Page 98 of Our Violent Ends
“Qin’ài de,” Juliette whispered back, tucking an errant piece of his hair behind his ear. “I’m sorry too.”
She pulled Roma close once more, meeting his lips. It was hard to voice the extent of their penance, hard to put into words exactly how much they needed to apologize for the bloodshed between them. Instead, they begged for a lifetime of pardon from each other through touch, through tender caresses and pounding hearts raging in tandem.
With effort, Juliette finally managed to get Roma’s belt off. It hit the floor beside the mattress and clanked against her knife, striking a discordant sound that made Roma jump. Juliette let out a small laugh, cupping his face. “Well, don’t be nervous.”
In the dim moonlight, Roma arched a brow. “Nervous? Me?” He kissed her again, intent on proving it. And again, and again.
“Juliette,” he whispered eventually.
“Mhmm?”
“Is this okay?”
“It’s perfect.”
Outside, the night raged on, awash with warfare and terror. There was no telling when it would stop, when the shelling would cease and the picket lines would fall back. There was no telling if this city would ever be whole again. With each passing moment, the world could fall to pieces; with each passing moment, a total collapse approached, some inevitable finality that had been looming since the first lines of division were drawn in this city.
Juliette breathed out, sinking her hands into the sheets.
But that was not here yet. That was not the present; that was not this moment, this heartbeat of time locked in by heady breaths and gentle worship. It was distant to Juliette, and she would let it remain at a distance, so long as she could havethis—here, now, perfect: her soul as boundless as the sea, her love as deep.
Thirty-Three
April 1927
The grass under Juliette’s feet was damp, leaving dew on her polished shoes as she shifted under the shade of the tree. She scratched at her ankle, then winced when her finger caught the metal of her shoe buckle. She inspected her hand. No blood. No scratch. Instead, she felt covered in grit, an unwashable taint upon her skin.
Shanghai was now under the rule of the Nationalist Army—under Chiang Kai-shek, their commander in chief. Juliette shouldn’t have been surprised that it had come to this. He had already seized much of the country, after all; the Northern Expedition had been building formonths,after all. But it was the workers who had ravaged the city until it was awash in red. It was the Communists who had led the effort. Then the Communists had asked their workers to give way when General Shu marched his men into the city and set up Nationalist bases before the dust had even settled.
Something was afoot. The tension was a pungent smell in the air, waiting to see whether it would be the Nationalists or the Communists who struck at the other first. And Juliette knew—she just knew—that the Scarlet Gang was involved, but no one would tell her how.
Juliette cast a glance to her side, reaching out and putting a hand to Kathleen’s wrist. Kathleen jolted, then realized what Juliette was indicating. Her cousin stopped tapping the side of her qipao, resolved to clutch her hands in front of her instead, her feet planted firmly in the short cemetery grass.
Last week, most of the Scarlets had escaped the chaos on the streets relatively unharmed. There were casualties, certainly, but few enough that this was the last of their funerals. Instead of mass lives, what they had lost was control.
Nanshi, and all the industrial roads south of the French Concession—taken.
Hongkou, the narrow strip of land surrounded on three sides by the International Settlement—taken.
Wusong, jammed amid ports leading into the Huangpu and Yangtze Rivers—taken.
East Shanghai—taken.
West Shanghai—taken.
Zhabei, where the workers were most densely populated of all—taken, though their fight with the White Flowers had lasted through the night. When morning broke, whispers flew through the city to report that the White Flowers had at last relinquished, slinking into their homes with broken bones and letting the streets take a different ruler. By six o’clock, Shanghai was quiet, occupied by the workers.
Officers had been ousted out of police stations, call centers raided and trashed, rail stations bombed to render them ineffective. The web of connections that powered Shanghai had been snipped at every juncture point save for inside the French Concession and International Settlement, which the foreigners now guarded with chain-link fences and barbed wire to keep the Nationalists out. In the Chinese parts of the city, there was no such thing as Scarlet-controlled or White Flower–controlled territory anymore. For a fleeting moment, it had seemed that Shanghai was some malleable place, humming with the possibility to grow anew. Then the Nationalist armies marched in and the workers gave way, letting the soldiers take over. Now everywhere they looked, there were Nationalist soldiers stationed along the streets, the city under occupation.
The most outrageous thing was, these few days had still passed as normal. Though the clubs were closed, though the restaurants were closed, though the city was ghostlike in its stillness as it waited for the next political move, her parents acted like nothing was wrong. Private dinners hosted at the mansion went on, albeit with more Nationalists present. Private parties went on, albeit with more Nationalists present.
And funerals went on, albeit with more Nationalists present.
“. . . may he go on to the next life peacefully.”
It didn’t make sense. The blackmailer was still out there. Unless Juliette had been utterly mistaken this whole time, the blackmailerhadto be aligned with the Communists in some way. Yet in this crucial moment, why hadn’t the monsters come out? Why not fight the Nationalist Army off with madness?
“Juliette,” Kathleen whispered. “Now you’re the one twitching.”
