by Ryan Graudin
“Anything,” I say.
“Anything?” His hand falls away from his chin, burrows into the pockets of his suit.
I nod and think of hundreds of things he could make me do. Hundreds of things I would hate.
“One of my girls has been giving me trouble.”
No. No. No. Anything. Anything but that. I feel like a surgeon has sliced me in half, hollowed me out, my guts spilling over his blue gloves like stringy pumpkin seeds. My head spins and I try very, very hard to keep my smile on my face.
Longwai starts pacing circles around me. “I think she’s been communicating with someone on the outside. We found a hole in her window just this morning, and one of the other girls claims she saw a seashell on the other side.”
“What do you plan on doing with her?” I’m glad I gave most of my meals to Chma, because my stomach is churning like the waters at the stern of a ferry. A chaos of waves, cut to pieces by an engine’s sharp blades.
“You don’t keep a rotten apple in the bin. Though I’m beginning to think they’re all rotten. It happens every few years. Some girl decides to run and all the others get riled up. I’ll probably have to replace the whole lot.” He shakes his head, like he’s getting rid of the side thought. “But if she was talking to someone through that window… I need to know what she said. Who she was talking to.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“You—” Longwai pauses and walks over to the corner where a miniature refrigerator hums away its benign existence. “You are going to help me get the truth.”
The refrigerator door opens with the clink of bottles and a crack of too-bright light. Longwai grabs something I can’t really see. It’s small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, hidden as he nudges the door shut.
“I’ve already given her some time to preview her fate if she decides to keep quiet. You and I—we’re going to go downstairs and ask her some questions.”
“But what—what do I ask?”
“The questions are my job. If she doesn’t answer, I want you to use this.” His palm opens, like an oyster giving up its pearl. Only it’s not a precious gem in Longwai’s soft hand. It’s a syringe, slim as a pencil, filled with liquid the color of beef broth. The drug lord is careful to keep the needle far from my skin as he hands it to me.
The syringe is cool poison on my palm. I try to keep my hand from shaking.
Heroin.
He wants me to inject her.
“Don’t worry. It should be a simple-enough job.” He’s smiling as he says this. “After all, like you said, survival is the highest law.”
JIN LING
The cab I flag down isn’t nearly as nice as the Suns’ car. But I sit in its seat and feel as if I’m going in circles. Around and around. Backward, forward, back again. The city spins by, the same as before, except now it’s night. When the cab starts climbing Tai Ping Hill, all of City Beyond is glowing. Neon fire blazing against black night. Dark sea. I try to look for Cassiopeia, but it’s lost. Swallowed in electric fog.
The driver looks over his shoulder. “What was the number again?”
“Sixty-two,” I answer, and try to pretend that my world isn’t falling apart. That Mei Yee and Dai aren’t trapped in Longwai’s brothel. Surrounded by henchmen and guns. That I’m not there to fight for them.
It’s just like every other run, I tell myself, even though I know it isn’t. Do it well and they’ll be safe.
But there’s no quick exchange. No drugs for money and then done. I’m going to get a man who visits my sister. The man who pays money to Longwai so he can—no. I can’t think about it. Not with a gun hanging heavy in my pocket.
I pick at a hangnail instead. Tearing and rooting at it with anxious teeth. When we pull up to number sixty-two, there’s a chunk of skin missing from my thumb.
“Want me to wait?” asks the cabdriver.
I shake my head and hand him the cash. The driver leaves me on the side of the road. In the dark. Under stars and towering pines. By the open gate.
The house is up a hill, through a thick screen of trees. It’s a building made more of glass than metal. Light shines through transparent walls, makes everything around it glow. Dozens of people mill inside, like tiny dolls. The women are draped in gowns. The men wear crisp black-and-white suits. A lot of them are foreigners—with light hair.
A party. The ambassador is throwing a party.
The people behind the glass move like fish, swimming round and round in a tank. This world—these people with their jewelry and drinks—is almost more terrifying than a line of Longwai’s men. The men who are probably holding guns at Dai’s and Mei Yee’s heads.
