“Because every morning I wake up and wish for a different life. And this is the only way I can have it. This is the only way I can go home.” His voice is so raw, like his knuckles. It makes my hand press hard against the grate.
Home. That word flares in my chest, hot like a coal. I want to drink in the green of the rice paddies and distant mountain slopes. I want to find my sister and hold her in my arms. I want to be back watching for stars.
“We’re… we’re not supposed to think about home. It just hurts.” The way the boy is looking at me as I say this, I know he understands. The same bittersweet golden agony barbs through his chest. “But I do it anyway.”
“Where is your home?”
“I grew up in a place where there’s lots of rice. And mountains. And herds of water deer that leap like fish through the morning mist.” I pause, realize I’ve gone off track. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t go back. My father… he would just sell me again.”
The boy’s eyes go sharp. I can see his jaw working. Back and forth in an unheard grind of teeth. “Your father did this to you?”
“I wasn’t much help on the farm. The rice crops were failing. We were starving.” I hate that I’m making excuses for him. The man who left more scabs and bottle caps than he could count. We were starving, but he was thirsty. I know he drank away all the coins my flesh bought for him long ago.
“That’s no reason—" The boy stops. I know he wants to say something more, something laced in fire and flame. But he holds it back. Lets it burn inside. “So where will you go? When you get out?”
I don’t know the answer to his question. My stare settles back on the shell. I search the chambers of my heart for something, anything to tell him. But they all feel empty.
He follows my gaze down to the nautilus. Finds an answer for me. “I know you want to see the sea.”
His hand comes up against the glass, mirrors mine. So close. Not even an inch apart. I shut my eyes for just a moment, pretend that the metal weave and cold between us don’t exist.
“I want you to see it, too.”
My eyelids open and he’s still there. Eyes endless and brimming, night’s void crammed full of stars. If I look just close enough, I can see myself in them. A tiny, trembling constellation. Just like the ones Jin Ling and I once traced.
“I’ll try,” I whisper. To find the ledger. To see the sea.
His smile stretches all the way to his eyes, where I am. The sight is radiant. That’s the word Wen Kei always uses to describe the sun over the waters. I wonder if they’re at all the same.
The boy’s head jerks to the side, as if some distant voice just called his name. His name. I still don’t know it. I don’t know it and I feel closer to him than I do to the client who slides under my sheets every few nights.
“I have to go.” The boy starts to move. “I’ll be back in a few days.”
“Wait.” I press my cheeks into the bars, will him to stop. “I don’t even know your name.”
He pauses midstep, his foot hovering over the broken ribs of a rice-liquor bottle. “Next time. As long as you tell me yours.”
And then he’s gone. All that’s left is the nautilus and window tears and my fingers against the lattice, still reaching.
JIN LING
The hail doesn’t reach the lower levels. Heat leaks through windows and pipes. Swallows the pellets before they land. By the time I reach the bottom of the ladder, I feel incredibly warm. A feeling that vanishes at the first sound of his voice. “I was wondering when you were gonna come down.” My fingers freeze around the final rung. Stuck. Every muscle in my back clenches tight.
“No big kid and his gun to protect you now, you little shit. He’s long gone.” I hear the sneer in Kuen’s voice. It drips from every word. " ’S just you an’ us.”
Kuen’s lackey must have run back. Told him where to find me.
I turn and jump at the same moment. Land in a crouch. Like a spider flung from its web.
He’s right. It’s just us on the street: me and Kuen. Blood still crusts his face. Days old and dark. It looks like a dragon tattoo. Curling and twisting around his swelling purple nose. His mouth is the only thing that isn’t puffy and bruised. It’s still snarled. Teeth shiny and yellow.
But then I see what’s in his arms and I forget all about his ugly face.
Chma is fighting — a mess of gray fur and squirm. Kuen’s elbows crush tighter. My cat growls. The sound is low. All over. I hear it and my stomach drops like a stone.
“Let him go.” As soon as I say these words, I wish I hadn’t. They shiver through the street. Betray my weakness for everyone to hear.
Kuen spits a word that sounds like vermin. Seizes Chma by the scruff. My cat howls, claws, and writhes, but Kuen holds him far out. Like a sack of garbage. His free hand grabs the blade by his waist. A clear, silvery threat.
I start to move, but I’m too far away. I can’t reach him in time.
Kuen’s knife is fast. Flashing. Chma’s angry growls turn into something too close to a human scream. It shreds the air, punches my chest.
I have no chance. I’m small and alone. There are probably dozens of his followers, more knives, hiding in the dark. But I don’t stop.
Kuen must’ve expected me to slow or turn. He isn’t ready when our bodies collide. My weight barrels him over. Drags us both to the hard ground. Even though I charged, I’m not really ready. I’m anger and impulse. Thrashing, hitting fists. But my knuckles are no match for Kuen’s knife.
And, like most boys, he’s stronger.
Kuen grunts and rolls to the side. I fall off his chest. My right shoulder slams hard into concrete. Somewhere in the chaos I hear Chma’s screaming. He’s still alive. Alive, but in agony.
Then Kuen is on top of me — muscle and violet-splotched flesh. From the corner of my eye I see the glint of his blade. Trimmed red with Chma’s blood. It’s falling, slicing through the air between us. Right down to my throat.
Years of being under my father’s mad fists taught me how to dodge. Avoid the worst blows. I twist. The metal draws a thin line of fire down my neck. Pain bursts like boiling water across my skin. My left fist flies up. Catches the street boy’s broken tender puff nose.
Kuen screeches, falls off me. I scramble away as far as I can. Stumble to the end of the street.
Other boys appear. I expect them to be jeering and angry, but the wrath I saw in Kuen isn’t there. My eyes flick fast through them, searching for Bon. He’s nowhere to be found. The rest look anxious, almost scared, as they watch their leader spring to his feet. He comes at me with a beastly roar.
The cut on my neck throbs. Clears my head of the anger haze. I leap to the side. Somewhere in the middle of jumps and pain-crafted curses, I find Chma. He’s curled by a pile of trash. His beautiful, downy fur is soaked with red. I can’t spot the wound, but then he moves and I see.
His long, sweeping tail is gone. Just a bloodied stump.
My first thought: He’ll live. My first action: pulling out my knife.
There’s no dodging Kuen the second time. He’s reined in his wild rage, harnessed the pain into focus. His arms stretch wide. There’s no side to step into, and I’m very aware of his followers at my back. All escapes are gone.
My calf muscles coil and spring. My body is a feather, light and spinning. Everything passes slowly. I see every detail of this filthy street. The chip on Kuen’s second tooth. Limp, wet cigarette butts stewed with syringes and shattered bottles. Roaches skittering over mildewed walls. Chma, limp as a discarded scarf, eyes glowing yellow with pain.
Then all of it’s gone. Blurred by my landing. Kuen’s chest is bulky, hard as a board. I hit him. He shudders and steps back. His ankle catches on something, tugs him back to the ground.