The Mountain is completely shadowed, the rounded peaks to the north bald against the horizon. A mountain in the distance glitters like a swarm of fireflies over water. The City. Only a month ago I was one of those lights, but now I’m almost nothing. Just a breath on the frozen wind.
We sit in the cold, just looking up at the stars. I don’t want to remember today. The crawly feeling of Helix’s hand on my knee, my heart still skipping back and forth over the feel of the Yizhi’s bruising grip on my arm, the sound of my feet squeaking across the marble floor as those white-coated men dragged me toward the hospital doors. I close my mind, taking deep breaths and refusing to think, peering up into the black. Waiting for Howl to speak.
It doesn’t take long, but it doesn’t feel comfortable, as if he’s inspecting and weighing each word before speaking. “Dr. Yang knows there’s something . . . different about you. About the way SS affects you.”
“My hallucinations, you mean?”
“Maybe the hallucinations.” He leans back, his shoulder brushing mine. “He won’t tell me anything. When he asked me to go see Operations instead of staying with you in his office today, they didn’t have anything for me. He’s trying to keep us apart, keeps trying to get you down to the hospital when I’m not there to go with you . . .”
“Why?”
Howl takes a long time in answering. “I don’t know.”
Goose bumps trill up my arm. Yang was lying to me in his office, but are my hallucinations really worth extra testing? What kind of extra testing? And it seems as if Howl should know, since he didn’t wait until after seeing the doctor to start ducking away from Yizhi. Howl was wary the moment we walked in. Is he lying to me too?
Paranoia. The word sticks in my brain, casting an ugly shadow over everything. It made me angry when Dr. Yang dismissed Howl’s concerns, as if Howl is too wound up in himself to discern between reality and anxiety any more than I can when the monsters creep out from the crevices in my brain. But is it possible that Yizhi really is worried enough about me spreading some disease through their hole in the ground that it’s worth manhandling me down to submit to the needles?
It’s possible. But I know Howl. After our time in the forest, I know when he’s going to smile, when he’s going to look away. The way he bites his lip when he’s thinking. He’s doing it now, lips drawn tight. He’s never done anything that didn’t make sense, that hinted his mind wasn’t quite on the same plane as mine. I don’t understand, but I believe Howl more than I believe the formerly First doctor.
Howl’s eyes are wide open as he looks up at the stars, moonlight giving his dark hair a pearly glow. “I’ve been helping to smuggle Mantis out of the City for two years now, but they’re just hoarding it. This place is supposed to be a new start for anyone who wants it, but they aren’t letting anyone in who drains the Mantis stockpile. That’s why Liming couldn’t come in, why June leaving him behind was the only way. We’re caught in the middle of a game of weiqi, and I don’t even know who is setting the pieces. Or what it would mean to win.” He bows his head and rubs his eyes before looking over at me. “If they give you an ID chip, we’re stuck. They’ll always be able to find you. I wanted to believe we’d be safe here, but it all feels wrong.”
He threads his fingers through mine, something sweeter than fear turning my stomach over. This is why it couldn’t be paranoia. I feel exactly the same. Everything here has been just a little bit off from the moment we met Helix and his prickly smile. Howl sitting next to me is the only thing that feels right. The two of us Outside, nothing between us and the stars. The cold is starting to mist my breath, and wind ruffles my hair across my face. But I don’t want to move. I don’t want to spoil this moment of quiet.
“Sometimes it feels like that’s the only possible future.” Howl draws the words out, as if he knows what he’s saying is wrong. “That I’m meant to end up Outside, alone.”
I can’t answer, the mirror image of what I was just thinking settling in a heavy weight across my chest. The darkness around me is a little too black, still swirling at the back of my mind. Like a hallucination waiting for the right moment to take hold. No one belongs Outside.
Howl pulls my hand close to his chest as he looks down at the trees so far down below us. I can feel his heart beating through the cloth of his shirt and the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, both coming a little too fast. “My brother is out there somewhere. He left. A long time ago.”
“You have a brother?” I stop, pulling my curiosity into check. “I’m so sorry. What happened? Was he part of the purges? After my mother—”
“Something like that.” He takes another deep breath. “I can’t help but wonder if I looked . . . if I went far enough . . . It’s stupid. He’s probably dead.”
Not knowing is almost worse than my sister dead in the street. At least I know where she is. What kind of father is the Chairman that he’d lose two sons to the forest? What kind of place is the City that the Chairman could banish his own son and that none of us would ever know? That Howl could have disappeared for two whole years, and instead of telling us, the Chairman pretended all was well. Howl wanting to know about my family—about Aya—suddenly makes more sense.
“I’d bet he’s still alive. If he’s anything like you.”
“What am I like?” Howl is looking down at his knees now, tracing the square on his collar with one finger. “Do you know?” His face is strange in the moonlight. “I don’t know if I do. We came running here, and I was sure . . . but the way Nei-ge is handling infection and . . . other things . . . It really is just us. Us against everyone else.”
Just us. That should be a scary thought. But it isn’t, because for the first time it isn’t just me. I’m not alone anymore. Even in the middle of whatever the Mountain is trying to do. It isn’t just me, waiting for the firing squad to have a slow weekend.
“You are . . .” The things I am thinking are hard to say. “Strong. Ready to give up everything for what is right. I don’t know how you ever went back to the City. Knowing that you could die any minute if they found out what you were doing. I don’t know how you left again either. Your family . . .”
He shakes his head, cutting me off. It must still hurt too much to talk about what he left behind. Or what he’s looking for. There’s barely enough room for the two of us to sit, our feet dangling over the edge of the narrow walkway, so close I can feel every breath as it fills his lungs.
“Do you think we should just run?” he asks. A joke, but there seems to be a subtle underlying question there.
Would surviving Outside be any different from the life I’ve already lived? Alone with the trees instead of alone in an overpopulated City or under a thousand tons of rock, hiding from danger I don’t understand? Running away from what Jiang Gui-hua has made me.
“If we left . . .” Howl and me running would turn into Howl running away from me, or whatever SS would leave of me. A gore’s harrowing laugh floats up to where we are sitting, raising goose bumps on my arms. One of the many kinds of monsters that live Outside. I’d be one of them.
Howl turns a little to look at me. “Could you leave everything behind? Live Outside?”
“Leave what behind? There’s nothing to leave. Except Mantis. And you.” My stomach twinges, embarrassed at the admission. It’s hard to say, but undeniable. Something between us fits. The way we talk, the way we sit, the way we think. It doesn’t make sense, but that won’t make it go away. I don’t want it to go away.
Howl’s hand tightens around mine. “You already have friends here. Mei. You’ve even got Helix drooling after you like a wolf stalking a flock of geese.”