Forty-Two

Forty-Two

Rain had been falling in a light drizzle over the city, washing at the stains marring the sidewalks, turning the lines of blood into one long stream that ran through the city like a second river.

When Juliette picked her way out of the lab building, emerging cautiously into the late morning, the street was empty. It had been quiet for some time now. The gunshots and shouting and clanging metal had not gone on for long; the Nationalists and the Scarlets had stormed the city with military-grade weapons, after all. Those at the other end of their violence had submitted quickly.

“Something’s not right, dorogaya.”

Juliette turned around, watching Roma emerge into the open, clutching Alisa’s hand. His eyes shifted nervously.

“It’s too quiet.”

“No,” Juliette said. “I think it is only that all reinforcements have been called elsewhere. Listen.”

She held up a finger, tilting her head into the wind. The rain started to fall harder, turning the drizzle into a proper downpour, but beneath the din, there came the sound of voices, like a screaming crowd.

Roma’s expression turned stricken. “Let’s move.”

The first cluster of people they came upon was a surprise. Roma panicked, Alisa froze, but Juliette pushed at both of their shoulders, forcing them to keep moving. These were protesters—university students, gauging by their simple fashion and plaited hair—but they were too caught up in their slogan-shouting to even notice the three gangsters passing them.

“Keep moving,” Juliette warned. “Head down.”

“What’s happening?” Alisa asked, raising her voice to be heard over the rain. “I thought there was a purge. Why aren’t they afraid?”

Her blond hair was plastered to her neck and shoulders. Juliette was not faring much better; at least she hadn’t bothered with finger waves, so it was only black locks stuck to her face, not pomade running in a sticky mess.

“Because you cannot kill everyone in one day,” Juliette replied bitterly. “They went for their most prominent targets using the element of surprise. After that, the workers still hold the numbers. As long as people at the top are putting out the call, there will be people at the bottom ready to answer.”

And answer they did. The farther Roma, Juliette, and Alisa walked—delving deeper into the city and closer to the Bund—the more the crowds thickened. It became startlingly clear that those on the streets were all congregating in one direction: north, away from the waterfront and in the direction of Zhabei. It wasn’t only students anymore. Textile workers were on strike; tram conductors had abandoned their posts. No matter how powerful the Nationalists had grown, they could not hide the news of a purge. No matter how much fear the Scarlet Gang once incited, they had since lost their grip on the city. They could not threaten its people back into submission. The people would not stand for murder and intimidation. They would be heard.

“No one is going in our direction,” Alisa noted as they turned onto a main road. Here, the numbers were almost paralyzing. If the back gave one rough push, the crowd would gridlock. “Won’t we get caught leaving by sea?”

Roma hesitated, seeming to agree. That slight moment of pause had him almost colliding with a worker, though the worker hardly blinked—he merely resumed with his call: “Down with the imperialists! Down with the gangsters!” and continued onward.

“We have to take our chances,” Roma said, his eyes still tracking the worker. When he turned away, he caught Juliette’s gaze, and Juliette tried for a small smile. “There is no alternative.”

“What about the countryside?” Alisa kept asking. Her pace faltered. “It is chaos here!”

They were coming upon the Bund. The usual picturesque buildings rose into view—the Art Deco pillars and tall, glowing domes—but everything looked muted in today’s light. The world was covered in a sheen of gray, a cinema picture that had been filmed with a lens not wiped clean.

“Alisa, darling,” Juliette said, her voice soft. “We’re already under martial law. The Communist leadership is scrambling to run, and the Nationalist leadership is scrambling to eliminate. By the time we skirt into the countryside and reach another treaty port for escape, the Nationalists will have taken over there, too, and we will be stopped. At least here, we can take advantage of the chaos.”

“So where are they?” Alisa asked. As they arrived at the Bund, coming within sight of the Huangpu River’s rocking waves, Alisa looked around, searching beyond the protesters, beyond their shouting and sign-waving. “Where are the Nationalists?”

