Peishan sits on the other end of the window, looking out over the rest of the City. Her fingers tap against the glass with pent-up energy. The roiling black cloud down by the factories drifts up toward us, the old brick-and-timber buildings bright spots of flame in the early morning air. A black mass bulges out from the smoke, hordes of people running to and fro like rats swarming on a trash heap. Every second, the flames push the crowds closer and closer to the streets that lead up toward the Steppe.
I can’t watch anymore. I can’t think about the shots being fired, the families dying in their beds because I didn’t move quickly enough, because I couldn’t stop Dr. Yang, convince General Hong to end the violence . . . and that I am up here, cured, while infection spreads through the riots going on down there. I can’t think about what will happen to us when the crowds find us, Menghu and City alike calling for our blood. So instead of envisioning the rioting crowd breaking over us in a wave of violence, I look down. The height tingles through me, my imagination replacing all the real danger with the cliff just on the other side of the window. What it would feel like to fall, air rushing by, catching my lungs in a gasp . . . I can face this fear.
Tai-ge gives a shout, pointing at a newly landed heli, red-clad airmen rushing to connect a fat tube into its belly. “That’s our ride,” Tai-ge yells. “Everyone get ready to run.”
Men scurry back and forth under the huge machine, ducking their heads under the twin propellers and hosing down the glass deck, the great circle window an eye that watches us. I can only hope the pilots are less observant. I step up to join Tai-ge at the window.
“I’ve only been working with the Watch for a few months, and they don’t do training on models with passenger room,” he whispers. “But it’s the only one big enough for all of us.”
Everyone shoulders at least one bag, even the littlest girl, who can’t be more than five, walking lopsided under her load. Eight little kids, all with gas masks strapped tight over their faces to keep SS far away. Tai-ge pulls one of the masks over his chin, then hands one to me.
“I don’t need this, remember?” I ask.
He wordlessly points to my birthmark. We can’t hope to take the heli by force. That leaves the chance that they’ll recognize Tai-ge, but not the rest of us. Not me. I pull the straps over my hair, feeling the rubber pull out a few strands as it settles across my nose and mouth like a muzzle.
The street outside is bare, but June pulls up sharp as we step onto the cobblestones. “There, there, and there.” She points. I squint over at the buildings where she is pointing, but nothing special jumps out at me. Tai-ge jerks his head in a nod as he unholsters his gun, whispering, “Run. I’ll cover you.”
She collects her charges around her like a mother hen gathering her chicks, checking each set of small hands to make sure they have something to throw. They jog down the street with Peishan in the lead and June bringing up the rear, then take a sharp turn toward the heli-field. A figure breaks from the early morning shadows, sprinting after them. June shoots him down without a blink.
A chill runs through me, the man’s body lying twisted in the street not twenty feet away. Two more figures spring away from the building across the street, headed straight toward us. Tai-ge aims for feet and legs, bringing both down before we take off after June.
A bullet sings by my ear, burying itself in the cobblestones a few feet in front of us, Tai-ge dragging me along as I try to see where the assault is coming from. Two more bullets find the walls behind us before we can duck into a doorway.
“Seconds? Protecting the airfield?” I pant, dumping some of the cans weighing me down. “Or Menghu?”
“Either way, someone doesn’t want us out here.” He peers around the doorway, jumping back when a shot rings out, exploding in a spray of pebbles.
“I think June and the others are okay. They’re already around the corner.” It seems like such a small distance. Only another fifty yards. Fifty yards that might as well be fifty miles as far as the snipers covering the airfield are concerned. I peek back out, expecting another shot, but instead there’s a man in the street. Walking toward us.
“We’ve got to go, Tai-ge. Can we make a run for the heli?”
Tai-ge nods, and we burst out of our hiding place, running from doorway to doorway. But no fire comes. Not a single bullet. When we get to the end of the street, I glance back again. The man is following us, only a dozen or so yards behind.
I miss a step. It’s Howl.
“Holy Yuan! Move it!” I yell, wrenching Tai-ge around the corner and leading him in a full sprint down the middle of the street. As Howl breaks around the corner, Tai-ge pulls me through a doorway into an open hangar, the large door open on the grassy field where the heli’s twin propellers beat at the air.
June waits by the far wall, arms outstretched over the cluster of children. I can hear Howl yelling from outside, still in hot pursuit. Slapping my hands over my ears, I run across the open space. Tai-ge is right beside me, both of us almost crashing into the wall, unable to stop our sprint. June’s gun is out, but she’s confused as she points it back toward the door. Toward Howl.
Two men come barreling in after him, gas masks secure over their Menghu jackets, so I don’t recognize them. Howl’s hands are empty, and his run is an off-center lope, like the wounded gore that charged me Outside. He’s still yelling, but I can’t hear, the reality that June and Tai-ge are about to shoot blocking everything else out.
I reach for Tai-ge’s arm, grasping to pull the gun’s ugly nose away from its target.
But it’s too late.
Five blasts lash out from either side of me, the crack of the bullets ripping through me as if I’m the one in front of the gun instead of Howl. Tears squeeze out from my closed eyes, but I can’t look, horror freezing me to the cement floor. Wishing inside that it really was a misunderstanding. That Howl really did love me, that he came for me just like Tai-ge did. But it isn’t true, and the young man lying on the ground in the middle of the hangar can’t say anything to change that.
Even with all the justification coursing through my brain, I take a step toward him. Howl couldn’t be the unmoving mass lying on the floor, just a bundle of clothing, an empty shell. My friend. My . . . something else. Something more. Every fleck of blood I have cleaned up over the years in the orphanage, every bone I set flashes through my mind like some sick catalog of experiences I wish I could erase. None of those fixes look anything like the holes blasted through Howl’s coat.
But then his head jerks to one side, shoulder twitching up toward his neck.
Someone grabs my hand before I can go any closer, dragging me out into the open field. Tai-ge’s yell to the Reds refueling the heli is lost in the deafening racket of propellers. Two men look up from underneath the great white craft, immediately heading toward us with guns out. But when Tai-ge pulls his mask down, they slow. Lowering the guns, the man closest to us gestures for Tai-ge to follow.
June keeps a hand on her hood, posted at the bottom of the ladder to help the kids find their feet on the way up. Peishan stands at the top, pulling each one up and setting them down on the floor. The two Reds watch us warily, glancing from Tai-ge to the sorry train of shaved children as though they are starting to realize that even Hong Tai-ge shouldn’t be allowed to cart along such a ragtag entourage.
As June puts both hands to the ladder to follow the last child up, the wind from the propellers tears her hood back, curls whipping around her face in a golden tempest. The Reds start back, guns trained on her obviously foreign figure. I jump between her and the metal barrels. Tai-ge is at my side, barring their way to her.