I suck in a breath. Hold in the tears of fear and pain. I walk up to the door.
The doorman sees me. His smile turns into a frown.
“Please,” I manage before he can say anything, “I need to talk to the ambassador.”
“He’s busy,” the servant says. His voice is tart. Like his face.
“It—it’s about Mei Yee.”
“Young man, I don’t know who you’re talking about, but you have to leave.” The door starts to close. “Before I call security.”
I catch the door with my left, good side, and slip through. The doorman cries out. I give him a sharp kick in the shins and run.
I scramble into the middle of the party like a frantic piglet. A few of the Western women scream softly—words I don’t understand.
“Osamu!” I yell, because I don’t know what else to do.
The guests freeze. I feel more stares than I can count.
“What is the meaning of this?” One man surfaces from the rest. There’s a quiet thunder to his words. Dim, controlled anger. “How did you get in here?”
He’s older than I expected. His hair is silvering. There are more creases than smooth on his skin. More of an almost-corpse than husband or lover. Bile rises into my mouth. I swallow it back. Make room to speak.
“Ambassador Osamu, I need to talk to you.” I bow, even though I feel more like pulling out Dai’s gun and pointing it at this man’s chest.
“This is hardly the time or place, boy.” Those old, wrinkled lips pull tight. He’s looking to the back of the room. To security that will drag me off at any moment.
I decide not to waste any more time. “It’s important. It’s about Mei Yee.”
When I say her name, his eyes widen. His jaw grits. I’m not sure if it’s fear behind his face or something else.
The ambassador grabs my bad arm, pulls me away. We pass the glaring doorman massaging his shins. We end up outside, in front of his house, by a trickling fountain. Our breaths cloud each other’s faces.
“Where did you hear about her? How dare you come into my house and jeopardize my honor in front of my peers and my wife!” My. My. My. He spits the word over and over into my face. His saliva flecks my cheeks.
I look straight at this man. At the puff in his chest and cheeks. The hard pride in his eyes. I look at him and I hate him. The feeling spoils me, running through my arms. Curdling my chest and gut. It’s as if every other hatred I’ve ever felt is pouring into me: Kuen, my father, Longwai. I can barely speak because of it.
“Mei Yee is in trouble. Longwai caught her doing something she shouldn’t, and he’s going to punish her. He doesn’t want you to know.” I treat every word like a world of its own. Try to balance it. Keep it even.
The ambassador’s fingers clamp onto me, squeezing harder than a rattrap. There’s power in his stare. He’s trying to intimidate the truth out of me. “And how do you know this?”
“I—I run drugs for Longwai. One of the other girls in the brothel wanted me to tell you. She said it was urgent. A matter of life and death.”
These final words seem to sway him. Osamu lets go of my arm and returns to the door. I look back to the window-walls, where a bunch of primped, pale faces gaze through the glass. Staring at me.
The ambassador exchanges words with the doorman and takes a thi
cker jacket to cover his party-wear. His fancy leather shoes cut past me with quick steps.
“Come,” he calls at me over his shoulder. Like he’s summoning a dog. I have no choice but to scramble after him.
He doesn’t even look down when I reach his side. “I swear to the gods, boy, if you’re wrong, I’ll have you stashed away for a long time.”
Threats mean nothing right now. My face is bathed in sweat. Side literally splitting. Hiro’s old shirt is damp with my blood. I don’t know if I can keep going.
I do manage to crawl into the ambassador’s car, feel the lump of Dai’s gun when I collapse against the leather seat. It digs into my side. Reminds me of the six bullets. Six chances at getting my way. Getting away.
MEI YEE
For some time there’s only dimness and the ragged tempo of Sing’s breath. I begin to wonder if that’s all there is. Just the in and out of her drug-riddled lungs, taunting me with her fate. The rhythm is almost hypnotic. After minutes and minutes of it, my eyes begin to close.
And then the door next to me opens—an explosion of wood and anger, jerking me awake. I struggle to my knees and then my feet, eyes full of the blurry series of legs filing in.
