The Walled City

DAI

The room is all dark. The kind of absolute black where you hold your hand to your face and still can’t see jack shit. I’ve got no sense of time. If it’s day or night. How many more hours of this I have to endure before Tsang’s men come busting through to haul my ass off to jail.

The girls should be long gone by now. I wonder if Jin Ling used the gun I gave her. I really, really hope she shot Osamu — that son of a bitch.

It’s thoughts like these that hold the pain at bay, keep my mind from snapping. I always used to wonder — in the long nights after the night that changed everything — what it felt like taking a bullet to the chest. I tried to imagine Hiro’s pain: the hole inside him, letting nothing in, everything out. The fire and ice and numb all pressing down, calling out his final, splitting breath.

Soul and body cut apart. Forever.

I don’t have to imagine it anymore. Turns out it’s a hell of a lot worse than I thought. I didn’t feel it at first. Just a heavy push into my right shoulder, my knees crumpling in shock. Then pins and needles and sear. So many pain synapses firing in my brain that I didn’t really care that Longwai was looming over me. Waving death in my face.

But he didn’t shoot. He didn’t let me bleed out, either. (Who knew Fung was such a talented nurse? A gauze-wielding wonder.) Not so much a mercy as the fact that he wants answers before he stuffs me in a trash bag.

I’m lucky Longwai decided to start off light — just a few punches to the agonized mess that was my shoulder. He left me in here tied to a chair to “think about my options.”

Options. With an s. Like I’ve got more than one.

As long as I stay silent, I stay alive. There’s no way in hell I’m talking, not with just a day left. I want to see this bastard burn as much as Osamu. Hopefully, Tsang and his team will get here before Longwai gets more serious. Wants to carve out an eye or an ear with that infamous, eager knifework of his.

This thought makes me test my bonds again, but the ropes are still too tight, fat pythons coiled around my wrists.

But when you’re flustered, like Longwai was, you miss things. Like the piece of glass tucked deep inside my palm. The one I clung to like life, through the gunshot. Through hit after hit after knuckle-ridged hit. I never let it show, kept my fists clenched even when Longwai landed the first punch, listened to me scream.

My hand unfurls slowly and the glass inches downward to my fingers. I work its edge back and forth, up and down. Longwai’s been gone for a while, probably off to have a smoke or get some shut-eye. Every dark minute that goes by I expect to hear his footsteps again. I listen for them under the door as I saw at my bindings.

There’s so much fire and pain in my shoulder that I don’t even feel the ropes come off. My hands are just free, collapsing to my sides. I wilt to the floor, find the glass, place it back into my sweating palm.

When Longwai comes back, I’ve got to be ready.

I’m still on my knees when the footsteps start, padding closer and closer. I push up with my good arm, bolt to the wall by the door. My hand is tighter than ever on the bottle shard, ready for the lunge and stab.

The lock clicks and the door swings open.

JIN LING

The stink of the sewer clouds my nostrils. Warm and jungle wet. I stand across from Ka Ming and Ho Wai. Keep a careful eye on their hands. Watch for knives. There’s a faint glitter between Ho Wai’s knuckles, but when I look closer, I realize it’s only a golden cufflink.

“So do we have a deal?” I ask through the plume of sewer smoke.

“Sounds awful risky.” Ka Ming shoots a glance at his partner.

Risky. Just one word to describe this cobbled semblance of a plan. I swallow back the tightness in my throat and tell them, “All good payoff has risk.”

“Yeah, but risk and Brotherhood are two different things,” Ho Wai points out. “How much did you say we’d get?”

“Ten thousand.” I say the highest number that comes to mind. Hope Dai’s father is willing to pay it. “If everything works out.”

The two boys stare at each other again. Talk with their eyes.

“Ten thousand,” Ka Ming agrees. “No killing.”

I glimpse Ho Wai’s knife wedged into his belt. The edge is rimmed with pink; I look back to the cufflink in his hands. Raise my eyebrows.

“Not when Brotherhood’s involved,” Ka Ming goes on. “You understand.”

I do understand. But I’m tangling with them anyway. With my crippled side and six bullets. With the speed of my sister’s untested legs.

“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.

“No! Please…” Her eyes are wide, and her shaking is about an 8.9 on the Richter scale. I look down and realize I’m still holding the emerald slice of glass against her throat. I pull it away.

“What are you doing here?” I look around at the ruins of her tray, answer my own question.

“You’re Mei Yee’s boy, aren’t you?” The girl’s eyes narrow. “The one who wanted the book.”

Out of reflex, I look into the hall. Not that it really matters if anyone heard; this whole plan’s gone to shit anyway.

