Page 113 of Our Violent Ends
Juliette knew what a losing argument looked like. A long second passed, and Juliette waited to see if her cousin would falter, but she did not. Kathleen’s expression remained determined, and some part of Juliette knew that this was a goodbye. Her face crumpling, she reached for Kathleen, pulling the two of them close in a tight hug.
“Do not die out there,” she snapped. “Do you understand me?”
Kathleen choked out a laugh. “I’ll try my best.” Her embrace was equally fierce, as was her expression when they released each other. “But you... We’re under martial law. How are you to—”
“They can block off our trains and dirt roads, but we’re the city above the sea. They cannot monitor every swath of the Huangpu River.”
Kathleen shook her head. She knew how stubborn Juliette was when she needed something done. “Find Da Nao. He’s a Communist sympathizer.”
“Da Nao the fisherman?”
“The one and the same. I’ll get a note to him telling him to wait for you.”
Juliette felt a hot stone of gratitude roil in her stomach. Even at a time like this, Kathleen was running tasks for her. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I don’t care if this makes me too much of a Westerner. I need you to hear my indebtedness.”
“You only have two hours, Juliette,” Kathleen said, waving her off. “If you’re going to run...”
“I won’t make it, I know. I’ll buy everyone more time. I can hold off the purge until morning at least.”
Kathleen’s eyes widened. “You’re not going to approach your parents, are you?”
“No.” Juliette didn’t know how they would react. It was too risky. “But I have a plan. Go. Don’t waste time.”
Afar, a bird had started cawing. The sound was high-pitched, a warning from the city itself. With a firm nod, Kathleen stepped back, then gave Juliette’s hand one last squeeze.
“Keep fighting for love,” she whispered. “It is worth it.”
Her cousin disappeared off into the night. Juliette allowed herself one ragged breath. She let the quavery sound rush outward and tear a rip into her composure before she inhaled deeply and clutched her hands over the silk of her dress.
When Juliette stepped back inside her house, the living room remained silent, the messenger still lying on his side. She picked up the fallen letter and lifted her head, staring up the staircase. The light in her father’s office was off. Now she knew: in the third-floor sitting room, her parents and whoever else they had deemed worthy to invite in were discussing senseless massacre for the sake of the Scarlet survival.
Juliette squeezed her eyes shut. The tears fell then, finding an easy path down her cheeks.
Keep fighting for love.But she didn’t want to. She wanted to hold love to her chest and run, run like hell so the rest of the world couldn’t touch it. It was exhausting to care about everyone in the city. She thought she had the power to save them, protect them, but she was still one girl, shut out of everything important. If she was going to be treated like a mere girl, then she would act like one.
The wind blew into the living room, the front door still cast ajar. Juliette shivered once, then suddenly couldn’t stop shivering, the tremors rocking from head to toe.
I will fight this war to love you,Roma had said,and now I will take you away from it.
Enough was enough. In this moment, Juliette decided she did not care. This was a war they had never asked to be a part of; this was a war that had dragged them in before they had the chance to leave. Roma and Juliette had been born into feuding families, into a feuding city, into a country already fractured beyond belief. She was washing her hands of it.
She was not fighting for love. She was protecting her own, everyone else’s bedamned.
Thirty-Eight
The uniform was less itchy than Marshall had expected.
He had grumbled like high hell when his father had tossed it at him upon his arrival, opting to fold his arms and demand that they throw him in a cell instead. General Shu had stared at him blandly, as had all his men, as if Marshall were a child throwing a tantrum in a candy store. It had seemed rather silly then. To stand around and waste time, achieving nothing meaningful save for being a big headache. It was only that if he remained petulant, he could fool himself into believing that someone was coming for him. That the city might stop fighting, that the gangs would go back to normal, that the White Flowers would storm the place, waving for him to hurry and come home.
But Marshall had been hiding out for months. The White Flowers thought he was dead. The city had given up on him. There was no use digging his heels in and being difficult.
Marshall inspected the cuff of his sleeve, his attention drifting from the Nationalist currently speaking. This was General Shu’s residence, and his father and twenty-odd men were presently convening around the heavy wooden table in the council room, letting Marshall listen too, as if he were here to learn. There were no more seats available at the table, so Marshall stood by the door instead, leaning on the fraying wallpaper and eyeing the ceiling, wondering if the creaking he heard late at night from his bedroom one floor above was the footsteps of his father, pacing the council room at odd hours.
“Érzi.”
Marshall jumped. He had zoned out. When his eyes focused on the table again, the men were clearing out, and his father was staring at him, his hands behind his back.
“Come sit a minute.”
