DAI

I don’t believe in ghosts. Not like my grandmother, who knelt at our ancestral shrine every dawn with smoking sticks of incense folded in her palms and offerings of rice liquor and oranges tucked in her pockets. I always thought it was stupid, wasting fruit and good booze on the dead. Those who were long silent and gone.

He haunts me anyway.

My brother comes to me in dreams. It’s the same nightmare I have every time I shut my eyes. The “night that changed everything” loops on repeat. My brother’s voice rattles and stings, unchanged through all these years of death.

“Don’t do this, Dai. This isn’t you.” He’s always reaching out, clawing the edge of my hoodie. Trying to stop me. “You’re a good person.”

Then comes the blood.

There’s always so much of it. On my arm. On him. It pours and gushes in an unreal way. Like the old cartoons we used to watch where the red spurted out like a fountain. I try to stop it, holding his hand as he slips away. His final breath curls out into the winter night like an English question mark. Bad punctuation. It should’ve been a period. A solid end. Not like this…

I wake up, heart gasping and chest aching. There’s no blood on the dingy white tiles of my apartment. Just the marks I drew—charcoal and straight. The marks I’ve been erasing, day by day, with a smudge of my thumb.

I sit up, blink the terror of sleep from my eyes.

The world is unchanged. My scar is still here. My brother is still dead. I’m still trapped in Hak Nam, and there are sixteen lines on my wall. Telling me that soon—oh-too-soon—my time will be up.

Half of me doesn’t really expect the kid to show up. I lean against a wall across the street from Longwai’s brothel, counting the seconds with twitchy fingers. A yeti-size guard hulks by the entrance, watching me with slits of eyes.

I try to ignore him, focus instead on the paper lanterns over the brothel’s entrance. Their scarlet light melts into the dragon etched on the door. It’s the Brotherhood’s symbol: a beast the color of luck and blood inked on the walls of every building in Hak Nam. A reminder that they own everything here. And almost everyone.

The minutes stretch on, and I begin to think the kid I picked is too smart. He must’ve smelled trouble. My fingers are twitching faster than festival drums by the time Jin dashes out of the shadows.

Maybe it’s the bluish quiver of the streetlight hanging from the overhead pipes. Or the pieces of nightmare still crusting my eyes. Whatever it is, the kid’s face jars me. It’s so full of anxiety and angles. The perfect mix of worry and fierce.

Just like my brother’s.

“Something wrong?” Jin steps into the lonely slant of light, and the moment passes. My brother’s likeness slips, yanked off like a transparency sheet. It’s just this street kid in front of me now. Eyes hard with distrust. Arms crossed tight over his chest.

“Nothing.” I swallow back memories (I’m on a steady diet of force-fed amnesia) and push off the wall. “Let’s go. We shouldn’t be late.”

Yeti-guard steps aside, and the door to the dragon’s den yawns open. Traces of opium smoke—sweet, earthy, tart, and choking—roll down the hall, past rows and rows of shut doors.

I hold my breath and shuck off my boots, adding them to the neat line of slippers and leather loafers in the marble entranceway. Jin stops behind me, his mouth grim as he looks down at his own boots.

“Nothing will happen to them. If it does, I’ll get you new ones with my cut.” Promises spill out of my mouth just to get the kid moving. We’re already almost late, and I can’t afford Longwai getting suspicious. “Ones that actually fit.”

In the end, he takes them off. We move down the hall to the lounge.

The smoke is thicker here. Long couches form a ring around a rug. They’re full of Seng Ngoi’s finest businessmen, suits wrinkled and arms dragged to the floor by invisible opium weights. The place isn’t quite as fancy as I’m sure Longwai wants it to be. There’s a poseur quality to it, a fadedness. One corner of the rug is frayed. There are smoke stains in the couches’ fabric. The red-gold wall tapestries all have loose threads. Before the night that changed everything, I would’ve called this place a dump. After two years of giant rats and streets paved with human shit, it looks like an emperor’s palace.

One of the men studies us with quick eyes. He’s wearing a silk lounging jacket, embroidered with scarlet thread, a dragon snaking up and down his sleeve. A puckered purple scar runs down his jaw. There’s a slight bulge of his belly—soft from years of ordering others around.

This is Longwai: leader of the Brotherhood, god of knives and needles, king of this little hell.

“This is the boy you brought to do the job?” The drug lord’s voice is like a junkyard dog’s. Throaty. Growling. “Doesn’t look like much.”

I throw another glance at the kid. He’s all eyes, shoulders hunched and arms still crossed as he takes in the opium smokers. The crimson light of the brothel’s lanterns hollows out Jin’s face. Shows just how many meals he’s missed. One gust of wind could probably knock him flat.

There’s a cramp in my stomach, but I push it down, ignore it. I don’t have the luxury of doubt and second guesses. It’s this or the chopping block.

“He’s the best,” I tell the drug lord. “I give you my word.”

“No need.” Longwai’s grin couldn’t be more like a dragon’s: predatory and sharp. Capped off with false golden teeth. “I’ll take your life instead.”

The burn in my gut turns into a broil. But then I think of the boots that sit just down the hall. I look back at the dead-coal fierceness of the kid’s eyes.

I should be okay.

Longwai nods over to the far corner. A man dressed in a nice black suit appears at Longwai’s shoulder. He holds a bag of white powder wrapped in the shape of a brick.

Longwai takes the package and weighs it in his hands. “Do you know where the night market is, boy?”

“In City Beyond?” Jin manages to hide most of the shake in his voice, but it’s still in his shoulders.

“Yes. Seng Ngoi.” He scowls at the kid’s slang. “Take the package to the last stall on the west corner. There’s an old man there selling jade carvings. Deliver this to him, take what he gives you, and return here. My man will be watching to make sure that the exchange occurs as planned. Your partner will stay here until your return. And if you don’t, then he’ll have a nice, long appointment with my knife.”

The kid’s face goes a shade paler. My fingers start twitching again. They’re tapping a frenzied, double-time staccato while I watch Jin tuck the package into his tunic and sprint for the door.

“Have a seat.” Longwai’s gold teeth flash again as he gestures to an empty couch.

I suck in a deep breath and flop down on the sagging cushion.

Time to get to work.