“What?” I asked.
“Please,” she said, and it felt so sincere, so genuine, that it stopped me. The alien movement flickered and disappeared. She returned to normal and I watched, still stunned, as she ran the tip of one finger over the bond band tattoo on my left arm. She traced the hanzi that spelled out Nix’s name.
“He’s looking for you, you know.”
My eyes widened.
“How do you know…?” She didn’t answer. She just smiled. “He can’t be. He’s dead.”
“He’s alive.”
“Alive?” I managed.
She couldn’t know. She couldn’t even know about Nix at all, but if she did, she’d know he was dead. I’d seen him die. I’d passed through Sillith’s gate, landing in some cold, snow-dusted Pan-Slav alley. When I turned and looked back through the portal, I saw him plain as day. The facility in Shiliuyuán Station got fire bombed. Whatever they pumped down there burned white hot even after consuming the breathable air. He’d barely been able to get Vamp and Dragan through the second gate he’d opened when the blast took him. He’d been engulfed in seconds. Not even a haan could survive something like that.
“He… couldn’t have survived,” I said. “How can you even…”
I tried to pull away and knocked over the ceramic pipe, tipping ash onto the counter. My hand had begun to shake again. Qian took it, and curled her fingers, still warm from the tea cup, around mine. She stroked the back with one finger.
A scalefly lit on my knuckles, then crawled across from my hand to hers. Through the mite cluster, I felt a short pulse of signal.
“Let me go.”
“I know what you and your friends talked about that night,” she said, her smile still fixed. “And I’ve learned much more since.”
“Let go.”
“I know what it is you’re planning. You, and your friend Vamp.”
Terror pricked through my brain, and I felt my heart begin to beat faster. My mouth went dry.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, but even in my own ears my voice sounded uncertain.
“I will give you this one warning,” she said. “I will tell you the same thing your friend Nix will say, if he ever finds you. You are making a serious mistake.”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“We have come too far,” she said. She gestured to the screen inside the booth, where Ava and LeiFang waved to the crowd. “Things are going well. Better than we dared hope. Your species is on the cusp of something great. I won’t let you ruin this, not for us, and not for them.”
I pulled my hand away again, and she let go.
“I have to go,” I told her. I reached for my cash card, and she held up one hand.
“My treat.”
I stood, and she rose with me so that she could speak close to my ear.
“Sam, I worry for you,” she said. “Please choose your course very carefully.”
“Get away from me.”
“I don’t wish to see any harm come to you.”
I stumbled back, away from the stand. “I said I don’t know what you’re talking about. Leave me alone.”
“I will tolerate ideas,” she said, following. “Not action. Do you understand? If you force my hand, you will not be able to protect yourself from me. Not you, or your friends, or your family. Do you understand me?”
I slipped into the flow of the crowd, and let it carry me away. When I reached the street corner, I let out a pent-up breath. My hands still shook as I took out my phone and flipped through my contacts.
I called Dragan, but he didn’t pick up. I brought up Vamp’s number next and was about to try him, when I remembered Shuang.
“Shit,” I muttered. I looked back, through the moving streams of people. Qian still sat with her tea, watching LeiFang and Ava on the TV screen.
After a minute, I punched up another contact, and waited by a lamppost while the phone rang.
“Hello?” Dao-Ming asked when she picked up.
“Dao-Ming, it’s Sam.”
“Sam,” she snipped. “I can’t believe you left a nine-year-old boy alone in—”
“Just listen,” I told her. “They know.”
That stopped her. She didn’t ask what I meant.
“Who knows?”
“The haan. They know.”
“The haan? Are you sure?”
I slipped around the corner, ducking into the shadows of an unused alley. I pressed my back to the brick wall behind me, and stared up past fire escapes and power lines to where a tarp fluttered between two buildings high above. I struggled to decide how much I should tell her.
“The nurse, the one from the hospital, she ratted us out,” I told her. “I don’t know how, but she knows. She knows everything.”
Even though I hadn’t taken a hit off the pipe, I felt dry-mouthed and dizzy. Somehow, even though it felt like I’d barely just thought of it myself, news of what I’d planned to do had gotten to the very ones we were trying to expose.
“They’re all coming at me,” I said, retreating farther into the shadows and staring out at the crowds of people moving down the strip.
“What?”
“The gonzos, the haan…”
“Why did you call me?” she asked.
“Dragan is on patrol,” I said. “He—”
“But why me?”
“Because…”
Part of me knew why. She had something about her, something that made you gravitate toward her when things began to go wrong, but there was more to it than that.
“Because what?”
“I need to feel safe.”
“You need to feel safe?”
“I need to protect myself.”
I could almost sense her smile on the other end of the line, a smug, self-satisfied smile as one of us finally came over to her way of thinking.
“My offer still stands,” she said. “If you can provide the connection, I will pay for whatever—”
“Dao-Ming, this is just for protection.”
“Of course,” she said. “But you’ll understand that I will also require protection?”
I didn’t answer. Already, the whole thing had started to feel like a bad idea.
“Sam?”
“What happened to Jin,” I said, “you can’t do anything about—”
“I know that.”
“I’m just saying, he wouldn’t want you to—”
“Don’t talk to me about Jin,” she interrupted, and her tone didn’t leave any room for argument. “I’m not stupid enough to try going after the officer who shot him. I didn’t even see who did it. You’re going to have to trust me. Now, will you do it, or not?”
“Let me think about it,” I said.
“Sam, if what you say is true, you may have to defend yourself. Like it or not, things have changed.”
“I told you, I don’t want—”
“You may have to defend someone you care about. What will you do if they come for Vamp, or Alexei? What will you do then?”
“Dragan can—”
“Dragan can’t be with you all the time,” she said. “Like it or not, we’re all in danger now. Not everyone believes that but I know that you do.”
“You don’t believe me any more than—”
“We may not agree on everything, but regardless of the details we both know that the rulers of Hangfei and the haan are working together, and we are all in danger.” She paused. “I know you know where to get what we need.”
“And why would I know that?”
“Because you’ve done it before,” she said. “Dragan told me the story of how you managed to find him, back then. Don’t lie to me, Sam. Set it up, and I’ll provide you with whatever cash you need.”
I thought about it. I didn’t like the idea of feeding her like this, and there’d be fallout from it. I didn’t even want to think about how Dragan would react, but the way things were headed…