Dead Moon Rising

by Caitlin Sangster

  I pull the blanket back down. “Why isn’t Sun Yi-lai awake yet?”

  “Medicine is complicated, Sev. He was Asleep longer, he’s bigger than you, his contamination was different. We came up with a dosing schedule most likely to succeed based on what I know about the anti–Suspended Sleep serum.” He grabs the blanket back from me and flips it up to cover his floppy hair. “Now go get me a custard bun.”

  “Not likely.” I slide off the edge of his bed and head out the door, stopping one of the medics to ask her to get Xuan his custard bun before heading toward Sole’s room.

  Worry and curiosity war inside me as I remember the way she crouched behind Sun Yi-lai’s box, telling me to go find June at the barricade. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by Sole since I don’t actually know her that well, but it just seems like she’s so in control of herself now. Focused. She was upset about finding Luokai on the other end of the link, sure, but for some reason I thought she’d give him a reserved bow and then go back to sticking people with needles if she ever came across him again, not hide under the covers. When I get to her door, I hesitate with my hand on the knob. Then take a step back and knock. “Sole?”

  Nothing.

  “Sole, I’m coming in!” I push the door open to find Sole sitting cross-legged on her sleeping pallet, a girl across from her, back to me. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt—”

  The girl turns around, a familiar round face, wide mouth and dark brown hair sending bolts of surprise through my chest. “Mei?”

  She smiles, brushing shaggy bangs from her eyes. “I was glad to hear you didn’t die.”

  “What… how…?” I swallow, jerking my attention to Sole. “What is she doing here, Sole? Mei was with Helix when I got caught at Port North.” My voice rises, the horror of those hours sitting in the belly of a heli, knowing I was dead like molten lead burning through my veins. “She can’t be here. She’ll tell everyone—”

  “She’s been with me ever since Dr. Yang put you under. She and Kasim aren’t the only Menghu who realized he wasn’t going to be handing out anything but orders that weren’t necessarily in their best interest after he didn’t use you to make a cure.” Sole’s face has moved from skull-like and brittle to some kind of iron. “Mei was one of the Menghu who tried to break you out of the garrison, but she got caught.” She gestures for me to sit down, but I don’t, my hand clenched on the doorknob, not sure if I should run or fight. “And she says she can help with our plan to get the cure and… save Howl.”

  Our plan. I refrain from rolling my eyes. Wasn’t it only yesterday that Sole was calling it a fairy tale?

  Mei’s jaw clenches, her eyes widening a fraction. “We’re doing what, now? Cure, yes. Save creepy murderers, no.”

  “He is not creepy or a murderer, thank you very much.” The Chairman’s link buzzes in my pocket, and I take it out, shading my hand to see the message drawn in light across the back of my hand. Proof that he’s alive first. After that we can talk.

  “Sev.” I look up to find Mei’s wide mouth twisted into a smile. Her wrists are bare of bones, her hair a familiar mess of mud and twigs. “We’ve got a window of opportunity here with the execution going on. Sole says you have some leverage on the Chairman. I’ve got some people who will help on General Hong’s side. We could sneak in, arrange for the guards at the execution to be people on our side—”

  “A window to do what, exactly? What’s your end goal, Mei?” Is Mei already feeding Sole my plan, centering it around herself and putting Menghu back in control instead of where our focus should be: on saving Howl and changing out bloodthirsty leaders for people who can see that SS is what we need to fight, not each other? Needles shiver down my arms and up my neck as I remember the last words she said to me in the heli before she signed me over to Dr. Yang: I hope you die better than this.

  “There’s a high-ranking Red who is sympathetic to working with people like us. You in particular, Sev.” Sole looks up at me, her eyebrows quirked. “I believe you have a relationship with Hong Tai-ge. Is that correct?”

  CHAPTER 58 Sev

  “YOU WANT TO STICK TAI-GE in as leader of the Reds. And you think he can get Menghu behind him too?” I don’t have the words to convey just how awful her plan is. “No.”

