My whole hand is numb as it dives into the pocket of Hiro’s old jacket. I must be touching the gun, but it’s impossible to tell. My fingertips are clumsy and slurring. The way my father always was after bottle number three.
All the boys are closer now. As if they’re the wheel and I’m the hub. Their knives could be spokes. Pointed against the jacket’s vinyl.
“Where’d you get those clothes?” The vagrant they call Ho Wai edges in. Looks me over.
“Probably the same place he got the boots!” the center boy says. “Now shut up!”
“You shut up, Ka Ming!” Ho Wai barks back.
I can feel the gun now. The boys—Ho Wai and Ka Ming—aren’t paying attention to me anymore. They’re facing off. Like a pair of beta dogs. Putting on their best displays of snap and snarl for the group.
I take a breath of damp air. My sight is settling, coming together. There are eight of them—flanked around me like a half moon. Eight knives to six bullets and an unsteady hand.
Not good odds. Best just to answer them.
“I got these clothes from a house on Tai Ping Hill,” I say.
Ka Ming and Ho Wai stop glaring at each other. All eight pairs of eyes are on me now.
“No way.” Another boy to the left shakes his head. “He’s lying!”
“How do you think I’m still alive?” I shrug. The vinyl of Hiro’s old jacket sings friction. “Dai took me there. It’s where he’s from.”
“Tai Ping Hill? The rich people’s neighborhood?” Ho Wai frowns. His knife lowers just a hair. “Dai’s from there?”
“Yeah…” I draw out my words. Let my mind work. If the boys were set on killing me, I’d be a corpse by now. Left to rot. But these boys… they don’t have Kuen’s claw and hate. They’re just starving faces. Looking for a way out.
“Turns out he’s a rich kid. Has a huge house and all that.” I think of the cash Dai stuffed into my pockets. I wish I hadn’t given it all to the cabbie. My own money in the orange envelope is sitting in the corner of Dai’s apartment. Far from here. “And lots more clothes where these came from. You let me go and I can make sure you get some.”
Wordless questions are thrown across the ring of vagrants. Glances bounce between knives and stone-cold faces. Most of them are aimed at Ho Wai and Ka Ming. It seems the spot Kuen left is too large to be filled by a single boy.
“How do we know you’re telling the truth? That you aren’t just gonna run off?” Ka Ming’s knife slashes the air to each of his syllables. Reinforcing every point.
I don’t have the energy to come up with any more excuses. Any more lies. “You don’t.”
Ka Ming and Ho Wai look at each other. Stares sharper than razors. Thinking of all the reasons my life is worth keeping. Worth snuffing.
Another, smaller voice pipes up behind me. Bon, the kid I almost stabbed. “C’mon, Ho Wai. It’s not like we actually liked Kuen anyway. I think Jin’s telling the truth. Dai did take him out of the city.… I followed him that day. He’s gotta have money.”
Ka Ming’s arms cross over his chest, his blade no longer flirting with my throat. “Clothes are nice. But not as nice as cash.”
“I say we keep ’im hostage!” Ho Wai barks. “Find Dai and get ’im to give us some cash to keep his little friend alive. That way it’s a guarantee, if Jin’s telling the truth.”
Dai—my throat grows thick as I think of him, somewhere in those glowing red halls, risking his life to save my sister. He needs his revolver. He needs me.
I don’t have time for this.
My knuckles tighten hard around the gun.