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Part 6
Page 1
Not quite twilight, gray humming light. Smoky air
with the families cooking up dinners, where the hutongs hit its second
silent lull.
Boots pounded on the pavement, then ceased, but
not for a halt of movement. Just the figure throwing into a leap through
the air. Crashed feet first into the chest of some anonymous particular,
treads digging in, grinding and twisting, swift kick to the head before
she raced on.
Jianmin had found a length of chain and his hands
were growing bloody with the use, but he kept swinging. Guonan had found
a bat. Wenlong had refound his feet and his hands and all those muscles
he'd forgotten how to move.
Shujuan just ran and beat up everything in her path.
It was like watching a tornado.
The thing, the only thing they had to remember was
that these were not the boys they had fought with on even ground
when they were toddlers. These were not the kids that drew the hutongs
into gang lines and sent you home with a broken nose if you tread down
a street you shouldn't have. These kids were Triads. With weapons and a
directive and a decidedly impersonal agenda. So, Xiaolong had no reason
to hold back.
It had started with finding one of the suits' air
car. Guonan had hefted the bat in his hands and taken out the headlights.
Shujuan kicked out the windshield. When the men came running at the noise,
Wen and Jian took them down and made them bleed.
Then the boys had come, and Shu-rin's order was
to forget who these kids used to be, and make them regret who they were
now.
Now the Shujuan Gang was running, and their knuckles
were bloody, but their leader was smirking.
"Split up!" she shouted at them, reaching crossroads.
"We'll meet up like we said! Make sure y'don't get tailed!"
She rounded a corner, and a figure stepped out from
the alleyway, suited and shadowed under the hover lamps. Instinct kicked
in again with a battle cry and Shujuan struck out sharply, right for the
face.
Kougaiji caught it quickly. "What are you doing?"
he wailed, trying to duck without releasing his grip.
The girl slowed a little. Her face tensed, eyebrows
knitting like she was having difficulty refocusing her eyes on near objects
again. "Kou...?" She scowled. "You again?"
"Me again?" the king demanded, steadying himself.
Shujuan's arm was still vibrating with the tension to finish her swing,
so he maintained his hold. Bore his teeth. "I've been trying three days
to get a hold of you. What the hell have you been doing? Where have you
been?"
"Busy!" she snapped back. She tugged and managed
to wrestle her arm free. "Leave me alone! I've still got some on me!"
"Got what on you?!"
"Them!" she yelled, and sped off.
"Shujuan!" Kougaiji shouted after her in frustration.
And hesitated, hearing something come round the bend in hotfoot pursuit.
The King of Demons stepped back into the shadow
of the alleyway and cloaked himself. Disappearing tricks were never very
much his favorites, but necessity called. He watched in breathless silence
as three men, one suited and two in street clothes and gang colors raced
past without a glance, off in the same direction Shujuan had just disappeared
in.
Kougaiji watched after them as they fell out of
view. Slightly baffled.
"What do you think you're getting into, child?"
...
More footsteps. The youkai edged back again and
waited, then stuck out his arm at the appropriate moment.
"GURK!"
He shook the numbness out of his arm while stooping
over the fallen figure. "Pardon me," he said, decloaking. "I was wondering
if I could trouble you to answer a few questions for me."
"You...kai... shit..."
"That, sorry to say, is not an answer to anything."
Shujuan all but collapsed against the wall, willing
her breathing to slow down while she leaned around the corner, back from
where she'd just come. She was pretty sure she'd lost the last of them.
If not, her arms were still burning enough that she could probably fight
off another one or two. But this endurance trial shit wasn't going to hold
up much longer.
Yelped suddenly when a hand clapped down on her
shoulder.
"Whoawhoawhoawhoa!" Liang Dawei yelled quickly,
shielding his face at the sight of the fist. "Hold on! It's just
me!"
He cringed under her glare. She worked on calming
her breathing again, and eventually managed to drop the fist. When she
did, he hugged her before she could stop him. It nearly seemed an effort
just to restrain her arms.
"What the hell have you been doing?" he asked, voice
still high, and depressingly unaware of how redundant he was sounding.
