She shouldn’t have kissed him back.
He hated her, but that didn’t override their whole past, nor the instinctive tug that had always drawn them into collision with each other like meteors in orbit. Juliette knew what was going on in his head because it was exactly what she had been circling around some few months ago, so why had she become so thoughtless as to give in? Even if he didn’t hate her as deeply as he said he did, it was all the more dangerous. The whole point of lying to him was to keep him away. The whole point was that they couldn’t do this again, because the moment he saw through her, then their city of blood would catch up to them, and perhaps they could be together at last if it was together in death.
And what was love if all it did was kill?
“—a car?”
With a start, Juliette realized she hadn’t been listening, and only now registered Roma’s suggestion, glancing upon the road. After handling the bodies, they had asked an officer for the directions to their destination, and the route was a simple, albeit hefty walk. Kunshan itself was classified a city, but it was a far cry from Shanghai. Rather than a living, breathing entity that turned inside out upon itself in an effort to find space, Kunshan was a small lasso on a map: a grouping of ten or so quiet towns that sat side by side with little activity past its day-to-day humdrum energy. This place was easy to navigate because it was quiet and still, but that also meant it was impossible to hide within, should they pick up a tail.
“No, we can’t take a car,” Juliette replied. She peered over her shoulder, eyeing the few officers that remained standing by the railway station, deep in conversation. “The blackmailer is onto us. We would be too easy to follow.”
Roma looked back too, frowning when he saw that Juliette was still watching Kunshan’s useless administrative officers. “Them?”
“Obviously not.”
Juliette hurried along. At this rate, the sun would have set by the time they reached the address. The cold was biting enough already, but once night fell, it would be almost unbearable to stand outside, especially when Juliette’s thick coat was a tad more fashionable than it was practical.
“However, I thought about it,” she continued. “That man was sent after us in the train car, but he took his damn time transforming. Paul Dexter is the one who vaccinated me, so I cannot imagine that his collaborator does not know I am immune. They weren’t trying to kill us. They were trying to scare us, collateral damage be damned.”
A bell rang somewhere in the distance. Its echoes bounced down the flat row of buildings erected stoutly on the other side of the road. As Roma and Juliette walked along the footpath, a thin river flowed gently on their left, lapping into the fading evening.
Sometimes Juliette forgot that this was how the rest of the country lived. The farther one receded from the coastal cities, they also receded from coastal control, from power-hungry Nationalists and invading foreigners. They receded away from places where every move felt like life and death, and instead . . .
The river trickled into a wider stream. When a small bird came to perch upon a rock jutting from the riverbed, it barely disturbed the flow of the water.
Instead, they had the space to breathe.
“Believe it or not,” Roma said now. “This monster attack was a good thing.”
Juliette pulled her attention away from the water, searching for the next street sign. The last thing they needed was to get lost. “I do beg your pardon. The bodies on their way to the morgue would argue otherwise.”
“Heaven rest their souls, obviously I do not wish for more death.” Roma’s words were edged with a bite. “When we return to Shanghai, I can root through every White Flower within our ranks until I find exactly who that Frenchman was. And if our trip here does not prove useful, then finding whoever that monster was may be the fastest way to trace back to the blackmailer.”
Juliette didn’t see a point in arguing. Nothing was stopping Roma from refusing to share the information with her if their next course of action was solely down to him, but if she got heated about it, then he got heated back, and they would start screaming at each other again because it was too easy to lean into anger just for a split second of truth. For a sign that Juliette wasn’t entirely lost to him, Roma would pick a fight. In a moment of weakness to glimpse the Roma she loved, Juliette would entertain it. It was a volatile game. She needed to stop. She couldn’t keep doing this. If she had to turn cold, then so be it.
So all Juliette said aloud was “I hope this trip proves useful, then.”