I change the subject. “I’ve been asleep for a day and a half? Has the canning shift officer come to drag me out in front of the Watch yet? Or is that what you meant by wanting to maim the Watch?”
Tai-ge reaches for a tray balanced on the chest at the end of my bed and pulls it onto his lap, a bowl of cold rice, cooked cabbage, and what looks like canned peaches next to a glass of water. His fingers wrap around the glass, swirling it once before handing it to me and looking meaningfully at the Mantis pills still sitting on my palm. “I couldn’t find you that night. I was worried. . . .”
I wait, something other than pain uncurling from under my ribs, my eyes locked on his face with an irrational hope that he’ll finish the sentence. But the door opens, and Tai-ge looks up, one of the other girls who lives on my floor freezing halfway into the room when she sees Tai-ge. “I was looking for Peishan. . . . Sorry.” She backs out, fear of interrupting a Red General’s son chasing her down the hall.
Sighing, I take a sip of the water and swallow my pills.
Tai-ge takes the glass back and sets it and the tray aside. “It took some arguing to get them to take you to a medic at all. And when the medic got a good look at you, I thought he was going to faint. I had to shove my stars in his face before he even let me put you down. He still might turn himself in for aiding Jiang Gui-hua’s daughter.”
People stopped staring in the streets years ago, and even the Watch hardly notices me anymore. My long hair helps to hide it, but my face belongs to my mother, right down to the birthmark that spreads out from my ear to my cheek. Every comrade has her face branded in their memories along with a good dose of fear and disgust. I rub my cheek thoughtfully and wince at the sliced skin, realizing that my face must look a bit like Tai-ge’s right now. “He should have just finished me off. I bet Chairman Sun would have given him a medal. Or maybe a red uniform.”
“He was an army medic, double stars and all. No shabby Third doctors for a celebrity like you, Sevvy.”
“A single star, then.” Not that they actually let anyone add or subtract stars. You couldn’t get rid of the hash marks detailing your place in the world even if you wanted to, not unless you wanted to risk looking as though your marks had been burned off entirely like mine. Even if that weren’t the case, rewarding comrades for good work with a new set of stars would make people aspire. Compete. Competition makes for arguments and anger instead of duties well performed, according to General Hong. But I don’t let the General’s chiding voice in my head stop me from making fun. “One star and a job treating nosebleeds up in the First Quarter. Or whatever it is they’re excited about this week. Did I see a new pamphlet about a breakthrough in bone remodeling?”
Tai-ge shakes his head, smiling. “So chipper. At least you’re off your shifts at the cannery with your injuries. Should I figure out how to get myself a pair of broken ribs and get out of all the extra duties father is giving to me? It doesn’t look so bad.”
“It just hurts to move. And breathe. And think. I wouldn’t recommend it. In fact, I want my money back. I’ll just go shake my fist a little at the guard on the bridge. Want to come?”
Tai-ge sobers a little, twirling the ring on his finger as he does when he’s uncomfortable, the City seal stark against the gold. “He didn’t make it. They found him downstream in pieces. I think the bomb hit his office dead-on. He left a wife and two kids, both in the youth corps of the Liberation Army. Between you and him, this bombing made a big enough stir for even the Chairman to notice.”
The Chairman? He actually came out of wherever it is he commands from up on the Steppe because of me? Curiosity bristles inside of me, battling the flash of regret that flames in my cheeks for making fun of a dead man.
Tai-ge’s face slides into something even more reserved. “Which means you should probably avoid shaking your fist at anyone for the next few days. Maybe not even make eye contact.”
“I’m not the one who . . .” I trail off. Tai-ge already knows I’m not the one who killed the Watchman, but there are some who won’t look closely at facts, only that I was there. Casting about for something to say, I ask, “Is the Chairman upset? Or is it your mother I have to worry about? You wouldn’t have been down on the bridge at all if it weren’t for me. Did it take a bomb to convince her that I’m not salvageable as a comrade?”
“No. Well, I hope not.” Tai-ge’s voice is a little strained. “Just stay here. Do what the nuns tell you to do. I’m not allowed to say anything else. But you didn’t do anything wrong. This will pass.”
“Didn’t do anything wrong?” A thrill of fear marches up my arms, and rubbing them sends jolts of pain through my middle. “What do you mean? What will pass?”
“I can’t talk about it.” Tai-ge frowns. “Stay here and you’ll be fine. I’m glad you’re awake. I’ll check in later to make sure . . .” He shrugs again as he stands, blinking as if he hasn’t slept in days, and starts for the door. “Oh, and Sevvy”—Tai-ge turns back, pointing a finger at me—“don’t think for a moment that pity is going to get you out of repercussions for trying to destroy my reports. My great-great-grandfather is probably trying to cross back over and kill you as we speak.”
“Don’t know what you are talking about.” I keep a straight face. “I would never touch your family shrine. Or any of your fancy Watch reports.”
“Bringing the City down, one wax-smudged document at a time.” Tai-ge’s smile is real now, stretching wide. “I’m on to you, Fourth. And the nuns wouldn’t notice if I lit your mattress on fire or snuck a baby gore in to sleep in the extra bed, so you’d better watch out. Those broken ribs should be the least of your worries.” With that, he’s gone.
I let my own smile curl for a moment, then struggle to sit up so I can watch him leave the orphanage through my window. But, when I’m upright enough to see the street outside, all thoughts of Tai-ge and smiles flee. Outside, the street is filled with Watchmen, and not the normal City Watch either. The simple cut and subdued colors of their jerkins mark these men as Outside patrollers. Men who are used to death and killing, to hunting and being hunted. Men who have firsthand experience of what untreated SS looks like when left to rot in an infected brain.
The Reds salute Tai-ge as he leaves. He looks back more than once with a troubled expression on his face as he heads off toward the Second Quarter, where he belongs.
CHAPTER 4
WATCHMEN OUTSIDE? WHAT DID I do that was so terrible the Chairman feels the need to guard a teenage orphan with no friends and a side full of broken ribs? Missing shifts at the cannery? Did they open an inquiry as to where the traitor was hiding, only to find me sleeping in bed? Fourths are supposed to be inherently lazy.
Perhaps my sleeping through cannery shifts is enough ammunition to finally destroy the annoying Fourth pebble stuck for too long in Comrade Hong’s shoe.
Tai-ge told me to stay here. But If I’m going to be arrested, I at least want to know why.
I close my eyes and reach for the tray of stale food balanced on my trunk, trying to ignore the jagged edges of my cracked ribs as they grind together, leaving me gasping. My hands shake as I bite into the bread, not stopping until I’ve downed most of the food on my tray. Feeling a bit more capable with food in my stomach, I inch my feet over the side of the bed to rest on the floor, breathing through the firestorm erupting through my core. Half walking, half pulling myself along the side of the bed, I make it to my trunk and open the lid, grabbing a bottle hidden at the very bottom.