“It’s a deal,” I tell them.
I pass the noodle-maker’s shop on my way back to Dai’s apartment. Look at the clock on the back wall. A cartoon frog marks the minutes — his long tongue chasing a fly around the ring of numbers. Around and around and around. The old man beating the noodles into shape told me that when the tongue catches the fly at the very top, it’ll be a new year. Our time will be up.
I try not to think about this as I push back through the door into Dai’s apartment. Drag the plastic bag full of stuff from Mr. Lam’s shop. Bought with everything I had left in the orange envelope. I took it easy on the stairs, but I still feel the steady weep of blood through Hiro’s old shirt.
Just a little longer. Just one more run.
But my side feels as if it’s been stuffed with pepper paste. Red and hot. I try to ignore it as I walk into the room. Toss the bag of goods onto the floor. Chma sniffs at the mess of plastic. Realizes it’s not food and turns away.
Mei Yee comes over from her place by the window. “Did you get everything?”
“Yeah,” I wince. Let myself down onto the floor. Never has hard, cold tile felt so good. “Talked to the vagrants, too.”
“Will they help us?” My sister starts rifling through the plastic bag. Pulls out all the containers and brushes Mr. Lam stuffed into it.
“I caught them in a good mood…” I think of the cuff link. How it glowed like Chma’s eyes through the gaps in Ho Wai’s fingers. But this doesn’t seem like something I should tell Mei Yee. Not yet. “And offered them a lot of money. So yeah. They’re in.”
The red dress is in the corner, folded neatly alongside Dai’s other clothes. Even wearing boy’s clothes — hair askew and eyes puffy — my sister looks pretty. I eye the growing pile of makeup by her knees. Start to doubt. I’ll never be able to look like that. How can I think this plan even has a chance of working?
Mei Yee picks up a brush and opens the first jar. Peach dust fluffs into the air. Makes Chma sneeze: Chma! Chma!
I wish Dai were here to hear it. So I could tell him how right I was.
Soon. Just one more run.
“Shut your eyes,” my sister commands. Stretches out the brush. “This will tickle a bit.”
Powder sifts onto my face. I fight the urge to jerk away. Mei Yee takes minutes to make sure it’s perfect, but she doesn’t stop there. There are at least a dozen more jars. Colors for cheeks. Paint for lips, eyelids, and lashes. Long black clips of hair that isn’t mine.
And then there’s the silk dress. I slide it on fast, turned so my sister won’t see the oozing wound under my shoulder. The one that’s almost blinding me with its fire. Sooner or later it’s going to catch up to me. I know this, but I still keep pushing. Hoping my body will stay together until all this is over.
I feel ridiculous. Cartoonish with this scarlet-shine dress and painted face. The fake bun pinned to my head clings like a terrified cat. It’s not until I wrap my bindings around my bare thigh — slide the revolver into them — that I start to feel like myself again.
“You look beautiful,” Mei Yee says when she sits back. Admires her work.
I look over to the window. The room’s fluorescent light echoes back at us. Paints a perfect picture of the apartment. I don’t see myself in it. Instead, there’s a woman standing next to Mei Yee. A transformation of almost-curves and beauty.
I cock my head. The woman’s head bends, too. My sister has done the impossible.
And now she must do it again.
The worst part of my plan — the part that makes my stomach turn and my knees weak — isn’t the risk I’m taking. It’s what I’m asking Mei Yee to do. I’ve thought through my plan again and again. A hundred times over. But there’s no way this works without my sister.
I almost called the whole thing off, but she wouldn’t let me. She’s not the same girl who cowered in the corner of our father’s shack. Who cried when a stray dog barked at her.
“It’s almost time.” I hand her my boots. “Are you ready?”
Mei Yee stares at the battered leather and laces. “Do you really think this is going to work?”
“I don’t know.” The lines are still on the wall. A perfect pair. I walk to the tiles and swipe one off. “You don’t have to do this. I can figure out another way in.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “You can’t.”
I keep staring at the last line — forlorn against the off-white. It looks so odd by itself.
“And you’re wrong. I do have to do this.” Mei Yee sits down. Pulls the boots over her sliced feet. Her tongue edges out of her lips as she laces them up. “No matter what it takes.”
Sounds like something Dai would say.
The final line looks so lonely. Because the numbers don’t matter anymore, I reach out. Smudge the last charcoal strike away. As if it had never been there.
MEI YEE
My feet are throbbing in Jin Ling’s boots — singing blood and blisters against the raw leather. I try to focus on the pain in my toes, my heel. It’s far better than the fear that’s rising, sliding through every vein as I peer out of the shadows at the brothel’s entrance. Where the dragon snakes around the door and a man with a gun stands guard.
“Are you ready?” my sister asks again in the tone that tells me she thinks I’m not. “Do you remember where to go?”
I know it’s been only a few hours since I last saw Dai, but the moments between have felt like centuries. Every time I’m tempted to think of what’s happened to him, what awful tortures Longwai has invented to get him to talk, I think of the route. The path Jin Ling showed me: right, straight, past the dumpling man, through a sliver in the buildings between the dog restaurant and the makeshift barber, right again, straight all the way to the cannons.
It’s not a very long distance, but I’m not a runner.
I’m not, yet I must be. I will be. Because Sing is dead and Dai is still alive and this is the only way.
“Yes.” My little sister is crouched in the shadows beside me, so I whisper. “I’m ready.”
Jin Ling looks over at me. Even all the makeup I just brushed and dabbed on her face can’t cover the strength there: smart, calculated, fierce. She reaches out, her hand gripping my shoulder. “I love you, Mei Yee.”
I gather her in my arms, as I have so many times before. Only this time it’s not blood but makeup I’m careful not to smudge. She’s warm, too hot against my jacket even though all she’s wearing is that useless serving dress.
I don’t want to let her go. In the end, she’s the one who does it — pulls away and looks me straight in the eyes. “We can do this. You can do this.”
I nod and stand and try not to think of how my legs shake. I take one step and another, into the light of the street.
The guard doesn’t notice me at first. He’s distracted, kicking an empty noodle box back and forth. Battering its cardboard carcass into shreds with his boot. I swallow and keep walking. I’m close, almost too close, when he finally looks up. His eyes squint, then widen as he realizes who I am.
“Hey!” he shouts, but my aching toes already dig deep into the leather of the boots.
I start to run.
DAI
The door opens and scarlet lantern light floods the room. The glass is deep in my good palm, ready for the softness of a wrist or throat. All those vital arteries I learned about in health class. I grip it tight and jump.
Our bodies collide and I realize too late that my visitor isn’t Longwai at all. A serving tray spins to the ground, flinging a mess of cups and bandages and rice all over. And I’m tangled in red silk, my weight crushing the poor girl beneath.