WHEN I WAKE, MY WIND is holding me. She’s been with me since a heli came to take Mom. Maybe Mom sent me a little bit of herself so I’d have someone to hug me close after Dad couldn’t, to find me places to hide and to tell me when to run. Sometimes she even jabbed at me when my stomach was too empty for me to move so I’d get up to find food. Just now she’s a pillow, though, even if I can feel the stone under my head right through her. There’s blood on the rocks and scrapes across my arms and legs. My shoulders and left arm hurt, one knee bloodied. But my ribs obey when I breathe.
My head’s the real problem. It’s still attached after jumping out the window and everything, I guess. But my head’s what made me jump. I should be dead. The fifty-foot drop is more of a fifty-foot steep hill now that I see it from the bottom, dotted with bushes that must have slowed me down. I didn’t know that when I was looking down, though, and still I jumped.
I’m broken inside. Like Dad.
No use crying, little girl. You have to take life or it will take you, just like Aunt Tian said. The gore. Awake and tearing at me even as my head spins. He’s speaking like Luokai now, tongue frayed into Port Northian. Like my dad when he still had a tongue to speak. Tears are for people who are already dead.
I take one more breath, then wipe the wet off my cheeks. The bright drowns me as I try to take stock of my surroundings. All I can see are the outlines of bushes, a rough stone path. Shading my eyes helps a little, which is when I hear it.
The rush of waves. Water.
My insides dry out, the feel of fingers bruising my shoulder hot inside my head.
Then a bigger problem. Footsteps coming my way.
I roll over onto my side and push myself up from the ground. Here’s what I have to do:
Step one, hide. My feet are silent, years of sneaking enough to make me invisible. I follow the path I fell onto, the way twisting back and forth down the rocks until it turns to steps, wall on one side and a cliff on the other. Pebbles stick in my feet as I turn the last switchback, only there’s no more path on the other side. My stomach flops as my feet say hello to a drop straight down to gray-blue water.
Whoever those footsteps belong to, I don’t want to be found. They’ll probably drag me straight back to Luokai.
Luckily, hiding is what I do best. There’s a little cave carved into the stone wall, a statue inside—a rock lady with rock clothes and rock hair. I duck behind her, accidentally tipping the plate at her feet, spilling rotted starfruit and pears and old incense onto the cave floor.
Instead of running straight over the cliff like I almost did, the person following me stops inside the cave’s mouth, his long shadow creeping up to sit next to me on the floor.
“June?”
An erhu for a voice.
“Are you hurt?”
The words are like stones plunking into a river. An obstacle to flow around. Except I never did much like water after what happened with Dad. Fire was better, because it never looked safe. It never made promises about keeping you alive only to stick its slimy arm down your throat.
“No one can survive compulsions alone, June.” Luokai’s voice sounds like Howl, but it’s not the same. With Howl, both of us understood that he was saying the right words—the words that would get us to where we needed to go—even if they weren’t the truest ones. The only thing I know Luokai wants is a hostage. Still, he talks, solemn and quiet like a prayer to the stone lady hiding me. Her hands stretch out toward him, a lantern hanging from one of them as if she means to use it to clock him over the head.
I’d be okay with that.
My wind brushes by me, pulling fingers through my hair just the way Mom used to. Shivers poke up like little barnacles on my skin. This cave is too much a memory—like those old temples Dad used to take me to, no matter how much Uncle Parhat complained about the climb. He’d leave fresh pears and water, kneeling in front of the statues inside as if they were made from more than rocks. Ask for help to find Mom. They never did make her appear. I’d much rather have eaten the pears.
Parhat, Dad’s brother, didn’t have anything left to wish for, so when SS took him, it wasn’t hard for what was left of him to be pushed aside. Dad held tight to two things: finding Mom and protecting me.
Until he didn’t anymore.
I push away the memories, the things I can’t go back to change. Dad might have forgotten to protect me, but Sev and Howl never once did. They’re my family now.
“Your friends will never find you if you run away,” Luokai says, as if reading my mind. “They wouldn’t even know where to look for your body.”
There’s maybe something to what Luokai is saying. But not enough to listen, really. Sev’s too soft to make it back here alive anyway, and Howl’s too good at running. He’ll either run straight into something or run straight away, and neither of those things will bring him back, no matter how much he wants to come.
They’re the rest of my list.
Number one was hide. Done, but not really, since Luokai knows exactly where I am, even if he isn’t trying to grab me.
Step two is get off the island. And step three is to find Sev and Howl before they get themselves killed because I’m not there to tell them to be less dumb. Step four is maybe to make sure that cure thing is real and then to stick it in my head before any more compulsions come.
That’s the problem with all of these steps. I know what compulsions do to Sephs who don’t have any help. Closing my eyes tight, I press my fingers hard into my arms, the thought of compulsions shivering just under my skin.
“June.” Luokai hasn’t come any closer. “I can help you. I know you’re scared of SS.”
COMPULSIONS. THEY’RE INSIDE ME. My fingers are pressing so hard. It’s not the gore’s voice I hear now but a twisted version of my own. GET THEM OUT.
You can’t get compulsions out, the gore hums. They’re in your blood now. I run a hand down my arm before I can stop myself. COMPULSIONS IN BLOOD. GET BLOOD OUT.
The gore starts to howl in protest as my fingernails dig into my arms, looking for the sickness inside me. My wind swirls in close, frantic to stop what’s happening, but my muscles and skin and eyeballs—it’s like none of it belongs to me anymore. Like up on the window before I jumped. All I can see is my fingernails, raggedy like dandelions, my skin turning red as they press into my arms, the sound of my blood inside like a rumble in my ears.
Hands jerk my jagged fingernails back from my arms, then pin them tight against me, arms holding me still as worms inside me try to squirm through my skin. SS. GET IT OUT. My heel slams into Luokai’s shin. I WANT IT OUT. I tear at his arms, slam my head into his chest. I’m watching from above, my body trying to escape so it can bleed the sickness away.
Breaths coming quick, the voice in my head starts to sound more like a question. SS OUT? And then it only sounds like a horrible memory as my body lets me back in and I’m able to remind myself that my blood is better inside me. My arms relax, my ribs feeling bruised from SS fighting against Luokai.
Even after I go limp, Luokai doesn’t let go for a moment. But he doesn’t fight me when I squirm out of his grasp. Only, I can’t run away, because that’s when the shaking starts. Sinking to the floor, I wrap my arms tight around my ribs, shaking, shaking, shaking, until I’m afraid my body will break into little bits. A little pile of June.
“It’s okay.” Luokai stays where he is, his arms limp as yesterday’s fish. “You’re okay.”