Nineteen

Nineteen

News of a monster attack arrived in Shanghai far before their rival darlings did. Already—regardless that the casualties had occurred out in the countryside—the people of Shanghai were boarding up their windows and locking their doors, finding quarantine to be a better solution than risking madness on the streets. Perhaps they feared the monster, who was said to have crashed out the moving train windows and rolled upon the hillsides. Perhaps they feared that it would soon stumble into city limits, spreading infection.

Benedikt threw half of his sandwich into the trash, strolling under the flapping shop banners. Again and again, no matter how many times the White Flowers said it, no one cared to listen. These monsters were not random hits. So long as the White Flowers behaved, so long as they continued fulfilling demands . . .

It had been a while since the last demand came.

Benedikt stopped. He turned over his shoulder. It felt like he was being watched: from both above and below. Eyes on the rooftops and eyes in the alleys.

It wasn’t his imagination. Quickly he spotted a boy on his tail, lingering at the mouth of an alley. When Benedikt locked gazes with him, the boy hurried out, stopping two paces away. He was a whole head shorter than Benedikt, but they looked the same age. There was a white rag tied to his ankle, half-covered by his tattered trousers. A White Flower, then, but not an important one. A messenger, most likely, if he was chasing after Benedikt.

“I’m looking for Roman Nikolaevich,” the messenger huffed in Russian. “He is nowhere to be seen.”

“You decided to tail me for Roma?” Benedikt replied, his eyes narrowing.

The boy folded his arms. “Well, do you know where he is?”

Benedikt’s eyes only narrowed further. “He’s not here.” All the lower-tiered White Flowers should have known that. It was not difficult to keep attuned with the important members of the gang; it was the messengers’ job to keep track of where one was most likely to be in order to find them.

And who still called Roma Roman?

Suddenly Benedikt’s hand snagged out and grabbed the messenger’s wrist. “Who really sent you?”

The messenger’s jaw dropped. He tried to tug away. “What do you mean?”

In one smooth motion, Benedikt twisted the boy’s arm behind his back, then pulled forth a pocketknife and pressed the blade to his neck. It was nowhere near any major artery to act a threat, but the messenger froze, eyeing the blade.

“You’re a Scarlet,” Benedikt guessed. “So who sent you?”

The messenger remained quiet. Benedikt pressed his knife in, cutting the first layer of skin.

“Lord Cai,” the messenger spat quickly. “Lord Cai sent me because we know. We know that the White Flowers are behind the blackmail demands.”

Benedikt blinked rapidly. “We are not,” he said, confused. “Where did you hear such information from?”

“It is too late now.” The messenger tried to writhe about. “Lord Cai wanted confirmation and confession, but Tyler will have you answer for your insolence. You dare threaten the Scarlet Gang, you pay with blood and fire.”

Just as Benedikt was about to let go of his hold on the Scarlet messenger’s arm, the Scarlet twisted his head and bit down hard on Benedikt’s hand. Benedikt hissed, dropping his knife, and the boy bolted, disappearing down the street in record speed. Hardly any of the onlookers by the food stalls even blinked.

Something was wrong.

Benedikt rushed for headquarters, his heart pounding in his ears. By the time he was nearing the residential block, he could already hear the yelling. When he tried to push through the front door, he was almost pushed right out.

“Hey, hey, cut it out,” he snapped, fighting through the crowd. At the center of the living room, the same White Flower who had asked Benedikt to help assemble the wardrobe was clutching a slip of paper in his hands, his face practically red as he explained its contents. Benedikt caught bits and pieces as he struggled closer. Bank statement. Our latest payment. Exact number. Scarlet account. It’s them.

“Order!” Benedikt roared.

The room became still. Benedikt was almost surprised. He had never commanded attention like this before. It was always Marshall jumping on the tables or Roma snapping one directive that swept the room like ice. But now neither Marshall nor Roma was here. Benedikt was the only one left.

“Give me that,” he snapped, holding his hand out for the paper. “What are we crowing over?”

“It was sent to us, Mr. Montagov,” a voice within the crowd answered. “Proof that we have no blackmailer, and it has been the Scarlets all along.”

So why did the Scarlet messenger say the exact opposite?

“Don’t move a muscle,” Benedikt said without looking up, stopping the group near the door in their tracks. They had been on their way out, guns at the ready to find Scarlets to fight. With Benedikt’s instruction, they were forced to look as he turned the paper around, tapping the top corner.