"I've been so worried about you. I couldn't get through on your cell, you
weren't at the shop or the arcade. What've you been doing, fighting?"
"Get off me," Shu-rin hissed into his shoulder.
Ragged throat.
"Shhh," Liang said instead, tightening around her.
"Shh, shh. I'm here, all right? I'll keep you safe. You're running, right?
Hiding from people? Come back with me. You'll be safe at my place."
She wrestled futily against his chest. "I said let
go!"
"Oi," said another voice. A finger tapped Liang's
shoulder. "Let her go."
Liang twisted his head around, and nearly came nose
to nose with Shu Jianmin. Presently bleeding and developing a bruise under
his left eye. And not appearing much in the mood for comedy.
"I said, let her go."
Liang looked past Jianmin to the other boy. Boys.
Standing there. Bloody and bruised and unimpressed. Glaring.
"Her?" Liang murmured vaguely, like it was an unfamiliar
word.
He looked back over the faces. He'd gotten used
to the death stares from these three, but now the look had taken on a seriously
different edge.
Shujuan squirmed and squeezed down out of his grasp,
staggering into the littlest kid's arms with barely masked relief. The
older two friends were still glaring. It had been jealousy before, but
this was jealousy of an even more intense variety. And it had venom.
"Go home, Liang," Shujuan said, not looking over
at her boyfriend. "It's just group stuff."
Dawei took a step back. And then another one. "Listen,"
he warned her. "I'm not really appreciating getting shoved out all the
time."
"We're not appreciating you bein' around," Jianmin
told the boy.
"I wasn't talkin' to you, druggie!" Liang snarled
at him. "I have a right to be involved here; what's your reason?
Just being there?"
"Dawei, go," Shu-rin told him.
Too late. Jian's hand, bloody and twitching from
the evening events, snapped forward and fisted a handful of Liang's shirt.
"Jian!"
"What's your reason, y'fuckin' faggot?" Jianmin
growled, ignoring his friends' protests. "Don't lie, you creepy little
shit. You just keep pretending t'yerself Shu-rin's still a boy. All you
ever
wanted was f'her to be a guy. An' it pisses th'shit outta you that she
ain't, don't it? You are wastin' your fuckin' time, an' hers too,
asshat, an' I swear to God you even lay a finger on her again an' I'm gonna--"
"JIAN!" Shujuan shouted, pulling on his arm.
"This has nothing to do with you! Get out of it!"
She cried in shock, as Wenlong came to her side,
not to aid her but to pull her off the taller boy.
"Jianmin's right, Shujuan," Wensley told her. "And
why should we be standing up to those Triad guys and not someone like this?
Both are jus' after the same thing."
"'Cept this one's still pretending after your ass,"
Jianmin added in a hiss.
"Dawei's not tryin' to run us out or kill us!" said
Shujuan. "Just think for half a second, you idiots! And what's it to you,
whatever he is?"
Her friends fell silent, chewing the inside of their
cheeks.
"God...damn... Shujuan," Liang rasped, clawing at
Jianmin's hand in a bid to loosen his collar enough to breathe. "I swear.
I told you... Your friends are... complete nutjobs..."
"Guys..." Guonan called up, peering around the corner.
Jianmin's eyes narrowed on the other teen. He brought
up the other hand, pointing a warning finger half an inch from Liang's
eye. "I said. Touch her again, you have us to answer to. M'gonna make you
wish your momma took a wire hanger to ya when she had the chance."
"Fuck you," Liang spat.
"Guys, we really gotta go!" Guo insisted.
"Jian," Wenlong said beside him.
The boy twitched, gritting his teeth in an ill-contained
growl. With effort, he uncurled his fist.
Liang, released, wheezed and clutched at his throat,
back hitting the wall and looking on over the tops of skewed glasses, as
the Shujuan Gang turned and ran down the nearest side alley.
Moments later, a youkai in a suit came around the
corner, looking around in disappointment.
"Well," he sighed.
The youkai looked down at Liang. "You. Aren't you
Shujuan's boyfriend?"
Liang Dawei peered up at the newcomer, coughing,
"Does everyone in the whole fucking world have to have a problem
with that?"
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