“How did this happen? This wasn’t supposed to be able to happen!” The younger man sounds angry. “Stop trying to manipulate me and just tell me what is going on.”
“Let me do this.”
“No. I made my decision. She’s the only one like me.” A picture of the young man, Yi-lai, pops into my head. The Chairman’s son.
“If I hadn’t come in when I did, she would be dead.” The gravelly voice lowers. “We can’t risk . . .”
When I force my eyes open, the voices stop. I am lying on my back underneath a bare bulb and shelves of bottles. Shards of glass prickle up through my sweater, a slow drip of sweat stinging my face and neck. My nose is clogged full with the spicy florals of wine, mixed with rusty iron. Blood. The borrowed gray coat lies on top of me, covering me from neck to knees, the coarse wool scratchy against my skin. It’s cold on the stone floor.
Salt-and-pepper hair and muddy brown eyes slowly come into focus only a few inches away from my face. Dr. Yang.
“I liked you better this afternoon,” I say as I try to sit up, but my body doesn’t want to move. Every word twinges, shards of glass embedded in my lips and cheek making themselves known. “You are the one who started this ridiculous chicken hunt. Did you set the bomb, too?”
Dr. Yang glares in a way that says I’m supposed to be quiet. “Yi-lai, thank you for your help getting her away from the Watch, but I can take things from here.”
Yi-lai, sitting next to me on the glass-littered floor, shakes his head. “I’m not staying here.”
“Should I be able to move my arms?” I ask. “I can’t move my arms.”
Yi-lai looks from me to Dr. Yang, brow furrowed as his voice rises. “You’ve been watching her all along. You told me to stay away, and I did. Did you set the bomb? To convince . . . to get her out?”
My same question, now on Yi-lai’s lips, sends flickers of dread flaming down to my core. Did this doctor somehow frame me for blowing up the bridge? He seemed to know everything about me, even the things Tai-ge couldn’t tell me, things that wouldn’t have gone beyond General Hong’s office or the First Circle until they set the Watch on me. But what would the point of framing me be?
Silence in the room draws out like a string waiting to be cut. Dr. Yang sucks in his cheeks and says, “That bomb came from a City plane just like they all do. They’re using the situation as an excuse to get Sev out of their hair, and maybe as a warning to . . . others. We can still get her out, but I need you to stay here.”
“I’m not staying—”
“A City plane?” I cut in. “So now the City is blowing up its own bridges just to get rid of one teenager who no one likes anyway? Almost killing Hong Tai-ge while they’re at it? That makes all sorts of sense.”
“That’s true.” Yi-lai’s jaw is drawn tight around the words, each shooting with a violent thrust toward the doctor. “How do you explain that? Not even the First Circle would risk General Hong’s son. Not unless they had some way to prove he finally gave into Fourth corruption.” Yi-lai glances at me. “Sorry.”
“You don’t think they’d use him as a martyr? General Hong has too much power over the Seconds, so I can very easily see them getting rid of his son as a warning, then using his death to prove that Sev deserved the Arch. This is how they deal with their problems. If SS doesn’t take you down, the next step gets more violent.” He looks at me and sighs. “It’s the same thing that has been happening to you your whole life.”
My arms still won’t move. What has been happening my whole life? I’ve never had bombs dropped on me before. And they wouldn’t kill Tai-ge. He doesn’t have anything to do with this.
Dr. Yang rubs a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “Yi-lai, you go out and join the hunt with the Chairman, and I’ll send word once we’re safe outside the walls—”
“It’s time, Dr. Yang.” Yi-lai’s voice comes out in a low growl.
Dr. Yang shakes his head, mouth twisted into a frown. “We had such high hopes for both of you.”
“Together, you mean?” I can’t help but slip it in. “We’ve only just met. And he thinks he’s too good for me.” I am rewarded by a startled look from both of them, the joke cutting through the tense conversation they don’t feel the need to include me in. “And what in the name of Holy Liberation are you talking about? I don’t know how many times I have to say this, but I am a loyal citizen. A comrade. I’m not going anywhere.”
“A dead comrade.” Dr. Yang shrugs. “They aren’t even looking to arrest you anymore. The order out there is shoot to kill. You want to die because the First Circle decided it was time? One more traitor to show the Thirds? One more reason for them to keep working down there in the smoke while the Firsts play up here in their laboratories?”
The feeling is starting to come back to my right hand, my fingers twitching through the pins and needles as I consider what Dr. Yang just said. What is this City worth to me? I’ve spent the last eight years trying to prove my traitor brand wrong. Looking up at my mother and spitting with the rest of them. And did it ever help? They’ll never see me as anything more than a traitor’s daughter, a Fourth. A living relic of Mother’s treason, SS walking. I feel around under the coat, looking for my knife, wondering if it will be enough of a threat for Yi-lai and Dr. Yang to let me go. But it’s gone.
Dr. Yang continues over my thoughts. “Who will benefit if you stay and die? What do you think they’ll do to the orphanage? To Tai-ge?”
I’ve always known my being a Fourth is reason enough for anyone to suspect me of any crime, but for some reason the reality is much harder to reconcile in my mind. The City is just; the City is perfectly ideal. The City didn’t kill me eight years ago, when Mother disappeared. They let Father take care of me up in our big house on the Steppe while I was Asleep. Might have even let him live if she hadn’t come back and marked him as too close to her to be trustworthy. They didn’t kill my sister . . . well, not because of her four stars, at least. If there was no hope for someone like me, then why would they have spent so many years feeding me, teaching me, trying to set me on the right path, if my death was always the end goal? I believe there is justice in this place, and I want to find it. “I haven’t done anything wrong. And I won’t betray Tai-ge or the City like she did. I am not like her!”
The words cut across a silent room. I hadn’t realized I was yelling. Dr. Yang and Yi-lai both look down, embarrassed.
Dr. Yang’s grating voice is quiet, almost too low for me to hear. “Do you really want to find out whether anyone else feels that way? You aren’t the first person to be used as a warning to families who aren’t compliant. Incentive for the Thirds to slave away for sandy bread and dirty water until they die, so long as they believe they need to be protected from what’s going on Outside. But Kamar doesn’t exist anymore, Sev. The City is killing itself. Your own sister . . .”
I shake my head, cutting him off. What could the City possibly gain by lying about the war? I need someone to tell me what is really going on. I need . . .
Yi-lai finally looks up, catching my eye. “What the doctor is saying is true. If you go to Tai-ge, they’ll just kill him, too.”
PART II
CHAPTER 8
PULLING MY NEW ARMY-ISSUE coat a little closer, I brace myself against the wooden side of the trailer to keep myself from bouncing into a pile of jagged-toothed saws. Fur lining the hood tickles at my nose, a sneeze building uncomfortably in my throat. Yi-lai sits with his legs spread out in front of him, leaning against an army pack, the frame sticking out above his head. He almost looks bored, just staring at the ceiling.