MEI YEE
Longwai’s pistol points at Dai. I want to scream, but I can’t find my voice. Or maybe I do scream and I just can’t hear. The sound of the bullet leaving the gun pulses everywhere. Nothing — not the filthy gaps in the floorboards, not the makeup caked in the corners of Mama-san’s eyes, not the aching, bursting vessels of my heart — escapes it.
So many things happen at once.
Dai is falling, falling, falling down. He’s on the floor. Not moving. The floorboards under him seep out, stretch into a color like my curtain, like my nails. My ears hum and ring and scream, This can’t be right. Longwai steps over the body, the pistol is pointing down now. This time it’s aimed at Dai’s head.
The ambassador’s fingers are around my wrist. He’s pressing the way he was before, breaking things unseen, calling up colors and hurt.
But he’s not just pressing. He’s pulling, too, tugging me away from Longwai’s gun. Away from Dai. He yanks my wrist so hard my joint pops and sparkles pain. Sparks of light shiver like tadpoles across my eyes, follow me all the way out the door, down the hall, and into the lounge.
I could’ve touched him. We were that close.
“Hurry up.” The ambassador drags me through this nightmare of smoke and couches. And I don’t know how to fight him. Not when there was so much blood soaking the floor and I knew that Dai was there for me. No matter what…
Sing didn’t make it far. She’s on the floor of the lounge, her face pressed hard into the rug. Longwai’s men are so busy with her that they don’t even notice as the ambassador drags me through the room.
But someone in the lounge does notice. I stumble forward, watching Yin Yu watch me. The wrist I slammed into the door handle hangs limp at her side. Bangs fringe over her eyes, and I’m too far away to see the expression on her face. I can’t tell if she’s sorry or sad or completely vindicated. She doesn’t move as the ambassador takes me away.
We’re out of the lounge, down the south hall, heading toward the door. I’ve been dreaming of this moment for days, stepping out and away from this place. Only the fingers on my skin were gentler, as warm and endless and electric as his eyes.
We could’ve touched.
And then there’s a noise that could end all other noises. Again it tears through everything: the winter air, the hallway’s floorboards, my chest. It makes the ambassador jump even though we both knew it was coming.
The second gunshot rattles through my ears like cicada wings — over and over and over. Killing again and again and again. I squeeze my eyes shut, as if that could stop the noise. But all I see is Dai crumpled on the floor with Longwai’s gun at his head. No chance of running.
“Let’s go.” The ambassador keeps tugging, as if I’m some stubborn donkey yanking against its halter. “Longwai might change his mind now that he’s done with the boy.”
Done with the boy. His words freeze my bones. As if the air whistling through the front door is actually cold enough to fuse my muscles together. I’m more ice than girl.
“What? Sad? Don’t try to hide it. I saw the way you two were looking at each other!” The ambassador’s hand crushes harder with every word, as if he can squeeze me back into submission.
“You killed him…”I don’t mean to say it, but the thoughts slip out. Shock words as sheet white and shaking as I am.
“I just saved your life,” the ambassador hisses. Pain shoots through my wrist like a thousand needles jammed at once. “Yours for his. You’re mine. No one is going to stand in my way. Not Longwai, not Sun Dai Shing, not even you.”
I wish he were wrong. That the tender blooms of courage and fight that have been poking out of the soil of my soul for the past few days hadn’t just been torched at the sound of Dai’s death. I wish I could stop him. Stop everything that’s happened in the past few hours.
But some things just weren’t meant to be. No matter how hard and how fierce you wish them.
JIN LING
My whole hand is numb as it dives into the pocket of Hiro’s old jacket. I must be touching the gun, but it’s impossible to tell. My fingertips are clumsy and slurring. The way my father always was after bottle number three.
All the boys are closer now. As if they’re the wheel and I’m the hub. Their knives could be spokes. Pointed against the jacket’s vinyl.
“Where’d you get those clothes?” The vagrant they call Ho Wai edges in. Looks me over.
“Probably the same place he got the boots!” the center boy says. “Now shut up!”
“You shut up, Ka Ming!” Ho Wai barks back.
I can feel the gun now. The boys — Ho Wai and Ka Ming — aren’t paying attention to me anymore. They’re facing off. Like a pair of beta dogs. Putting on their best displays of snap and snarl for the group.
I take a breath of damp air. My sight is settling, coming together. There are eight of them — flanked around me like a half moon. Eight knives to six bullets and an unsteady hand.
Not good odds. Best just to answer them.
“I got these clothes from a house on Tai Ping Hill,” I say.
Ka Ming and Ho Wai stop glaring at each other. All eight pairs of eyes are on me now.
“No way.” Another boy to the left shakes his head. “He’s lying!”
“How do you think I’m still alive?” I shrug. The vinyl of Hiro’s old jacket sings friction. “Dai took me there. It’s where he’s from.”
“Tai Ping Hill? The rich people’s neighborhood?” Ho Wai frowns. His knife lowers just a hair. “Dai’s from there?”
“Yeah…” I draw out my words. Let my mind work. If the boys were set on killing me, I’d be a corpse by now. Left to rot. But these boys… they don’t have Kuen’s claw and hate. They’re just starving faces. Looking for a way out.
“Turns out he’s a rich kid. Has a huge house and all that.” I think of the cash Dai stuffed into my pockets. I wish I hadn’t given it all to the cabbie. My own money in the orange envelope is sitting in the corner of Dai’s apartment. Far from here. “And lots more clothes where these came from. You let me go and I can make sure you get some.”
Wordless questions are thrown across the ring of vagrants. Glances bounce between knives and stone-cold faces. Most of them are aimed at Ho Wai and Ka Ming. It seems the spot Kuen left is too large to be filled by a single boy.
“How do we know you’re telling the truth? That you aren’t just gonna run off?” Ka Ming’s knife slashes the air to each of his syllables. Reinforcing every point.
I don’t have the energy to come up with any more excuses. Any more lies. “You don’t.”
Ka Ming and Ho Wai look at each other. Stares sharper than razors. Thinking of all the reasons my life is worth keeping. Worth snuffing.
Another, smaller voice pipes up behind me. Bon, the kid I almost stabbed. “C’mon, Ho Wai. It’s not like we actually liked Kuen anyway. I think Jin’s telling the truth. Dai did take him out of the city I followed him that day. He’s gotta have money.”
Ka Ming’s arms cross over his chest, his blade no longer flirting with my throat. “Clothes are nice. But not as nice as cash.”
“I say we keep ’im hostage!” Ho Wai barks. “Find Dai and get ’im to give us some cash to keep his little friend alive. That way it’s a guarantee, if Jin’s telling the truth.”
Dai — my throat grows thick as I think of him, somewhere in those glowing red halls, risking his life to save my sister. He needs his revolver. He needs me.
I don’t have time for this.