THERE ARE TWO MENGHU WAITING just outside the service entrance door. For me? Was Howl not even going to go through with our escape? The immobilization spray has both of them down before they know I’m there.
We were supposed to meet at midnight. Was he going to lead me up here and pretend he wasn’t a part of us being captured? Or were all the disguises about to be dissolved once and for all? The last time Howl was planning on saying, Oh, I forgot to tell you . . .
The ropes Howl was supposed to stash aren’t here. I have to go back to Sole, to send her into the Zhuanjia supply closets to steal some. Everyone is in the Core celebrating, so all she has to do is walk in.
When I get Outside, I keep my hands busy, cutting telescreen wires that Howl told me he’d disable. Every step uncovers more evidence that Howl didn’t mean to leave tonight at all.
When my way out is clear, I brush the new dusting of snow from the anchors set for Zhuanjia workers, and thread my rope through them. Shouldering the extra webbing, I slide the rope through the clasp on my harness and take a deep breath, scrunching my eyes closed as I lower myself over the edge. I try to concentrate on the rope, the way it pulls at the feed on my harness . . . but I can’t keep my eyes away. I have to look down.
There’s nothing to see. Straight up and down, rocks jaggedly disappear into the dark below me. My breath sticks in my throat, my chest and arms tingling as though I’m covered in ants. I can’t even see the ground, hundreds of feet down to the first treetops, black circles in the night. Turning back around, I try to focus on the rock, my feet slipping against the icy edge.
I don’t have any choice. Breaths coming fast, I walk down the side, lowering myself with the rope.
I have to reset the lines twice, pulling them down after me when I hit a ledge. The rope threads through my hand-tied anchors, a sorry-looking setup. My life rides on knots that my fingers are tying for the first time. Just as I’m starting to feel confident, my pack catches on a tree limb, pulling me away from the rock face. I kick to find purchase with my feet, and my fingers catch between the line and the feed. I let go with a yell. The branch cracks under my weight, the sickening lurch of free fall clutching at my senses as it gives way under me. But it’s a short fall, only a few feet to the icy ground.
The frozen air swishing through the trees sends goose bumps prickling down my arms inside Sole’s bloodstained coat. I lie in the dirt for a moment, pebbles digging into my legs and side. I don’t have time to think about being cold. There is nothing left in me except escape.
• • •
The hammock folds around my tired body like a cocoon, hiding me from the bright arrows of light lancing down from the full circle moon. Zhinu and Niulang glare down at me, asking why. Reminding me of that first night, of him. I’m waking up from a dream that was always too good to be true, where Niulang was a protector, Zhinu’s love. It turns out he was actually one of the frightening beasts, the qilin from the story instead of the man. I exchanged Tai-ge’s reserved smiles and steady friendship for Howl’s full gore-tooth grin, believing the lies as his teeth snapped closer.
Which leaves me with nothing. All I am is the traitor that Tai-ge could never bring himself to touch. Hunted in this empty forest by the same men and women who are going to break through the City walls to kill everyone I know. The pieces for this game were placed long before I sat down to watch. My stone, whoever it was who placed me, is dead.
It’s only a matter of time before the Menghu come, trained like wolves to sniff out their prey. I can’t find the emotion to care.
I breathe in and out, stretching my ribs until my lungs burn, the shadows from the trees fluttering across the sheltering layer of my hammock. There is no room to regret, to think that this is what I should have expected. I am solid, a rock. Incapable of feeling anything. I can’t let the doubt or the desire to trust Howl even now take over. To look over my shoulder and expect him to come running after me like this was all a mistake. I am too hard to feel. Too hard to remember that, for the first time, I really am alone. Friendless. Banished. Too hard to notice the despair killing me slowly like dry rot.