Fourteen

Fourteen

Juliette peered at the train platform, eyeing the tracks below. When she felt a presence behind her, she didn’t have to turn to know who it was. She recognized him by footfall, by that soft pitter-patter paired with a hard stop, like he had never in his life walked in the wrong direction.

“To the southwest,” she said beneath her breath. “White man with the tatty clothing and French novel tucked under his arm. He’s been watching me for the past ten minutes.”

Out of her periphery, she watched Roma turning slowly, seeking the man in question.

“Perhaps he thinks you are pretty.”

Juliette clicked her tongue. “He looks ready to kill me.”

“Same concept, really—” Roma stopped, blinking rapidly. He had sighted the man. “He’s a White Flower.”

Surprised, Juliette shifted her eyes again, straining to get another look. The man had turned his attention to his novel now, so he did not notice.

“Are you . . . certain?” Juliette asked, deflating from her confidence. She had hoped that maybe it was the blackmailer, finally showing up in the open now that Juliette and Roma were on their way toward the possible truth. It was too much to hope that someone would materialize like this just to stop them, but it certainly would have sped the investigation along. “I thought he was French.”

“Yes, he is French,” Roma said. “But loyal to us. I have seen him in the house before. I am certain of it.”

The man suddenly looked up again. Juliette swiveled her gaze away, pretending to be inspecting something else, but Roma did not do the same. He stared right back.

“If he is a White Flower,” Juliette said without moving her mouth, “then why does he look rather murderous toward you, too?”

Roma pursed his lips and turned back around, facing the tracks just as their train pulled in. Fellow passengers hurried forward, scrambling to the front and pushing right to the edge of the platform so they could secure a good seat.

“Perhaps he thinks I am prettier,” he replied easily. “Do you wish to speak to him? With enough effort, the two of us could probably pin him down.”

Juliette considered it, then shook her head. Why waste their time with White Flowers?

They boarded, finding seats by the window. With a sigh, Juliette plopped into the hardback chair and undid her coat, dropping it onto the table between her seat and Roma’s. By virtue of the train’s setup, they were facing each other, and stacking more items onto the table was like she was building a makeshift wall. Sitting face-to-face felt too intimate, even while twenty-odd other passengers occupied the compartment.

“To Kunshan,” the compartment loudspeaker emitted in English. “Welcome aboard.”

Roma dropped into his seat. He didn’t shed the gray coat over his suit. “What’s the next language coming?”

“French,” Juliette replied immediately, a second before grainy Shanghainese blared over the loudspeaker. Her eyebrows lifted. “Huh. Interesting.”

Roma leaned back, the smallest smile playing on his face. “Ye of little faith.”

That barest glimpse of humor came and went in a flash, but it was enough to make Juliette go stock-still, her stomach clenching. For the smallest moment, Roma had likely forgotten. And when the train started to move, when Roma turned his gaze to the scene outside and the glass reflected back the sudden hardening of his expression, Juliette knew that he remembered again—who she was, who they were, what she had done, what they were now.

The train rumbled on.

Shanghai to Kunshan was not a long journey, and the window view quickly turned rural, passing dilapidated houses on dirt roads. Swaths of grass stretched on beside the train tracks, flat and even and eternal—more natural green than Juliette had ever seen inside city limits, discounting what the foreigners cultivated in their parks.

Juliette released a soft breath, leaning her cheek upon the window. Roma was doing the same, but she resolved not to look at him any longer than necessary, lest he catch her staring. Her head turned, finding entertainment in the compartment instead, eyeing the dozing passengers as the train continued chugging, chugging, chugging.

When Roma broke the silence, enough time had passed that Juliette startled, doing so well at ignoring him that his voice was a shock.

“Assuming we do find the blackmailer”—no prelude, no overture, merely jumping directly to the point—“I gather we need a plan of attack.”

Juliette drummed her fingers on the table. “Shoot to kill?”

