Forty-Three

Forty-Three

Do you see them?”

“No,” Roma answered, his jaw tightening. “It is our misfortune that the waterfront is so damn crowded.”

“If we had known, I would have decided on a less vague meeting point,” Juliette muttered. With a sigh, she shifted, trying to hold her arms over more of Alisa’s head, blocking off the rain. She might as well be a helpful umbrella while Roma trekked up and down the boardwalk, running reconnaissance.

This wouldn’t do. The rain was messing with their visibility; Juliette could see the protesters and strikers moving, but she couldn’t make out faces past a few feet in front of her. Roma and Juliette were in plain clothes, which let them blend in with the rest of the city, but it would be impossible for Benedikt and Marshall to sight them even if the two were already present at the waterfront. They were used to searching for Roma’s clean pressed white shirts and Juliette’s beaded dresses. Neither of those items was present today.

“Roma, it’s almost noon.”

“They’ll come,” Roma insisted. “I know they will.”

Juliette looked out onto the river, biting her lip. Along every ramp, there were boats jammed in tight capacity, making space for foreign warship after foreign warship, flags of red, white, and blue marking the sides. The foreigners had summoned them here as a threat. A reminder that they had won a war on this land once before, so they could do it again. A reminder that Shanghai could jostle up in civil unrest however much it liked, but it better settle down in due time before the foreigners got too annoyed and started using these war vessels.

“How about this?” Juliette said. She tried to wipe the rain off her brow. It was pointless when the downpour fell so fast. “I’m going to find my contact. I’ll have him at the ready and try to stall beyond noon. Soon as your cousin shows, we run.”

“Soon as he shows with Marshall,” Roma corrected. Then, seeing Juliette’s frown, he leaned in and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Go on. We’ll be here.”

Juliette was still worrying her teeth against her lower lip when she turned and started to pick her way along the boardwalk. The wharf she wanted was within sight—to the left of the one that Roma and Alisa were standing nearest. So long as the Montagovs didn’t move, she had them in the corner of her eye as she walked, careful not to slip on the wet surfaces.

These wharves were usually bustling with activity. Today, Juliette couldn’t tell if it was merely the ruckus on the streets that overshadowed everything or if the fishermen were too afraid to venture out.

“Da Nao.” Juliette had spotted her contact, a big-bellied man chewing on his toothpick. He stood under the awning of his tiny boat, a vessel that looked pocket-sized in comparison with the warship docked on its right. Hearing Juliette’s call, Da Nao looked up, his whole body freezing before he could finish untying his boat from the wharf.

“Cai Junli,” he said. “I thought your cousin’s note was a prank.”

“This is no prank. Are you willing to take us away?”

Slowly, he stood to his height, his eyes darting left and right. “Where are you hoping to go?”

“Whichever coast you reach first,” Juliette answered easily. “I . . . I cannot stay any longer. Not with the Scarlets turning like this.”

For the longest moment, Da Nao said nothing. He bent down again and continued gathering the rope at his feet. Then:

“Yes. I can take you away. I can sail south.”

Juliette breathed out in relief. “Thank you,” she said quickly. “I’ll pay you however much you need—”

“Who else are you bringing?”

His question came abruptly, choked out like he couldn’t speak the words fast enough. A pinprick of suspicion registered in Juliette’s mind, but she brushed it aside, hoping it was only the stress of the situation currently unfolding in the city.

“Roma Montagov,” Juliette answered, praying that her voice would not shake. Da Nao was a Communist sympathizer, Kathleen had said. Even with his double life as a Scarlet fisherman, he cared little for the blood feud. “Along with his sister and two of his men.”

Da Nao had finished gathering the excess rope. There remained only one thin line keeping his boat docked. “You’re traveling with Montagovs now? The seas are still being watched, Miss Cai. We may have trouble leaving the territory.”

“I’ll pay you however much to hide us. Just get us out.”

Though Da Nao had finished tidying everything in his vicinity, he continued scanning the floor of his boat. “Are they forcing you to help them, Miss Cai? You can tell me if they are.”

Juliette blinked. The rain was stinging her eyes badly. She had not even considered that the fisherman might think she was acting against her will. Why was that his first thought, and not the easier conclusion that Juliette had simply betrayed the Scarlets?

“No one is forcing me to do anything,” she said. Her fists curled. “Roma Montagov is my husband. Now, can I come aboard and get out of this rain?”

The toothpick in Da Nao’s mouth bobbed up and down. If he was surprised to hear her admission, he did not show it.

“Certainly.” Only then did he finally look at her, taking the toothpick out of his mouth. “You will have to shed your weapons before you come on board. I mean no offense, Miss Cai, but I know you gangster types. All in the water first.”

