by Ryan Graudin
My hand unfurls slowly and the glass inches downward to my fingers. I work its edge back and forth, up and down. Longwai’s been gone for a while, probably off to have a smoke or get some shut-eye. Every dark minute that goes by I expect to hear his footsteps again. I listen for them under the door as I saw at my bindings.
There’s so much fire and pain in my shoulder that I don’t even feel the ropes come off. My hands are just free, collapsing to my sides. I wilt to the floor, find the glass, place it back into my sweating palm.
When Longwai comes back, I’ve got to be ready.
I’m still on my knees when the footsteps start, padding closer and closer. I push up with my good arm, bolt to the wall by the door. My hand is tighter than ever on the bottle shard, ready for the lunge and stab.
The lock clicks and the door swings open.
JIN LING
The stink of the sewer clouds my nostrils. Warm and jungle wet. I stand across from Ka Ming and Ho Wai. Keep a careful eye on their hands. Watch for knives. There’s a faint glitter between Ho Wai’s knuckles, but when I look closer, I realize it’s only a golden cuff link.
“So do we have a deal?” I ask through the plume of sewer smoke.
“Sounds awful risky.” Ka Ming shoots a glance at his partner.
Risky. Just one word to describe this cobbled semblance of a plan. I swallow back the tightness in my throat and tell them, “All good payoff has risk.”
“Yeah, but risk and Brotherhood are two different things,” Ho Wai points out. “How much did you say we’d get?”
“Ten thousand.” I say the highest number that comes to mind. Hope Dai’s father is willing to pay it. “If everything works out.”
The two boys stare at each other again. Talk with their eyes.
“Ten thousand,” Ka Ming agrees. “No killing.”
I glimpse Ho Wai’s knife wedged into his belt. The edge is rimmed with pink; I look back to the cuff link in his hands. Raise my eyebrows.
“Not when Brotherhood’s involved,” Ka Ming goes on. “You understand.”
I do understand. But I’m tangling with them anyway. With my crippled side and six bullets. With the speed of my sister’s untested legs.
“It’s a deal,” I tell them.
I pass the noodle-maker’s shop on my way back to Dai’s apartment. Look at the clock on the back wall. A cartoon frog marks the minutes—his long tongue chasing a fly around the ring of numbers. Around and around and around. The old man beating the noodles into shape told me that when the tongue catches the fly at the very top, it’ll be a new year. Our time will be up.
I try not to think about this as I push back through the door into Dai’s apartment. Drag the plastic bag full of stuff from Mr. Lam’s shop. Bought with everything I had left in the orange envelope. I took it easy on the stairs, but I still feel the steady weep of blood through Hiro’s old shirt.
Just a little longer. Just one more run.
But my side feels as if it’s been stuffed with pepper paste. Red and hot. I try to ignore it as I walk into the room. Toss the bag of goods onto the floor. Chma sniffs at the mess of plastic. Realizes it’s not food and turns away.
Mei Yee comes over from her place by the window. “Did you get everything?”
“Yeah,” I wince. Let myself down onto the floor. Never has hard, cold tile felt so good. “Talked to the vagrants, too.”
“Will they help us?” My sister starts rifling through the plastic bag. Pulls out all the containers and brushes Mr. Lam stuffed into it.
“I caught them in a good mood.…” I think of the cuff link. How it glowed like Chma’s eyes through the gaps in Ho Wai’s fingers. But this doesn’t seem like something I should tell Mei Yee. Not yet. “And offered them a lot of money. So yeah. They’re in.”
The red dress is in the corner, folded neatly alongside Dai’s other clothes. Even wearing boy’s clothes—hair askew and eyes puffy—my sister looks pretty. I eye the growing pile of makeup by her knees. Start to doubt. I’ll never be able to look like that. How can I think this plan even has a chance of working?
Mei Yee picks up a brush and opens the first jar. Peach dust fluffs into the air. Makes Chma sneeze: Chma! Chma!
I wish Dai were here to hear it. So I could tell him how right I was.
Soon. Just one more run.