Roma rolled his eyes. She was rather aggravated that he looked so beautiful in the midst of the action, the dark shadows of his eyelashes flickering up like a dusting of kohl.

“And after?” he asked. “It is no different from when we thought we were chasing the Larkspur. If we kill the blackmailer, how do we get to the monsters?”

“It is different this time,” Juliette countered. She felt a chill brush through the train car, running goose bumps up her arm. When she shivered, Roma’s frown deepened, his gaze tracing along the dip of her neckline. It was hardly appropriate for winter, she knew. She didn’t need his judgment.

“How so?”

Juliette reached for her coat. “There was nothing that linked Paul Dexter to the Communists because he met with Qi Ren once and then chanced the chaos on random transformations. This blackmailer, however”—she stood up so she could swing her coat back on, the long fabric brushing the backs of her knees—“I doubt is many steps removed from their monsters. Not when the monsters are being sent out like little servants doing the blackmailer’s bidding. That requires personal instructions. Constant meetings.”

“That sounds like a guess,” Roma remarked.

“This entire mission is a guess,” Juliette replied, popping her collar. “I—” She stopped, her eye catching down the aisle just as she was preparing to sit again. The French White Flower was in this compartment too, sitting some rows away.

And he looked . . . in pain.

“Juliette?” Roma prompted. He ducked his head out into the aisle, trying to spot what she was looking at. “The hell is going on?”

The White Flower grabbed the glass he had in front of him and threw the liquid in his own face.

“Fire!” Juliette screamed suddenly.

The man roared with pain as Juliette yanked Roma by the arm, ignoring his utter confusion while he searched for the nonexistent fire. Others were not as doubting—they shot for the compartment door immediately and hurried into the next one over. This was the trouble with being at the tail of the train. There was only one direction to go.

“What the hell, Juliette?” Roma asked again as she pushed him hard against the bottlenecking passengers, toward the door. “What’s—”

Juliette gasped, hearing a snap! by the windows, the tearing of clothes. In the next moment there was no man hunching over his seat but a monster, so tall that it crushed against the ceiling, chest heaving, nostrils flaring. Its green color seemed even more grotesque by the clear daylight, faintly transparent and revealing motion just beneath its skin: little black dots, rushing toward its spine.

They were nearing the door, but half the compartment was still behind her. If she tried to usher everyone through, the insects would dive forward into the rest of the train, infecting every soul on board. But if she stopped it now . . .

The insects tore outward from the monster with one colossal burst.

So Juliette pushed Roma across the threshold and slammed the door closed between them.

Roma whirled around with his breath caught in his throat, thudding his fists against the door. Was it a monster that had just come to life inside the compartment? Was it the White Flower who had just transformed into the monster?

“Juliette!” he roared. “Juliette, what the hell?”

All the passengers in front of him had fled, hurrying through the second sliding door that gave way into the next compartment. It was only Roma and Roma alone in this in-between passageway, where the flooring underneath him shifted at every turn and jolt of the train. He pushed at the door this way and that, bruising his knuckles in his effort to shift it, but something was holding it solidly closed, keeping it from budging even an inch.

“Juliette!” His fist came down on the door with a shudder. “Open this damn door!”

That was when the screaming started.

Juliette wound the cord around the door handle and pulled it tight, holding the compartment closed. The second she had it secure, the insects started to rain down, skittering black legs upon every surface they could find: body or floor or wall. This wasn’t the first time she had experienced such a sensation, yet all the same, it tossed at her stomach, nausea threatening at her throat.

Crawling. So much crawling. Through her hair, into her dress, along the crooks of her elbows, her knees, her fingers. All she could do was squeeze her eyes shut and count on the vaccine she had taken months ago. She didn’t even know if it still worked, but there was nothing to do now, nothing except—

With a gasp, Juliette brushed a clump off her neck, desperate to be rid of the feeling as soon as the falling stopped. She whirled around, her eyes flying open. There was no urge to claw at her throat, no urge to incite destruction. The vaccine had held true. As the people around her staggered to a seat or fell to their knees, Juliette remained steadfastly rooted on her feet, her hands braced to her sides. As the people around her hauled their nails up to their skin and started to dig, Juliette could only watch.