“Look at where everyone is going,” Juliette said, inclining her head. North. With so much freshly spilled Communist blood on the ground, the Kuomintang were focusing their attention on newly vacated police stations and military headquarters, ensuring they had their people behind the desks. “The Nationalists are off straightening all their bases of power. The workers will go there too—will flock to those bases in hopes of making some difference.”

“Don’t get too relaxed,” Roma added. He turned his sister’s face, nudging her chin until she looked upon a particular tense spot in the crowd. “Though there are no Nationalists, they have placed Scarlets.”

Juliette gave a small intake of breath, mostly lost when a clap of thunder came over the city. She brushed Roma’s elbow, and his hand came to grasp hers. The both of them were soaked to the bone, as was the string around their ring fingers, but Roma held on gently, like they were merely reaching for each other on a morning stroll.

“Come on,” Juliette said. “With all these people, let’s find a good place to wait.”

In Zhabei, the surviving leadership of the General Labor Union were shouting over one another and banging their fists against the tables. People in suits mingled with people in aprons. Celia sat back and looked on, her face utterly impassive. They were occupying a restaurant refashioned into a stronghold, tables and chairs pushed into clusters, with one large cluster in the middle leading the work. She couldn’t comprehend how anybody was being heard over the uproar, but they were—they were communicating and acting as fast as they could.

A petition was being drawn up. Return of seized arms, cessation of the punishment of union workers, protection for the General Labor Union—these were collated into demands and then rolled up, prepared to be brought to the Nationalists’ Second Division headquarters. Even if it killed them, the Communists did not accept defeat.

“Up and at it, girl!” someone bellowed into her ear. They were bounding through the crowd and screaming at others before Celia could even turn and see who it was. The workers pumped their fists into the air and yelled at one another, chants ringing from their mouths before the demonstration through the city could even begin.

“No military government!” they roared, laughing as they tackled one another, bursting onto the streets and into the pouring rain. “No gangster rule!” They joined the crowds already present in west Shanghai, merging into one, unearthly procession larger than life itself.

Hands pushed at Celia to rise, and then she was up, her head still ringing.

“No military government!” the old woman beside Celia yelled.

“No gangster rule!” the child in front of Celia yelled.

Celia stumbled out from the restaurant, onto the pavement, and into the rain. The streets had come alive. This wasn’t the glittering, glimmering old money of Shanghai: bright lights and jazz music shining from the bars. This wasn’t red lanterns and golden lace trim on the dresses of dancers in the burlesque clubs, one swish of fabric that pulled the crowds into exuberance.

This was animation from the gutters of the city, rising amid the ash of low-ceilinged factories.

Celia raised her fist.

It was the new set of footsteps entering the office that finally forced Benedikt to perk up, shaking himself out of the near trance he had put himself in to remain quiet. It was the way the sound came in: shoes dragging, deliberate.

Benedikt didn’t have to see Marshall to know that it was him. Nor did he have to see him to guess that Marshall had his hands stuck in his pockets.

“The cars that Lord Cai sent are here,” Marshall said. He was feigning casual, but his voice was tight. “They’re ready for everyone.”

Benedikt listened hard, trying to gauge how many Nationalists were pulling their coats off the backs of their chairs and filtering out of the room. The office hadn’t been that full to begin with, yet he didn’t hear enough footfalls exiting. Indeed he was right when another conversation started up between General Shu and someone else, debating their next move for the Communists who had escaped.

“Érzi,” General Shu said suddenly, summoning Marshall to attention. “Where are the letters for central command?”

“You mean the nasty envelopes I personally licked to close?” Marshall asked. “I put them in there. Do we need them now?”

There had been a pause in his speech. With delay, Benedikt realized the missed beat had been because Marshall was pointing. And the only place to point at . . . was this filing closet.

“Fetch them, would you? We need to be off in a few minutes.”

“Yessir.”

