Kasim rolls his eyes and reaches out to squeeze my shoulder. “Sole is kind of a freak. She doesn’t mean anything by it.”
“You know her, Howl?” I ask. Her empty stare is tattooed on the backs of my eyelids. “Should she be carrying around syringes and scalpels? I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight.”
Howl nods with a wry smile. “I knew her before, though. . . .”
Kasim doesn’t give Howl a chance to finish, laughing over the top of whatever he started to say. His hand stays on my shoulder and I have to keep myself from shrugging it off. Howl catches my uncomfortable look and raises his eyebrows suggestively.
Not noticing the exchange, Kasim keeps explaining, “Sole is practically a legend around here. She used to be a crack shot. One of the best Menghu. Her parents both got it Outside. Chemical bomb, you know? Just like that, her whole family is gone.” He snaps his fingers, looking down the hallway after her. “She used to live in the shooting range when she wasn’t out in the forest, blasting the life out of Yuan Zhiwei. Then one day she cracked.” He pauses dramatically, tapping one of his temples with his index finger.
“Sole came home from patrol, stayed in bed for about a week, and hasn’t touched a gun since. She still goes out. Patches people up.” Kasim hikes up his brown canvas pant leg, stroking the long white scar that runs up his calf as if it’s a treasure. “She fixed me up just a few months ago. Probably would have bled out if she hadn’t been with us. But I don’t know how she goes to sleep at night. Chicken or something, am I right?”
I take it back. I don’t like him.
“A chicken did that to you?” I try to joke, but it comes out a little sour. “Why didn’t you bring it home for dinner?”
He lets the canvas fall back down to hide the scar, unfazed by the stupid tease. “Razor-wire trip line. It set off a mine and brought in a bunch of Reds. Sole dragged me back into the trees while the rest of our unit pounded it out. A lot of them didn’t make it through.”
“Doesn’t sound chicken to me.” Howl matches his light tone, the whole story seeming even harsher when told so offhandedly. “More like she saved your life.”
Kasim shrugs again, a twinge of disgust crossing his face. “Menghu is the only way to go. Protect the Mountain, kill Reds. Sole is such a waste. If she’d stayed behind a gun sight where she belongs, more of us would have come back from that forest that night.”
“You wouldn’t have.”
“Maybe. You two going to practice tonight?”
The abrupt change of subject throws me, but not so much as Howl answering, “I don’t think I will. Too many pretty girls laughed at me before. I have to meet with Root tonight, anyway. I doubt we’ll be done before it’s over.”
“What pretty girls?” I ask. “Everyone here is coated in muck.”
Howl smiles at me, cocking his head. “Something about grass stains and mud just does it for me, Sev. Forget to brush your hair once in a while and we can talk.”
Kasim’s laughing too, and I feel my face go red. But Howl tweaks a few stray strands of hair behind my ear that have escaped my braid. “I’m glad you didn’t end up using the knife method on yours. Even clean, you look pretty good.”
Pulling me aside, he continues, “I need to check in with Dr. Yang. Are you okay on your own for a bit?”
I smile and nod, face growing even warmer at his arm around my shoulders. He squeezes my arm, nods to Kasim, then starts back the way we came.
Kasim walks with me toward the dormitory, leaving the silence between us intact until we get to the steps leading up to Menghu quarters. “So you and Howl really are . . . something. That’s new, for him.”
I ignore the skip my heart gives at what he is implying. “You like him?” I ask. “He’s nice-looking, I suppose, in a rough sort of way. You have to remember that he isn’t used to washing his own hair, though.” Change subject. “So, practice tonight? What is it? Self-criticism?”
He tilts his head and shoots me a shrewd look, but he doesn’t press any further. “Not a chance. Out here we criticize each other, and do it as loudly as possible. Tonight is dance practice.”
“Dancing?” The fire dancers I saw back in the City come to mind, but somehow I can’t see Kasim on board with the pink leotards. I suppose I’ve seen pictures of men stomping around the fire from First library history books. Maybe that’s what he means. “How did that get started?”
Kasim’s mouth opens into a wide smile as he stops on the landing outside the dormitory, his teeth white against his sun-dark skin. “A performing company got stuck here with all the other refugees when the Influenza War started. They organized dancing to keep people moving, keep them from feeling helpless and depressed and all the stuff that creeps up on you when you’re locked up underground. Runaways from the City found their way in here, and it became . . . this. The Mountain.” He gestures to the room, the ceiling. The telescreens and the solar-powered lights. “People who knew how to run the electric systems came, we figured out how to grow food inside, and now we’re strong enough to fight back against the City. And we’ve kept it up, holding dances and competitions. Helps the Menghu blow off steam, with missions and training all the time. General Root says it keeps us human.” His smile is so large and warm, it makes me want to grin in sympathy. To take some of the burden. “You up for it?”
Give this place a chance, Howl said. Despite the fact that everyone already knows my name, I can still have a new start here. Even if it is stomping around a fire. “I’ll come. Will Cale and Mei be there?”
“Are you bunking with Cale and Mei? You’ll like them. Most Menghu go, even if it’s just to watch. I’ll teach you the basics, if you want.”
When I nod, he opens the door for me, then runs down the stairs, waving when he gets to the bottom. It is hard not to like the boyish spring in his walk and the fact that he manages to wink at two different girls before disappearing from sight. I like that Howl likes him, but his disgust for Sole leaves me with an odd taste in my mouth.
? ? ?
Cale allows me to follow her to where the Menghu dance together, but skips a step ahead of me the whole way so I have to trail an arm’s length or more behind her as if I have some sort of mange. Which, if she’s one of those literal types who doesn’t understand jokes, Howl did mention skin diseases. She disappears the moment we enter the room, leaving me to stare in shock as men and women dance by me. Each pair is locked in a tight embrace as if no one is watching. The women snap their heads back and forth, turning with their partners in perfect synchronization.
I see Kasim from across the room and wave. He immediately comes over and pulls me to the side of the floor, attempting to show me how to dance. It’s hard to concentrate since just standing near all the intertwined couples has my eyes glued to the wooden floor, but that doesn’t stop him from twining around me like a cat begging for its back to be scratched.
The only consolation, after an hour of trying to escape, comes when Howl turns up to save me from Kasim’s constant reassurances that, yes, we really were supposed to be standing this close.
“Can I walk you back to the dorms?” Howl’s nondescript T-shirt is now hidden behind a Menghu jacket, but instead of tigers, the collar boasts two black squares, just like General Root’s.
“You’re working with Nei-ge?” I ask, pointing to the squares at his collar. “I didn’t know you’d be important here, too.”
“If your mother weren’t so famous, I probably wouldn’t even talk to you.” He pulls me toward a set of unfamiliar stairs, taking us higher and higher until the walls become panes of foggy glass, the rooms unlit behind them. Opening the first door we come to sends a rush of hot, humid air swirling out around us, and sweat prickles across my face and neck.
“What’s this?” I ask as he leads me into the dark room.
“This”—he flips on a light and poses dramatically in front of a line of low green plants, red peeking out from beneath the jagged oval leaves—“is where they keep the strawberries.”