“The account is registered to Lord Cai,” one insisted, even as he squinted where Benedikt was pointing. “The deposit amount matches the last demand we paid—”

“It’s not real,” Benedikt interrupted. “I want the Scarlets dead too, but don’t be foolish. No bank crest in this city looks like this—it is not even a good inking.” He tossed the paper to the table, flicking his hands for the men to disperse. “It is the blackmailer once again. The Scarlets got the same falsified document blaming us. Now get back to your jobs.”

“Benedikt.”

The summons came from above. Benedikt’s head snapped up—as did everybody else’s in the living room—to find his uncle atop the staircase. Lord Montagov’s hands were crowded with silver when he set them on the handrails, rings that glinted by the light of the sunset streaming through the windows.

“Did you say,” Lord Montagov said slowly, coming down the steps, taking one at a time like he had to weigh himself on each landing first, “that the Scarlet Gang received the same information?”

Benedikt could feel sweat starting at the back of his neck. “I was accosted by one of their messengers on the streets,” he said carefully. “He accused us of sending the threats.”

“And still”—Lord Montagov came down the last few steps, the nearest men parting to make way for him, a path clearing toward Benedikt like some miniature Red Sea—“knowing their malicious intent, you stop our own from rushing out?”

An abrupt, scraping sound came from the wall outside, like someone had slipped off and fallen to the ground. Before Benedikt could entertain the possibility of an eavesdropper outside, a White Flower messenger—a true one, this time—scrambled through the door, heaving for breath.

“Come quickly,” he gasped. “Tyler Cai is launching an attack.”

“I will find the Frenchman,” Roma said when the train pulled into Shanghai, the station coming into view. “And as soon as I find him . . . perhaps he will be afraid enough to tell us directly who turned him into a monster.”

Juliette nodded absently. Her eyes watched the window, pinned on the approaching platform. The sky was horribly dark, but the hour was also growing late. They had spent longer in Zhouzhuang than Juliette had liked, and the car ride back to Kunshan had been slowed by the potholes on the gravelly roads.

“It will not be that easy,” Juliette grumbled. “Not if the blackmailer sent him right after us. He did not even bother hiding his face.” She turned away from the window and looked at Roma. “But still—it is better than nothing. We work from there.”

Roma rose and reached up to gather his coat from the overhead storage. Before Juliette could stop him, he had hers too, tossing it upon her.

“Careful,” she chided. She stuck her hand into the pocket, checking on the vial they had stolen from Mr. Huai. It was fine, the blue liquid sloshing at its half-filled point. She had a sneaking suspicion that Roma had intended for her to worry that he was going to damage it; he was not foolish enough to forget it was in her pocket.

Especially not when he had the other half of the vaccine in his pocket, separated into its own vial.

“We have arrived at the destination,” the compartment speaker announced as Juliette got to her feet. The train came to a screeching stop, but even after, as the noise faded, there was still a dull roar coming from the misty grayness outside, and Juliette peered through the window again, searching for the source.

“Do you hear that?” she asked.

She didn’t give Roma any time to respond. Juliette was already hurrying off the train, watching her step over the platform gap and surging into the crowds jostling at the station. This wasn’t right. There were too many people here. Why were there so many people?

“Juliette!” Roma called. His voice was almost immediately drowned out, and when Juliette glanced back momentarily, she had already lost sight of him.

A sharp police whistle sounded to her right. Juliette whipped her attention to the officer, who had one foot balanced on the base of a column while the rest of him clung to it, putting him a few feet above the masses. He was waving at people to move off the platform and into the station, but only because droves of people were hurrying in from outside.

Juliette grabbed the nearest person. An elderly woman stared up at her with wide eyes, lips tightening in recognition.

“What’s going on?” Juliette demanded. “Where are all of these people coming from?”

The woman’s gaze darted to the side. In her hands, she was holding today’s newspapers, crumpled under her tight grip.

“Smoke outside,” she managed. “A gangster safe house is on fire.”

Coldness swept down Juliette’s spine like a lightning strike. Marshall. She let go of the woman so fast that they both stumbled, but then Juliette was moving, her pulse pounding in her chest as she shoved her way through the station.

Maybe it was only a small fire. Maybe it was already well controlled.

With a gasp, Juliette emerged outside, right onto Boundary Road—aptly named given that the Shanghai North railway station sat at the very border of the International Settlement. Juliette needed only to look up, observing the state of the skies above the International Settlement.