“Something like that.” I pull myself away, and the girl sits up, her bangs dropping like curtains over her face. She looks over at the chair, the frayed rope, and back to me, meat shoulder and all. I can see the waver in her eyes, the almost-yell swelling in her lungs, ready to warn the entire brothel about my escape.

She takes a breath. “You told Mei Yee you could get us out. Were you telling the truth?”

“Got her out, didn’t I?” The adrenaline of the moment is wearing thin, letting the pain back in. And snarky-Dai with it.

The girl frowns. “And the book. You still need it?”

I slip the shard into my hoodie, keep my eyes fixed on the empty hall. It’s only a matter of time before someone walks by. “Yeah.”

She’s studying me, like I’m some kind of viral strain on a microscope slide. Fascinating, dangerous if not handled properly. She reaches into the folds of her dress, pulls out a ring of brass skeleton keys. “Take these. The key to Longwai’s office is the third one from the right.”

The girl with the keys. Yin Yu. The one who ratted out Mei Yee. The one we never should’ve trusted.

I don’t know if I should trust her now. She could be one of Longwai’s puppets, baiting me to show my secrets instead of tell. I snatch the keys anyway. “Change of heart?”

“I never meant…” Her voice falters. She swallows and tries again, but there’s still a rattle in her syllables. “They shot Sing right in front of me. Just like that. She was dead.”

It’s all she says, but I understand. I’ve seen dead bodies. I know how they change you, turn your guts inside out with their stillness and not-life.

This is what Sing’s body did to Yin Yu. It undid her.

“I don’t want to die here,” Yin Yu says. “In one minute I’m going to scream and tell them you jumped me and stole the keys. Longwai’s in the lounge facing the entry hall.”

Of course he would be watching the way in. The way out. What are the odds that I’ll get past him unseen?

“Go,” Yin Yu says simply. “Your time is running out.”

JIN LING

Mei Yee’s off faster than a hare. And the guard after her. I slip out of my hidden corner. Shuffle in battered slippers across the street. Through the dragon’s door. My sister’s advice loops through my head as I go: Take small steps. Fold your hands in front of you. Keep your head down.

I pass some of Longwai’s men in the first hall. Walk by open doors where girls stare out. No one seems to notice the dirt under my fingernails. The coarseness of the horsehair on my scalp. The sad state of my silk footwear. The patch of blood blooming like a flower from my side. Subtle darkness on the fabric.

I want to move fast. Even though my side feels as if it’s splitting apart. With every step, I fight the urge to run. It takes me longer than I’d like to reach the lounge. Longwai is on the couch, lips wrapped around the end of a long pipe. He doesn’t notice me slink in from the entry hall. Mei Yee did her job well — my dress, hair, and makeup blend in. Seamless. I’m just another faceless serving girl.

Book first, then Dai. I trace out the plan in my head and skirt the edge of the lounge. Toward the hall on the right, where the ledger is. I’m almost there, just passing the girl playing her stringed instrument, when Longwai calls out. “You! Girl!”

I freeze. He’s looking straight at me.

Before my hand can flash down to Dai’s gun, Longwai lifts up his glass. “I need more wine.”

Wine. He singled me out for wine. I scurry over to the serving cabinet. Try frantically to make sense of the mess of glasses and bottles there. I wish I’d been paying more attention to the way Yin Yu served it. The first time I was here.

“The bottle on the left,” the girl at the instrument whispers. Her words are barely louder than the pluck of her strings. I glance over. Her eyes meet mine. She nods, fingers still moving, moving, moving.

It’s so easy for her to tell I don’t belong. What chance do I stand against Longwai?

I grab the wine bottle by its neck. Turn and get ready to pour. What I see stops me in my tracks.

It’s Dai. Very alive and edging through the room’s unlit corners. Hoodie up. Trying his best to get to the east hall.

“Is there a problem?” Longwai shifts on his couch.

“No!” My reply is sharper than I mean it to be. It steals the sleepiness out of the drug lord’s eyes, makes him alert. He starts to stand.

One turn. One look behind his shoulder. That’s all it would take for Dai to get caught.

I let go of the bottle. It plummets to the floor. Crimson wine bleeds across the rug, all the way to Longwai’s slippers. He snarls. Stands up all the way.

“That rug is worth ten times what I paid for you!” Longwai seizes my arm. It takes everything I have not to pull away. Fight back. His fingers are freckled with spots of stale blood. I try not to think of where those stains came from.

“I’m sorry, sir.” Saying these words feels like pulling out my own teeth with rusty pliers. I look down at my feet, where the wine bottle is still vomiting its contents. Push back the very strong urge to reach for Dai’s gun.