“Shut your eyes,” my sister commands. Stretches out the brush. “This will tickle a bit.”
Powder sifts onto my face. I fight the urge to jerk away. Mei Yee takes minutes to make sure it’s perfect, but she doesn’t stop there. There are at least a dozen more jars. Colors for cheeks. Paint for lips, eyelids, and lashes. Long black clips of hair that isn’t mine.
And then there’s the silk dress. I slide it on fast, turned so my sister won’t see the oozing wound under my shoulder. The one that’s almost blinding me with its fire. Sooner or later it’s going to catch up to me. I know this, but I still keep pushing. Hoping my body will stay together until all this is over.
I feel ridiculous. Cartoonish with this scarlet-shine dress and painted face. The fake bun pinned to my head clings like a terrified cat. It’s not until I wrap my bindings around my bare thigh—slide the revolver into them—that I start to feel like myself again.
“You look beautiful,” Mei Yee says when she sits back. Admires her work.
I look over to the window. The room’s fluorescent light echoes back at us. Paints a perfect picture of the apartment. I don’t see myself in it. Instead, there’s a woman standing next to Mei Yee. A transformation of almost-curves and beauty.
I cock my head. The woman’s head bends, too. My sister has done the impossible.
And now she must do it again.
The worst part of my plan—the part that makes my stomach turn and my knees weak—isn’t the risk I’m taking. It’s what I’m asking Mei Yee to do. I’ve thought through my plan again and again. A hundred times over. But there’s no way this works without my sister.
I almost called the whole thing off, but she wouldn’t let me. She’s not the same girl who cowered in the corner of our father’s shack. Who cried when a stray dog barked at her.
“It’s almost time.” I hand her my boots. “Are you ready?”
Mei Yee stares at the battered leather and laces. “Do you really think this is going to work?”
“I don’t know.” The lines are still on the wall. A perfect pair. I walk to the tiles and swipe one off. “You don’t have to do this. I can figure out another way in.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “You can’t.”
I keep staring at the last line—forlorn against the off-white. It looks so odd by itself.
“And you’re wrong. I do have to do this.” Mei Yee sits down. Pulls the boots over her sliced feet. Her tongue edges out of her lips as she laces them up. “No matter what it takes.”
Sounds like something Dai would say.
The final line looks so lonely. Because the numbers don’t matter anymore, I reach out. Smudge the last charcoal strike away. As if it had never been there.
MEI YEE
My feet are throbbing in Jin Ling’s boots—singing blood and blisters against the raw leather. I try to focus on the pain in my toes, my heel. It’s far better than the fear that’s rising, sliding through every vein as I peer out of the shadows at the brothel’s entrance. Where the dragon snakes around the door and a man with a gun stands guard.
“Are you ready?” my sister asks again in the tone that tells me she thinks I’m not. “Do you remember where to go?”
I know it’s been only a few hours since I last saw Dai, but the moments between have felt like centuries. Every time I’m tempted to think of what’s happened to him, what awful tortures Longwai has invented to get him to talk, I think of the route. The path Jin Ling showed me: right, straight, past the dumpling man, through a sliver in the buildings between the dog restaurant and the makeshift barber, right again, straight all the way to the cannons.
It’s not a very
long distance, but I’m not a runner.
I’m not, yet I must be. I will be. Because Sing is dead and Dai is still alive and this is the only way.
“Yes.” My little sister is crouched in the shadows beside me, so I whisper. “I’m ready.”
Jin Ling looks over at me. Even all the makeup I just brushed and dabbed on her face can’t cover the strength there: smart, calculated, fierce. She reaches out, her hand gripping my shoulder. “I love you, Mei Yee.”
I gather her in my arms, as I have so many times before. Only this time it’s not blood but makeup I’m careful not to smudge. She’s warm, too hot against my jacket even though all she’s wearing is that useless serving dress.
I don’t want to let her go. In the end, she’s the one who does it—pulls away and looks me straight in the eyes. “We can do this. You can do this.”
I nod and stand and try not to think of how my legs shake. I take one step and another, into the light of the street.