  There isn’t enough forgiveness in the world for Hong Tai-ge. Not from me. That boy is Red to the core, the hero of his own story with no ears to hear anyone else’s view, and it almost killed me. He may have persuaded Howl not to inject the anti–Suspended Sleep serum into my veins, but only Yuan knows where he meant to carry me after that.

  “The Reds are divided against one another. And there are so many of us who don’t want anything to do with Dr. Yang.” Mei glances up toward the levels above us, all the people left there to molder until the doctor could come up with a cure. “Even Helix has been complaining about him not delivering on promises. He’s said from the moment I met him that all he wants is a safe place to live. A place to raise a family.”

  My skin stabs through with goose bumps, memories of his spider hands on my back crawling across my skin. I can’t imagine him with a partner. Children. He’s hard, every inch of him made of metal, bullets, and a thirst for blood.

  Mei continues, “If we have a real cure, this could be a perfect chance to…” She shrugs, and I hate the words that come out of her mouth, because they’re mine. “A chance to start something new. Tai-ge was right about you. He said you must know something about the cure—”

  “No.” I go to the door. “Luokai’s in quarantine, Sole. I think he wants to talk to you.”

  Sole bites her lip, teeth digging in hard, and I’m suddenly sorry for trying to use that as my exit line and can’t make myself go out.

  Mei cocks her head, brushing those jagged bangs out of her eyes. “Tai-ge abandoned his post, trying to get you out.”

  “Yeah, because he knew I had the cure. Think he would have given any to you once he got it out of me? That the Reds or anyone else…” The words spark in my mouth, and I can’t even bring myself to continue.

  “He let me out.” Mei’s voice is quiet. She pulls up her shirt, revealing a dirty bandage taped to her side. Her cheeks flush a bit, and sickness twists inside me at the sight. “I got these right outside the bunker and might have gotten a lot more if not for him. He shot two Reds. For me. A Menghu. He lied to his mother, ran away from the City. And since he’s gone back to his post, he’s been trying to find a way to push his mother out entirely.”

  “He’s been saying that?” I step closer to her. “Because I have a lifetime of experience with the things Tai-ge says.”

  Her wide lips press together, freckles standing out against her nose. “For someone who seems to believe so much in a documented killer, you sure don’t have much faith in people changing.”

  “Howl isn’t a documented killer. He did what he had to do just like everyone else. You’ve even made him believe he’s irredeemable. Isn’t that enough without discounting him as a human being, too?”

  We stare at each other, tension bleeding from the air. Mei leans back and folds her arms after a moment, her muscles taut as if she thinks I might attack her and she needs to be ready. “What do you want to do, then? Grab the cure and your butcher boyfriend and then what? Dr. Yang will just come after us.”

  “Tai-ge’s hands are not clean. And neither are yours.” I stand up, stuffing the link back in my pocket, anger like a fizz that coats the inside of my mouth “Sole, I need your link to Kasim. We’re going after the cure tomorrow.”

  Sole nods. “You know it’s the full moon tomorrow, right? The end of New Year?”

  My stomach twists. At the end of two weeks of celebrations, the City would put on a fireworks show, daring enemy helis to come nearer because we weren’t afraid of the monsters in the sky. That’s the day Dr. Yang chose to kill Howl? A holiday, so he could make it into a party?

  Bile rises in my throat. “I’m going, Sole. I’ve still got some planning to do, but keep this
one far away from everything.”

  Mei starts to get up, her hands balled into fists. “Who do you think you are? You’re just a grunt worker who grew up bowing and scraping to the other people around you. The cure is a good start, but it’s not going to fix the world. There are real options going forward here. Why do you have the right to say you won’t take those options when it’s our lives in danger too?”

  “There’s a better way. Go straight to the troops. Get rid of all their leaders.” Even as I say it, the words writhe in my mouth. “Cut off the snakes’ heads, then give their followers a direction to go.”

  Sole’s eyes go wide. We hadn’t said it quite like that yet. That we’re going to kill three people. Every word feels as if it’s made from bullet metal and broken bones, but it’s what I’m going to do. Don’t do what I would do, Howl said. Maybe it’s not what he would do, but a step more extreme. Of course, this war is a step more extreme than it was when he was hiding from gores and making Reds his targets.