“Sorry?” The drug lord leans down. Catches my eyes despite my best efforts to look away. “I don’t remember asking Mama-san to assign serving duties to a new girl. In fact… I don’t remember you at all.”

My heart drops. There’s a glint in his eyes. A tightness in his fingers. He’s putting the pieces together — suspicions shaping up like potter’s clay.

Maybe I’ll get to use the revolver after all.

“Her name is Siu Feng.” The girl has stopped playing her music so she can address the drug lord. “She was with the girls who came a few months ago. The group Wen Kei was with.”

This throws Longwai off a bit. His brow furrows, second-guessing. Those fingers loosen. His back straightens. He points at the rug. “Fix this. And don’t bother with the refill. I have business to get back to.”

I look up, relieved to see that Dai is gone. The shadows are empty. Longwai doesn’t head toward his office, as I fear he might. Instead, he disappears into the north hall.

The girl doesn’t go back to her music. Instead, she comes over and picks up the wine bottle by my feet.

“Thanks,” I tell her when she hands it to me.

She puts a finger to her lips. Motions to the lulling clients around us. Men so still I forgot they were there. “You’re with the boy, aren’t you?” she whispers.

I nod and glance back down the east hall. Wonder if I should follow Dai there. A wail of a scream rises from the north hall. A girl’s voice babbles about attacks and keys, followed by Longwai’s slurred roar, “Where is he?”

I’m about to race off. Warn Dai. But Longwai is already bulling through the lounge, face redder than the dragon on his door. His gun is out. Ready and trembling in his fingers. He disappears as fast as he came. Swallowed by the dim crimson glow of the east hall.

MEI YEE

Run. Run for Dai. For Dai. Run.

It’s been so long since I’ve moved like this. To tell the truth, I’m surprised I still can. Over heaps of trash, under ladders, around corners sharper than Nuo’s embroidery needle. Shop lights blur past, puddles fly under my feet, and always, always I hear the guard breathing hard behind me, cursing with every other step.

I run, run, run until I can’t feel my feet anymore. They’re long past the pain of blisters and cuts. There’s a new strength in my limbs — pure, hot energy. I feel that if I just stretched out my arms, I could fly. Out of these tunnels and up between the stars. This must have been how Sing felt before they caught her.

I think this, and suddenly my boot slips out from under me and the world goes flat. Pain jars my bones, becomes a part of me. The ground beneath my palms shudders with the weight of the guard’s steps. There are no more wishes in my chest but hopes. I hope Jin Ling was right about those street kids. I hope I made it far enough.

A hand wraps around the heel of my boot, jerks me backward. My body slides easily through the puddle. I twist and see the guard almost on top of me. Before I really know what I’m doing, I take my free foot and slam it hard, hard, hard between his legs. He howls, releases me instantly. I scramble back just in time to see the shadows come.

The vagrants spring from every corner. Creatures of rags and knives and bone, swarming over the guard like maggots on meat. They’re small, but with eight to one, Longwai’s man doesn’t stand a chance. They take his gun, kick it away.

“Better run, girly!” one of the bigger boys shouts back at me.

He’s right. They’re going to let him go soon — Jin Ling told me the vagrants could buy me only so much time. Even with their knives and numbers, they’ll never harm a member of the Brotherhood. As soon as the guard realizes this, he’ll be after me again.

I need to run so far and fast he’ll lose me altogether.

I’m back on my feet and into the alley between the barber and the dog restaurant. Over bottles and bodies and so many other broken, unwanted things. Out and to the right. My lungs are fire and my legs feel like splintered chopsticks, but I keep going.

For Dai. For Dai. For Dai.

Straight as one of Nuo’s zither strings, all the way to the rusted cannons. I reach them with nothing but gasps left in my lungs. I know I should follow Jin Ling’s instructions — find a policeman, ask for help, stay with him — but all the energy that surged through me just moments before is gone. I lean hard against the rust, struggling for breath.

“Probably not the best night to be outside, kid. Get back inside while you can.”

I look up. My eyes struggle to focus. At first all I see is the glow of a cigarette. Then the man in the trench coat behind it. Something about him feels wrong: the way he talks, the clothes he’s wearing. He doesn’t belong in the Walled City.

And then I see the row of vans lined up on the streets behind him.

Reapers is my first thought, followed by a sick lurch in my throat. But no, Reapers don’t wear clothes like that. And they wouldn’t be lingering so obviously in the streets of City Beyond.

The man pulls the cigarette from his mouth and checks the gold watch on his wrist.

“Is your kid coming or not?” A second man steps out from one of the vans. He’s wearing a thick green vest, a navy hat with a silver badge pinned to the top. “We’re ready to move in.”

I look back at the caravan of black vans and suddenly I understand. These aren’t Reapers. This is the police raid Jin Ling told me about. These are the people who were supposed to get us out. Dai and me. Together.

