My feet are throbbing in Jin Ling’s boots—singing blood and blisters against the raw leather. I try to focus on the pain in my toes, my heel. It’s far better than the fear that’s rising, sliding through every vein as I peer out of the shadows at the brothel’s entrance. Where the dragon snakes around the door and a man with a gun stands guard.
“Are you ready?” my sister asks again in the tone that tells me she thinks I’m not. “Do you remember where to go?”
I know it’s been only a few hours since I last saw Dai, but the moments between have felt like centuries. Every time I’m tempted to think of what’s happened to him, what awful tortures Longwai has invented to get him to talk, I think of the route. The path Jin Ling showed me: right, straight, past the dumpling man, through a sliver in the buildings between the dog restaurant and the makeshift barber, right again, straight all the way to the cannons.
It’s not a very long distance, but I’m not a runner.
I’m not, yet I must be. I will be. Because Sing is dead and Dai is still alive and this is the only way.
“Yes.” My little sister is crouched in the shadows beside me, so I whisper. “I’m ready.”
Jin Ling looks over at me. Even all the makeup I just brushed and dabbed on her face can’t cover the strength there: smart, calculated, fierce. She reaches out, her hand gripping my shoulder. “I love you, Mei Yee.”
I gather her in my arms, as I have so many times before. Only this time it’s not blood but makeup I’m careful not to smudge. She’s warm, too hot against my jacket even though all she’s wearing is that useless serving dress.
I don’t want to let her go. In the end, she’s the one who does it—pulls away and looks me straight in the eyes. “We can do this. You can do this.”
I nod and stand and try not to think of how my legs shake. I take one step and another, into the light of the street.
The guard doesn’t notice me at first. He’s distracted, kicking an empty noodle box back and forth. Battering its cardboard carcass into shreds with his boot. I swallow and keep walking. I’m close, almost too close, when he finally looks up. His eyes squint, then widen as he realizes who I am.
“Hey!” he shouts, but my aching toes already dig deep into the leather of the boots.
I start to run.