I land. The bridge sways. Bows low. I grip the wire edges, pull myself up, run into the new hall. Its lamps are old, shuddering just like the bridge. On and off again. I’m not sure if Kuen’s boy made the jumps. If he’s still behind me. I run as if he is. Flying past doors like cages. Loafing bags of trash. Walls cramped with mildew and weeping paint. Under the ill light, everything looks black and white. Like a nightmare.
It ends in another stairwell. Another choice. Up or down?
A shout from the other end of the hall cuts my debate short. Kuen’s kid made it. His silhouette grows. Moves too fast in the flickering light. Like some kind of shadow monster.
I choose up. My thighs are screaming now. Knit too tight. Cramped with fire and flash. My lungs feel so full and empty at the same time. Starving for air, unable to hold it. I fight all these things up the steps. All the way to the second rooftop.
This is the highest level. Where everything is open and wide and wet. I don’t know where I’m going, but my feet fly. Through dripping clotheslines of faded shirts and pants. Past rows of potted plants, their stems bent by rain. Through towering antenna forests. Past a pair of pitiful nightingales, left in their domed cage by some forgetful owner. So drenched even their song sounds heavy, soaked.
One foot in front of the other. On, on, on. That’s what the survivor demands. That’s what I give her.
But then I see something that makes me slow. Stop.
Dai. He’s hunched on the ledge. Where we sat so many mornings ago. With stuffed buns and sunlight. He’s staring out, out. The way he was that morning. At the skyscrapers, thick and tall as a bamboo forest. Their windows twinkling madly through the falling rain.
He must have come to watch the sunrise. He’s out of luck. There won’t be one today. Not with this storm.
Dai might be out of luck, but mine has turned. There’s no way Kuen’s lackey will come after me once he sees the older boy. The one who pointed a gun at him just days before.
I’m right. My pursuer swipes through a string of sopping jackets and jeans. Halts. His eyes narrow, aim straight at Dai’s still-turned back. We stand across from each other — tense, panting, staring — waiting.
Kuen’s boy steps back. Slowly, slowly. Behind the laundry. Gone.
Dai has saved me again. Without even knowing it.
I let out a deep breath. My knees are shaking.
“Jin?” I turn back to see Dai staring at me. His hood is pulled up. All I can see is his face, all the dozens of drops sliding over his skin. There’s something behind his expression. Some feeling that hasn’t completely washed away. Sadness, anger, need. I can’t pinpoint it, and the fact makes me uneasy.
I don’t go near his ledge. There’s too much slick and wet up here. One slip could sling me off. Dai’s legs dangle the same as last time, waving over the streetlights of City Beyond. Reckless and wild. As if they want the fall.
“Where’ve you been?” His eyebrows fold into his face. “I was getting worried.”
Was he? I look at his face again. There’s too much emotion there. Too much raw. I can’t tell if he’s lying or not. My instincts are going soft.
Dai’s many secrets still cram my head. As thick and blurring as the rain around us. While I’m here, I can at least try to ask for the truth. Dai’s truth.
He turns his face away. Back into the flush of falling rain. I take a deep breath. Too deep. My lungs shudder. As if they’re drowning. “I saw you.”
His shoulders grow still, and I realize there’s another reason I’m standing so far away from him. I want room to run if things go sour. If I uncover some secret Dai can’t let me live with. If he’s really as unstable as I think.
“I saw you,” I say again, “with that man. The one who gave you money a few nights ago.”
For a long time Dai doesn’t move. Drops smack into the soak of his sweatshirt: pellet drumbeats. He’s a temple idol, crouched and constant. I start wondering if the wind stole my words away.
But then he turns. The look on his rain-stung face tells me he heard every word.
“Who is he?” My boots dig against the wet, wet rooftop. Ready to run again. My knife hand tucks inside my tunic, bandage gripping the hilt. “Why is he giving you money?”
Dai just looks at me, his lips pressed flat. They’re a strange shade of blue. He’s been up here in the frigid rain way too long.
“Why can’t you leave?” I try again. “If it’s so dangerous for the Brotherhood to know who you are, then why do you stay here?”
He stands, faster than he should on such a steep ledge. Then he moves closer to me, mouth pulled tight.
For every step he takes, I take one back. “You’re someone important, aren’t you? Why else would you try to hide it from the Brotherhood? You act like a vagrant so they don’t ask questions. Hide out in the open.”
Dai shoves his fists into his pockets. Under the crescent shadow of his hood, I see that his lips aren’t a razor line anymore. They’re wrinkling and curving. Messing up his face. I wait for them to break apart. To tell me I’m wrong.
But he stays quiet and keeps walking. He steps around and away from me. His steps splash and slosh to the closest ladder.
I don’t mean to, but I run after him. My hand slips from my knife. Reaches out. Snags the edge of his soaked sweatshirt. “I need to know, Dai—"
“No,” he cuts in, “you don’t.”
He’s both right and terribly, terribly wrong. I don’t need to know. But I do. I need a rock, an anchor. As much as I tell myself I don’t, I need this trust.
Because I’m tired. Tired of running. Tired of always looking over my shoulder. Tired of fighting. Scraping by. Being alone. I’m tired of gangs and drug runs and empty searching. I want, so badly, to believe that Dai is good. That he deserves my trust. No matter what.
I want to feel safe.
Dai tries to keep walking, but I don’t let go. My boots slide. Make a wake. He drags me a whole yard before he stops and looks over his shoulder.
“Let it go, Jin.” He yanks his sweatshirt out of my fist. His arm flies back into a terra-cotta pot. It spins off its ledge, dashing the ground with dirt, shards, and withered leaves. “It’s better for you if you don’t know.”
“How?” The air around me shivers. I realize I’m screaming. My shriek shreds through the curtain of drops — too tight, too high. “How is it better?
But if Dai notices how thin my scream is, how much I sound like a girl, he doesn’t show it. He doesn’t show anything. His expression is floating and still. A drowned thing.
“What you saw… it doesn’t change anything about what we’re doing at Longwai’s. I trust you’ll stay quiet about it.”
Trust. The word feels sour on my tongue, like rotten meat. The boy in front of me says it so fast, so flippantly. As if it’s something he perfected long ago.
My mind spins fast. Even if Dai refuses to let me in, I can still use what I saw.
“If I stay quiet and keep running, then I want more money.”
“More money?”
“Yes. I need enough to let me buy time with one of Longwai’s girls.” I look past him when I say this. My eyes focus on the ruined pot. Its spilled dirt looks a lot like blood. Swirling dark and spattered in the water.
His eyes narrow in a weird, frowning way. “You want time with his girls?”
“Yes.” I try to make my voice sound extra throaty. Full of gravel.
“Why?”
“You have your business, I have mine. If you don’t want me to tell Longwai, then you’ll give me the cash.”
“Fine. I’ll give you half of my cut. But don’t expect me to join.” Disgust threads his words. I realize how awful my request sounds. Part of me wants to tell Dai what I’m looking for. Why I live in this awful, reeking maze. But secrets still wrap tight between us. Mine cling to me, his to him.