’m still mad, but I’m glad you came up here with me. I think… I miss being your friend.” She looks up at me, her brow furrowed. “Would you sit up with me to keep watch? Everything that happened today… those girls…” She gives Aya and her friends a leery look. “I’m scared.” It comes out in an ashamed whisper.
“Of course I will, Peishan.” I know the shame of fear. It’s like an aftertaste to the horrible things you couldn’t stop. The Menghu and Aya stopped fighting because of Peishan. Because she’s human, and she showed them. But still, the shame remains.
Howl. His name tastes like hope this time. Sole. They changed. Because they started seeing humans instead of enemies.
How do we show everyone with guns out there that most of us—minus the ones manipulating people like stones on a board—just want to live?
One thing I do know, though. Fear is the tool of the powerful. Fear is easier than hope, easier to share, easier to grab hold of. Unless I can find a way to give people hope stronger than fear, then it’s like Sole hinted. There will be no end to this war.
I know what I have to do. It feels like tar inside me, like the blood still staining my clothes and caked on my skin. But the people who use fear can’t continue. Not if we want these things to stop. For all that death is unwinding in my chest, having Peishan there next to me feels like hope, too. We sit up the rest of the night, back-to-back, watching. Together.
CHAPTER 55 Sev
WHEN WE GET DOWN BELOW, Sole is waiting for me, her face like death under her mask as she walks straight past Aya and her friends going into quarantine.
“I don’t have time for you to be angry, Sole.” I keep one arm linked under Xuan’s shoulder, Peishan on his other side, whispering for him to keep walking. “I’ve got a lead and no time. And Xuan might die just out of spite if I don’t get him some painkillers. You can check the supplies we brought. Xuan says they’ll be useful.”
The deathly glimmer to Sole’s eyes doesn’t disappear, but she calls for people to take our packs and pulls out a stretcher for Xuan herself to wheel him into an SS testing booth. I follow close behind her, pausing only long enough to be sure everyone else from our party goes through. The Menghu on duty keep their hands on their guns every moment. Aya and the Menghu take booths as far away from each other as possible, Peishan looking helplessly between them as she takes one in the middle.
I stay by Xuan’s side while Sole moves him into the large tube, scanners humming as they wait to scan him. Once he’s inside, Sole keeps her eyes flicking across the screen as it analyzes his brain. “You going on this mission was incredibly irresponsible, Sev.”
“Actually, it wasn’t at all. You’ve got all the information you need to make a cure.”
Sole’s eyes narrow, her voice so tight it could strangle. “You might be pinning all your hopes on finding a box under your old floorboards, but the rest of us can’t take that chance. If you die, our last chance of surviving will be gone, and all of us will die.” She turns from the machine, her face aggressively close to mine, her skeleton fingers digging into my shoulders. “We made a deal. You have the rest of your allotted two weeks, but not if it puts you at risk. Do you understand me?”
I push her hands off me. “I thought you weren’t going to force me into anything, Sole.”
Sole takes a step back. “Only because I know I don’t have to.” She turns to the screen, watching as the scan lights up green.
“We’re out of time. They’re going to kill Howl up in the City in four days.” I close my eyes, clenching them shut. “Wait, what time is it? Maybe it’s three now.”
Sole looks up from maneuvering the bed out of the tube. “Who told you? I gave strict orders that no one share that piece of information with you.”
“Three days?” I ask.
She narrows her eyes. Nods.
I pull the stretcher over and help transfer Xuan back onto it. He feels so much heavier and so much less annoying now that he’s asleep. “The Chairman told me, Sole,” I say. “You were going to leave me in the dark?”
“Of course I wasn’t going to tell you. Dr. Yang is broadcasting about Howl on every radio frequency because he knows you’ll come running.”
“You know about the bombings, then. Some heli that’s gone rogue? They moved everyone up into the City.”
“I knew there were going to be bombings. Howl’s the one who brought that thing here.” Sole looks disgusted. “It’s some leftover from Before that Port Northians got hold of.”
