The window was hard to find, even after I knew it was there. It took me a good half hour, dodging the storm leaks in the pipes above while I circled the brothel, trying not to be seen, before I spotted the patch of scarlet from the other end of the alleyway. But if finding the window was hard, then facing what was behind it was even harder.
I wasn’t ready for the girl.
City of Darkness. That’s what the people of Seng Ngoi call this place when they glimpse it from their penthouse apartments and high-rise offices. A black spot of slum and crime in their shining city. A better name, I think, would be City of Pain.
The suffering is everywhere here. Crouching inside the steel workshops and weaving mills, where workers hunch over their machines for fourteen hours every single day. Threading through the corridors of strung-out prostitutes and knife-scarred youths. Lurking around the tables where drunken men toss money at one another and curse at the speed of their betting pigeons.
Usually I can ignore it, look the other way, keep walking.
Not this time.
I don’t really know who I expected to find. A prostitute, yes. But the girl behind the glass was nothing like Hak Nam’s other prostitutes—the ones with bloodshot eyes who hover in doorways, trying to lure men with bare shoulders and heavy lids. Her eyes weren’t bloodshot, but they were full. Full and empty at the same time. When she stared at me, I knew she was both young and not.
Haunting. Yearning. Hungry.… Her eyes showed the bars for what they are: a cage. Her want reached through the grating and lodged its claws in my chest, made me babble about food poisoning and second-class seafood. Made my palms sweat like a lovesick middle schooler.
I looked at this girl, saw myself staring back. Ghosts of Dai etched in glass, fragmented, held back by the metal weave of grating. The trapped soul wanting out.
Other than the haunt in her eyes, she was beautiful. I can see why Osamu is obsessed with her—black hair woven into a braid over her shoulder, like night against her star-white skin. The kind of girl my brother and I would’ve whispered about while the maid brought us puffed rice chips and scolded us to finish our homework. The kind of girl I might’ve asked to a movie or played the street arcades for just because she wanted the prize.
But Hak Nam doesn’t have any feature films or cutesy plastic kittens with bobbly heads. And I’m not going to ask her on a date. I’m going to ask her to spy on the Brotherhood. To find the thing I can’t.
Hunger preying on hunger.
Will she have what it takes? This is the question I ask as I shove my hands into damp pockets and duck through Hak Nam’s cursed streets.
I don’t know. It’s a huge gamble I’m making. If worse comes to worst, I always have a second door into the brothel. As long as Jin keeps running for me. I can get all the key information from the girl and make a break for it at the last possible moment. A suicide mission at best.
That’s my Plan B. There is no Plan C.
Most of the shops are dark as I glide past, but a few are still lit, their keepers hard at work. A clock on the far wall of a dumpling shop tells me it’s three fifty. Early morning. If I don’t hurry, I’ll miss my meeting at the Old South Gate, where I’ll give my report and he’ll remind me in his stern voice that my time is waning.
I start jogging. The shoestring cinch of my hood taps against my chest as I run through the city, dodging the crumpled, blanket-covered forms of sleeping vagrants.
The Old South Gate is the oldest, largest entrance to the Hak Nam Walled City. In the daylight hours it looks like the entrance of a beehive, hundreds of people moving in and out. Postal workers lug satchels of envelopes. Vendors carry piles of fruit on their backs or wheel them in carts. A few even balance boxes on their heads. But in the hours between midnight and dawn, it’s gutted and empty, a yawn into the world outside.
My handler is already here. He leans against the entrance, one foot planted in Seng Ngoi and the other edged into Hak Nam. His cigarette burns bright against the dark, lighting his face like a steel mill. When he sees me, he flicks the butt on the ground, grinds it with his shoe.
There are two cannons on either side of the gate. Relics from the ancient days, when Hak Nam was a fort instead of a dragon’s den. Before the government left it to rot. The cannons are so covered in rust that they look like giant, weeping boulders. They’re my markers. When I reach them, I stop. Not one step farther.
“You’re late,” Tsang says when I sidle up to the far cannon. The last dregs of his cigarette slide out of his nose.
“I was working.” Rain still falls in sheets over the streets of Seng Ngoi. It runs through the Old South Gate like a river, licking the edges of my boots. I pull my hood over my head.
My handler didn’t bring an umbrella. The storm has soaked him through, but he doesn’t seem to care. “How was the infiltration? Did you get a look?”
“Not much of one. Longwai’s keeping me on a tight leash.”
“So you didn’t see it?” Tsang asks.
My teeth clench together. I’ve got enough pressure without his barbed questions. “Oh yeah. He handed it over to me right after he gave me a foot massage. Gift-wrapped and everything.”
“This isn’t a joke, Dai,” he growls. “There are things at stake here. Lives. Careers.”
Tsang’s face is hard to read without the glow of his cigarette. I don’t like it.
“I don’t see Longwai giving me free rein around the brothel anytime soon. If you want to know the layout, you should ask Ambassador Osamu. Hell, I bet you could walk right in and pay for a girl if you wanted.”
“What the ambassador does behind this line is his own business—you’re in no position to be slandering his honor.” My handler produces a shiny cigarette case from his coat pocket. “You saying you can’t do the job?”