Juliette stiffened, her gaze darting back along the boardwalk. Even at a distance, she could sense that Roma was watching her and had noted her unease. She raised a hand, signaling that she was fine, and with a sigh, pulled out the blades tucked against her thighs. Short of the cash in the bag hanging from her shoulders, she had thought the weapons on her skin could be traded as valuables.

“Okay,” Juliette said, her blades hitting the water with a slap. They floated for a second, then sank into the dark waves.

Da Nao threw his toothpick to the floor. “All weapons, Miss Cai.”

With a sigh, Juliette snapped off the garrote wire around her wrist and hurled it into the water. “Happy?”

“No, not really.”

There was a sudden motion from behind Da Nao. A man stepped out, a pistol held to Da Nao’s head, his expression tight. Juliette recognized him. He was a Scarlet—he had once run a message for her.

“Please understand,” Da Nao said, his voice barely audible as the river rolled beneath him, “that as much as I want to help you, Miss Cai, your Scarlets have always been watching.”

The Scarlet fired, and Da Nao fell with a spray of red, the bullet in his head killing him instantly. With a horrified gasp, Juliette lunged forward, preparing for a fight, but the Scarlet did not turn his pistol to her next. He turned it upward and fired once, twice, three times, each bullet piercing through the awning of the fishing boat and studding into the sky, its bang! bang! bang! loud enough to be heard over the storm.

It was a signal.

No.

Juliette turned fast on her heel. She sighted Roma and Alisa’s blurry forms immediately, but by then there was countermovement in the crowd, and the Scarlets who had been playing guard were on their way to the waterfront, merging into a task force.

“ROMA! ALISA! RUN, RUN NOW!”

Someone tackled Juliette from the side.

“Stop!” she shrieked. “Get off of me!”

Sheer instinct kicked in. She threw her head back as hard as she could, colliding with her attacker. There was a sickening crunch that sounded like a nose breaking, and when her attacker momentarily loosened his grip around her arms, she pulled free and ran.

They had intercepted her cousin’s note. They had been one step ahead of her this whole time, waiting with Da Nao. Juliette should have known there would be eyes everywhere in the city after her little scheme. She should have known that her father and mother would pull out every stop to figure out what game she was playing at after disrupting Scarlet business and disappearing into the night.

Juliette skidded off the wharf, frantically wiping at the rain on her face to clear her vision. There—she spotted Roma and Alisa again, circled in by a group of Scarlets with firearms. Roma still had his weapons; with a pistol in hand, he managed to take down two Scarlets.

But he was outnumbered. Before Juliette could reach them, the Scarlets had him disarmed.

“Don’t touch him!”

The moment Juliette ran close, the nearest Scarlets dove at her. She tried her best to dispatch them, ducking fast and sliding under outstretched arms, but she was one girl without weapons and they were loyal to her no longer. Just as Juliette stood again, one of the Scarlets pressed the barrel of his gun to Roma’s head.

And Juliette came to a complete stop.

Two of the Scarlets grabbed her by the shoulders. All the faces here were familiar, all of them names that she was sure she could recall if she thought a little harder. Under the pour of vicious rainfall, they could only look upon her in hatred.

“Don’t,” Juliette managed. “Don’t you dare hurt him.”

“It is your own fault for delivering him right to us.” The Scarlet who had spoken looked even more familiar than the rest, undoubtedly a leader among them, undoubtedly one of Tyler’s former men. He had a hint of glee in his eyes, that same old bloodlust Juliette was so tired of seeing. “Thankfully for you, you don’t have to watch. Take her to Lord Cai.”

“No!” It didn’t matter how much she kicked. With a Scarlet on either side of her, the men lifted her easily by her arms and started to lead her away. “How dare you—”

Of course they dared. She was no longer Juliette Cai, the heir of the Scarlet Gang, to be feared and revered. She was a girl who had run away with the enemy.

“Don’t touch them!” Juliette screamed, throwing her head over her shoulder.

The Scarlets didn’t listen. They started to lead Roma and Alisa in the other direction, pulling at Alisa so roughly that she cried out. Even as the distance between them grew and grew, Roma had his eyes latched on Juliette, his face so pale under the shadow of the sky it was as if he were dead and executed already. Perhaps Juliette had an ill-divining soul. Perhaps she was seeing his future, perhaps by the day’s end he would be lying at the bottom of a tomb as the last of the Montagov line.

“Roma, hold on! Hold on!”

Roma shook his head. He was shouting something, again and again, the sound lost to the rain, and he did not stop until Juliette was out of sight, dragged away from the Bund and onto another main road.

It was only then that Juliette realized what he had been saying, his eyes stricken like he had already lost hope of seeing her again.

