Aiden memorized the name. “…Is she normal?”

  “Am I an idiot? Maybe, considering what happened today. No, she’s not normal.”

  “Then she’s part of the business? Another family?”

  “Her name is all you need to know.” Hui Ye threw a sharp gaze, and Aiden quickly dropped any fantasies of continuing the conversation. The two stared in silence a few seconds longer before his brother sighed for a third time. The crooked smile smoothed to a small one, and his eyes looked to the ground with a glint of excitement. “Either she got sloppy today or she decided to play a prank on me by leaving her dress out like that.”

  Oh, he’s so serious about her. How unusual! Aiden shot up and leaned forward, but before he could attempt asking his next flurry of questions, Hui Ye moved to sit beside him on the bed. “I have something to give you. It’s okay if you don’t want it after tonight, but I thought you should know, if nothing else.”

  He plopped the package into Aiden’s lap, making the distinct crinkle noise of plastic that Aiden had come to recognize easily. Clothes. Expecting outfits that cost a fortune, he unwrapped the present.

  Silver shimmered in his eyes, falling elegantly against his hand. With a gasp, Aiden carefully pulled the garment out of the wrapping paper. Like sand, the cloth unfolded itself into a magnificent hanfu with their family name, Hui, embroidered. A roaring dragon, with a long reaching body and each individual scale glistening in the light, reached from the right shoulder to the left waist.

  Jaw dropped, Aiden traced the creature emblazoned. “Oh, the dragon’s part of the cloth. It isn’t embroidered.”

  “Yeah. I suspect the cloth was selected for that reason.”

  “Shouldn’t there be more layers?” He turned the hanfu over, lifting up the flaps.

  “It’s modernized. Our…” His brother stopped. “She made it for you. Take it back with you to the States.”

  Heat flashed across his body. The walls marched inward, and the air squeezed tighter. He glanced at the window, already calculating what to throw at it to break it and escape, but his brother’s steady hand gripped his shoulder. With that magic touch, the room reverted back to its size and temperature, and Aiden sat still on the edge of the bed.

  Hui Ye stood up and stretched. “Let me know if that woman refuses to leave you alone.”

  Aiden blinked. “Our stepmother?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What are you going to do if she doesn’t?”

  “I’ll threaten her again.”

  He stiffened. “Don’t do that. She just wants to make sure her children are safe.”

  “More like she just wants enough money to spoil them.” Hui Ye flashed a lopsided grin. “Just remember, Aiden. Whatever you want, I can give to you—even if it means you never speaking or seeing me again. I’ll do anything for you.”

  Aiden smiled back and held the words as close to his heart as possible. He shoved his thoughts of leaving this bloody world away.

  • • •

  Despite having only returned to the States for a week, Aiden moved into the apartment Hui Ye paid for the second the lease started—three weeks before classes started.

  Skipping, he placed the well-packed suitcases into the trunk of the car. Just when he pulled the trunk down, he turned around to see his stepmother standing before him. His heart shot to his mouth. “Yes?” He hid his hands behind his back, playing with his fingers.

  “Hui Lang.” His stepmother placed a hand against his cheek.

  Her fingertips sent ice trembling through his veins. Her piercing eyes captured him, like hooks sinking into his skin. With a soft yet unyielding voice, she said, “You will go to that school. You will meet people you’ve never met before. And you will find yourself utterly alone in ways that you could never imagine.”

  The palm of her hand seared against his cheek. Aiden wanted to move away, but his feet stayed frozen to the ground. Tears welled up in his eyes, but her face remained marred with cold certainty. “You’re going to a world you do not know, do not understand, and will never belong to.”

  She finally stepped back.

  Aiden cupped his face, certain a bruise formed from the pressure of her words. His brother told him not to care about what she said, but he did. They stabbed him in the heart, and they haunted him when his mind was free.

  He could only run away.

  So escape I will. With his head down, he shuffled into the car. He stole one last glance at his stepmother.

  Her eyes never left him. “You will be back because there is no worse feeling than being alone.”

  Her words pounded against his ears harder than the sound of the car door slamming shut. What does she want from me? Aiden bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood. Does she expect me to just join my brother? Be his right-hand man and bring the Hui family to glory? He scratched his hands raw. Isn’t it better if I’m out of her hair? I don’t understand. What have I done wrong? What could I have done?

  “Are you comfortable enough back there?”

  The driver’s voice forced the tightening walls of the car away, and the sensation of wheels smoothly gliding along the street returned to his body. Out of the window, he watched the house his stepmother presided over shrink. With every passing mile, he breathed easier. “Yes—I’m very comfortable. Thank you.”

  “Mr. Hui gave me a very generous tip even before dropping you off. Tell him I really appreciate it,” the driver chuckled.

  “That sounds like him.”

  “Is he your dad?”

  “No, my older brother.” At the mention of him, Aiden smiled. He dug into his pockets and pulled out his phone to reread the message his brother sent him. This apartment is perfect for you because it’s a good location from campus but it’s still a newer building. There are walkable stores nearby, so that you can get everything you need, including an Asian market. The apartment itself has a gym, and don’t worry about wi-fi, I took care of it. The list went on, and with every passing word, Aiden felt the worry emanating from his phone.