Oh my God.

The monster made a noise, an unearthly, carnal shriek. Immediately, Juliette surged forward, pushing past the victims undergoing the madness. She wanted to flinch and she wanted to hide, but there was no time for what she wanted, only for what she had to do.

Don’t close your eyes, Juliette commanded herself. Watch the carnage. Watch the destruction. Feel the slick of the blood as it paints the carpeting red, and remember what is at stake in this city, all because some foreign merchant wants to play greedy.

Juliette pulled her gun, aiming and shooting the monster in the gut.

The sound of gunshots echoed through the locked compartment. Roma took a horrified step back, so aghast at the noise that he couldn’t find the energy to keep pushing at the door. In that moment, he didn’t care anymore. The city faded, the blood feud faded, all his anger and rage and retribution crumbled to dust. All he could think about was Juliette—dying, she was dying, and he wouldn’t allow it. Some removed part of him determined that it was his job to kill her; the part of him in the present simply couldn’t bear it—not here, not now.

“Don’t,” he whispered, a tremor breaking his voice. “Don’t.”

The monster dove aside, hardly affected by her bullets. Its flailing limbs were slick with moisture, little beads of water that looked viscous to the touch.

Juliette aimed again, but the sounds behind her—the pained, frightened groans of a victim’s last gasp before death—distracted her more than she could bear, and when her bullet only hit the monster’s shoulder, it took the chance to squeeze between two seats and dive right at a window, fracturing a web through the glass.

It was trying to escape.

Juliette reached for the knife at her thigh, intent on a throw. What creature could survive a blade through the eye? What creature, no matter how monstrous, could take its whole head carved open?

But she wasn’t fast enough. By the time she had struggled through the fallen bodies, the monster had dived against the window once more and shattered it entirely, blasting shards of glass across the compartment. Juliette gasped, throwing a hand over her face. Before she could fully recover, the monster had rolled right out, uncaring of the train’s fast speed.

“No!” Juliette exclaimed, spitting a curse. She rushed to the open window, watching the monster land upon the hills and phase back into a man, the transformation as casual as a coat being shed. In seconds he was out of view. The train flew by, leaving him in the countryside, all this blood on his hands and no one wiser to the his identity.

Juliette stumbled away from the window, her legs close to giving out. She had believed it already, but seeing it with her own two eyes was another matter entirely. No longer was this Qi Ren and his ill-timed transformations, fighting against himself and leaving sketches of his other form in an effort to uncover what was happening to his body. No longer was this a sickness spread near the water, hitting the gangsters working at the Bund at odd hours. These monsters were assassins. Assassins under someone’s command, growing to beasts at will and fading back into men when purpose suited it.

This situation was growing more and more dire by the minute.

When the screaming stopped, Roma could hardly move. Every possibility flashed before his eyes, most of them with Juliette’s body strewn in pieces on the train floor. If there was a higher power, Roma hoped they were listening. All they would hear was: Please, please, please.

Please be okay.

The silence was cut through suddenly by the sound of glass shattering in the compartment. With a trembling breath, Roma surged forward again and pulled at the door as hard as he could.

At last it slammed open.

He smelled blood immediately. Then felt the wind, howling through a shattered window. The monster was nowhere in sight. But Juliette—there stood Juliette, like some avenging angel surveying her battlefield, the only figure who remained upright in a car full of fallen corpses, her cheek smeared with blood.

She blinked, so slowly it looked as if she were waking up from a dream. When she started toward him and stumbled, Roma lunged out and caught her without thinking, holding her close for one beat, two beats, three. In that drawn-out moment, he pressed his cheek against the hard texture of her hair, against the soft skin of her neck. She exhaled, relaxing against him, and it was that which jolted Roma back to reality. Juliette was okay, so all his panic transformed into fury.