The sun was to set within the hour, so there was yet enough light to show great big plumes of smoke, driving those on the streets toward whatever shelter they could find.

“No, no, no,” Juliette mumbled under her breath, throwing her arm over her nose and breaking into a run. She locked her watering eyes on the plumes, diving forward even as civilians fled in the other direction. Once or twice, she heard sirens in the distance, but the sounds were far enough that Juliette knew she would get to the scene first.

Then a terrifying scream echoed into the air: a sharp and unusual piercing that sounded neither human nor animal. She stopped right in her tracks, waving the smoke out of her eyes. The safe house where she had put Marshall was much farther ahead, but the screaming was coming from the next street over, which meant—

“Oh, thank God,” Juliette cried. It wasn’t hers. It wasn’t her safe house. But then . . . what was burning?

Juliette ran the rest of the distance, cutting through a dark alley. She found herself coming onto a wide road, joining the crowd that was gathered before the spectacle. The people here had not run as those farther away had. They were enraptured by the horrific scene, just as someone experiencing the end of the world would stop and stare.

“I have never before seen such a sight,” an old man beside her croaked.

“It is the work of the blood feud,” his companion replied. “Perhaps they are getting their last hits in before the Nationalists arrive.”

Juliette pressed her knuckles to her lips. The smoke plumes flowed from a building entirely swathed in flames, and standing around it, like soldiers guarding an enemy castle, were Tyler and a flock of Scarlet men.

Tyler was laughing. She was too far away to hear what he was saying, but she could see him, holding a plank of wood swirling with flames. Behind him, the building’s roaring inferno drowned out the screams, drowned out the whole occupancy burning to death. Juliette heard nothing save that they were pleading—women in nightgowns and elderly banging on the closed windows, muffled Russian crying to stop! Please stop!

In the third-floor window, there was a little hand reaching through a hole in the glass. Seconds later, a small face appeared, hollow and ghastly and tear-tracked.

And before anyone could do a thing about it, the hand and the child dropped out of view, succumbing to the smoke.

The screams had sounded so strange from the railway station—almost animal—because they had come from children.

Juliette fell to her knees, a sob building against her throat. There was a shout from behind her: clear Russian, rather than muffled—White Flower forces, arriving for a fight. She couldn’t find it within herself to run. She would be killed if she lingered here, pathetic and brittle on the side of the road, but what did it matter when this whole city was so broken? They deserved to die. They all deserved to die.

Juliette choked on her sudden gasp, caught by surprise when a pair of hands closed around her arms. She almost started to struggle before realizing it was only Marshall Seo yanking her into the nearest alleyway, a cloth covering the lower half of his face. As soon as they were in the alley, Marshall ripped off the cloth and raised a finger to shush her, the two of them keeping quiet as a group of White Flowers moved past the mouth of the alley.

Roma was among the group, his face aghast. Seconds later, Benedikt ran up to him from the other direction, giving Roma’s chest a hard shove as he began to yell.

Roma. Oh God. What was he going to think? Juliette had run off without explanation. Would he suspect that she had a hand in this? Would he think that their trip to Kunshan had been a ploy, an attempt to get him out of the city so the Scarlets could launch their attack? In his shoes, Juliette would jump to the exact same conclusions. She should have been pleased—wasn’t this exactly what she desired? For him to hate her so violently that he wanted nothing to do with her?

Instead, she only burst into tears.

“What has Tyler done?” Juliette rasped. “Who approved this? My father? When has the blood feud ever involved innocent children?”

“This isn’t just the blood feud,” Marshall said softly. He grimaced, then wiped at Juliette’s tears. She was letting them run. More and more gangsters on both sides were arriving, and by the sudden gunshot sounds, Juliette guessed a fight to be breaking out. “The blackmailer tricked both gangs. Your Scarlets think the White Flowers are the ones making the demands. They hurried to get the upper hand, desperate to show that they were too strong to be messed with. Tyler led the attack.”

Juliette dug her nails into her palms. Her skin throbbed with pain, but it didn’t make her feel any better.

“I’m sorry,” she managed. “I’m sorry his heart is so wicked.”

Marshall frowned. He was trying to hold back his look of distress, but Juliette still saw it in the speed with which he tried to clear her tears. Once, she might have protested, might have feared the weakness she was showing. Now she did not want to pretend that she felt nothing; she would welcome the world’s pity if it meant she could just stop hurting.