The guard doesn’t notice me at first. He’s distracted, kicking an empty noodle box back and forth. Battering its cardboard carcass into shreds with his boot. I swallow and keep walking. I’m close, almost too close, when he finally looks up. His eyes squint, then widen as he realizes who I am.
“Hey!” he shouts, but my aching toes already dig deep into the leather of the boots.
I start to run.
DAI
The door opens and scarlet lantern light floods the room. The glass is deep in my good palm, ready for the softness of a wrist or throat. All those vital arteries I learned about in health class. I grip it tight and jump.
Our bodies collide and I realize too late that my visitor isn’t Longwai at all. A serving tray spins to the ground, flinging a mess of cups and bandages and rice all over. And I’m tangled in red silk, my weight crushing the poor girl beneath.
“No! Please…” Her eyes are wide, and her shaking is about an 8.9 on the Richter scale. I look down and realize I’m still holding the emerald slice of glass against her throat. I pull it away.
“What are you doing here?” I look around at the ruins of her tray, answer my own question.
“You’re Mei Yee’s boy, aren’t you?” The girl’s eyes narrow. “The one who wanted the book.”
Out of reflex, I look into the hall. Not that it really matters if anyone heard; this whole plan’s gone to shit anyway.
“Something like that.” I pull myself away, and the girl sits up, her bangs dropping like curtains over her face. She looks over at the chair, the frayed rope, and back to me, meat shoulder and all. I can see the waver in her eyes, the almost-yell swelling in her lungs, ready to warn the entire brothel about my escape.
She takes a breath. “You told Mei Yee you could get us out. Were you telling the truth?”
“Got her out, didn’t I?” The adrenaline of the moment is wearing thin, letting the pain back in. And snarky-Dai with it.
The girl frowns. “And the book. You still need it?”
I slip the shard into my hoodie, keep my eyes fixed on the empty hall. It’s only a matter of time before someone walks by. “Yeah.”
She’s studying me, like I’m some kind of viral strain on a microscope slide. Fascinating, dangerous if not handled properly. She reaches into the folds of her dress, pulls out a ring of brass skeleton keys. “Take these. The key to Longwai’s office is the third one from the right.”
The girl with the keys. Yin Yu. The one who ratted out Mei Yee. The one we never should’ve trusted.
I don’t know if I should trust her now. She could be one of Longwai’s puppets, baiting me to show my secrets instead of tell. I snatch the keys anyway. “Change of heart?”
“I never meant…” Her voice falters. She swallows and tries again, but there’s still a rattle in her syllables. “They shot Sing right in front of me. Just like that. She was dead.”
It’s all she says, but I understand. I’ve seen dead bodies. I know how they change you, turn your guts inside out with their stillness and not-life.
This is what Sing’s body did to Yin Yu. It undid her.
“I don’t want to die here,” Yin Yu says. “In one minute I’m going to scream and tell them you jumped me and stole the keys. Longwai’s in the lounge facing the entry hall.”
Of course he would be watching the way in. The way out. What are the odds that I’ll get past him unseen?
“Go,” Yin Yu says simply. “Your time is running out.”
JIN LING
Mei Yee’s off faster than a hare. And the guard after her. I slip out of my hidden corner. Shuffle in battered slippers across the street. Through the dragon’s door. My sister’s advice loops through my head as I go: Take small steps. Fold your hands in front of you. Keep your head down.
I pass some of Longwai’s men in the first hall. Walk by open doors where girls stare out. No one seems to notice the dirt under my fingernails. The coarseness of the horsehair on my scalp. The sad state of my silk footwear. The patch of blood blooming like a flower from my side. Subtle darkness on the fabric.
I want to move fast. Even though my side feels as if it’s splitting apart. With every step, I fight the urge to run. It takes me longer than I’d like to reach the lounge. Longwai is on the couch, lips wrapped around the end of a long pipe. He doesn’t notice me slink in from the entry hall. Mei Yee did her job well—my dress, hair, and makeup blend in. Seamless. I’m just another faceless serving girl.