I love you.



The rain came down like a tidal wave, but it did not discourage the crowds moving through the city.

Even if Celia had suddenly decided to abandon the procession, she had no route out. She was boxed in on all sides, surrounded by workers and students and ordinary people who looked no more like revolutionaries than she did. Yet nonetheless, they were here and screaming—screaming at the top of their lungs, long banners in their best penmanship unfurled into the air.

“Protect the union!”

They were coming into Baoshan Road, approaching their destination. Celia did not shout with them, but she took it all in. Among so much chaos, she became bigger than herself, bigger than any physical body, any physical form.

“No surrender!”

Not a soul in the procession carried firearms, only signs running with ink. They were here to make a point clear. They could achieve their goals with nothing except might. They were the people. A city was nothing without its people; a city could not thrive without its people.

The government should fear them.

“Down with the military government!”

They turned around a bend in the street, and Celia was flooded with immediate horror, sighting lines and lines of Nationalist troops in their way. On sheer instinct, her steps ground to a halt, but the procession did not appear to be stopping, and so she could not stop either, jostled back into movement.

“No,” Celia murmured.

The soldiers stood to attention. Those on the ground were armed with bayonets; those on higher platforms had their eye glued to the telescopic sights of their machine guns. A barricade of wooden stakes cut the street off abruptly, and a hundred paces behind it, all the soldiers’ barrels were pointed at the crowd, ready to fire. They looked somber. They crouched at attention behind stacks and stacks of sandbags, using them for shields against retaliation. But there wouldn’t be retaliation. The protest was unarmed.

They won’t shoot, Celia thought. The crowd was getting nearer and nearer. Surely they won’t.

The procession collided with the barricade. Workers pushed from their side, gangsters and troops pushed from the other. Celia couldn’t breathe—she felt out of body, only soul, floating above the crowd and overseeing it all. She was already a ghoul floating above the mayhem, swirling in the rain.

“Down with gangster rule!”

The workers finally pushed over the barricade, making for the troops. Chaos on both sides—bodies and sound and noise, clashing at once.

It was then that a flash of light registered in Celia’s peripheral vision, prickling up some sixth sense that told her something was awry. She twisted, her eyes making a sweep of the scene, breath coming fast. She saw two things at once: first, movement in an alley near the fallen barricade, something glistening and then slinking back into the shadows; second, the glint of metal held in the hands of a man some few paces away.

“Stop!” Celia yelled, diving forward, but it was already too late. Mr. Ping—the same Mr. Ping of the Scarlet inner circle—had his pistol pointed to the skies, and when she collided with him, his bullet had already burst into the air, its sound resonating tenfold into the crowd. All around him, the workers stared, unable to comprehend the sound.

“This is a peaceful demonstration!”

“Who is that? Why would he do that?”

“Get down. Get down!”

Celia staggered back, pressing her rain-soaked hands to her mouth. Mr. Ping stood there now, unmoving against the crowd that demanded an explanation. He had no need to explain himself. He had been planted here to do exactly this, forfeiting his life for the sake of the Scarlets. If the Scarlets asked for blood, the inner circle would offer their own.

Within the armed line of Nationalists, a voice screamed, “Return fire!”

“Let me go,” Juliette hissed. “Let go!”

They had been walking for so long in the rain that Juliette was thoroughly soaked. Each time she attempted to shake herself free, her drenched hair flung left and right to disperse water. On any other occasion, the distance between the Bund and the Cai house would have required a car. Today, it was impossible to get any vehicle through the city. Better to walk it on foot, lest they were stalled behind a crowd and a rescue attempt came for Juliette. At least, that was what she had gathered from the two Scarlets holding her hostage, who found no problem with discussing such matters over her head. The one on her left was named Bai Tasa, she recalled. The one on her right remained stubbornly nameless.

“They have blocked off Baoshan Road,” Bai Tasa was saying, making an effort to ignore Juliette’s writhing. The streets here were emptied. They had entered Nationalist-guarded defense lines, needing only a single nod from Bai Tasa before the soldiers were ushering them through, pushing the other protesters back. Of course, even before they came into the guarded parts of the city, no one had offered Juliette a second glance no matter how loudly she yelled. Everyone else was yelling just as loudly.

“Do we care?” the Scarlet on the right snapped. “We are cutting behind the barricade anyway.”

“It is only an extra ten minutes if we go around.”

“Ten minutes that I do not have. These people are driving me up the wall.”

Juliette tried to dig her heels into the pavement. All it did was grate at her shoes, rubbing at the soles.

“Hold on a minute,” she interrupted. “What are we cutting behind? Are we passing the end of the protest?”