Footsteps, dragging his way now. Benedikt looked around frantically. At the end of the closet space, there was a small cardboard box, which he had to assume was what Marshall was coming in for. He walked toward the box, then faltered, freezing three steps away from it when Marshall opened the door, stepped in, and closed the door after himself.

Marshall hit the light switch. He looked up. Widened his eyes.

“Ben—”

Benedikt clamped a hand over Marshall’s mouth, the effort so aggressive that they slammed into one of the filing cabinets, bodies locked. Benedikt could smell the smoke clinging to Marshall’s skin, count the lines crinkling his brow while he tried not to struggle.

What the hell are you doing here? Marshall’s eyes seemed to scream.

What do you think? Benedikt silently responded.

“What happened?” General Shu called from outside. He had heard the loud thud.

Carefully, Benedikt eased his hand away from Marshall’s mouth. The rest of him didn’t move.

“Nothing. I stubbed my toe,” Marshall called back evenly. In the same breath, he lowered his voice to the quietest whisper and hissed, “How did you get in here? The Kuomintang have an execution order for Montagovs, and you deliver yourself right to the door?”

“No thanks to your father,” Benedikt shot back, his volume just as low. “When were you going to tell me—”

“Bad time, bad time,” Marshall interrupted. He heaved an inhale; their chests rose and fell in tandem. Marshall was dressed in uniform, each polished gold button on his jacket digging between them. It seemed the walls were closing in with how close they were, the space shrinking smaller and smaller.

Then Marshall swerved away suddenly, squeezing through the narrow passage and retrieving the box. Benedikt leaned back against the cabinets, his breath coming short.

“Stay here,” Marshall whispered when he walked by again, holding the box. “I’ll come back.”

He turned off the lights and closed the door firmly.

Benedikt resisted the urge to kick one of the cabinets. He wanted to hear the thud of its metal echo, have it ring so loud and forcefully that the whole house was brought here to him. Of course, that would be incredibly, incredibly ill advised. So he stayed unmoving. All that he allowed was his rapidly tapping fingers. How much time did Roma and Juliette have at the Bund? How close was it now to noon?

After what seemed like eons, the door opened again. Benedikt tensed, prepared to pull his weapon, but it was Marshall, his expression stricken.

“You can come out,” he said. “They’ve all departed for the Scarlet house.”

“And left you behind?”

“I feigned a headache.”

Benedikt walked out, almost suspicious. His ankle stung, slowing his movements, but the hesitation was intentional too. He didn’t know what had gotten into him; he had come here resolute to rescue Marshall and leave as quickly as they could, yet now he looked at Marshall and felt utter bewilderment. There was a hot stone in his stomach. He had imagined Marshall getting tortured, abused, or otherwise at the mercy of people he could not stand up against. Instead, Benedikt had found him moving around this house as if he belonged here, as if this were his home.

And maybe it was.

“I thought I was coming to break you out,” Benedikt said. “But it looks like you could have broken yourself out at any point.”

Marshall shook his head. He stuck his hands back into his pockets, though the posture was incongruous with the ironed smoothness of his trousers. “You clown,” he said. “I was trying to help you from the inside. My father was going to delay the execution order.”

A coldness blew into the room. At some point, while Benedikt was hiding, a steady rain had started up outside, turning the sky a terrible, dark gray. The droplets came down on the windows, sliding along the edges and collecting in a miniature puddle on the carpet. Benedikt blinked. Had he latched the windows after climbing in? He could have sworn he did.

Did he?

“You would have been too late,” Benedikt reported. “Executions started at dawn. It was Juliette who came to warn us.” Or rather, warn Roma, and Benedikt was roped in by virtue of proximity.

Marshall jerked back. “What? No. No, my father said—”

“Your father lied.” As Marshall had. As Marshall seemed to be doing with increasing frequency.

“I—” Marshall broke off. His attention turned to the window too, looking irritated by the water dripping in. He walked toward it. “Then why would you come here, Ben? Why venture right into enemy territory?”