Book first, then Dai. I trace out the plan in my head and skirt the edge of the lounge. Toward the hall on the right, where the ledger is. I’m almost there, just passing the girl playing her stringed instrument, when Longwai calls out. “You! Girl!”
I freeze. He’s looking straight at me.
Before my hand can flash down to Dai’s gun, Longwai lifts up his glass. “I need more wine.”
Wine. He singled me out for wine. I scurry over to the serving cabinet. Try frantically to make sense of the mess of glasses and bottles there. I wish I’d been paying more attention to the way Yin Yu served it. The first time I was here.
“The bottle on the left,” the girl at the instrument whispers. Her words are barely louder than the pluck of her strings. I glance over. Her eyes meet mine. She nods, fingers still moving, moving, moving.
It’s so easy for her to tell I don’t belong. What chance do I stand against Longwai?
I grab the wine bottle by its neck. Turn and get ready to pour. What I see stops me in my tracks.
It’s Dai. Very alive and edging through the room’s unlit corners. Hoodie up. Trying his best to get to the east hall.
“Is there a problem?” Longwai shifts on his couch.
“No!” My reply is sharper than I mean it to be. It steals the sleepiness out of the drug lord’s eyes, makes him alert. He starts to stand.
One turn. One look behind his shoulder. That’s all it would take for Dai to get caught.
I let go of the bottle. It plummets to the floor. Crimson wine bleeds across the rug, all the way to Longwai’s slippers. He snarls. Stands up all the way.
“That rug is worth ten times what I paid for you!” Longwai seizes my arm. It takes everything I have not to pull away. Fight back. His fingers are freckled with spots of stale blood. I try not to think of where those stains came from.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Saying these words feels like pulling out my own teeth with rusty pliers. I look down at my feet, where the wine bottle is still vomiting its contents. Push back the very strong urge to reach for Dai’s gun.
“Sorry?” The drug lord leans down. Catches my eyes despite my best efforts to look away. “I don’t remember asking Mama-san to assign serving duties to a new girl. In fact… I don’t remember you at all.”
My heart drops. There’s a glint in his eyes. A tightness in his fingers. He’s putting the pieces together—suspicions shaping up like potter’s clay.
Maybe I’ll get to use the revolver after all.
“Her name is Siu Feng.” The girl has stopped pl
aying her music so she can address the drug lord. “She was with the girls who came a few months ago. The group Wen Kei was with.”
This throws Longwai off a bit. His brow furrows, second-guessing. Those fingers loosen. His back straightens. He points at the rug. “Fix this. And don’t bother with the refill. I have business to get back to.”
I look up, relieved to see that Dai is gone. The shadows are empty. Longwai doesn’t head toward his office, as I fear he might. Instead, he disappears into the north hall.
The girl doesn’t go back to her music. Instead, she comes over and picks up the wine bottle by my feet.
“Thanks,” I tell her when she hands it to me.
She puts a finger to her lips. Motions to the lulling clients around us. Men so still I forgot they were there. “You’re with the boy, aren’t you?” she whispers.
I nod and glance back down the east hall. Wonder if I should follow Dai there. A wail of a scream rises from the north hall. A girl’s voice babbles about attacks and keys, followed by Longwai’s slurred roar, “Where is he?”
I’m about to race off. Warn Dai. But Longwai is already bulling through the lounge, face redder than the dragon on his door. His gun is out. Ready and trembling in his fingers. He disappears as fast as he came. Swallowed by the dim crimson glow of the east hall.
MEI YEE
Run. Run for Dai. For Dai. Run.
It’s been so long since I’ve moved like this. To tell the truth, I’m surprised I still can. Over heaps of trash, under ladders, around corners sharper than Nuo’s embroidery needle. Shop lights blur past, puddles fly under my feet, and always, always I hear the guard breathing hard behind me, cursing with every other step.
I run, run, run until I can’t feel my feet anymore. They’re long past the pain of blisters and cuts. There’s a new strength in my limbs—pure, hot energy. I feel that if I just stretched out my arms, I could fly. Out of these tunnels and up between the stars. This must have been how Sing felt before they caught her.