I stand and see their faces. The ones who’ve come to question and judge. Mama-san’s makeup, Fung’s tattoo, Nam’s gold tooth, Longwai’s violet scar. But there’s a fifth face, one I have to focus on to recognize.
I see him and wonder if maybe I’m dreaming. But no, I rub my eyes and he’s still there—in the flesh, without glass or metal between us. The golden skin. Hair peaked and jutting everywhere. Sharp face full of plans and cunning. Eyes that hum and shine like phoenix song.
Dai. What’s he doing? Did they catch him, too?
Those eyes find mine. His chin quivers—side to side—in the smallest of shakes. I snap my stare down to the floor, away from him.
“Mei Yee.” Longwai sounds disappointed, but thrills still manage to weave through my name. “Mei Yee. How could you do this to me? After everything I’ve done for you.”
I keep my head down, study the crevices in the floorboards. There are years of dust and suffering wedged between them. Places even Yin Yu’s broom couldn’t reach. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”
“No?” Longwai steps close. I feel his eyes all over me, as scathing and peeling as they were the very first night he inspected me. He reaches out, his fingers cool and clammy against my wrist. “Then how did you get this slice on your finger?”
He holds my hand up for the room to see. It takes everything I have not to flinch back from his touch.
“We know about the hole in the window. Who was behind it?”
Down. Keep your eyes down. Don’t look at Dai. “No one, sir.”
“You’re lying,” Longwai says, as if it’s the most obvious fact in the world. “Yin Yu said you showed her a seashell. How did you get it?”
“Yin Yu is a liar. I’ve told you before. She’s jealous.”
“She’s smart enough not to keep secrets.” Longwai’s nostrils flare wide, like a horse that’s run three li at full gallop. “I’m giving you a choice, Mei Yee. Tell me the truth and I’ll let Ambassador Osamu take you away to Seng Ngoi. If you choose to keep lying…”
He gestures to where Dai stands, a bit apart from everyone else in the room. He’s not looking at me, not meeting my eyes. I look into his hand and see why.
This syringe looks exactly the same as the one they stuck inside Sing’s arm. Pumped full of liquid ruin and loss. The sight of it curled into Dai’s fingers makes my heart clench.
Is it betrayal? Was he playing me this entire time? Plying me for information only to discard me in the end?
Every one of these questions feels like an arrow cracking through my breastbone. An entire quiver of sharpness splitting me open, right through the middle. I try, try, try to meet his eyes and find answers, but he doesn’t look at me.
Longwai mistakes the wreckage on my face for fear. “I’ve allowed you some quality time with your old friend to make the gravity of your choice a bit more real for you. So, Mei Yee, it’s the truth or that syringe. Which will it be?”
I could tell. All it would take is one finger, aimed straight as an arrow back at Dai’s chest. One word, one point, and the needle’s end would slide away. Guns turned on Dai.
Then what? If Longwai kept his word, I would be whisked away to City Beyond. Caged in the ambassador’s penthouse for a lifetime of bruises and pieces of the sea. It’s not freedom, but it’s better than ending up as a living skeleton on Longwai’s floor.
I look at the syringe, now almost completely visible under Dai’s strained knuckles. The skin over his bones is a thin, sharp white.
It’s a gamble. All of this. I have no idea, no guarantee that Longwai’s promise will hold. And Dai… I focus on his fingers. How they shake.
It all boils down to a single question.
Do I trust him?
I look down the line. At Fung’s offset jaw and hunched shoulders. At Nam’s four peeling cheek scabs and gleaming eyeteeth. At Mama-san’s body wrapped tightly in her slinky silk. At Sing’s hair rippling over the floor like grease-drenched ribbons; her eyes are open, some shine returned as she looks at the syringe in Dai’s hand. At Longwai’s too-big belly stretched tight against the buttons of his shirt. Back at Dai.
He’s looking at me this time. It’s just a split second of our eyes locked together. And I know.
No matter what it takes.
“I’m telling you the truth.” There’s no shake in my words as I look back at Longwai. “There was no one behind the window. There was no shell. My window broke and I cut my finger stuffing the silk in it to keep the cold out. Yin Yu saw it and made up wild stories so she could profit.”