“To save you.” Benedikt couldn’t believe what he was hearing. With Marshall’s whole past crumbling as a lie, perhaps his entire persona, too, was an untruth. Is Marshall Seo even his real name?

“Of course it is.”

Benedikt had muttered that last part aloud.

“Seo was my mother’s family name,” Marshall went on, pushing the window closed. “I figured everyone would ask fewer questions if they thought I ran from Korea after Japanese annexation, an orphan with no ties. Less complicated than running from the Chinese countryside because I couldn’t bear to live with my Nationalist father.”

“You should have told me,” Benedikt said quietly. “You should have trusted me.”

Marshall turned around, arms crossed, leaning up against the glass. “I do trust you,” he muttered, uncharacteristically quiet. “I merely would have preferred to maintain a different past, one of my choosing. Is that so wrong?”

“Yes!” Benedikt snapped. “It is if we had no idea that you were going to be in danger when Nationalists marched into this city.”

“Look around. Do I appear in danger?”

Benedikt could not respond immediately; he feared that his words would come out too sharp, too far from what he really meant. This never used to be a worry, not with Marshall, not with his best friend. Of all the people in the world that he trusted would understand him no matter how unfiltered his thoughts ran, it was Marshall.

But something was different now. It was fear that had settled into his bones.

“We have to go. Roma and Juliette await at the Bund with a route out, but the Nationalists have already sent people after them. If we wait any longer, either martial law will shut the city down with no means of escape or Juliette is going to get hauled away.”

“I can’t.” Marshall tugged at his sleeves, trying to straighten out the imaginary crinkles. “I have their trust, Ben. I am more help to you as a docile Nationalist prodigy than anything else.”

Somewhere in the house, a grandfather clock started to chime.

“Whether or not my father lied about the timing of the purge is irrelevant,” he went on. “What is relevant is that droves of White Flowers will be hauled into imprisonment to await execution alongside the Communists, regardless of whether we were truly working with them. I can stop it. We won’t have to run. Roma won’t have to run, so long as I stay. If I can steer my father into protecting us, the White Flowers survive.”

When Marshall paused for breath, his chest was rising and falling, appearing exhilarated by the weight of his role. And without hesitation, Benedikt said: “In all my years knowing you, I’ve never imagined you could make such a daft decision.”

Marshall’s expression fell. “I beg your pardon?”

“They’re lying!” Benedikt exclaimed, the sound harsh. “Why would they ever allow the White Flowers to continue onward when the Nationalists have an alliance with the Scarlet Gang? We’re finished, Marshall. The gang is in shambles. There’s no going back.”

“No,” Marshall insisted. He stood firm. “No. Do you know how much violence I witnessed as a phantom in this city, Ben? The view from the rooftops is utterly, utterly different from the view on the street, and I saw everything. No matter the bloodshed, I saw how damn much every White Flower cared for us, for you, for the Montagovs. I can save them.”

“Is that what this is?” Benedikt resisted the urge to march over and shake his friend. He knew; he knew that physical force was not the right method of persuasion here, that if anything, it would merely rile Marshall into further stubbornness. “Some display of loyalty for the gang that took you in? It was never about the White Flowers, Mars. It was about what we believed in—who we believed in. It’s Roma, it’s a city where we belong, a future. And when that topples, then it is up to us to flee too.”

Marshall swallowed hard. “I have power here by mere virtue of my birth. You would ask me to abandon it, abandon the possibility of helping people?”

“What real help can you be?” This wasn’t what he meant. This was what was coming out anyway. “Will you march upon the front lines and massacre the workers to win your father’s trust? Rough up a few Communists for the freedom of White Flowers?”

“Why are you being like this—”

“Because it’s not worth it! Power is never worth it! You keep making trades upon trades, and you get nothing in return. Roma is running from it. Juliette is running from it. What makes you think you can handle it?”

A flicker of hurt—real hurt—flashed across Marshall’s face. “Is that what it is?” he asked. “You think I am too weak?”

