Page 92 of Our Violent Ends
“I—yes,” Kathleen replied, tripping over her words. She hoped she wasn’t about to get the blame for this. “I am your source. And I’ve told everyone again and again that the strikes will get larger, that their numbers will rise—”
“Nothing to worry about,” Lady Cai interrupted, her no-nonsense mode returning. “No matter what the Communists take, the Nationalists will take it back, and then it will again be in our hands. Our only problem now”—she waved her hands at the nearest group of men—“is finding where my daughter has gotten herself to before she gets herself killed.”
Kathleen watched their gangsters hurry out the door. Heard them mumble Tyler’s name, Juliette’s name.
Rosalind was missing too. And yet there was hardly a single gangster worried. They pushed and shoved to get out, piling onto the streets while the workers caused chaos, but only because they had been given the instruction to find the younger Cais, somewhere out in the city. If Lady Cai had not commanded it, would they still care?
Kathleen breathed out, stepping away from Lady Cai. Even here, at the mansion, which sat along the city’s outer boundaries, there came the sound of gunfire in the distance. There came the deep, deep rumble of the ground shifting, like something colossal had just blown up.
Juliette would be fine. She would not be so easily taken down.
Shanghai, on the other hand, was a different question.
And Rosalind, too, was another matter entirely.
Kathleen pulled her coat off the rack. She merged with a group of messengers heading out of the house, piling into a car heading for the heart of the city. She needed to find Rosalind. She needed to get her sister back before this city burned down around them.
Lady Cai walked upon the driveway, her arms folded, and locked eyes with Kathleen through the window of the car.
When the car drove off, Lady Cai did not protest.
Juliette watched a brothel owner wander out onto her balcony, her silk billowing in the wind. In seconds, she was shot from below, and with a spray of red, tumbled over the railing onto the hard cement ground.
The worker who had fired the bullet did not pause. He was already moving on, joining a crusade of others in their hunt for another target.
Juliette slammed back inside the alley, her hand flying to her mouth, the metallic tang of the drying blood hitting her tongue. She knew violence. She was used to it, used to bloodshed and hatred... butthis? This was on a scale wholly unknown. This was not a feud between gangs in a contained face-off. This was the whole city rising up from the gutters, and it seemed riots and protests were no longer enough.
Once the workers were finished, the Nationalists would come in to claim an allied victory. And depending on when the blackmailer decided to show their face, it would soon turn into a civil war fought with monsters and madness. Juliette supposed she should be grateful this revolution was merely an exercise in bullets right now. The monsters were being conserved. Squirreled away until the real claim for power.
“We have to go,” Benedikt declared. “I’m sorry, Juliette, but you’ll have to leave the bodies here.”
“No matter,” Juliette replied quietly, wiping at her face. Perhaps when they were found later, the workers would be blamed for the deaths. Perhaps she wouldn’t need to be more terrible. She could just be a murderer instead of a murdereranda liar.
Another round of heavy gunfire. They had to take the back roads out. There was no way they could venture along the main creek and not be shot immediately.
“Where are we going to go?” Alisa whispered. There was something in her hands. She had retrieved Tyler’s book, hugging it to her chest. “What sort of—”
Marshall shushed her, then gestured for them to press against the wall, remaining very still while a group gathered close to the alley, yelling instructions at one another to fan out. This was not just an opportunity to incite chaos. With the machine guns coming out, the workers were trying to take Shanghai from the hands of imperialists and gangsters.
It was exactly what both the Scarlets and the White Flowers had feared.
“We have a safe house two streets away,” Benedikt reported quietly when the gunshots seemed to move in the other direction. “Let’s go.”
Marshall touched Juliette’s elbow. “Come with us.”
Juliette startled. She could still feel Roma’s eyes on her.
“No,” she said. “No, I have my own.”
The ground shook under their feet. Somewhere, somehow, something was blowing up. On the other side of the creek, the nearest factory’s windows all shattered into dust.
There was no time to lose. They needed to disperse.
Juliette bent and picked up the pistol she had tossed, trying hard not to look at her cousin’s body. “Stay inside until this blows over. When it ends, Shanghai will not be the same city.” She made to leave, and for the second time, Roma lunged out quickly and grabbed her wrist. This time Juliette finally whirled to face him, her teeth gritted.
“Roma, let go.”
“I’m coming with you.”
