Rain has leaked into my shelter. Everything is wet and shivering: my teeth, fingers, toes. I strip off my clothes and try to ignore how badly I’m shaking. My bindings stay tight against my breasts, protecting my knife. The orange envelope with my share of bills.
Chma yowls as I settle in, clawing his way into my lap. He’s warm enough to make me stop shaking. I wrap the blanket around my shoulders and watch my breath shimmer in the air. Here, in the dark quiet of night, I can’t help but think of the jade dealer. There was so much blood. I wonder where he is now. If some doctor sewed up the hole my knife made. Or if he bled out, right there in the market.
It was us or him, I tell myself. A cut in the arm for two lives. A fair trade.
Us. How long has it been since I used that word? Not since the Reapers pulled my sister from our bamboo mat, and I watched, screaming. My twiggy, twelve-year-old frame helpless against so many men. I couldn’t fight. Couldn’t stop them from taking her.
Since then, it’s been only me. No one to slow me down. No one for me to protect. No one to betray me.
But now I don’t have a choice. If I want to keep looking for my sister, I have to keep working with Dai. The idea makes me uneasy, but it’s not all bad. It’ll be nice to talk to someone whose vocabulary is wider than a meow.…
…
The sound of footsteps jerks me back into full consciousness. It’s still dark—but my body has that sluggish ache that means I’ve been asleep. I don’t have time to wonder about it. Someone’s coming.
“Jin?”
My heart slows its rapid rabbit race. It’s only Dai. Again. “What do you want?”
“You haven’t moved,” he says.
“I’ve been too busy,” I tell him. This isn’t completely true—I realize as soon as I say this. It’s actually because I’m not afraid of Dai.
“I was sure you wouldn’t still be here.”
I remember, in a panic, that I’m not dressed. I’ve just thrown the still-damp clothes over my head when Dai pokes his head through the tarp’s hole.
“Couldn’t sleep. Got us some breakfast.”
New smells slide through the mildew stench of my tarp. Wonderful smells. Dough and sweet, tangy meat. My mouth waters. The hunger that’s always inside me stretches. Roars.
But why would Dai spend his hard-earned money on breakfast? For me? I never even buy food for myself. Money, when I do have it, goes toward tarps and knives. Things I can’t steal quite as easily.
“What’s the catch?” I ask.
“No catch.” Dai’s stare flicks down to my tunic. I realize my hand is tucked there, reaching for my knife. Pure instinct. I pull my hand back out. Leave the blade hidden. “Let’s just call it a thank-you for keeping me alive back at Longwai’s.”
“Did you know he was looking for permanent runners?” I watch Chma slink closer to Dai. The smell of meat makes him give a long, low whine.
“No. He made it sound like a onetime deal. I had no idea it would be a test.” Dai sticks the bag of food through the hole in the tarp and waves it around. Chma yowls louder, swiping a paw at the brown paper: Miiiiiiiiiine. “Now, come on. Let’s go eat some buns.”
“Go where?”
“You and your questions.” He rolls his eyes, pulls his head out of my makeshift tent. “Come on. It’s stopped raining.”
I stare through the hole for a moment. Into the dark chill. My body aches for sleep, the warmth of my blanket. But I want the buns more.
I follow Dai to the end of my alley through the twists and nooks of squalid shanties. We go up and up—up stairs, through hallways of peeling paint and spidery mildew stains, up ladders, across bridges of bamboo and wire. I keep the older boy at a distance, hand always waiting to jump to my knife. He leads me through one more narrow passage to the foot of a rusting ladder. When I look up, my breath catches in my throat. At the top is—nothing. A far, black stretch of sky. If I look close enough, I can actually see some stars. They’re faint and chipped. Broken. Every constellation—both the real ones and the ones I invented—has a piece missing. Torn apart by the overwhelming presence of city.
I follow Dai up the ladder. By the time I reach the top, the older street boy is already far off, weaving through lines of drying laundry. Forests of antennas. When he reaches the edge, he sits there with his feet dangling, paper bag at his side. One push or hard gust of wind could send him over to certain death. He’s either incredibly brave or really reckless.
I’m not sure which.
“Come sit,” he calls over his shoulder.
I walk forward. The lights of City Beyond shine bright—like stars that fell to earth and got wedged in its streets and sidewalks. The kind Mei Yee and I used to watch for. Some of the taller skyscrapers are still lit. More stars, trying to climb their way back home. Make the constellations whole again.
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen them,” I say, and crouch next to the older boy. He’s watching the stars, too.
The air wrinkles with the sound of Dai opening the bag. A nudge against my elbow causes me to jump. It’s only Chma, rubbing his nose and whiskers over my sleeve. I don’t know how he got up here, but this isn’t the first time he’s appeared in impossible places.
“I come up here sometimes. When all the stuff down there gets too much.” Dai pulls out a bun and pushes the bag closer to me. I don’t hesitate. “I like to remember there’s a sky.”
“Those are my favorite.” I point off to a cluster of stars, stronger than most, at the crown of one of Seng Ngoi’s tallest buildings. “They always reminded me of a rice scythe.”
Dai quirks his head, eyes narrowed, seeing that herd of stars in a whole new light. “That’s a unique way of looking at Cassiopeia.”
“What’s Cassapeah?” The word is eel-slippery on my tongue. I’m sure I’ve said it wrong.
“Cassiopeia? She was a queen long ago, in a different part of the world. The stories say she was very beautiful, but very proud. Too proud. She smack-talked some goddesses and got herself stuck up there for all eternity.”
I look back at the group of stars, try to see this beautiful queen. But only the crescent curve of a blade stares back. Glint and hard hours under the sun. Maybe he’s making it up.
