Page 52 of Our Violent Ends
They had arrived. The residence of Huai Hao, owner of the second vial. When Juliette approached the circular entranceway, she stepped through without any care—these residences were built precisely to welcome in visitors. They were void of doors around the facility, allowing wanderers to enter and appreciate the scenery, perhaps write a poem or two as they waited for the host to arrive, if this were eight hundred years ago.
But it was the modern world now.
“I’m flattered you would let me make the decision,” Juliette said, running her finger along a bird feeder.
Though she teased, she knew exactly why he was buying time to ask such mundane questions. They had thrown enough money around. The White Flowershadthe means to pay such outrageous sums, but to keep doing it over and over without approval first was toeing the line. Juliette knew him too well—he couldn’t fool her—and she knew him well enough to know that admitting this outright would be a sign of weakness.
In another world, where she was smarter, she would let him suffer, sow discord within the White Flowers. But this was her world, and she only had her present self.
“I wasn’t letting youmakethe decision,” Roma replied. “I was asking your opinion.”
“Since when did you value my opinion?”
“Don’t make me regret asking.”
“I’ve a feeling you already do.”
Roma rolled his eyes and marched ahead, but then there was the sound of a door sliding, and Juliette grabbed the back of Roma’s coat, yanking him back. They ducked behind the bird feeder, hearing two sets of footsteps approach their direction.
“Mr. Huai,” a voice called. “Please, slow down. Shall I call for the car, then?”
“Yes, yes, do one thing right, could you?” a gruff voice snapped.
The second pair of footsteps hurried back in the other direction, but another kept walking. Soon, he was in view, and Juliette poked her head out to find a middle-aged man strolling for the exit. He already had so much here. Opulence and luxury on par with the city. It was a far cry from the man in the wonton shop. There was no desperation to survive. There was only greed. And Juliette, too, could play greedy.
“You asked how we are to do this,” she whispered to Roma. “How about like this?”
She reached into her coat, and as Mr. Huai walked by, not noticing his intruders despite how exposed they were, Juliette stepped out in front of him and leveled her gun to his forehead.
“Hello,” she said. “You have something we would like.”
Nineteen
News of a monster attack arrived in Shanghai far before their rival darlings did. Already—regardless that the casualties had occurred out in the countryside—the people of Shanghai were boarding up their windows and locking their doors, finding quarantine to be a better solution than risking madness on the streets. Perhaps they feared the monster, who was said to have crashed out the moving train windows and rolled upon the hillsides. Perhaps they feared that it would soon stumble into city limits, spreading infection.
Benedikt threw half of his sandwich into the trash, strolling under the flapping shop banners. Again and again, no matter how many times the White Flowers said it, no one cared to listen. These monsters were not random hits. So long as the White Flowers behaved, so long as they continued fulfilling demands...
It had been a while since the last demand came.
Benedikt stopped. He turned over his shoulder. It felt like he was being watched: from both above and below. Eyes on the rooftops and eyes in the alleys.
It wasn’t his imagination. Quickly he spotted a boy on his tail, lingering at the mouth of an alley. When Benedikt locked gazes with him, the boy hurried out, stopping two paces away. He was a whole head shorter than Benedikt, but they looked the same age. There was a white rag tied to his ankle, half-covered by his tattered trousers. A White Flower, then, but not an important one. A messenger, most likely, if he was chasing after Benedikt.
“I’m looking for Roman Nikolaevich,” the messenger huffed in Russian. “He is nowhere to be seen.”
“You decided to tail me for Roma?” Benedikt replied, his eyes narrowing.
The boy folded his arms. “Well, do you know where he is?”
Benedikt’s eyes only narrowed further. “He’s not here.” All the lower-tiered White Flowers should have known that. It was not difficult to keep attuned with the important members of the gang; it was the messengers’ job to keep track of where one was most likely to be in order to find them.
And who still called RomaRoman?
Suddenly Benedikt’s hand snagged out and grabbed the messenger’s wrist. “Whoreallysent you?”
The messenger’s jaw dropped. He tried to tug away. “What do you mean?”
In one smooth motion, Benedikt twisted the boy’s arm behind his back, then pulled forth a pocketknife and pressed the blade to his neck. It was nowhere near any major artery to act a threat, but the messenger froze, eyeing the blade.