  Mei arches an eyebrow. “You are going to kill Dr. Yang?”

  Black feels inky inside me. “Can you think of another way?”

  CHAPTER 59 Sev

  WHEN SUN YI-LAI WAKES, IT’S with a sneeze. June, tucked in next to me as we finalize all our plans over the link with Kasim, stifles her own sneeze in response, as if the suggestion was too much for her.

  The Chairman’s son is sitting within minutes, up on his feet not long after I’ve sent his image awake and blinking to his father. His mouth opens, his voice a jarring mess of words and syllables I can’t link together that sound foreign and familiar at the same time.

  “He’s asking for his mother.” June’s voice is small. “But like an Islander.”

  He’s speaking Port Northian?

  The link buzzes, and I hold it up to my face, my nose scrunching so tears won’t come. This boy has been in a box for so long he doesn’t even know his own mother is dead. That she probably has been since before he was even in the box. The message is a barrage of instructions from the Chairman: where to take his son, where to wait for the heli.

  I send him a message back, detailing the list of things June and I came up with together, then look back up at this boy, who has been at the center of so many years of war.

  He smiles at me. Guileless, young-looking though he’s probably older than me. There’s nothing but hope in those eyes. “I don’t know where your mother is.” I hate the way it sounds as June translates. “We want to help you. But before we can do that, we need your help.”

  June’s translation feels pained. “He says all he wants is his mother. He’s happy to help in any way he can.”

  The Chairman’s wife has been dead for years. Not much we can do in that area. Doing my best to smile, I lean forward. “How are you feeling?”

  He gestures to his head. “Glad to see and hear something other than whatever it was I had to listen to in here.”

  “Brain stimulation programs?” I ask.

  June shrugs, then her head cocks when he speaks again. “It was a long, long wait in the dark,” she translates.

  Dr. Yang tried to keep him sane, then. Gave him something to look at and listen to. Took better care of him than he ever did my mother, if Sun Yi-lai’s health is anything to go by: He has muscles to hold him up, where Mother’s had long wasted away. I didn’t have a muscle stimulation setup to keep me strong when I was at the garrison. I guess Mother and I weren’t royalty, untouchable. The Chairman’s own blood. But I push that thought away. “When I first woke up, I could hardly believe the world had kept turning. Everything was different.” It had been, the first time. My mother and father were both gone, and everyone I knew shunned me. A Red branded my hand and sent me to live with nuns who didn’t seem to care much if I lived or died—a poor exchange for parents who loved me.

  Sun Yi-lai sighs, speaking. “He doesn’t even know what about the world is different,” June supplies. “Only that he’s grown. He wants to believe his family is still out there. His mother…” She brushes a wisp of hair behind her ear, glancing at the bed, where Xuan is snoring, a shiver shuddering through her.

  She hasn’t run away from Xuan like last time. Or even mentioned his connection to her mother’s disappearance. But I can see it there, lurking beneath the surface.

  When her eyes come back to me, she continues, “Reifa. That’s her name.”

  “His mother’s name?” I try to hold back my surprise, because I happen to know his mother’s name was not Reifa. Unless the Chairman’s wife isn’t who he is talking about. “Was she from the island?”

  When June queries and then nods to answer, I can’t help but wonder what I’ve missed and whether or not it will be important enough to tip this already harebrained mission over sideways. This boy is like me and Howl combined. Used and orphaned, hidden away. One of Dr. Yang’s pieces lined up in his tidy rows. “I’m going to do everything I can to find out if Reifa—your mother?—is still alive, Sun Yi-lai. But I’m afraid that we’ll need to do some things first. I’m going to need you to listen very carefully.”

  * * *

  Kasim manages to delay a heli for us to meet, one of two waiting to take off. He hurries us into the port, hissing for me to keep my head down and not to talk to anyone.

  As I’m pulling June and Sun Yi-lai into their seats, attempting to shield their faces from the other Menghu nervously chatting among themselves in the heli’s transport hold, I notice Kasim pushing the door to the other heli closed.

