With her normally straight hair tangled and mussed, the intensity of her stare made her look wild. Her makeup, usually so carefully applied, had also faded, leaving her looking almost like a different person. Why was she…
A beat later, the pieces fell into place. Dao-Ming had come out of Dragan’s bedroom, wearing nothing but a robe, hair tousled and makeup wiped away. My blood began to boil, and she must have seen it because a glint of amusement flashed over the anger in her eyes.
We’ll see, she sent.
As she turned toward the bathroom, the robe fell open and before she pulled it closed again I saw an ugly white scar underneath her rib cage, surrounded by what looked like circular burn scars.
“Oh my God,” I said. My rising anger deflated, just a little, at seeing them. She walked into the bathroom, and closed the door without looking back.
“Sorry,” Dragan said.
“Holy shit…” I said. I looked at the thumb I’d used to wipe Dragan’s face. “It is lipstick.”
“I…” he stammered. “Look, I just…”
“You were…”
His face turned red, which under other circumstances might have been cute. I looked toward the bathroom door, then back to him.
“It just kind of happened,” he said.
“Hey, it’s cool,” I said, holding up my hands. My brain was having trouble processing it. “You’re a man… she’s a woman….”
“You seemed a little upset there for a minute.”
I looked toward the bathroom door, imagining her on the other side, standing still and waiting for us to leave. Vamp and I used to joke she had a screw loose, but I realized now that it wasn’t a joke.
She was never the same, after the incident in the rim, Jin had said.
I had to tell Dragan. Didn’t I? But what would he do with that information? What Vamp and I had planned, that was one thing. It would make a mess, sure, but turning off the lights was a far cry from blowing stuff up. He’d be duty bound to turn her in, but would he? Especially once he knew she’d involved me. Did I want him to know that?
I decided I didn’t. I absolutely didn’t. Not that.
“It’s… not my business,” I stammered. I managed to swallow the idea of the two of them together, and to smile at least a little. “Come on, never mind that. I’m cool with it.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
The thought nagged at me though—you didn’t go to the trouble and expense of getting your hands on explosives unless you had something you meant to blow up. Dao-Ming knew how to get in touch with those guys now, and even if she didn’t go back to them, they were a direct link straight back to us if they ever got busted.
“Maybe we should just keep our sex lives to ourselves,” I said.
“Agreed. She’s going to stay and wait for Alexei. You ready?”
“Lead the way.”
The crowded streets of Render’s Strip were hot and even in late afternoon the temperature gauge read one hundred and three degrees, and it felt even worse than that. Scaleflies, thriving in the sticky heat, drifted through the mob like weightless, buzzing rain.
We wove through throngs of people passing money and goods back and forth, dodging pedestrians and cyclists as we passed underneath the shade of the rippling tarps that had been stretched from building to building two stories up. Ahead, a tall glass window next to a row of hanging paper lanterns looked into a closet-sized booth. Inside, a stripper sat on her bare bottom, eating a scalefly wafer and reading from a tablet. The sign for Fang’s Café blazed as a pink column of block characters, sporting a white tab and an orange one, indicating that in addition to redeeming ration tickets he also sold booze, and smokes.
As we headed in, Dragan took out his phone and frowned at something he saw on the screen.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Alexei never came home,” he said. “Dao-Ming doesn’t know where he is.”
“Is he okay?”
“He messaged her to say he had to do something, but didn’t say what.” He shook his head, and dropped the phone back in his pocket.
The muscle in his jaw flexed. He’d begun to get really attached to Alexei over the months since they were thrust together, and Alexei liked Dragan, too, I knew that, but the kid pushed him sometimes.
“I was a pain in the ass, too,” I reminded him.
He nodded, rubbing his forehead. “Cool off by the fan. I’ll wait in line.”
He got in line, a sweat stain painted down the middle of his back, and waved off a few scaleflies that buzzed around the crowd’s heads. With not much sleep under my belt, just keeping my eyes open turned out to be an effort as I positioned myself under a ceiling fan and leaned against the wall. I fiddled with my keychain as I brought up the 3i and found Alexei’s contact lit up.
Alexei, I sent. He didn’t answer.
On one of the feed screens mounted above the crowded tables, footage of the Xinzhongzi protest ran. Soundless panic erupted in the square, surging in the strobe of flashing security blues and floodlights. In one window of the screen, a pair of men held reporters back from Gohan Sòng, hanzi underneath saying he still had no comment about the jumpers. Another window showed a snippet of the recording we’d played. The ticker underneath that window said that security had ruled out a foreign cyberattack, and were currently working to trace the source of the pirate signal.
Worry stirred in my belly. The text scrolling past said they already felt confident the feed had been hijacked by someone inside of Hangfei. How had they figured that out so fast?
I tried Alexei again. Yo, Alexei.
Leave me alone.
The message sat there in the chat window floating behind my closed eyes. He was angry. He seemed angry a lot of the time these days, but in spite of what he’d said his little candy red heart icon beat impatiently on the 3i’s tray, waiting for me to answer.
No can do, kid.
Why not?
I’m your sister, that’s why.
You’re not my real sister.
Hey—
And Dragan’s not my real father.
I leaned my head back, and felt a drop of sweat wander down to the divot between my collar bones.
Yeah, well, we’re the best you’ve got. You don’t have to be such a dick about it.
You don’t care about me.
That’s not true, and you know it Alexei.
You forgot to pick me up, before. Even when I come over you can’t wait to leave me with Yun.
I’m sorry, Alexei. Okay? I’m sorry. I’ve got shit going on.
So do I.
I rubbed my eyes. He was nine. Fucking nine. I felt like snapping at him, reminding him that there were things more important than his little world.
Instead I said: I said I’m sorry.
I wanted to tell you something last night.
I started to get mad again, when I remembered that he actually had tried to tell me something. He’d wanted to talk to me, and I’d brushed him off.
Someone jostled me as he squeezed past, making his way toward the counter. Fang’s was one of the oldest ration marts in Render’s Strip and it both looked and smelled that way. The last weekend of the month had it packed full, and I could feel the people all around me like a single, enveloping organism that murmured, chewed, and smoked. Spiced smoke, licorice and clove scented, tickled my nose with the promise of nicotine, tetraz, and opiate.
I know. I’m sorry, Alexei. What did you want to tell me?