“Why did you do that?” Roma demanded, jerking back. He shook her by the shoulders. “Why would you do that?”

Bodies on the floor, throats clawed to shreds, red trails running from eye to ear. But Juliette . . . Juliette looked untouched.

“I took Paul’s vaccine,” she said shakily. “I am immune.”

“That was for the first monster,” Roma snapped. “These could have been different.”

The very thought that this had been a White Flower hiding under their noses as a monster only heightened the heat in his chest. Had he known to stop the White Flower earlier, none of this would have happened. Had he known any of this, he could have tortured something out of the man long ago and the absurd blackmailing on their city would be over.

“I figured it would work the same.” Juliette brushed his hands off her shoulders. “And it did.”

“It was a gamble. You gambled with your life.”

There was a visible twitch in Juliette’s jaw, her pointed chin tipping up in aggravation. Roma knew he was being condescending, but he cared little when the air was still permeated with gore, violence soaking into their clothes, sticking to their skin. Noting the same fact, Juliette shoved Roma over the compartment threshold and slammed the sliding door closed again.

“It worked,” she hissed. Now it was only the two of them occupying the in-between train space, one panel of hardwood keeping them separated from a room full of corpses. “I saved the whole train from infection.”

“No,” Roma said. “You decided to play hero and got lucky.”

Juliette threw her hands into the air, scoffing. A mark of blood yet remained on her cheek. She had another stain across her sleeve, and another down her leg.

“How is that a problem?”

It was. It was a problem, and Roma couldn’t explain how. He wanted to pace, to move, to release this frantic, pent-up feeling roaring to a crescendo inside of him, but there was no space here—nothing except walls closing in on them and the unstable train rumbling beneath their feet. He couldn’t think, couldn’t function, could hardly comprehend this reaction that was happening inside of him.

“Your life,” he seethed, “is not a game of luck.”

“Since when,” Juliette spat, mimicking his emphasis, “did you care about my life?”

Roma marched right toward her. Perhaps he had been intent on intimidation, but they were too similar in height, and where he meant to loom, he and Juliette only ended up standing nose to nose, glaring at one another so fiercely that the world could have gone up in smoke and neither would have noticed.

“I don’t.” He was trembling with his fury. “I hate you.”

And when Juliette didn’t recoil, Roma kissed her.

He pressed her right into the door, both his hands coming up to grip her by the sides of her neck, getting as close as he dared to the fiery, candied scent of her skin. A barely stifled gasp parted Juliette’s lips, and then she was kissing him back with the same red-hot vexation, as if it were only to get it out of her system, as if this were nothing.

They were nothing.

Roma jerked away like he had been burned, heaving for breath and coming to his senses. Juliette appeared equally dazed, but Roma didn’t spare her a second glance before he turned on his heel and marched through the next sliding door, slamming it behind him.

By God. What had he done?

The rest of the train was humming away in complete normalcy. No one paid Roma any heed as he remained standing by the compartment entrance, his heart hammering in his ears and his pulse thrumming beneath the thin skin of his wrists. It wasn’t until a man wandered up to him, intending to skirt past and get through the door, that Roma finally shook out of his stupor and held out his arm, warning, “Don’t. Dead bodies everywhere.”

The man blinked, taken aback. Roma didn’t stick around to offer an explanation; he pushed past rudely and forged ahead, entering into the next passageway. Only there, boxed in between two new compartments and removed from watchful eyes, did Roma finally shove a hand through his hair and breathe out a long sigh.

“What is wrong with me?” he muttered. He wanted to scream and rage. He wanted to scream at Juliette until his lungs grew hoarse. Only he knew that if he screamed I hate you, what he really meant was I love you. I still love you so much that I hate you for it.

The train rocked under his feet, finding smooth tracks. Its screeching noise became swallowed, and for a suspended moment, all that could be heard in that compartment space was Roma’s heavy breathing.

Then the tracks grew rough again, and the floors continued their dull screeching.