A rattling breath rises from the corner, like a wind chime threaded with bones. Now that it’s darker, the pile of pillows has transformed into a crowd of hulking spirits, calling me over. Wanting to devour me the way they’ve swallowed my friend.
The breathing grows louder, like hundreds of dried leaves tumbling and crunching against one another. One of the pillows lurches, falls on its side as something moves behind it. Then there’s a loud, awful noise.
Heeeeeeesh…
“Sing?” I whisper on purpose, because I don’t know if I really want her to hear me. I think of the last time I stood by this door, on the other side. How she threw herself at it like a wild creature.
But I don’t think she’ll be doing that now. The pillow-demons stay still. There’s only the rasping struggle of Sing’s lungs to let me know she’s there at all. I take a few steps forward, wait for my eyes to adjust.
She’s whiter than a set of bleached sheets. So much lesser and faded from the girl I knew: a husk. There’s almost nothing left to her. I don’t know if she could stand if she tried.
But she does move. Her arm reaches out and, even though the movement is slow, I jump back. It’s a weak motion, taking everything she has to grasp out for my foot.
And the labored breaths turn into words. I have to strain to hear them. “M-m-more…”
“Sing.” I crouch down, keep my distance. “It’s me. Mei Yee.”
Her eyes are open, but dull, as if they’re not really seeing anything at all. She stares and stares. Her arm stays still, wrenched and twisted like a spare piece of string. She looks dead. Only her horrible, rattling breath tells me otherwise.
A shiver takes me, starting first in my neck and dripping down my back like rainwater. I go back to the door and sit, clutching my knees to my chest. My eyes shut. I wish my nose and ears could do the same.
The shell is gone. The boy is gone. And I’m like a star falling, falling, falling into darkness worse than death.
DAI
It was a split-second decision, staying behind. One of those ideas you can barely process while your brain is stringing out cusswords a mile long. I’m standing in the lip of the alley, where the trash thins out into the trample of the wider street. There’s no time for second thoughts, but they’re there anyway, sticking me all over like hot acupuncture needles.
I have no idea what I’m going to do once I get through those doors. How I’m going to distract Longwai long enough for Osamu to get here. All I know is that Mei Yee’s timetable has suddenly grown a hell of a lot shorter than mine. And I’ve got promises to keep.
My body feels so much lighter without my gun tucked into my jeans. Like a piece of me is missing. The nautilus shell is still jammed up a sleeve of my sweatshirt. More damning evidence. I kneel down and find an empty bag of dried seaweed bites. The kind Hiro and I used to toss at each other during study sessions. The logo — a cutesy cartoon cat licking its lip — is long faded. No one would bother to pick this up.
I slip the shell in — shove it to the far edge of the wall. The cellophane wrapper crushes hopelessly under my boot. Crunching against a wreath of shiny, jagged glass. The pieces are as sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel. Perfect for peeling back skin, slicing veins.
My hand hovers over them, twitching as I weigh the risk.
I can go in there without a plan, but there’s no way in hell I’m walking in without a weapon.
I grab the largest fragment of glass, shove it into my front pocket.
Better not get caught in the alley. My brain’s adrenaline highlights this point. With double underlines and stars in the margins, the way Hiro used to mark up his biology textbooks. I take note (the way I never really did when I was actually studying), slip out into the wider streets, and start walking.
I’m not as far from the alley mouth as I’d like to be when Fung rounds the corner. For such a hulk of a man, he’s fast. When he sees me, he shifts gears, lurches into double speed. I barely have a chance to flinch before he’s next to me, seizing my hoodie like a dog’s scruff.
“You,” he grunts. “What are you doing back here?”
“I was on my way to see Longwai.” I keep my voice level and long, like a ruler. Not the easiest feat when I can see Fung’s gun not-so-subtly strapped against his hip.
“Yeah?” The gangster’s eyebrow quirks, and the beast on his face moves like the New Year’s dragon dances. The ones that will soon take place in Seng Ngoi’s streets. “Funny thing. He wants to see you, too. You stood up his runs.”
Shit. The runs. How could I forget? Not that there was much I could do in any case.
Fung doesn’t let go of my sweatshirt. He tugs me back to the brothel’s yawning door, pausing only to discard our shoes. I feel like a squirming rodent being dragged back to an eagle’s aerie. Waiting to be torn apart by razor talons and beaks.
The lounge has a few smokers, but Longwai’s couch is empty — just a stretch of threadbare fabric and sagging cushions. Fung pulls me through the smoke. We pass couches and the upturned corners of rugs and even serving girls. I look into their faces, hoping against hope that one of them will be Mei Yee. That the words we heard behind the window were a terrible, unreal illusion.
But she isn’t there. Not holding a serving tray or behind the zither. She’s not even lurking in the shadows.
My chest feels like someone’s pumped it full of liquid lead. I see the same pain in the other girls’ faces.
Fung keeps walking, dragging me through to the hall.
The east hall.
We stride past doors full of nameplates, to the end, where stairs curl up. At the bottom step, the gangster releases my sweatshirt, prods me forward with a growl.
“Up you go.”
I conquer every step, trying not to think about whether Fung’s got a gun pointed at my back. I think, instead, of how close I am to the book. How freedom has never felt farther away.
When we reach the top, my pulse is scattered and uneven. Just like Fung’s thick-knuckled knock on the door.
Longwai isn’t wearing his lounging jacket when he opens the door. He’s dressed like Fung — only smarter. Buttoned-up shirt. A blazer. Slacks. All black. Like a Western businessman preparing to go to a funeral. Except Western businessmen usually don’t wear gold chains around their necks or guns on their belts.
And I’m really, really hoping there won’t be any funerals today…
The leader of the Brotherhood sees me. The knife scar on his face bulges along with his jaw, purple and shiny. This, with his smart dress, makes him look more like a predator than ever before.
“I thought I asked you to check the alley.” He shoots a sharp look past my shoulder, at Fung.
“I did, sir,” the guard says quickly. “Found this one skulking nearby.”
“I didn’t know Hak Nam’s side streets were off-limits.” I try my best to look bewildered.
“They are if I say so.” There’s no smoke weighing down Longwai’s eyes. No subtle sloth to his movement. If he was a cobra before, now he’s a mongoose. His gaze snakes back to Fung. “Keep searching. Leave the boy here for now. We’re long overdue for a discussion.”
My hands clench tight against my thighs as Fung walks away, moves back down the stairs. I feel the glass, sharp and pressing through denim.
Longwai walks away from the door, and the room comes into full view. The first thing I see are the guns and cruel-edged knives. A whole wall of metal and trigger, power and pain staring me in the face. The shard in my pocket is starting to feel like a bad joke.
I try not to stare at it too long. There are plenty of other things to look at. A large television screen crowned with rabbit ears and tinfoil. A tank full of aquamarine water and tropical fish that stretches across an entire wall. A hefty, lacquered writing desk. The top drawer with its delicate golden lock.