  As well as sorrow.

  You’re leaving me, his brother was saying.

  I won’t leave you. Aiden leaned against the car window and watched familiar stores pass by. He discarded the poisonous words his stepmother had thrown at him and closed his eyes to memories of his brother rubbing his head, helping him with homework, and comforting him when he cried. I’m not joining Infinite, but I’ll find a way for you to stay in my life. There has to be a way… Sleep claimed him.

  • • •

  The apartment appeared before Aiden’s eyes under beaming sunlight. He entered the barely cleaned elevator that still smelled of alcohol from the night before. The elevator dinged, his key turned, and his feet stepped onto slightly scratched wooden flooring.

  It was an unfamiliar sight. The large windows lining the living room. The small bedroom that could fit a desk and a bed. A tiny bathroom.

  It was a wonderful sight.

  “I have furniture for Aiden H-h…Aiden H?”

  He chuckled, turning toward the strangers with wrapped furniture in tow. “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “This is the bed. Can you let me know where you want it?”

  Exactly how I want it. He thanked the movers when they left. His suitcases remained scattered in the living room. Aiden squeezed his way around to flop face first onto the new mattress. He grabbed his phone, texted his brother that he had settled in, and flipped onto his back to stare at the uninteresting ceiling. “Soon, I’ll have a different life,” he said out loud, bouncing against the bed.

  At night, music traveled from the pool through his window, shaking the glass. He peeked out of his blinds and saw groups of people holding up beer bottles, laughing amongst each other. I guess not everyone goes home for the summer. Or maybe some people just like to come back early to hang out with their friends? He smiled, watching the shadows sway in tandem, words slurring over each other. Perhaps one night I will join them.

  That night, however, he made himself noodle soup with tomatoes, eggs, and mushrooms. He poured soy sauce and vinegar without measuring, using the scent of the steam curling and the color of the broth to determine when to stop, and settled onto the couch with his comfortable meal. Then, he opened his laptop and began to scroll through the college’s website.

  Most clubs posted pictures through the site, and they told the story Aiden sought for. The soap-making club only posted three and always with the same four people. Still, they smiled naturally, and their widened eyes of shock cued the candidness of their fun presences. Aiden saved the site. If I want to start somewhere small and not be intimidated. Another club’s page was a single link that took Aiden to its own dedicated website with pictures of different people on every page. They were always group photos, and even the candid shots were professionally cleaned by perfect lighting, the lack of blurs, and attentive faces.

  “Diversity Business Council,” Aiden read out loud. He saved the link. It would be good to find a larger club. Easier to blend in, easier to leave.

  The laptop emitted a glow on his face, and while the night grew darker and the noises of the party faded, his smile grew wider. He clicked into midnight. He couldn’t stop smiling.

  His brother was right. In the end, the lessons he learned for survival could also be used to propel him forward in the normal world. “Do your research. Choose your pool. Craft yourself to their liking,” Aiden recited. “Everything’s going to work out.” His smile stretched wider. His cheeks started to burn. “Everything’s going to work out.”

  Chapter Three

  Bugs flew around Aiden’s ears, buzzing. “Aiden,” they called with weird human voices that jumbled familiar tones of condescension, concern, and sorrow into one. He swatted them away, but they flew back with reinforcements, forming a cloud around his head and obscuring his view. “Aiden,” his name echoed in the darkness. Their wings slapped against his face, their legs punched his limbs and stomach. Aiden gritted his teeth, placing his hands against his knees, but the buzzing grew so loud that the noise slammed his body to the ground.

  The ground beneath him cracked open to a never-ending void.

  Aiden jolted from his bed and flopped back down with a gasp. Still expecting to see monstrous beating wings, he blinked the haze from his mind and stared up at his apartment ceiling.

  What? He continued lying in bed. Why did I even wake up?

  The phone lit up insistently, buzzing against the dresser. Eyes squinting, he grabbed his phone and looked at the seven missed calls from his stepmother. At 4 am? He opened her text, skimming the headline of the article she sent:

  Ye Hui, Patriarch of the Hui Family, Found Dead in a Car Accident

  Aiden blinked.

  He reread each word. He checked the name. He checked the date. He checked the link to see a credible website.

  He banged his hand against the lamp in his hurry to turn on the light. “No, no, this isn’t right.” The words fell from his mouth. He tried to click the link, but his fingers refused to obey him. They flung around like noodle balloons in front of car dealerships.

  The phone dropped from his hand, and he scrambled to catch it, bumping his head against the side of his dresser and falling off his bed. There was no pain despite the resounding crash. He continued to tap the link, but his fingers aimed left, right, up, and down of the link.

  “Come on!” He slammed his hand down.

  The link blinked open with an attack of bright, warm colors from the photo of a burning car. Despite the pixels burning his eyes, he zoomed in further on the flash of light. There were two distinctive shapes trapped inside the car. He didn’t recognize the faces.

  He realized the men might not have faces at the time of the photograph.

  His stepmother’s caller ID popped up, and despite his ice-cold fingers, Aiden answered the call in one try. “What happened? When did you find out? Is there anything you know that isn’t on the news?”