This clearly isn’t the response Longwai is expecting. His lips slide into an almost-frown. His eyes dart from Dai to me and then narrow. “And this is the truth?”
“Yes,” I tell him.
The drug lord’s head swivels back in Dai’s direction. With one hand, he grabs my arm again, the other he uses to wave my window-boy over.
Dai is so close I can feel the heat of him. So different from the clammy cool of Longwai’s touch, or the slick sweat of the ambassador’s chest. This heat is like a cooking fire on a winter night—the close, simmering comfort of home.
I close my eyes, bask in it as Longwai stretches my arm out straight. Somewhere I hear the snap of a band. Then I feel it, squeezing tight against my upper arm, choking all blood back down into my wrist, palm, and fingers.
My eyes open to see Fung tying a complicated knot into the band. Longwai is staring at me. Expecting me to beg: all quail and quiver at his feet. Instead I stare back, meeting the hollow hardness of his eyes.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” he says.
“No.” I feel every heartbeat slamming against the tightness of Fung’s tourniquet. “It doesn’t.”
The spine in my voice makes him snarl, and I know it doesn’t matter if he thinks I’m telling the truth or not. Mama-san’s right. Courage and hope can’t exist in a place like this. Longwai grinds them to powder under his heels.
It wasn’t Yin Yu who did this to me, not really. It was this man.
He looks at Dai and points to the blue veins bulging beneath my skin.
“Do it.”
DAI
Back on my apartment wall there are two marks left, but it doesn’t matter. I’m out of time. No days or hours remain. Not even minutes.
The numbers are different now. I add them up, doing quick calculations in my head as my fingers clutch the syringe.
Six people.
Three guns.
One syringe.
One shard of glass.
One book.
It’s an uneven, impossible equation. No matter how many times I run through it, I can’t come up with the perfect answer. The book and the girl don’t go together. After the equal sign, it’s only me or her. No us.
&nb
sp; Longwai makes a living by lying through his teeth, but he was right about one thing: I’m the disposable one. I’m the sacrifice, the queen in a brutal game of chess.
Turns out there’s a law higher than survival. And I don’t know what it is, but I feel it surging, throbbing, burning away the rest of my doubts and fears.
No book. No me. Just Mei Yee.
The syringe of heroin has lost the chill of the refrigerator. It shakes, filling with dozens of tiny bubbles in my hand. If anyone is looking at me, it should be all they see. Shakes and bubbles. But my left hand is sliding ever so carefully into my pocket, where the glass piece saws through denim. Its razor edge bites into my palm, ready.
There are so many veins in Mei Yee’s arm—dredged to the surface by Fung’s too-tight knots. She doesn’t fight as the drug lord splays out her arm like an offering.
“Do it.” Longwai points to the blue web under her paper-thin skin.
I take a breath, unclenching the syringe in my right hand while gripping tight to the glass in my left. If I time it just right, I can get the shard deep into Longwai’s neck, grab his gun, and take care of Fung and Nam. A big if. And then there’s the matter of every other Brotherhood member with a holster crawling through this place.
Getting out of here alive is a long shot, but it’s the only shot I’ve got.
I pretend to watch the needle as I guide it close to Mei Yee’s flawless skin. But really my eyes are searching for other veins, the thick cording ones gathered in Longwai’s neck.
There’s a cry and suddenly—a girl. A girl where I didn’t even know a girl was. She rises from the corner, looking like a witch with her loosed black hair and gaunt face. Her eyes are both bulging and sunk in—fixed on one thing only. She lunges with a speed too fast and impossible for her bony limbs.
“I need it!”
The syringe is torn from my hand by this wild resurrection of a girl. I don’t even have to pretend to stop her. Her fist clenches tight around the needle, jams it into her arm. But there’s no vein to carry it through. Heroin and blood braid down her skin. The girl shakes, stares at it. She’s trying to lick it up when Nam rips the hollowed plastic syringe from her palm.