“Wake up!”
“Sorry.” Tian swallowed, shook her head, and grimaced. “I need you to burn this wound.”
“What?”
“To close it. I think it hit something important. I don’t know how long they’re going to take.”
“They? Who’s they?”
“Adeline—” Shudder. “Will you please burn this fucking hole so I don’t die.” With effort, Tian pushed away the bloody dress and tugged up the side of her shirt. Adeline flinched at the sight of the wound just under Tian’s ribs. The torn flesh gaped with every ragged breath.
“I’ve never—” She didn’t know the Hokkien word forcauterize. “I’ll run next door and call an ambulance. This—”
Tian pressed something into her hand. Her pocketknife, the one Adeline had earlier been demanding. “No hospitals. Too many questions. Call the Butterflies, get the Needles. I just need time.”
Adeline took the knife, shivering despite the thickness of the air, and lit her other hand. The sliver of metal glinted with the new light. Slowly she brought the two together and watched as the blade began to glow.
She had seen fire come up on metal bins before. She was familiar with the way gold seeped into it, as though it were coming alive. But the bright knife edge was wicked. She was seized by the urge to plunge it into herself. That might have been easier. But instead she clenched her jaw, squeezed the handle, and pressed it against Tian’s skin.
Tian screamed. Adeline’s blood ran cold.
“Again,” Tian seethed. So Adeline brought the knife down again, and she heard it sizzle.
The smell.
Adeline dropped the knife, bile rising up her throat. What was left before her was blistered skin in the imprint of a blade—and a bloodstream that had slowed to drops. Was that enough?
Tian had passed out.
Adeline scrambled to her feet and ran. Her knees had blood on them and she scrubbed at it with rags and dirt. As she reached the neighbor’s door she slowed, faked a limp, story consolidating. The lights were on. She wondered if they’d heard the gunshots, or if they even knew what one sounded like. She rang the doorbell anyway. Her heart pounded there in the darkness as she waited, hammering sensations out of order. The smell of burning flesh. The flash of fire that had overcome her.
She was thrown in warm light as the door opened. The neighbor, Mr. Sim or Seet or something, gaped at her. “You’re…” He couldn’t remember her well, either.
She widened her eyes, which were wet with not entirely unreal tears. “Can I please use your telephone? I was cycling home, but I crashed and skinned my knees.” If he looked too closely he’d see there were no cuts under the blood, but she’d smeared dirt all over it, and she was banking on the fact that he wouldn’t.
“Oh goodness—we have a first aid kit, I can drive you home.”
“That’s okay,” she said quickly. “I’m—I really just need a phone, please. Please,” she added.
He looked dubious, but she said please again, and he seemed to decide she was at least old enough to make her own decisions. He led her through the living room, where he was watching some staticky Cantonese drama on the TV, and let her use the phone. He watched her as she dialed, tweaking with the antennas until the image of the wailing woman sharpened again.
Vera picked up the phone, and it took all Adeline’s composure to ask for Christina. By the time she had Christina on the line, she was clutching the phone into her cheek as she spoke. “Christina. I was on my way home to my mother, but I had an accident. I’m okay. The… bicycle isn’t. Please come help.”
“Adeline? Bicycle—isTianwith you? What happened?”
“Christina.” She couldn’t even make enough sense of it to explain. Thought she might lose it if she had to say more. “Please.”
“How bad is it?”
“I don’t know if it’s going to make it.”
Christina swore. “Twenty minutes.”
Mr. Sim-or-Seet watched her gravely as she put the phone back in its cradle. “How did you get into an accident like that?”
Adeline had to take a deep breath. “Someone set off a firecracker,” she said, forcing her voice level. “Firecrackers. Didn’t you hear them?”
“Oh, is that what that was? It’s not even the first one this week. People have been setting them off ever since the ban. Kids being nuisances.” He frowned. “Are you sure you’ll be okay? You want to wait here?”