Though the Scarlets did not respond to her, it was a valid guess, what with the noise that was coming from the rapidly approaching intersection. The houses around her seemed to shake, their empty terraces and imposing exteriors slick with the gray day. She hadn’t paid attention before, but now she saw Nationalist military vehicles parked all along the road. Only . . . they were empty, as if the men inside had been moved elsewhere.

“What’s happening?” Juliette demanded again, though she knew the Scarlets wouldn’t answer her.

They passed the intersection, and when Juliette turned to look down the other road, she saw the backs of hundreds of Nationalists. The sheer number struck panic into her bones, and that was before she realized they were braced behind sandbags and makeshift barriers with whole machine guns pointed down the street as the noise grew and grew.

Juliette summoned the last of her energy to throw herself to the ground. The Scarlets hadn’t expected it; Bai Tasa stumbled, almost tripping over his own feet when Juliette sprawled before him. The other Scarlet grumbled, pulling at her arms while she struggled to stay down. Her focus was locked on the scene before her, on the strikers coming into view, surging against the wooden barricade. There were so many of them. Far, far more than the Nationalists hiding behind their makeshift shields, but the Nationalists had them surrounded at so many angles, firearms pointed forward. How was this supposed to end? How could this possibly end well?

Juliette scrambled up suddenly, deciding she had seen enough. Before Bai Tasa could grab ahold of her again, she affixed her fingers on to his wrist like an iron vise.

“Call the order to stop! Find someone to draw them back!”

Bai Tasa, to his credit, did not wince. The other Scarlet pulled Juliette off of him quickly, snapping, “I told you we shouldn’t have gone this way.”

“My apologies, Miss Cai,” Bai Tasa said, ignoring his companion. He turned to the scene before them, to the Nationalists in uniform and the workers pushing ever closer. It might have been Juliette’s imagination, but he truly looked sorrowful. He put a hand on her lower back as if to offer comfort, as if any of that mattered here. “You’re not in charge anymore.”

A gunshot sounded from within the workers—

I don’t think I was ever in charge, Juliette thought numbly.

—and the Nationalists, too, let loose their gunfire.

“No!”

The Scarlets lunged for her again before she could scarcely take two steps. Juliette had no energy to fight. She merely sagged in their hold, her voice growing softer and softer with each repetition—no, no, no.

A legion of lead fired onto the workers, the students, the ordinary people. One after the other, they collapsed atop each other as if someone were snipping at the strings that held them up, struck in the chest, in the stomach, in the legs.

Massacre. That was what this was.

The Nationalists kept firing, empty shells stacking up behind their safe line of defense. It was clear that the protesters would not—could not—fight back, and yet the bullets continued anyway. The rear half of the crowd had reversed in a panic and was trying to run, but still, the bullets followed, burying in their backs until their knees gave way, until they lay unmoving upon wet cement and tram tracks.

Even from here, the smell of blood was pungent.

“We have to move,” Bai Tasa said suddenly, as if snapping out of a daze. The gunfire had lessened, but it had not stopped.

“Kathleen,” Juliette muttered to herself. Had her cousin been in that crowd? Would she sense it like she sensed the city’s death heaving beneath her feet—some wild animal on its last lap of freedom before the cage came down?

“What did you say?” the Scarlet to her right asked. This was the first time he had spoken directly to Juliette. Perhaps it was the shock of what they had just witnessed. Perhaps he had forgotten why he was hauling her off in the first place, forgotten exactly who he had placed his loyalty with. Much of those workers lying dead in the streets had likely been Scarlet-aligned not some weeks ago. Allegiance was supposed to keep them safe. Blood feuds and civil wars built themselves on the idea of allegiance.

What good was it? Things died and changed in the blink of an eye.

“Nothing,” Juliette rasped, her eyes stinging. “Nothing.”

She sighted movement in the alley by the Nationalists’ line of defense. As the Scarlets pushed for Juliette to start walking, she could only stare aghast at the scene, at the insects that were slowly crawling across the ground, rushing for the Nationalists. Juliette could not have called a warning even if she tried; her voice had gone hoarse. As the last of the bullets stopped, the insects rushed upon the soldiers’ shoes, crawling into their pant legs. The men behind the sandbags jumped to their feet and exclaimed in horror, but it was too late: they were infected. It would not set in immediately, not when the insect numbers were so low. The infection would build, and build, and build.

Lourens’s vaccine would not be ready so soon. These soldiers were dead men. The Nationalists—each and every one of them still stained with the blood of the workers—knew what was coming. Bai Tasa blinked in bewilderment, hurrying to push Juliette away before the insects could crawl over, and Juliette obliged, at last walking without resistance.

She wondered if the infected men would wait for madness to come, or if they would take their rifles to their own heads first.