Benedikt bit back a curse, swallowed his anger until it slid down his throat. How had this happened? He knew he shouldn’t have spoken so fast. He knew he shouldn’t have run loose with his words. There was never any good to come from it. And yet he could barely think. It was the oppressive air of this room and the steady trickle of rain from outside and that clock still chiming from someplace in the house.

“I never said you were weak.”

“Yet you would have me walk away. I’m trying to help us. I’m trying to have us survive—”

“What use is the gang’s survival if you do not survive?” Benedikt cut in. “Listen to me, Mars. No matter how much they trust you, this is civil war. This city will overflow with casualties—”

Marshall threw his hands up. “You and Roma may run. You are Montagovs. I understand. Why should I follow?”

“Marshall—”

“No!” Marshall exclaimed, his eyes ablaze, not finished with his rebuke. “I mean it. Why should I? With all that I am promised here, with all the protection I have, why would I run unless I was a coward? Why would I abandon such prime opportunities—”

“Because I love you!” Benedikt shouted. At once, it was like a dam in his heart had broken, smashing past every barricade he had built up. “I love you, Mars. And if you are gunned down because you want to fight a war that doesn’t belong to you, I will never forgive this city. I will tear it to pieces, and you will be to blame!”

Absolute silence descended upon the room. If Benedikt had thought it oppressive before, it was nothing in comparison to the weight of Marshall’s wide-eyed stare upon him. There was no taking it back. His words were out in the world. Perhaps those were the only words he had ever said that he didn’t want to take back.

“Good grief,” Marshall finally managed, his voice hoarse. “You had ten years to say something, and you choose now?”

And for whatever absurd reason, Benedikt managed a weak laugh. “Bad timing?”

“Horrific timing.” Marshall closed in with three strides, coming to a halt right in front of him. “Not only that, but you choose to blame me in a declaration of love. Didn’t anyone teach you manners? God—”

Marshall clasped his hands around Benedikt’s neck and kissed him.

The moment their lips pressed together, Benedikt was hit with the same rush of a gunfight, of a high-octane chase, of the thrill that came with hiding in an alleyway when the pursuit came to an end. He hadn’t ever thought much about the act of kissing, hadn’t much cared no matter who was on the other end of it. He had never craved it, had only thought about it like an abstract concept, but then Marshall leaned into him and his veins lit on fire, and he realized it wasn’t that he did not care. It was only that it had to be Marshall. It had always been Marshall. When Benedikt reached up and sank his fingers into Marshall’s hair and Marshall made a noise at the base of his throat, all that Benedikt could think was this was what it meant to be holy.

“Please,” Benedikt whispered. He pulled back for the briefest of moments. “Come with me. Leave with me.”

A breath jumped between them, an exhale into an inhale. Marshall’s hands trailed over Benedikt’s shoulders, down his chest, to his waist, gripping the loose fabric of his shirt.

“Okay.” His answer came shakily, the single word heavy like a sacrifice. It was a choosing—it was turning away from the commitment of family and following Benedikt wherever he was to go. “On one condition.”

Benedikt’s gaze snapped up. Marshall was looking at him with his eyes wholly black, pupils blown large, his expression pensive and serious.

“Anything.”

A grin slipped out. “Say it again. I didn’t pine all these years to only hear it once.”

Benedikt gave Marshall a shove—a force of habit, really, and Marshall stumbled back laughing.

“Idiot,” Benedikt chided. “In all these years, why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because,” Marshall said simply, “you weren’t ready.”

Idiot, Benedikt thought again, but it was with such fondness that his chest burned with it, a red-hot iron of affection that branded every inch of his skin.

“I’ll say it however many times you want. I’ll romance you until you get sick of me. I am horrendously, horrendously in love with your dreadful face, and we need to go, now.”

The smile that Marshall made was something glorious, so big that it felt uncontainable by the room, uncontainable within the house.

“I love you just as horrendously,” he replied simply. “We can go, but I have an idea. How certain are you that my father is lying?”