“The wickedest part isn’t his heart,” Marshall said. He glanced to the end of the alley, jumping ever so slightly when a spray of gunfire came near. “It is that he is truly acting on Scarlet interests, dear Juliette. The wickedest part is that this city is so deeply divided as to allow such atrocity.”

Juliette breathed in deeply, steadying herself. Indeed, it always came back to the blood feud. It always came back to the hatred that ran through the very veins of this city, not their hearts.

“What are you doing here?” Juliette asked now, scrubbing the last of the wetness from her face. “I told you to stay inside.”

“If I hadn’t come out, you would be over there getting shot by Roma,” Marshall replied. “Nor would I have heard—” He broke off, misery flashing through his expression. “I was too late. I ran faster than the other White Flowers did, but I couldn’t stop it.”

“It’s good that you didn’t try.” Juliette straightened up, forcing Marshall to look at her. “It is not worth it, do you hear me? I cannot take Tyler down if you just give him more ammunition by revealing yourself to be alive.”

But Marshall just stared at the mouth of the alley. For someone who usually could not stop talking, he was eerily silent, his eyes tracking the flashes of violence that came near.

“Mars,” Juliette said again.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Yeah, I know.”

Juliette bit down on the insides of her cheeks, flinching when the yelling got closer.

“I must run back to Scarlet territory and get backup,” Juliette said with regret. “No matter how wicked Tyler and his men are, I will not stand by and watch them be outnumbered.” She paused, then heaved an exhale. “Go help him, Marshall.”

Marshall’s eyes swiveled back. “I beg your pardon?”

“Benedikt,” Juliette clarified. “Go help Benedikt. You look like you’re ready to claw off your own skin in helplessness.”

Marshall was already tying the cloth back around his face. When he pulled the hood of his outer jacket up, he was unrecognizable, only another part of the rapidly falling night. “Be careful,” he said.

Another spray of gunfire.

“I should be telling you that,” Juliette said. “Hurry!”

Marshall ran off, joining the fray, joining yet another fight of the blood feud that was tearing this city into pieces.

And Juliette turned on her heel, retreating to bring more forces to their death.



Benedikt could hardly see past the sheen of red in his vision. He didn’t know if the red was from fury or actual blood, splattered along his temple and dripping into his eyes.

“Get over here,” Roma hissed from some paces away. His cousin was crouching behind a car, gun in hand. Benedikt, meanwhile, was only standing behind a streetlamp, hardly covered given the thinness of the pole. Up ahead, Scarlets were in a shoot-out with the rest of the White Flowers, and the odds were not looking good for their side. The Scarlet numbers were only growing, though this was White Flower territory. Someone within Scarlet ranks had to have gathered reinforcements the moment this started. The White Flowers were not so lucky.

“What’s the use in hiding?” Benedikt asked. From where he stood, he fired off a shot. It hit a Scarlet in the leg.

“I’m not asking you to hide.” Roma, making a frustrated sound, stood suddenly, fired a shot, then ducked back down. “I’m asking you to get over here so we can leave. This is turning into a slaughter.”

Benedikt’s vision flashed. The red cleared for blinding white. Night had fallen around them, and their surroundings would have been dark if not for the fire still raging in the safe house, consuming the walls and lives within.

“We cannot just leave the fight,” Benedikt snapped.

“You’re a damn Montagov,” Roma hissed, his words just as sharp. “Know when to concede. That’s how we survive.”

A Montagov. Benedikt’s stomach roiled as if he had just ingested something rotten. Being a Montagov was exactly what had gotten him here in the first place—right in the middle of a blood feud, bitter as bone, with only his cousin by his side and no one else.

“No,” Benedikt said. “I do not walk away.” He charged headfirst into the fight.

“Benedikt!” Roma roared after him.

Roma ran to his side, giving him cover as they both fired, working as fast as they could. But the road had turned to a battleground, soldiers stationed at every strategic place. Though their bullets were running out, gangsters were not afraid to grapple, and before Benedikt could call out a warning, there was a Scarlet diving for Roma, knife in hand.

Roma cursed, narrowly dodging a heavy blow. When the Scarlet tried again, his cousin’s fight became a blur in the dark, and Benedikt needed to pay attention to what was coming at him—first a bullet that narrowly missed his ear, then a flying blade, slashing him in the arm only when he dove to the concrete.

