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"Ma'am."
Luke's voice cuts through camp before I'm even close. He's standing by the supply wagon, something small and dark pinched between his fingers, and my stomach drops even though I don't need to breathe.
The button.
I keep walking. Steady. Mei the widow doesn't run. Mei the widow's got nothing to hide except a language she barely speaks and a dead husband nobody here ever met.
"Morning," I say.
His hand closes around it. "Find anything out there?"
"No."
"Funny." He tilts his head. "'Cause I found this."
He opens his palm. The button sits there like a little black coin, catching the light wrong. Expensive. The kind that comes from tailors in San Francisco, not dry goods stores.
Edith's button.
"Don't know it," I say.
Luke's eyes don't leave my face. "Weren't asking if you did."
Mrs. Kern calls from the cookfire. "That girl still missing? Amy's been crying all morning."
"Still looking," Luke says. He's not looking at Mrs. Kern.
I pour myself coffee I won't drink and watch him cross to the preacher. He shows him the button. The preacher's face goes tight. They both turn toward the ridge.
Toward Edith's tunnel.
Damn it.
I set the cup down and walk. Not fast. Just away. Toward the scrub where A-Fu should still be hiding.
She's not there.
I can smell her though. Sweat and fear and the cheap lye soap we all use. The trail leads deeper, toward the rocky outcrop where the kids play.
Where Amy plays.
Oh no.
I move faster. If A-Fu found Amy, if Amy sees what A-Fu really is in daylight—
"You can come stay in our wagon!" Amy's voice, high and excited. "Daddy won't mind!"
Then A-Fu, quiet. "No. I go soon."
"But you said—"
Snap.
Amy screams.
I'm running before the echo fades. The scrub tears at my skirt. I round the outcrop and see them.
Amy's on the ground. There's a trap—rusted steel jaws, the kind bounty hunters use for wolves—clamped around her ankle. Blood's soaking through her stocking. She's sobbing, trying to pull free, and A-Fu's on her knees beside her, hands hovering like she's afraid to touch.
A-Fu's eyes are black. Fully black. The veins around them dark as ink.
She's smelling the blood.
"A-Fu." I keep my voice low. "Look at me."
Her head snaps up. For a second I don't know if she's still in there. Then she sees me and something breaks. She shakes her head hard, squeezes her eyes shut.
"Can't," she whispers in Cantonese. "I can't stop smelling it."
Amy's still screaming. Someone's going to hear. Someone's going to come.
I drop beside the trap. The mechanism's old but strong. Spring-loaded. You need a lever or enough force to bend the jaws.
I don't have a lever.
"Amy." My English is falling apart. "Quiet. Please."
She's hyperventilating. Tears and snot everywhere. She's maybe eight and there's a wolf trap chewing her leg and the nice Chinese ladies aren't fixing it.
"It hurts," she sobs. "It hurts it hurts—"
I grab the jaws. Steel bites into my palms. I pull.
Nothing.
I pull harder. The metal groans. My hands should be bleeding. They're not. The trap shifts half an inch.
"A-Fu." Still Cantonese. "Help me or run. Choose."
She opens her eyes. Still black. But she's looking at Amy, not the blood.
She crawls forward. Grabs the other side.
We pull.
The jaws bend. Slowly. Then all at once they snap open and Amy's leg comes free. She collapses backward, clutching her ankle. The wound's bad. Deep. The kind that needs stitches.
The kind that smells like a feast.
A-Fu's shaking. Hand over her mouth and nose, trying not to breathe, but I can see her jaw working. Teeth pushing down.
I rip a strip off my underskirt and wrap it tight around Amy's ankle. She yelps. I don't stop. Blood's soaking through. I add another layer.
"You're okay," I say. "Okay. We take you—"
"What the hell are you?"
Luke's standing at the edge of the outcrop. Gun in hand. Not pointed at us yet.
Close though.
Behind him, the preacher. And Mr. Tucker, Amy's dad, his face white as paper.
I'm still holding the trap. The jaws are bent at an angle that shouldn't be possible without a forge. My hands are covered in rust and dirt.
No blood. No cuts.
Amy's sobbing into my side. A-Fu's frozen, eyes still black, crouched like an animal about to bolt.
Luke's gun moves. Just a little.
Toward me.
"I said," he says, slow and clear, "what the hell are you?"
I open my mouth.
Mr. Tucker shoves past Luke and drops beside Amy. "Baby, oh God, baby—" He scoops her up and she's crying into his shoulder, and he's looking at the trap, at the bent metal, at my hands.
"She saved her," Amy sobs. "Daddy, she saved me—"
"Quiet." Tucker's voice is shaking. He backs up. One step. Two. "Stay away from her."
"We help," I say. My English is gone. "We help girl—"
"You bent steel with your bare hands." The preacher's voice is cold. Flat. "I've seen blacksmiths fail at less."
Luke cocks the hammer.
"No," Amy screams. "No, don't—"
A-Fu moves.
She's fast. Faster than she should be. She's in front of me before Luke can adjust his aim, and her eyes are still black, and when she opens her mouth I can see the teeth.
"Run," she says to me. In Cantonese. "Run now."
"Not without you."
"I'm already dead."
Luke fires.
The shot echoes off the rocks. A-Fu jerks backward. There's a hole in her shoulder, blooming red, and she doesn't go down.
She should go down.
Luke's face goes slack.
"Demons," the preacher whispers. "God in heaven. Demons."
A-Fu's lips pull back. The teeth are all the way down now. Her eyes are black pits and the veins are crawling up her temples and she looks at Luke like he's meat.
"A-Fu, don't—"
She lunges.
I grab her around the waist and throw us both sideways. We hit the ground hard. She's snarling, twisting in my grip, trying to get at them, at the blood, at anything warm and alive.
"Go!" I shout at Luke. My English comes back. "Go now!"
He's staring. They're all staring.
"GO!"
Tucker runs. Amy's screaming over his shoulder. The preacher backs up, lips moving in something that might be prayer. Luke stays one second longer.
Then he turns and runs too.
A-Fu goes limp in my arms. The fight drains out of her all at once and she's just shaking, blood from the gunshot wound dripping onto the dirt.
"I'm sorry," she whispers. "I'm sorry I'm sorry—"
"Shut up." I haul her upright. "We're leaving."
"They'll hunt us."
"I know."
"They'll kill us."
"I know." I drag her toward the scrub. Away from camp. Away from the people who just saw us bend steel and take a bullet and not die. "Move."
Behind us, someone's shouting. Raising the alarm.
Ahead of us, nothing but open country and the long walk to somewhere they don't know our faces yet.
A-Fu stumbles. I catch her.
"Can you run?"
She looks at me. Her eyes are fading back to brown but the veins are still there, dark lines under her skin.
"Can you?"
I don't answer. I just pull her forward, into the brush, into the wilderness, into whatever comes next.
Behind us, the camp erupts. Voices. Boots. The sound of guns being loaded.
And somewhere in the middle of it all, Luke's voice, calm and cold:
"Get the horses. We're going hunting."