JIN LING

The stink of the sewer clouds my nostrils. Warm and jungle wet. I stand across from Ka Ming and Ho Wai. Keep a careful eye on their hands. Watch for knives. There’s a faint glitter between Ho Wai’s knuckles, but when I look closer, I realize it’s only a golden cuff link.

“So do we have a deal?” I ask through the plume of sewer smoke.

“Sounds awful risky.” Ka Ming shoots a glance at his partner.

Risky. Just one word to describe this cobbled semblance of a plan. I swallow back the tightness in my throat and tell them, “All good payoff has risk.”

“Yeah, but risk and Brotherhood are two different things,” Ho Wai points out. “How much did you say we’d get?”

“Ten thousand.” I say the highest number that comes to mind. Hope Dai’s father is willing to pay it. “If everything works out.”

The two boys stare at each other again. Talk with their eyes.

“Ten thousand,” Ka Ming agrees. “No killing.”

I glimpse Ho Wai’s knife wedged into his belt. The edge is rimmed with pink; I look back to the cuff link in his hands. Raise my eyebrows.

“Not when Brotherhood’s involved,” Ka Ming goes on. “You understand.”

I do understand. But I’m tangling with them anyway. With my crippled side and six bullets. With the speed of my sister’s untested legs.

“It’s a deal,” I tell them.

I pass the noodle-maker’s shop on my way back to Dai’s apartment. Look at the clock on the back wall. A cartoon frog marks the minutes—his long tongue chasing a fly around the ring of numbers. Around and around and around. The old man beating the noodles into shape told me that when the tongue catches the fly at the very top, it’ll be a new year. Our time will be up.

I try not to think about this as I push back through the door into Dai’s apartment. Drag the plastic bag full of stuff from Mr. Lam’s shop. Bought with everything I had left in the orange envelope. I took it easy on the stairs, but I still feel the steady weep of blood through Hiro’s old shirt.

Just a little longer. Just one more run.

But my side feels as if it’s been stuffed with pepper paste. Red and hot. I try to ignore it as I walk into the room. Toss the bag of goods onto the floor. Chma sniffs at the mess of plastic. Realizes it’s not food and turns away.

Mei Yee comes over from her place by the window. “Did you get everything?”

“Yeah,” I wince. Let myself down onto the floor. Never has hard, cold tile felt so good. “Talked to the vagrants, too.”

“Will they help us?” My sister starts rifling through the plastic bag. Pulls out all the containers and brushes Mr. Lam stuffed into it.

“I caught them in a good mood.…” I think of the cuff link. How it glowed like Chma’s eyes through the gaps in Ho Wai’s fingers. But this doesn’t seem like something I should tell Mei Yee. Not yet. “And offered them a lot of money. So yeah. They’re in.”

The red dress is in the corner, folded neatly alongside Dai’s other clothes. Even wearing boy’s clothes—hair askew and eyes puffy—my sister looks pretty. I eye the growing pile of makeup by her knees. Start to doubt. I’ll never be able to look like that. How can I think this plan even has a chance of working?

Mei Yee picks up a brush and opens the first jar. Peach dust fluffs into the air. Makes Chma sneeze: Chma! Chma!

I wish Dai were here to hear it. So I could tell him how right I was.

Soon. Just one more run.

“Shut your eyes,” my sister commands. Stretches out the brush. “This will tickle a bit.”

Powder sifts onto my face. I fight the urge to jerk away. Mei Yee takes minutes to make sure it’s perfect, but she doesn’t stop there. There are at least a dozen more jars. Colors for cheeks. Paint for lips, eyelids, and lashes. Long black clips of hair that isn’t mine.

And then there’s the silk dress. I slide it on fast, turned so my sister won’t see the oozing wound under my shoulder. The one that’s almost blinding me with its fire. Sooner or later it’s going to catch up to me. I know this, but I still keep pushing. Hoping my body will stay together until all this is over.

I feel ridiculous. Cartoonish with this scarlet-shine dress and painted face. The fake bun pinned to my head clings like a terrified cat. It’s not until I wrap my bindings around my bare thigh—slide the revolver into them—that I start to feel like myself again.

“You look beautiful,” Mei Yee says when she sits back. Admires her work.

I look over to the window. The room’s fluorescent light echoes back at us. Paints a perfect picture of the apartment. I don’t see myself in it. Instead, there’s a woman standing next to Mei Yee. A transformation of almost-curves and beauty.

I cock my head. The woman’s head bends, too. My sister has done the impossible.

And now she must do it again.

The worst part of my plan—the part that makes my stomach turn and my knees weak—isn’t the risk I’m taking. It’s what I’m asking Mei Yee to do. I’ve thought through my plan again and again. A hundred times over. But there’s no way this works without my sister.

I almost called the whole thing off, but she wouldn’t let me. She’s not the same girl who cowered in the corner of our father’s shack. Who cried when a stray dog barked at her.

“It’s almost time.” I hand her my boots. “Are you ready?”

Mei Yee stares at the battered leather and laces. “Do you really think this is going to work?”

“I don’t know.” The lines are still on the wall. A perfect pair. I walk to the tiles and swipe one off. “You don’t have to do this. I can figure out another way in.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “You can’t.”

I keep staring at the last line—forlorn against the off-white. It looks so odd by itself.

“And you’re wrong. I do have to do this.” Mei Yee sits down. Pulls the boots over her sliced feet. Her tongue edges out of her lips as she laces them up. “No matter what it takes.”

Sounds like something Dai would say.

The final line looks so lonely. Because the numbers don’t matter anymore, I reach out. Smudge the last charcoal strike away. As if it had never been there.