There are sharp jabs of pain as we falclass="underline" glass, jolts, and fingernails. My knife is thrashing, trying to hit whatever it can. His blade is flashing, too. It whistles through the air. Sings of death.
There’s an explosion of heat in my side, searing. Too much for silence. I open my mouth and scream, scream, scream.
It’s over. For a moment that’s all I can think. Kuen’s knife is in me, sawing sinew and bone. Carving a path for my blood. The pain is awful. Everywhere. I wait for it to leave. I want my opponent to rip the metal out and stab again. End it.
But the new pain doesn’t come. The old wound stays: a flower of flame and pain just under my arm. My vision flickers: blurry, sharp, blurry. If I could make my scream into words, I would beg. Why hasn’t he pulled it out?
I look over. See the reason.
Kuen lies next to me. Mouth red-bright, eyes open. They’re rigid, so still. My knife is deep in his chest. Only the hilt shows.
My sight mists over. Colors bleed into one another. Red, gray, black. They swirl. Spinning around and around. Until only shadows are left. The black becomes everything. And then it’s all gone. Even the pain…
DAI
I shove my hands into my pockets as I walk. Away from the window. Away from her. My teeth are still chattering from my sit on the rooftop. When I took in all that wet and cold and waited for the fall that never came.
My feet might be on solid ground now, but I still feel like I’m plunging. Or maybe it’s more like I’m being pulled. The girl’s eyes have latched onto me the way Jin’s fist wrenched my hoodie. Both begging for truth.
I don’t know how much longer I can keep lying to them. The truth is catching up to me. Especially when I’m outside the window — talking about home and needs and wants.
“Dai!”
So I wasn’t imagining it. Someone was calling my name while I crouched at the window, searching for me with a single, crowing syllable.
“Dai! Dai!”
I find the voice in the form of a boy skulking by an empty handcart. It takes me a few seconds to recognize his drawn, bird-like face. He’s one of the youngest vagrants, a part of Kuen’s gang. Bon — the one Jin almost stabbed.
“Yeah?”
The kid looks scared. When I step forward, he slinks back, shoulders slumped. “Your friend, Jin. He’s in trouble.”
Suddenly I don’t feel so cold. My skin flushes hot under my hoodie’s soaked fleece. My hand slides back to the heavy, leaden form of my gun. “What?”
“Kuen — he’ll kill me if he knew I told you,” the boy sputters, flustered. His skeleton face is a strange mix of color. He struggles for his next words. “But I… I like Jin. I don’t want him to die.”
Something about the way the kid says this makes me realize how small he is. He belongs in grade school. Practicing his sum tables and stenciled characters. Kicking a football with his friends at lunch break.
I can tell, just by looking at him, that he’s too young. Too nice. He hasn’t mastered the rules of survivaclass="underline" keep your head down, let people die. No matter how much you like them.
And right now, I’m glad he hasn’t.
“They were waiting for him to come down from the roof when I came to find you,” Bon goes on. “And Kuen’s mad. Real mad.”
Oh hell…
“Where?” I don’t need any more convincing. Not after seeing what that vagrant did to Lee. “Take me. Now.”
Bon vanishes into a side passage nearly too narrow for my grown form to weasel through. Sweat mixes with the rain slick on my face as I leap after the boy. He darts and weaves faster than a rat through the streets, finally stopping at the edge of another dead-end alley. Bon’s eyes are big onyx buttons as he points, wordless.
I step in, gun out and ready. I see the anxious cluster of heads, hear the confused voices of Kuen’s gang gathered around, and I have the awful pit of a feeling that I’m too late.
“Move!” The word I scream is as effective as the bullet I fired last time. The kids scatter, a blurry movement of rags and half-drawn knives. Away, away — vanishing into shadows and the alley’s mouth.
The ground at my feet is the worst color red. Puddles that were once sludge-brown swirl dark with it. Dozens of streams of blood twist over the concrete like feeder roots searching for good soil. Reaching for me like nightmares.
For a moment I forget how to breathe.
Jin looks smaller than I’ve ever seen him. He’s curled up on his side, pale and done. His clothes are so soaked with scarlet that I can’t tell where the blood is actually coming from. Or if he’s even still breathing.
There’s no question Kuen’s dead. He’s gaping like a fish on ice, hands still reaching for the knife in his chest.
Blood. Blood everywhere. My boots slosh through it. I almost drop my gun into the thick red sea at my feet as I kneel down, turn Jin over.
Things grow unsteady for a moment. Shadows flicker like fire at the edge of my eyes. Memories of the night that changed everything flash back, mirror images of now. Too strong to swallow down. The blood. The cold tang of death in the air. My hand clutching a gun. Three broken bodies at my feet. Three murder charges to my name. Three reasons I can’t leave Hak Nam.
But this is different. This is now. And this time, the boy is still alive.
My hands come up crimson and sticky. I look down at Jin. Too much blood. Too much. Just like my dreams. Even if it isn’t all his. He might still be alive, but not for long. Not if I don’t do something.
There are no doctors in Hak Nam for something this serious. An apothecary with dried fungus and powdered sharks’ fins won’t close up this knife wound. And my first aid pouch would just drown under all this blood. What Jin needs is past the Old South Gate. Beyond the rusting cannons. Into a land of law and justice. Where I can’t go.
Get rid of the boy. You don’t need him anymore.
Tsang’s right. It’s not like Jin will be running after this, not before ten days is up. He’s useless to me now. I should just walk away, keep going. Leaving this broken, hurting kid behind. Out of sight, out of mind.
But they’re never really out of mind, are they? My brother and Lee and the girl with the dragging hair… their faces haunt my dreams, their last words whisper and swirl. Like they were meant just for this exact moment.
My brother: You’re a good person.
Lee: Please! Don’t leave me!
And the girl whose escape went wrong: Only silence.
I look back down at Jin, notice just how white and sharp his face is. Like marble. Like the silent, dragged girl. Like death.
I can’t save them all. But Jin… Jin is special. And I don’t think I can handle another ghost.
My body doesn’t feel like mine anymore as I slide my arms under Jin’s back. The stick of blood burns my bare fingers. My insides twist with its scent of salt and iron.
My thoughts are spinning, trying hard to stay in the now as I lift the small boy to my chest, careful not to nudge the knife still lodged into his side. He’s lighter than I thought. Almost nothing. No wonder he’s so fast.
The Old South Gate is choked with people, running errands and making the most of their morning hours. They duck in and out of Hak Nam, hair slick with wet, shoulders flecked with hail. The storm has died down since I left the roof. Pellets — most no bigger than pastry sprinkles — line the street gutters and sidewalk gaps like cake icing. So thick they look like snowdrifts.