“Fuck your job,” Mavis said, “Hsien is dead.”
Lilian rounded on her. “That’s not my—”
Pek Mun cut her off. “And your job’s not our business, either.”
Lilian flushed, but it was clear she knew Pek Mun from working for her mother, and whatever had existed then seemed to trip her up now.
“Lili,” Tian interjected. “Please.”
Lilian’s fury worked itself closer to despair. “It’s not my fault. That she’s dead. It’s not my fault. It’snotmy fault.”
“No one’s saying that, Lili, we just need the money.”
“Fine,” Lilian said, “fine, I’ll get you the damn money, if Luo Man’s thugs let me collect my things. I hope it was worth it coming here.” Pulling the shirt around her tighter, she strode off with her head high, as though she were not nearly naked from the waist down.
Pek Mun watched her go, then corralled some Butterflies into bringing Hsien’s body out the disused back of the park, where they could wait for the Sons out of the possible view of passersby. Most of them were still in shock; Mavis, clear-eyed with anger, took the charge and ordered Ning and Ji Yen to help. They moved off painstakingly, a horrible echo of their earlier huddle.
To Tian, Pek Mun said, “I hope itwasworth it.”
CHAPTER FOURTEENSTREET OF THE DEAD
Once the shock wore off, anger rapidly set in, becoming bitter and harsh by the time the Butterflies crowded together in the living room—a meeting convened overnight under threat of violence for absentees. “We can’t just let this go unanswered,” Mavis said. “He shot her!”
“In self-defense, on his territory,” Pek Mun said. “The Long Night—”
“Doesn’t have fighters to speak of,” Tian interjected. “They know damn well they don’t want us as enemies.”
“Then you should think about why they’re willing to do it anyway.”
“Hsien was going to set the whole tent on fire,” started another girl.
“And that wasn’t her fault!” another interjected. “It would have stopped—”
“He didn’t know that—”
“That doesn’t mean we can just—”
“Shut up!” The other girls subdued, Tian glared at Pek Mun. “You would just let Hsien’s death go?”
Adeline watched her narrowly, only half listening to anyone else. Overnight, grief had struck her like lightning and she felt eviscerated, thrown back several months. She had nearly forgotten anything that came before Red Butterfly; it had felt like a distant dream, compared to finally having met her match within the city’s violentunderbelly. But holding Hsien’s hand as she bled out, now listening to the girls fight over how to respond to the death—the plume had resurged in her lungs, clotting around a cannon-fire heart.
Pek Mun leaned forward from her chair. “Do you know who I saw at the Long Night? Two police officers. A local businessman, the one that runs that big electrical goods chain. The herbal remedy heir. Well-respected people. The Long Night has friends, Tian. If we get into a fight with them, they will not fight with your honor.They will go to the police. And who will the mata believe? Not the girl setting tents on fire.”
“Then what would you have us do? Lie on our backs?”
“Accept that there are consequences to things.”
Adeline’s head jerked up. “Why?”
They all looked at her. Pek Mun most of all, rubbing that tattoo at the base of her throat like it was cutting her off. As reserved as she was about everything else, that blatantly visible tattoo still made Adeline uneasy, like a branding Pek Mun was making a point with. What, that she was the bravest, the most worthy? “Because,” Pek Mun said patronizingly, “the consequences these days are bigger than the world we control. I loved Hsien. Just not enough for anyone else to lose their lives over her, in jail or in a coffin.”
“So what? We just forget about Hsien, who’s already in a coffin?” Tian snapped. “I’m going to see her body.”
The girls shifted uneasily around them. There was no precedent for anything, now. The girls had gladly helped Tian track Lilian down; for a while there had been a sense that the scales had finally, definitively tipped. Except then Tian’s quest had gotten Hsien killed, and Pek Mun had handled the Prince. Except now Tian at least wanted to do something about it. Except Pek Mun was still older, and feared. No one would dare cast a vote, even if they had one. Was it possible to have two conduits, who might despise each other by the end of it?
Tian turned. “Adeline, are you coming?”
Adeline nodded, knowing the other girls would see it. She’d thought perhaps Pek Mun was coming around, but she should have known better.
