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Chapter Thirty-Three: Unspeakable
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
UNSPEAKABLE
Ametallic chill in the air. The taste of rust on my tongue.
A dirty light. Shadowed corners. A heavy steel chair; leather straps, binding my arms to it. The flesh and blood of a failed struggle under my fingernails.
“It really didn’t have to come to this, kid.” A figure looms toward me, holding a bottle of liquor. An Lushan. “But if you’re going to be this big of a pain in the ass, you should have a drink to calm down.”
Soldiers wrench my mouth open, keep it open with metal plates. Razor-sharp, wedging between my teeth. Blood floods under my tongue. A rubber tube comes jamming down my throat. All the way through. I choke on it, scream against it, try to bite through it, try to spit it out, but it won’t budge. There are only more gushes of blood.
An Lushan tugs my leash stiff. His grisly hand tips, pouring the bottle of liquor into a funnel. Glug glug glug, ceaseless. Scalding heat courses through my body. I can’t even beg him to stop. I’d gladly repent. I wish he’d have the mercy to kill me. I’d do anything to make it end. But it burns and burns and burns and—
I shudder and wheeze as I tear myself from the dream. Sights, sounds, and scents take several seconds to slam into place.
Moon-drenched sheets. The warmth of Yizhi around me. City lights far beyond the balcony. No An Lushan, no steel chair. I touch my throat, work my jaw, look at my hands, swallow huge gulps of air.
“What’s wrong?” Yizhi murmurs, blinking awake, shifting onto his elbow.
“Just a—” My tongue parches. A cold horror trickles along my veins, which seemed to be scorching with liquor a moment ago.
Just a nightmare?
Or…
I throw off the silk covers and maneuver into my wheelchair, clenching against the pain from my bullet wound but too frantic to slow down. Yizhi follows me, helps me, breathing out more questions, but I can’t give him any answers until I get them myself.
A short glide down the hall takes me to Shimin’s room. I rattle the brass handle. Locked.
I pound the door until light flicks on through the crack beneath it, and heavy footsteps approach.
Click.
Amber light blasts over me, making me wince. Shimin appears in it, eyes bleary, short hair sticking up at all angles.
The question I need to ask jerks up my throat, yet hitches. I can’t get it out. I can’t make it real.
“What’s going on?” Shimin strains to keep his eyes open.
“I had—I had a dream,” I say, hoping he’ll just roll his eyes and close the door in my face. “I was strapped to this steel chair. They forced my mouth open with razors. Stuck a rubber tube down my throat. An Lushan poured—”
A wild panic surges into Shimin’s eyes. “Stop.”
I go cold below the neck.
“He gave you the addiction,” I say in vacant horror.
Beside me, Yizhi’s fingers fly over his mouth.
Some kind of barrier ruptures in my mind. Phantom memories flood out. The number of times Shimin went through that to be messed up for good. The way it twisted his will, made him claw for the bottles himself. The hot, agonizing blur of days and nights spent on the cold floor of a prison cell.
An acrid feeling pulses in my face, too hot and too cold at once.
Shimin stares through me, like his mind is somewhere else. Then he flinches and starts to shut the door.
I catch it with both hands.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” I cry.
“Does it matter?” he snaps with startling force, half blocked by the door.
“Yes! This means you fought harder against the army than I ever gave you credit for!”
More images flash through my head, images I once dismissed. The shiv made of book pages. The shard sharpened from his own glasses.
“Your credit,” he says on a brittle laugh. “Your credit can’t bring them back.”
Them. The girls.
My stomach churns, coming close to heaving.
“I’m sorry.” Sobs bloat my voice. “I’m so sorry. All those times I railed on you…”
His grip tightens on the door frame. “It’s fine. It’s…whatever.” He pushes the door again.
“Wait—” I brace harder against it.
“What more do you want? I said it’s fine. Let go!”
“Shimin,” Yizhi breathes.
The resistance eases off. The door opens wider, revealing the whole of Shimin once more.
It’s astonishing, what Yizhi can do with a soft utterance that all of my strength can’t.
They behold each other. Yizhi touches Shimin’s elbow. There’s a mild twitch, but Shimin allows the contact.
“Shimin, please remember that you’ve protected a lot of lives in your battles.” The light from the room dances like gold flakes in Yizhi’s eyes. “Not just those behind the Great Wall, but other Chrysalises too. You took out entire herds single-handedly. That wasn’t meaningless.”
Shimin stares at the ground, shoulders curling in, barely holding something back.
“We’re here for you,” Yizhi continues. “We believe in you. We can liberate Zhou and save so many more lives. Together.”
Hesitantly, Shimin lifts his head.
Then his attention whips between me and Yizhi, sharpening with a new clarity.
I realize I’ve grasped Yizhi’s other hand at some point. And I become acutely aware of how it must look—how it is. Me and him, arriving together in the middle of the night.
“Yes. I know.” Shimin’s expression goes cold and stony. “You don’t need to have this pity party for me. Go…go be happy!”
He slams the door in our faces.