“Dai’s in the brothel,” I say.

The man in the trench coat looks up — startled. “And who the hell are you?”

“Mei Yee.” My name brings no familiarity to his face, so I keep talking. “I was supposed to help Dai get the book for you.”

The man’s jaw edges out, his annoyance highlighted by the cigarette’s brash light. “Supposed to?”

“Something went wrong and Longwai caught him! He’s still in the brothel. You have to help him!”

His cigarette isn’t even half finished, but the man tosses it to the ground and flashes another look at his watch. “At this point, sweetie, the only person who can help Sun Dai Shing is himself.” He looks over at the man with the badge on his hat. “All right. The kid’s not coming. Let’s get moving!”

The van doors slide open and an army pours out. Men with body armor, searchlights, and guns longer than their arms. They jump out of their vehicles and start running. Past the old grandmother squatting on a blanket, hawking special bundles of New Year’s incense. Past the snow-haired man and his basket of bean cakes. Past the young girl hauling a cart full of clean laundry across the rutted path. The whole world goes still, watching the men and their guns vanish one by one through the Old South Gate.

The man’s words burn through me hotter than his cigarette: The only person who can help Sun Dai Shing is himself.

And because the man is wrong, I follow him back into the city of darkness.

DAI

Pure luck got me through that lounge. I’m pretty sure I owe my life to the serving girl with slippery fingers, but I don’t have any time to worry about that. The minute Yin Yu allotted me is vanishing fast.

I’m barely breathing as I reach the door at the top of the stairs. It’s locked, just like Longwai left it. Yin Yu’s keys shake in my good hand. There are so many of them, hanging from the brass ring like gilded skeletons. My nerve-strung fingers fumble, grip the third one from the right. I can almost hear the seconds counting down as I fit the key into the lock. Yin Yu should be screaming any moment now.

But the key is the right one, and the door swings open. The first thing I go for is a gun — one of the antiquated pistols on Longwai’s display wall. It’s light. Too light. A quick check proves my initial suspicions were right. He doesn’t keep any of these weapons loaded.

I turn to the desk and then I see the clock.

Its numbers are digital, red pixels that scream like demons’ eyes through the dim: 11:58 pm.

Almost midnight. Out of time.

Tick, tock, tick, tock. My hands twitch to the beat of vanishing seconds as I go to the desk, study the top drawer. There’s a small lock — easy to break if you’ve got the right tools and strength. I grab the closest knife from Longwai’s collection. Wedge and pry. The drawer pushes out, uneven and crooked from the force. Like a stray with a limp.

There are papers, pens, individual cigarettes, a tin of mints, and gold-colored paper clips. My hands tear and shuffle through all these things until I reach the bottom of the drawer. My fingers keep scrabbling, frantic, at nothing.

The ledger isn’t here.

There you are.

I turn to a familiar sight: Longwai stands in the doorway, his pistol out and aiming straight between my eyes. The knife sits on the desk. Inches from my fingers. Useless.

“I thought you’d be long gone…” The drug lord’s voice trails off when he catches sight of the open drawer, the flurry of papers and pens and trivialities. The wide, book-shaped void in the middle of it all.

“Where is it?” he snarls, and pushes farther into the room. Those bloodshot eyes bulge wide as he seizes my hoodie by the drawstrings, yanks them tighter than a noose. “The ledger. What did you do with it?”

There’s nothing left to hide, nothing left to risk, so I tell him the truth. “Nothing. It wasn’t there when I opened the drawer.”

“Impossible!” His pistol presses against my forehead, branding an O into my skin. “You have five seconds to tell me where it is.”

So this is how it’s going to end. A whimper and a bang all in one.

Better — I guess — than getting made into fish chum, piece by bloody piece. But only just.

Five…

For some reason, I thought I’d be seeing flashes right now. Scenes from my childhood maybe. Running around the Grand Aquarium with Hiro: my going gape-eyed at the electric eels; his reciting the scientific Latin names for every species he saw. Or making model airplanes with my grandfather.

Four…

There are flashes, but they aren’t pieces of my past. Instead, I’m on a beach and my arm is wrapped around Mei Yee’s shoulder, and we’re staring far off across the waters. And Jin Ling is beside us, tossing shells into the waves. Not my past but my future. The one that’s dying with every number that leaves Longwai’s lips.

Three…

I might deserve to die for everything I’ve done. I even wished it in those black rooftop moments, when my legs dangled over the streets and my brother’s final voice called me good and I knew I wasn’t.

But now… now I’m not so sure Hiro was wrong. Now I want to live.

How’s that for irony?

Two…

I shut my eyes.

One…