“No,” I say quickly. “I found another avenue. A girl. On the inside.”
“One of the whores?”
Whore. The word has never bothered me before. But for some reason, I find my fingers twitching, tapping out Morse code obscenities. “One of Longwai’s girls. Yes.”
My handler frowns and wedges the cigarette between his teeth. His other hand holds up a lighter. “What have you told her?”
“Nothing. She just knows I want information on the Brotherhood. She doesn’t know what or why,” I tell him.
“And you really think you can get her to talk? That’s damn risky.” It takes three tries for the flame to catch the cigarette and hold.
“Yeah. Well, nothing about this is safe,” I quip back.
“Fine. It’s your ass on the line,” he says, like I don’t know. Like I’m not spending every waking moment thinking about it. “Test her. Something simple, to make sure she can deliver. Something you can verify so you know she’s not making things up.”
“I plan on it.” I hate it when he talks to me like I’m stupid or slow. Like I wasn’t raised through Seng Ngoi’s finest, most expensive schools. “But I’ll need to give her an incentive.”
A bus chugs down the street just a few yards away. Tsang and I both stiffen, watch as its wide lit windows string past. Its only passengers—a tousled university student and a foreign backpacker—have their faces slumped against the glass. Netting precious more minutes of sleep with open mouths.
Tsang waits until the bus turns the corner to speak again, “Like what?”
“Getting her out. Safely.”
“There’s no way I can guarantee that. Longwai’s whores will be the least of our problems when all this shit goes down. I’m already stretching my bounds with what I promised you.…”
“So what should I tell the girl?”
“Tell her whatever you want.” My handler laughs. The cigarette shudders, shedding ashes and smoke into the puddle at his feet. “Whatever you think will get her to talk.”
“You want me to lie?” My whole hand is shaking now. I have to curl it into a fist to stop the trembling.
“What? Growing a conscience?” Tsang smirks. “You, of all people…”
I glance down at the swelling river by my feet, the currents of trash and filth. A molding orange peel bobs by my boot, alongside something that looks awfully similar to human shit.
Just one more step. My ticket out.
It shouldn’t be so hard to lie. Not when that’s all I’ve done for the past two years of my life. It shouldn’t be, but I think of the girl’s hot bloom cheeks, the stretch in her voice. My insides twist like a rat held by the tail.
“Need anything?” my handler asks. “Before I go?”
Anything. Everything. I think back to the voices through the red and glass of the girl’s window. Just after the curtain fell. The girl sounded like one of those caged nightingales that tenants keep on the rooftops. Osamu just sounded like a selfish bastard.
“Get me a seashell,” I tell him. “A nice one.”
“Stop shitting me.”
“No, really. I need a seashell.” I need the girl behind those bars to trust me. I need to give her the things Osamu won’t. I need to stop this sick swirl in my stomach.
“Anything else?”
I shake my head.
“Fine. Tomorrow. Same time. I’ll have your shell.”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” I don’t try to keep the snark from my voice.
My handler slides back into the curtain of rain, into Seng Ngoi. I watch him walk until all I can see is the pinprick light of his cigarette. I watch even when that disappears, taking in every sight I can of my old city. The wide, even pave of its streets. The unbroken glass of its doors and windows. Lights in all neon hues advertising everything from dancing and drinks to jewelry and manicures. The trash receptacles on every corner.
I watch until the darkness of the streets starts to grow inside my chest. I push myself off the cannon and duck back into the tunnels of Hak Nam. Away from home.
More shops are open now, getting ready for the dawn rush. Smells and sizzles spill from their doorways, awakening growls in my empty stomach. Fried rice, vegetable rolls, every kind of meat, savory noodles, and garlic. Vendors call morning greetings to one another, borrow ingredients, trade dishes. Most of them nod at me as I pass, calling out the merits of their food.
“You look like you need some eel this morning, Dai-lo!”
I always wince a little at this nickname, so close to my real one. Big brother. They mean no harm by it. But it still stings, always stings. Reminds me of what I’m not anymore.
“It’s hearty food!” The vendor goes on. “Good for winter!”
“No eel!” The vendor on the other side of the street scowls, pointing to his own steaming pot. “You need snake soup, for strength and cunning!”
A third seller laughs. “For breakfast? No, Dai-lo! You want rice porridge and tea! It will set your digestion right!”
Good digestion or not, it’s a bun morning. I decide this as soon as the smoky smells of dough, pork, soy, ginger, and honey swim like hot gold through the air. I watch Mr. Kung slide a fresh tray of cha siu bao from his oven’s shimmering heat.
He gives a knowing smile. “Three?”
“Six today.” Usually I have breakfast alone. I have every meal alone. But I think of how much Jin looked like a skeleton under those brothel lights. He needs better food, and I need him running fast to keep Longwai’s blade off my throat. Plus I want to make sure Kuen hasn’t torn his camp to shreds.
Mr. Kung scrapes six disks of dough from the tray and drops them into a paper bag. “Have a good day, Dai-lo.”
I nod, wishing his words could come true. But I have a feeling that Day Fifteen will be like every other day before it.