Benedikt wasn’t sure if this was a trick question. He hardly had the time to reel from the quick switch in topic. “Entirely certain. I heard him say the execution order was his command.”

Marshall pulled at the cuffs of his sleeves, rolling them up to his elbows as he wandered about his father’s desk, eyes searching through its contents.

“If the order is still in effect, we’re dead if we get caught,” Marshall said. He withdrew a piece of blank paper, then a pen, and started to write. “But not if we overturn the order on an emergency command.”

“With what?” Benedikt asked, flabbergasted. He squinted at what Marshall was writing. “A permission slip for any officer who catches us?”

“A permission slip”—Marshall finished writing with a flourish—“approved by General Shu. His stamp should be in his meeting room. Let’s go.”

Marshall was out of the room before Benedikt could even register the plan, digesting what they were trying to do. Benedikt’s ankle protested as he picked up speed too, catching up to Marshall in the long hall, winding around the house to come to the foyer.

Benedikt came to a dead stop. “Mars.”

“It’s just up there,” Marshall said. He pointed to the stairs, not noticing Benedikt’s terrified expression. “We—”

“Mars.”

Marshall jumped, then turned around and followed Benedikt’s gaze. Through the delicate archway of the foyer, the living room unfolded in front of them: the unlit fireplace, the floral vases, and General Shu, reading a newspaper on the leather couch.

“Oh,” Marshall said quietly.

General Shu laid his newspaper down. In one hand, he was holding a pistol, pointed in their direction. The other hand was gloved, matching the thick fabric of his outer coat, like he had come back inside the house without bothering to get comfortable.

“Did you think,” he said slowly, “that I wouldn’t notice my window wide open?”

“Well, you caught us.” Marshall might have been taken aback upon first sighting his father, but he recovered fast, his voice injected with grace. He walked right up to him, not faltering when his father rose, not faltering even as he walked right up to the pistol. “You promised that you would help me, help the Montagovs. So here we are.”

General Shu was watching Benedikt. Studying him.

“Your place for helping them is through official channels,” General Shu said evenly.

“This right here is an official channel. Unless, of course”—Marshall’s voice turned cold—“you lied to me.”

Silence. The ticking of the grandfather clock, its pendulum swinging left and right inside the glass casing. Slowly, General Shu set his pistol down on the table beside them.

“There is an order to the way things must work,” he said. His eyes darted to Benedikt again, some flare of irritation in the momentary glance. “We cannot make things happen just because we want it. That is tyranny.”

How fast could Benedikt reach for a weapon if he needed to? The pistol on the table mocked him—close enough for General Shu’s immediate retrieval but just far enough to give hope that it was not a threat.

“Bàba, it is just one question,” Marshall said. “If I asked for help to save my friends, are you with me or against me?”

General Shu made a dismissive noise. “There exactly is your problem. You think everything can only be good or bad, heroic or evil. I have taken you in to teach you to be a leader, and you cannot stay true to your word.”

“Myword—”

General Shu pushed on. “We follow the rules that come down from command. We eradicate those who want to threaten a peaceful way of life. You are my son. You will do the same. There is no other respectable option.”

Rain clattered down around the house, the droplets seeming far away because of the hollow sound. Benedikt was almost afraid that Marshall was listening, that this pull of family and legacy was too strong to resist.

Then Marshall said, “You forget. I was not raised respectably. I was raised as a gangster.”

And before General Shu could stop him, Marshall picked up the pistol his father had set down and hit him hard across the temple.

Benedikt hurried forward, his eyes wide as Marshall caught his father and eased him back onto the couch. General Shu’s eyes were closed. His chest looked still. “Please tell me you didn’t just commit patricide.”

Marshall rolled his eyes. He put his finger under his father’s nose, confirming that General Shu was still breathing. “You don’t think I’ve perfected how to knock someone out by now?”

“I’m just saying the pistol looks a little sharp—”

“Oh my God, you are impossible.” Marshall mimed a zip across his lips, forbidding Benedikt from arguing further. “Time is ticking. Let’s find that stamp.”