  “Hui Lang—when you last saw Hui Ye, who did he meet with? What families are they affiliated with?” Not a hint of panic was present in her voice.

  “I don’t know. He met with some people, but I don’t know them at all.” Aiden whirled around the room, walking in indiscriminate circles. “I don’t know who he interacts with aside from Wang Xing—”

  “—who died with him.”

  The stepmother’s coldness called forth freezing wind that whipped at his face. He dug his nails into the palm of his hand, and the floor blurred with increased panting and increased speed. “I don’t know anything. Do you know anything? Have any other families said anything? This wasn’t an accident, right? He was murdered?”

  “Hui Lang, in our family, accidents don’t happen," she chided, “and don’t start asking me if he died peacefully. That’s not important. You need to come home. We have a funeral procession to figure out, and most importantly, we need to have ownership of the estate Hui Ye left behind.”

  “Will we find out who killed him?” Aiden’s voice hitched. He stopped moving. The floor mysteriously continued to spin. “Is there anyone we can suspect?”

  “Aiden—we are part of Infinite. Do you know how many enemies the Hui family has from that fact alone? It doesn’t matter who killed him. We must figure out our future first. Learn to prioritize. Hui Ye was good at it. Come home tomorrow.”

  The line clicked.

  Aiden thought he preferred silence. He thought that, until he lost all feeling in his legs, and his knees thudded against the floor. Silence wrapped around him like a suffocating straitjacket. His arms fell limp against his sides.

  I just saw him.

  A determined smile was plastered on Hui Ye’s face, but when Aiden stared into his brother’s eyes, they struggled to lift at the corners. Somewhere, deep down, his brother knew he needed to step away from Aiden’s life if Aiden pursued a life without Infinite. A fact that neither of them wanted to accept.

  Hands shaking, Aiden brought the phone back to him. The phone blinked back to life, showing the photo of the burning car. With the world tilting beneath his knees, Aiden threw himself onto the ground and hugged his stomach, but it lurched harder. Unwelcome scenes flashed before his eyes. Of a living room. Of a heaviness cupping over him. Of the scent of blood crawling up his nostrils.

  Distraction. Aiden grappled with his phone. Pictures. Happy pictures. Not burning car pictures. He scanned his phone’s gallery.

  Shoddily taken pictures of food, of funny statues, and of random cats he saw roaming the streets of Hong Kong glowed back at him.

  Not a single photo of Hui Ye with him. Not a single photo of Hui Ye existed.

  His family unanimously decided, with his agreement, that digital photos were too dangerous with social media. And the paper photographs that people once developed and printed from stores? His brother destroyed them all when he was younger. Because of her.

  The lamp flickered. The walls elongated and loomed above him to stare down with judgmental eyes. His chest squeezed, and Aiden curled up on the ground and covered his head.

  What do you do when you’re overwhelmed?

  “Focus on one thing. Just one thing,” he whispered.

  He focused on the burning car, the questions of how his brother felt in the moment he died, and the truth that the brother who promised him everything was dead. He focused on death, how it permeated the world they lived in, and how it was impossible to run or hide from it. He focused on the futility of life, and somewhere, somehow, his brother’s lessons echoed true once more. He focused on the apathy that crawled through every nerve of his body, and he remained on the ground for the entire night, unable to shed a single tear for losing his entire family to the mafia world.

  • • •

  Aiden opened the front door, frozen still by the blast of air conditioning. His stepmother stood at the doorway with crossed arms. Allowing his feet to thaw in the outside air, he dragged his backpack behind him and closed the door to the freezing castle.

  “I can take care of everything,” his stepmother said the second he stepped in. “You don’t need to do anything.”

  “Yeah, Ma can do it,” He Bao agreed. His stepbrother also crossed his arms but remained sitting on the couch. “But don’t cry. That’d be embarrassing.”

  Zhu Zhu sat beside her brother, playing with her iPad and never looked up.

  “The dates will be important. Already we have been cursed with bad luck with his death. Now is more imperative than ever that we choose a good luck month. Of course, the funeral would not be taking place here, but in Hong Kong. I do not want to bother with moving his remains back here which I’m sure you’ll agree with, but we mustn’t appear too Chinese, so western style it’ll be.” Aiden still stood at the doorway in his shoes. His stepmother walked with her slippers squeaking against the tiled ground, around and around. His fingers burned from holding the backpack up from the ground. He dropped it to the ground.

  “Why are you still standing here? We have work to do. Take off your shoes before you come in—don’t let grief get in the way of basic manners for goodness sakes.” She pulled him onto the wooden floor before he kicked his last shoe off.

  She spent days counting the guests, mumbled the importance of which guest affected the family businesses, and invited strangers who called with screaming voices of desperation to be included in the funeral.

  I should say something.

  He washed the dishes, and she increased the guest list.

  Ge would probably prefer a Chinese traditional funeral.

  He vacuumed the house, she spent more on the decorations, and his stepsiblings lived with their usual attitudes.

  What about the girl who left the lime green dress? I hope she’s at the funeral. Maybe I can finally know who Celia is.