The ground trembled: the fire had finally eaten up a gas pipe. There was a colossal shrieking sound, and then the upper half of the house burst with an explosion and collapsed in on itself.

Benedikt staggered to his feet. His mother had died to the feud. Nobody had given him the details because he had been five years old, but he had sought them out anyway. He knew that after she was killed—an accidental casualty of a shoot-out—they had burned her body right in an alleyway until only charred smithereens remained.

Maybe this was the way he would join her. The Scarlets would kill him, then throw him right into the raging fire—ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Benedikt gasped. This time, when the bullet flew at him, he felt it graze his shoulder, sending sparks of pain up and down his arm. Before he could think to raise his weapon again, something hard came down on the back of his head.

And everything went dark.

Marshall winced, catching Benedikt before he fell. Quickly, he nudged his friend over his shoulder, hoping that no Scarlet was watching them, and if they were, that the Scarlet would think Marshall was merely one of their own, dealing with a White Flower. Roma was somewhere in the chaos too, but he could handle himself. If he couldn’t, their men would surely jump in front of him. It was only Benedikt who seemed to need forcible removal. Marshall felt bad for having to hit him so hard.

“You got less heavy,” Marshall remarked, even though Benedikt was unconscious. It felt less . . . kidnappy when he talked as he ran, as if Benedikt were keeping pace beside him rather than being tossed around. “Have you been eating? You’re keeping some strange habits, Ben.”

A sudden shout nearby shut Marshall up. He pressed his lips thin, ducking under the cover of a closed restaurant. When the group of Scarlets passed, Marshall continued moving, muttering a quiet prayer up into the heavens that they were already on White Flower territory. Within minutes, he was in front of a very familiar building complex, nudging the door open with his elbow and entering, arms straining.

“Please tell me you haven’t started locking up,” Marshall whispered. “I’m going to be so mad at you if you only started locking up after I died and never when I told you to before—”

Their front door opened easily under his palm. With a breath of relief, Marshall stumbled in, taking a moment to sniff at the apartment. It seemed different. Losing an occupant would do that to it, he supposed. The air was dusty, as was the kitchen counter, like it had not been wiped in weeks. The blinds were crooked, pulled up once some time ago and then abandoned, allowing half-light to enter in the day and only blocking out the half-dark of the night.

Marshall finally entered Benedikt’s room and carefully set him onto his bed. Now that they were safe, the exertion of his kidnapping task caught up at once, and Marshall rested his hands on his knees, breathing hard. He did not move until his heart stopped thudding, tense in fear that the sound was so loud it would stir Benedikt awake, but the other boy remained still, his chest rising and falling in the barest of motions.

Marshall dropped to a crouch. He watched him—resolute just to watch him—like he had done these past few months, a pair of eyes following Benedikt’s every move in fear that Benedikt would do something foolish. It was strange to be so close again when he had gotten used to being a shadow. Strange to be near enough that Marshall could reach out with his fingers—and suddenly his hand was hovering forward, brushing a blond curl out of Benedikt’s face. He shouldn’t. Benedikt could wake upon disturbance, and the last thing Marshall needed was to break his most important promise to Juliette.

“How mighty you are,” he whispered quietly. “I am grateful that our roles are not switched, for I would have dove headfirst into the Huangpu should I be left in this world without you.”

Before the White Flowers, Marshall’s childhood had been dreary hallways and snatches of fresh air when he managed to wander out. If his mother grew too occupied with her dressmaking, Marshall was trekking into the fields behind the house, skipping stones on the shallow creeks and scraping moss from the rocks. There was no one else for miles—no neighbors, no kids his age to play with. Only his mother hunched over her sewing machine day after day, her gaze caught out the window, waiting for his father to return.

She was dead now. Marshall had found her body, cold and still one morning, tucked in bed as if she were merely frozen in sleep.

A soft sigh. Marshall’s hand stilled, but Benedikt continued breathing evenly, his eyes closed. Abruptly, Marshall stood, tightening his fists in reminder to himself. He was not supposed to be here. A promise was a promise, and Marshall was a man of his word.

“I miss you,” he whispered, “but I haven’t left you. Don’t give up on me, Ben.”

His eyes were burning. Staying here a second longer would undo him. Like a curtain being drawn across the stage, Marshall stood up and trailed out from his former apartment, fading back into the darkness of the night.