Especially not when he had the other half of the vaccine in his pocket, separated into its own vial.
“We have arrived at the destination,” the compartment speaker announced as Juliette got to her feet. The train came to a screeching stop, but even after, as the noise faded, there was still a dull roar coming from the misty grayness outside, and Juliette peered through the window again, searching for the source.
“Do you hear that?” she asked.
She didn’t give Roma any time to respond. Juliette was already hurrying off the train, watching her step over the platform gap and surging into the crowds jostling at the station. This wasn’t right. There were too many people here. Why were there so many people?
“Juliette!” Roma called. His voice was almost immediately drowned out, and when Juliette glanced back momentarily, she had already lost sight of him.
A sharp police whistle sounded to her right. Juliette whipped her attention to the officer, who had one foot balanced on the base of a column while the rest of him clung to it, putting him a few feet above the masses. He was waving at people to move off the platform and into the station, but only because droves of people were hurrying in from outside.
Juliette grabbed the nearest person. An elderly woman stared up at her with wide eyes, lips tightening in recognition.
“What’s going on?” Juliette demanded. “Where are all of these people coming from?”
The woman’s gaze darted to the side. In her hands, she was holding today’s newspapers, crumpled under her tight grip.
“Smoke outside,” she managed. “A gangster safe house is on fire.”
Coldness swept down Juliette’s spine like a lightning strike. Marshall. She let go of the woman so fast that they both stumbled, but then Juliette was moving, her pulse pounding in her chest as she shoved her way through the station.
Maybe it was only a small fire. Maybe it was already well controlled.
With a gasp, Juliette emerged outside, right onto Boundary Road—aptly named given that the Shanghai North railway station sat at the very border of the International Settlement. Juliette needed only to look up, observing the state of the skies above the International Settlement.
The sun was to set within the hour, so there was yet enough light to show great big plumes of smoke, driving those on the streets toward whatever shelter they could find.
“No, no, no,” Juliette mumbled under her breath, throwing her arm over her nose and breaking into a run. She locked her watering eyes on the plumes, diving forward even as civilians fled in the other direction. Once or twice, she heard sirens in the distance, but the sounds were far enough that Juliette knew she would get to the scene first.
Then a terrifying scream echoed into the air: a sharp and unusual piercing that sounded neither human nor animal. She stopped right in her tracks, waving the smoke out of her eyes. The safe house where she had put Marshall was much farther ahead, but the screaming was coming from the next street over, which meant—
“Oh, thank God,” Juliette cried. It wasn’t hers. It wasn’t her safe house. But then . . . what was burning?
Juliette ran the rest of the distance, cutting through a dark alley. She found herself coming onto a wide road, joining the crowd that was gathered before the spectacle. The people here had not run as those farther away had. They were enraptured by the horrific scene, just as someone experiencing the end of the world would stop and stare.
“I have never before seen such a sight,” an old man beside her croaked.
“It is the work of the blood feud,” his companion replied. “Perhaps they are getting their last hits in before the Nationalists arrive.”
Juliette pressed her knuckles to her lips. The smoke plumes flowed from a building entirely swathed in flames, and standing around it, like soldiers guarding an enemy castle, were Tyler and a flock of Scarlet men.
Tyler was laughing. She was too far away to hear what he was saying, but she could see him, holding a plank of wood swirling with flames. Behind him, the building’s roaring inferno drowned out the screams, drowned out the whole occupancy burning to death. Juliette heard nothing save that they were pleading—women in nightgowns and elderly banging on the closed windows, muffled Russian crying to stop! Please stop!
In the third-floor window, there was a little hand reaching through a hole in the glass. Seconds later, a small face appeared, hollow and ghastly and tear-tracked.
And before anyone could do a thing about it, the hand and the child dropped out of view, succumbing to the smoke.
The screams had sounded so strange from the railway station—almost animal—because they had come from children.
Juliette fell to her knees, a sob building against her throat. There was a shout from behind her: clear Russian, rather than muffled—White Flower forces, arriving for a fight. She couldn’t find it within herself to run. She would be killed if she lingered here, pathetic and brittle on the side of the road, but what did it matter when this whole city was so broken? They deserved to die. They all deserved to die.
Juliette choked on her sudden gasp, caught by surprise when a pair of hands closed around her arms. She almost started to struggle before realizing it was only Marshall Seo yanking her into the nearest alleyway, a cloth covering the lower half of his face. As soon as they were in the alley, Marshall ripped off the cloth and raised a finger to shush her, the two of them keeping quiet as a group of White Flowers moved past the mouth of the alley.
Roma was among the group, his face aghast. Seconds later, Benedikt ran up to him from the other direction, giving Roma’s chest a hard shove as he began to yell.
Roma. Oh God. What was he going to think? Juliette had run off without explanation. Would he suspect that she had a hand in this? Would he think that their trip to Kunshan had been a ploy, an attempt to get him out of the city so the Scarlets could launch their attack? In his shoes, Juliette would jump to the exact same conclusions. She should have been pleased—wasn’t this exactly what she desired? For him to hate her so violently that he wanted nothing to do with her?
Instead, she only burst into tears.
“What has Tyler done?” Juliette rasped. “Who approved this? My father? When has the blood feud ever involved innocent children?”
“This isn’t just the blood feud,” Marshall said softly. He grimaced, then wiped at Juliette’s tears. She was letting them run. More and more gangsters on both sides were arriving, and by the sudden gunshot sounds, Juliette guessed a fight to be breaking out. “The blackmailer tricked both gangs. Your Scarlets think the White Flowers are the ones making the demands. They hurried to get the upper hand, desperate to show that they were too strong to be messed with. Tyler led the attack.”
Juliette dug her nails into her palms. Her skin throbbed with pain, but it didn’t make her feel any better.
“I’m sorry,” she managed. “I’m sorry his heart is so wicked.”
Marshall frowned. He was trying to hold back his look of distress, but Juliette still saw it in the speed with which he tried to clear her tears. Once, she might have protested, might have feared the weakness she was showing. Now she did not want to pretend that she felt nothing; she would welcome the world’s pity if it meant she could just stop hurting.
“The wickedest part isn’t his heart,” Marshall said. He glanced to the end of the alley, jumping ever so slightly when a spray of gunfire came near. “It is that he is truly acting on Scarlet interests, dear Juliette. The wickedest part is that this city is so deeply divided as to allow such atrocity.”