Benedikt put a stick of gˉanzhè in his mouth, chewing slowly. Now he could hardly eat. He didn’t know why, but things wouldn’t stay down, and things that did stay down felt wrong. The only loophole around the instinct was to take a bite out of everything he could get his hands on and throw it away before his thoughts could catch up. It kept him fed and kept his head quiet. That was what mattered.
“Hey!”
At the sudden shout, he spat out the raw sugarcane clumps. There was a commotion erupting by the far side of the market, and Benedikt started over immediately, wiping his mouth. Any commotion would have been harder to discern if this were a busier market, but the stalls here barely extended past two streets, and the vendors hardly had the energy to shout their wares. This was one of the poorer parts of the city, where people were near starving and would do whatever it took to survive, which included pledging devout loyalty to the closest available power. It was a bad idea to draw attention to himself, especially here, where territories shifted and changed at a moment’s notice. Benedikt knew this, yet he turned the corner anyway, dashing into the alleyway where the shout was heard.
He found a whole crowd of Scarlets, and one White Flower messenger.
“Benedikt Montagov!” the boy screeched immediately.
Of all times to be identified. Benedikt had nowhere near the level of recognition that Roma received on the streets, yet here he was, pinned for a Montagov, pinned for the enemy. A tear streaked down the boy’s face, running a wet trail that caught the midday light before hitting the concrete.
Benedikt inhaled fast, assessing the situation. The White Flower was Chinese—he shouldn’t have been identified at all for his allegiance, if not for that white thread he’d twined around his own wrist. Foolish. The blood feud had gotten horrific these last few months. If he had the ability to blend in, why not do it? How old was he? Ten? Eleven?
“Montagov?” one of the Scarlets echoed.
Benedikt reached for his gun. The smarter move would have been to run when he was vastly outnumbered, but he cared little. He had no reason to care, to live—
He didn’t even have the chance to pull a weapon. A blow came to the side of his face out of nowhere, then Benedikt was reeling, crushed to the ground amid shouting and cursing and someone calling for the death of his whole family. His arms were bent back and his head was pushed hard into the cement, before something ice cold, something that felt like the butt of a gun, jammed up against his temple.
No, he thought suddenly, his eyes squeezing shut. Wait, I didn’t actually want to die, not yet, not really . . .
A deafening sound shook the alleyway. His ears rang, but other than the bruises forming all over his body, he felt no pain, no white-hot bullet pressed into his skull. Maybe this was death. Maybe death was nothing.
Then the sound came again, and again, and again. Gunshots. Not from the alleyway. From above.
Benedikt’s eyes flew open at the exact moment a spray of blood landed across his face, tinting his vision red. He gasped, jerking upright and scurrying up against the wall, unable to comprehend anything past his disbelief as the Scarlets around him dropped one by one, studded in bullets. Only as the shooting almost stopped did he think to look up, trying to find where the bullets were coming from.
He caught the barest flash of movement. There—at the edge of the rooftop—then gone with the last bullet, the last Scarlet dropping dead.
Benedikt was breathing hard enough to be heaving. Only one other person remained standing in the alleyway: the messenger, fully crying now, his fists clenched so tightly that they were white and bloodless. He didn’t look injured. He was only bloody, as splattered as Benedikt was.
“Go,” Benedikt managed. “Run, in case there are more of them.”
The boy faltered. Perhaps it was a thank you that hovered on his tongue. But then there was a shout from the market, and Benedikt snapped, “Kuài gˇun! Before they come!” The boy took off, not needing to be told another time. Quickly, Benedikt staggered to his feet, following his own advice, knowing that those shots had been loud, and any Scarlets nearby would arrive immediately to investigate the cause.
But as he stood there, his whole body trembling, it struck him that with the speed those bullets had come, whoever had saved him had been waiting, poised to enter in rescue. He eyed the buildings, the evenly constructed rooftops separated only by alleyways that were narrow enough to leap from one to the other. Someone had been watching—perhaps for a while, tailing him through the market.
“Who would bother?” Benedikt whispered aloud.