Telling them, trusting them with this plan, could go either way.
The one redeeming factor, the final weight in my decision, was their silence on Sing’s behalf. How they said nothing when our friend ran. It feels like so many ages ago we were sitting in the same circle and it was Sing speaking. Her lips moved so fast I could catch only so many of her words. I was transfixed by how flushed her cheeks were, how bright her eyes shined.
They’re quiet now, too. Waiting, waiting, waiting for what I have to say.
“I found a way out.”
“What?” Wen Kei squeaks, so tiny by my feet.
The girls stare, blink in turn. Suddenly I feel too tall, so I move back to the edge of my bed.
“Well, really, a way out found me…” I say, mostly to fill the silence.
“What are you talking about?” Yin Yu’s not sitting anymore, but halfway on her feet, like some cat ready to pounce.
My heart trembles, fills my head with a thousand warnings. The same ones that have whirled through my head, throbbed through my bruises these past two weeks.
Too dangerous. Don’t. There’s still time to back out. Still time to say yes.
So I do what I always do when the fears crowd in. My fingers dance across the crimson lengths of the curtain and pull.
The shell is still there. Outside looking in. Impossible to miss. My secrets through the glass, for the world to see.
“What — what is it?” Nuo leans into my mattress, trying to get a closer look through the grating. The way she’s staring reminds me of how Jin Ling and I used to ogle the chewy, sticky slivers of rice candy in the province market.
Wen Kei answers for me; the word leaves her mouth more sacred than a prayer. “Nautilus.”
Both of my friends stare at the window as if it’s some kind of magic. But Yin Yu stays back. Her stare is different, not so much magical as wary. The way I used to stare at the stray dogs my sister always insisted on feeding. The ones that could turn and sink their teeth in at any moment.
“Where?” Wen Kei finally looks at me, the entirety of her small body turning in her excitement. “How?”
“A boy gave it to me,” I tell them. “He’s been coming to see me for a while now. We’ve been trading information.”
“Information?” Wen Kei squeaks.
“About the Brotherhood.” I make a point to look at Yin Yu as I say this. “I didn’t take your duties because I want to be Mama-san. I did it because I had to spy. Get information.”
“You’ve been”—Yin Yu stops, lowers her voice to even less than a hiss—“spying? On the Brotherhood?”
“What did he want to know?” Nuo asks.
“At first it was just names. Then he wanted to know where Longwai keeps his ledger.” It’s not until I see the three pairs of eyes grow wider at the sound of the master’s name that I realize I’ve been using it.
“He says he’s going to get us out. All of us.” My words crash like stones into a still pond. They fill the room with trembling faces and ripples. Nuo and Wen Kei look at me as if I just unlocked the front door myself.
Yin Yu doesn’t move. “What’s his price?”
“We have to get Longwai’s ledger.”
Silence. More trembling.
“The red book? The one with the dragon on it?” Nuo’s fingers dance over her thigh, playing some unheard song. “Why does the boy want that?”
I ignore the question I can’t answer. It’s easy for me to trust Dai — the electrifying burn of his eyes, the deep of his voice, and his no matter what through the glass. I know the girls won’t take his mysteries as easily. “Longwai keeps the book upstairs, in the top drawer of his desk. We have to steal it tomorrow night. Well, I’m the one who’s actually going to take it. But I need you girls to help.
“The boy is going to buy time with Nuo and wait in her room. I’ll take Yin Yu’s keys and sneak into the office while Wen Kei makes sure that Longwai and Mama-san are distracted. When I get the book, I’ll drop it in Nuo’s room and the boy will walk out with it.”
Nuo and Wen Kei flinch at the sound of Longwai’s name. Yin Yu is unaffected. Bangs fall, black and short, into her eyes. They mute some of her hard, hard stare. “And where’s the part about us getting out? How do we know he’s not just going to walk out and leave us? When the master finds out his ledger is gone…”
“The boy is coming back for us. He gave me his word.” My voice fights against shake. I hope it’s enough.
“And you’re going to just trust some starving vagrant? He’s using you, Mei Yee!”
“He’s not!” I wish, now, that Dai had given me more words to work with. Something solid and concrete. I can’t translate the feelings in my chest so easily. “There’s something going on, Yin Yu. Something bigger than us.”
Yin Yu rises, her serving dress gleaming red as hellfire. “Let the boy handle his own problems. We’ll handle ours.”
Her words are an absolute. A challenge meant for me to bow or quail. A few weeks ago I might have, but my spine is stiffer now. I stand as well.
“This is it, Yin Yu. This is our chance. There might never be another.” I look at the other two girls huddled on my bed like chicks. “Even if you don’t want to do this, you have to let them decide.”
Nuo nods. “I’ll help.”
“Me too.” Wen Kei’s petite face pinches in a scowl. She’s staring at Yin Yu. “I don’t want to stay here.”
“No.” Yin Yu takes a step toward me, then pauses. “We’re never going to leave! Don’t you understand that! This is our life now. The only way out of here is on a beggar’s mat or in a body bag. You saw what happened to Sing. Don’t think the master won’t do the same to every single one of us. We’re all disposable!”
Eyes flash, blacker than night. Darker than a room without light. I look into them and realize she made up her mind a long time ago. When Sing screamed and thrashed and the needle burst poison into her veins.
I keep staring, trying not to get lost in the deep despair of her eyes. “We’ll do it without you, then.”
“No.” She reaches out, grabs the door handle. “You won’t.”
The pit in my stomach suddenly grows, stretches as if it’s outside me. I thought, at the worst, she would refuse. But now, seeing her long white fingers on the latch, pushing down, I know she’s capable of much, much worse.
“Yin Yu. Don’t.”
I see all of it slipping away, sliding down with the handle. She keeps pushing.
“I can’t let this happen again. I can’t let you destroy us! Destroy them!” Yin Yu looks to Nuo and Wen Kei. “One day you two will understand. I’m doing this to protect us.”
She looks back at me. “There is no escape, Mei Yee. The master will know. We can’t fool him. He’ll find out what happened, and then he’ll inject each and every one of us. Maybe even kill us.”
She keeps pushing the handle. Pushing, pushing, pushing. And a sick fills me, welling up like slimy black oil. It coats every fiber. Every vein.
I’ve never fought before. Not like Sing. Not like my baby sister. All fists, teeth, and dart. But something inside me snaps, propels me forward. Suddenly I’m at the door, shoulder slamming into its wood. My hip bone pins Yin Yu’s wrist into the handle so hard that something cracks.
At first she’s surprised. Then she shoves back. Her free hand flails, rakes at my face. I feel the sharp of her nails forging a path down my cheeks. I push out, use all my strength and more to slam her against the wall. Her tiny, wasted frame is no match for what woke up inside me.