“Why are we sneaking in the back?” I asked. “Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?”
I heard her soft laugh in the com sys. “I’m trying to keep you away from my father.” She gave me a sidelong glance, mischievous. “He wouldn’t approve of this private tour I’m giving to some new boy in my life.”
“Is that what I am?” I asked with a grin. “Some new boy in your life?”
Before she could respond, a scraping noise made me half turn. Two shadowy figures were behind us in the long alleyway, and instinct told me they weren’t just innocent pedestrians. “How much farther?” I touched her wrist. Had Jin’s thugs finally caught up to me, so close to his own territory?
“Less than ten minutes. There’s no direct path to the back entrance.” She led the way with assurance. Which made me think she’d done this before. Had she given more private tours, or had she visited her father’s company secretly on occasion?
“Why?” She glanced at me, then turned as rushed footsteps echoed behind us.
“Stop!” one of them shouted in a gruff voice.
I spun to face the men but said under my breath to Daiyu, “Stay behind me.”
She shifted so she stood behind me, a hand resting right between my shoulder blades.
The two mei thugs skidded to a halt a short distance from us, their worn and dirty faces twisted with greed. Not Jin’s men. His were better fed. One held a short wooden staff, and the other a filthy dagger, thrust at us. They were thin, but desperation gave strength. I knew.
“Give us your cashcards,” the one with the long, stringy hair shouted.
“That’s useless,” I said. “We’ll just block access before you can cash out.”
The one with shifty eyes waved his staff at me. “Take off your helmets,” he screamed. “They can’t do anything without their stupid fishbowls on.”
I could hear Daiyu’s rapid breathing in helmet, and her hand had moved from my back to my shoulder, gripping it tightly. I flicked out a knife from a hidden pocket in my sleeve and threw it. It thudded dead center in the narrow staff, an inch above the thug’s fingers.
“Don’t come closer,” I said in a quiet voice. “I’ll aim for between your eyes next time.”
He jumped back in shock, shaking his staff, then tried to pull out the knife, which had embedded itself in the wood. “You useless arse,” the other thug shouted and lunged at me, brandishing his rusty dagger.
Daiyu let out a startled cry, which sounded loud in helmet. Before I knew what was happening, she had lunged in front of me, neon red taser glowing in one hand. She pointed it at the man with the dagger, her finger on the trigger.
“Daiyu, don’t!” There were two settings on a taser: instantaneous death or fried eggs for brains for the rest of your life. The reckless thug charged at us. Pushing Daiyu out of the way, I pulled another throwing knife and cast it—this one struck the center of the man’s forearm and he let out an enraged howl as he buckled to his knees, his dagger clattering to the ground.
“Just go,” I said, once his cries lowered into gasping curses. “Before you both die.”
The other mei thug flung his staff aside and went to pull his partner up, shouting obscenities, before they stumbled away, disappearing down a narrow side alley. For a few moments, the injured man’s cursing still reached us, echoing. Daiyu was leaning against the uneven wall, arm still extended rigidly, holding the taser. I touched her wrist and lowered her arm. “Give it to me,” I said.
She shook her head. And I heard her panting breaths.
“Turn it off and put it away, then. Before you kill someone.” The only “someone” left would be me.
Daiyu clicked the taser off, and it made a low whirring hum before the red lights dimmed. She slipped the weapon into a pocket in her suit leg.
“Hey.” I put a hand on her shoulder, searching for her eyes. But she stared at the ground. “It’s okay. They’re gone.”
She drew a long breath that shuddered through her, and without thinking, I pulled her into my arms. Our helmets made it so our embrace was awkward, yet she still leaned into me, and I felt her body tremble against mine.
I tightened my arms around her, as if that could steady her, make her fear dissipate. I told myself this was good. This was what I was supposed to do, to gain her trust, her confidence, to get closer to her. But a part of me knew that I wanted to comfort her, wanted to make her feel better. A part of me sympathized with Daiyu. And I’d use these feelings to my advantage, twist them to serve me.
After some time, she calmed, and I drew away from her. “I’ll take you home. I’ll call for an airlimo if you’d rather not ride my airped again.”
She grasped both of my hands in hers. I suddenly envisioned when I had grabbed for her hand instead, when she had asked if she could go outside into Yangmingshan’s thickets. Because she had never been in one her entire life. My hands had been callused then. They had softened since half a year ago, from my manicures, from leading my refined you-boy life, yet her hands were still softer than mine. “I had to do something,” she said. “I couldn’t just cower behind you and hide.”
I wanted to take her chin, cupping her face in my hands, and was suddenly grateful for the clunky fishbowls we both had on. I wasn’t thinking straight.
“Daiyu, I could never see you as a coward.” That was the truth. “Do you always carry a taser?”
“I do.” She did not let go of me but directed her words at our clasped hands. “Because of something that happened . . . last summer.”
I felt the blood rush into my head, and I lowered my suit’s temperature with a thought command, forcing my expression to remain concerned but neutral.
“I’ve been trained to use it. I’ve taken many lessons.” She finally raised her face and met my eyes. “I could have killed them.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you let me?”
I shook my head, my mouth tightening into a wry smile. “And have that on your conscience for the rest of your life? I’d feel responsible. It isn’t noble and glamorous like they show in the films. It’s never without consequence. Killing someone would change your life forever. It would change you. Look at Camus’s The Stranger.”
Daiyu gave a weak smile. “Camus, huh? Another French author I haven’t read.”
“Books aren’t afraid to show you the truth,” I said.
I tried to untangle our hands, but she only released one and led me back the way we came, toward my airped. Everything I said was true, but the most important reason I’d stopped her from killing the men was that I didn’t want it to be all media news. “Daughter of Jin Kills Two Thugs in a Dark Alley” would be sensationalized and blasted for weeks across all news outlets: on buildings, in helmet, and all over the undernet. My false identity would come under heavy scrutiny. Our mission wouldn’t be at risk—it’d be over. And if my and my friends’ true identities were somehow leaked, my friends would be jailed for life.