Maybe. But something in his words makes me believe. Makes me want to remember. Cassiopeia. I tuck the name away. The story that goes with these stars.
“How’d you know that?”
“It’s… not important.” The older boy goes to take a bite of his bun, only to find Chma pinned to his side. All rub and purr and please feed me eyes. “Hey, cat.”
“His name is Chma.” I pull my bun apart. Golden juices leak through cracks in the dough. Run hot down my arm. The meat is still burning, too hot to put on my tongue. I nibble at the bread instead.
“Chma. How’d you come up with a name like that?”
“You’re not the only one with allergies. He sneezes a lot.” I toss a pinch of bread in Chma’s direction. He pours out of Dai’s lap the way only a feline can: full of frantic dignity. “You know. Chma chma!”
The street boy’s stare is almost as withering as the cat’s. “Chma chma? Not hat-chi? Or achoo?”
“Cat sneezes sound different from human sneezes!”
“Okay.” He takes another bite of his stuffed bun, but even a full mouth won’t hide his smirk. “Whatever you say.”
“I swear, it sounds like that,” I mumble, and look over at the cat in question. He has no interest in sneezing. Instead, he scours the rooftop for more crumbs.
We eat fast. Three buns each. By the end, my belly is almost full. I pat it with one hand and lick the juice from my fingers. Chma moves on to the empty bag. He inches in: head, shoulders, body. Only his tail curls out.
The sky in front of us grows light. No more stars—just a lesser darkness. We’ve been so quiet during our meal that I almost forget Dai is here, sitting next to me. That I’m not alone.
“What brought you here?” I jump when my companion finally speaks. “You’re a good thief. Not to mention whip-smart. You’d do well in Seng Ngoi. Why stay in Longwai’s territory?”
I’ve never told anyone about my sister. Not even Chma. It’s too painful to talk about her.
“I’m not ready to leave yet.” Really, there’s nothing else to tell him. I don’t know the answers. I don’t know where my sister is. I don’t know what I’ll do when I find her. Where we’ll go. What we’ll eat. How we’ll live.
“What about you?” I ask, pushing those worries into a far, dusty corner. “Why are you here?”
Dai stares out at City Beyond. Light is coming. Shining soft, clean colors between the skyscrapers: the purple of lotus petals, the dusty pink of Chma’s tongue, and blue. So much blue.
“I’ve got nowhere else to go,” he says. The want I saw that first night swims in his eyes. Shimmering with city lights and sun fire. Reaching for the skyscrapers. The sea beyond.
“You look like you’ve got money.” I glance at the bag Chma is buried in. Those stuffed buns aren’t cheap. “Why don’t you just move?”
“It’s not that easy.” A story lurks behind his words. I wonder if it has anything to do with his scar. With the reason he’s agreed to risk his life every time I run. But I can’t ask him these things without having questions thrown back at me. I don’t want this boy of scars and secrets digging into my memories.
I don’t trust him that much.
An airplane stretches out just over our heads, eating Dai’s words with its ear-throbbing roar. The hot air of its engines bellows down. Tears at our hair. Gnashes at our backs.
Dai is so, so close to the edge. Too close. When the wind hits us, my fingers fly out. Snag the edge of his hoodie. A motion made of speed and instinct. The same way I always reach for my knife.
The plane disappears. My hand is still digging into the softness of his hoodie. Dai is still on the edge, sitting solid. He looks at my hand. His face drains: pale, paler, palest.
“Sorry.” I let go. Cross my arms back over my chest. “I-I thought you were going to fall. I was trying to stop you.”
Dai keeps staring at me. The way he did when I met him in front of Longwai’s brothel. His eyes are on me, but he’s not really looking. He’s seeing something—someone—else.
Then he blinks. And the spell is broken.
“It’ll take more than an airplane to send me over the edge,” the older boy says. “You always so protective?”
I look down at my bare arms—so white after two sunless years. Scars cover them. Shiny lines and circles. My father’s fists wrote them all over my skin. Stories he wanted to tell Mei Yee. My mother. I never let him.
I think about when I found Chma—a shuddering whimper of a kitten—being battered like a football among a group of vagrants. I was outnumbered. Four to one. It didn’t matter.
I’ve never been able to sit back and watch things happen. Not without a fight.
“It’s a good thing.” Dai doesn’t wait for my answer. His hands are out of his pockets, gripping the roof’s ledge hard. His knuckles look as if they’re about to break. “My brother was like that.”
“You’ve got a brother?”
He blinks again. As if he’s just now realized what he told me. A secret he let slip. “He’s… gone now.”
Gone. Just like Mei Yee.
Maybe Dai and I have more in common than I realized.
The sun rises fast. Reminds me that the world isn’t all gray cracked concrete. Its orange fire licks the buildings. Sets the world ablaze. Everything around me, everything the light touches, is beautiful.
“I always wanted a brother.” I don’t know what makes me say it. Maybe it’s the buns in my belly. Or the warm sun on my skin. Maybe I feel like I owe Dai a secret in return.
“Why?” he asks.
“Because then life would’ve been different.” My nose wouldn’t be crooked and broken. My mother would’ve smiled. The crops would’ve grown. My father wouldn’t have sold Mei Yee just so he could have money for rice wine. I would still have a family.
“Funny,” Dai says. “Sometimes I wish the same thing. Just opposite.”
I don’t know what he means until he continues, “Sometimes… sometimes I wish I’d never had a brother. Because then life would be different.”
We’re both silent for a minute. Both staring at the yellow sun. Both wishing for different lives.
“But this is it.” Dai wads the empty bag into a ball. Tosses it far into the air. “This is it. And we do what we can. We keep going. We survive.”
I watch the bag fall. Down, down, down. Until it’s gone. Swallowed by the streets below.