“He brought them here so he could help me. To get the cure.”
Sole bites her lip. “It’s not what I would have done.”
My face hardens. “Stop pretending you’re morally superior to him. You would have done anything to get me out of that bunker. You just didn’t have a bomber to work with.”
Sole flinches, but I don’t have time to care about her feelings anymore.
When we get to Xuan’s room, I help move him onto the bed. He groans with pain, his eyes flicking open. He groans again when he sees me and scrunches them shut. “Go away,” he slurs. “You’re the worst.”
I stifle a smile and step back from his bed, waiting until Sole looks at me. “I’m not going to let you lock me in a room while they execute Howl. This just makes things easier. Howl and the cure are in the same place, and I’m going after them.”
Sole’s brow furrows, and she busies herself reconnecting Xuan’s IV. “After all this, you’re still folding Howl into this ridiculous fairy tale you’re telling yourself. Get the cure, everyone stops fighting, your head stays in one piece, and you get to live happily ever after with the love of your life?” She fixes me with an ugly stare, her hands knotted around the IV, and I’m glad Xuan seems to have fallen back asleep, because I wouldn’t want him to hurt even more than he already does. “Dr. Yang wants you to go to the City. He wants your head in his lab, and he’s going to get it if you go.” She shakes her head, turning toward the door.
I grab her arm, pulling her to face me, and I’m surprised to find tears in her eyes. “I’m going to save him, Sole.” She won’t look at me, but I get close, forcing her to meet my gaze. “Howl has done horrible things, but so have you. So have I. And we are all worthy of a second chance to make things right. I’ve thought about what you said before, and I’m… ready to talk through our options.” Because what does the end look like? Unless leadership changes, the world will stay the same. My next words come out slowly because I don’t like them. But they’re the best I have. “Think about it: Dr. Yang, the Chairman, the General—they’ll all be there at the execution.”
Sole’s eyes narrow. But then she nods slowly. “Yes. They will.”
We both know there’s only one way to end this war. Out loud, I can’t even make myself say it. But there’s no room to argue, no room to think things through again. I only have four days to plan a cure extraction, a rescue mission, and…
<
br /> And a three-headed assassination. “Now tell me: How do I get to BW12—sector thirteen?”
CHAPTER 56 Sev
“HAS IT ALL BEEN LIKE this?” Peishan’s voice echoes down the empty hallway, our light creating a bubble of red in the dark.
I hold my light up a little higher, red catching on nondescript doors, each with a plaque detailing its contents. We had to come through an air lock to get here, but Sole said the whole of sector thirteen was likely to be empty. There might have been personnel down here when SS started spreading, but it’s dark, and there’s no food or water, and nothing of value to keep anyone here, unless they have compulsions to file things.
That Peishan volunteered to come with me feels like a warm outline to the darkness. I’m trying to pretend it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that we found Lihua covered in some kind of soot, and that getting her washed up was going to be a more difficult battle than walking down empty hallways.
“I know I was brought up to believe anyone living Outside had something wrong with them, but after the weeks I’ve been out here…” Peishan jogs across the hall to check the identifying marker on the wall: BW10. We’re close. Peishan heaves a sigh before continuing. “I’m beginning to wonder if they were right.”
“Cai Ayi wasn’t bad, was she?”
“She’s down in quarantine. Nearly killed herself getting us here.”
“And the roughers? June?” Even saying June’s name hurts. Where is she? I wonder. Is she awake? Did Luokai even have access to the resources he’d need to take care of her after the invasion?
“June was nice,” Peishan agrees, her light bobbing as she jogs up the corridor. “But the others… I don’t know. It’s hard to know what people are really like when they’re always worried about dying.”
“I’m sorry we yanked you out of the City without explaining what was going on.” I hold up my light this time to check the wall, punching our coordinates in a link that connects me to the Menghu watching the air lock we came through. If we don’t send anything through for fifteen minutes solid, they’ll come after us.
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