  He runs to our aircraft as the propellers roar to life, climbs in to check in with the pilot up front, then closes the outer door. It’s hard to think as we take off, nervousness brimming inside me as the heli’s frame begins to shake, June’s hand in my white-knuckled grip. None of us speak. Yi-lai is pale under his mask, and June’s characteristic silence suddenly seems less out of place. Everyone on this heli is worried.

  I reach out and take Yi-lai’s hand, June keeping hold of my other one as the heli lifts off the ground, the three of us linked together until we find smoother flying. Even then, though, the Chairman’s son holds on to me, as if the connection between us is valuable. Precious.

  * * *

  When we get to the City near dusk, I can’t help but gape down at the battered outlines I thought I would recognize. “What happened down there?” I whisper to Kasim, sitting on the other side of Sun Yi-lai. My borrowed coat feels too large and too small at once, the high collar with the Menghu’s screaming tiger pinching at my neck. The river is cloudy and gray below us, snaking through the rows and rows of buildings, many reduced to ash. The market is covered with helis, and all the booths and buildings that used to crowd the square have been destroyed.

  Kasim doesn’t answer, keeping his eyes on the pilot sitting ahead of us, a picture of patient relaxation, but I can see his fingers tapping against his arm. June’s eyes stay open every moment, her face encased in a gas mask, hair under a fur-lined hood that leaves only her green eyes visible.

  Sun Yi-lai’s eyes are clenched shut. One of his hand presses his gas mask hard against his nose and mouth as if it’s a relief to have his skin covered. After who knows how long inside a box, it must be difficult to have been so exposed these past days. I grip his hand in mine, remembering how much worse heli drops were when I was less used to the feeling. “We’re almost there,” I whisper. “Your father is down there.”

  He shrugs, murmuring something I don’t understand. “He doesn’t have a father,” June supplies. “Not that he remembers.”

  I try to loosen my fingers a degree or two, but he’s gripping me back hard enough to bruise my fingers. “That’s why we’re not handing him over, exactly.”

  We cruise over the top of the square and circle back over the wall. The City’s black gates and the tiered rice paddies contouring the side of the hillsides below are a dim, indistinguishable mess in the twilight. The moon is a full circle that glares down on us, washing us all over in corpse light. I keep my eyes focused on the ground, re
jecting the moon, rejecting Howl’s story of escape and of living alone forever… “They’re taking us down to the bottom of the Third Quarter, by the gate,” I murmur to Kasim. “Is that—”

  “With all the respect in the world,” Kasim leans toward me, his lips hardly moving, “if you don’t shut it before someone hears you, I’m going to throw you out that window, and you can tell me all about it when I get down there.”

  “You know the plan. Yi-lai will stay with Kasim until—”

  Kasim’s hand comes down on my knee and gives it a squeeze, even as he flashes me a toothy smile. “Shut. It.”

  I push his hand away. Trusting him almost hurts after seeing Xuan’s blood splattered across his face. Maybe it should count for something that he managed to get Xuan out. Maybe that really was the only way to do it without getting caught. But every time I look at Kasim, it’s as if I can hear the gun discharging over and over, my ears ringing.

  Our plan is simple. All of us will leave the heli and head toward the barracks where they’re housing evacuated Menghu. June and I will break off and sneak into the First Quarter to get the cure, while Kasim fakes getting sick from the torches that are, apparently, all that keep infected from rushing in on the refugees. Sun Yi-lai will help him toward the medic center, then double back to the helis. Once we have the cure, June will take it down to where Yi-lai is waiting for her, and they’ll sneak outside the gates until we’re ready to take off. I’d have left him back with Sole, but we need his face to lure the Chairman onto our heli when we we escape.

  Kasim and I are going after Howl. And the leaders who have been starving us, kidnapping us, and killing us for the last decade: Dr. Yang; General Hong; The Chairman, though he doesn’t know it yet. His loyal soldiers will get us in, help us get Howl, then help all of us, including the Chairman, to escape after we’ve dispatched Dr. Yang and the General. We’ll have a few minutes with the assembled forces to say that we have a cure and a better way forward that doesn’t involve shooting people. Then the Chairman will come with us down to the heli, bringing a pilot with him and escaping with his son.