Marjorie M. Liu

new york times bestselling author

EXCERPT FROM THE LAST TWILIGHT (ON SALE JANUARY 29TH)


Western media loved the entire African continent like some good crack, but only the parts that were hurting.  It was what had surprised Rikki the most during her first six months on the job.  She had seen the images, read the newspapers with their sad doomed stories – people starving, women raped, poverty and corruption and destruction – but the reality was stark, different, dusty and full of sunlight and laughter and enterprise – kindness, music, intellectualism; a rambling babble of diversity and uncommon languages and culture, mingling and scrabbling and making joy. Fifty-four countries, nine hundred million people.  Modern to rural, rich to poor.  Folks working hard for a living.  Just like home. 

Except for the rebels and wandering militias, scattered throughout the Congo and adjoining countries.   Except for the politics that backed those men, and the genocide that accompanied them.  That much was true.  Rikki had the scars to prove it.  A lot of women did, in this region – though she had been hurt less in some ways, than others.  No rape.  But what had happened was almost as bad.

She squeezed shut her eyes.  Her scars ached.  Like some storm-burn in an old woman’s joints, more frightening than bad weather.  She wanted to run.  She wanted to hide.  She wanted to pick up a gun and start blasting into the night: heartless, efficient, and effortlessly brutal.  Better than the alternative. 

Screams cut the night.  Amiri’s arm tightened.  Rikki’s heart pounded so hard she felt sick. 

“This area’s been quiet,” she muttered tightly, trying not to vomit.  “But I heard rumors in Brazzaville that the rebels and militias have been moving east out of Kivu.  It’s why this camp was established.  To take care of the folks running from their homes.”

“It makes no sense,” Amiri murmured, but he stopped, squeezing her closer as the rough shouts got louder, accompanied by wet sobs and desperate pleading.  Rikki did not recognize the voices, but she wanted to run to them.  Faces flashed – old friends, dead – and she shuddered as she remembered, with perfect clarity, her body dragged through dirt and stone.  Hands holding her down.  Those damn knives.

Bodies hit the ground outside the tent.  Rikki bit her bottom lip, fighting like hell to keep from shuddering, but that was a joke and she felt Amiri’s mouth touch her ear.  He whispered something she did not understand, again and again, but just as the words took shape inside her dull ears, gunfire exploded.  Bullets ripped open the plastic sheeting, razing the cots and monitors, kicking metal into cutting shards.  Amiri wrapped himself so tight over her body he felt like a second skin.  The fingers of his right hand dug into the floor like claws. 

The hail of bullets did not last; in its wake, deafening silence. Amiri slithered off her body.  His hand caught her wrist.  She moved with him, breathless, straining to listen.  Men spoke.  She heard a patois of French, Lingalese, some other Bantu language.  She imagined she heard her name.

Amiri did not stop moving.   He pulled her to one of the plastic tubs that had been scored and knocked over by bullets.  Scrubs had spilled out.  Amiri pointed, then pushed down on Rikki’s shoulders.  She resisted.  There was no place for him to hide.  She tried to tell him that, but he covered her mouth and shook his head.  He forced her to crawl inside the plastic tub.  She was just small enough.  Amiri pushed the clothing around her body.

“Stay,” he breathed, and then he was gone: melting out of sight, utterly silent.  Rikki wiggled forward, trying to see.  It was too dark.  She could hear, though – and after several breathless moments the low murmur of voices drifted from the entrance of the tent.  Not many, but enough.  Rikki took three quick breaths, forcing herself to focus.  Trying to decide how long she could rely on Amiri before one of them was killed, or worse.

The voices got louder.  The quarantine barrier rattled.  Rikki heard uneasy laughter, a low crooning call.  She tried to judge numbers, but it was impossible. Stacked odds, either way. Amiri was unarmed.  She took another deep breath and nudged forward, just slightly.  Looking for a weapon, anything.  She found syringes.  Spilled on the floor, just out of reach.

The quarantine sheet pushed inward.  Rikki froze.  Her hearing dimmed to nothing but heartbeats, the roar of blood.  She was dimly aware of distant wailing screams, gunshots.  People dying. None of it mattered.  Only that plastic wall and the men behind it.

Then, not even that.  Amiri exploded upward from the floor.

Rikki knew he was fast, but what she saw in that moment verged on inhuman – a blur, too quick to follow.  He plowed through the quarantine wall and her ears could hardly keep up with the answering crack of bones, grunts, muffled cries.  Furious, unrelenting.  She slithered out of the container, reaching for a syringe.  Her hand closed around plastic.

A gun fired inside the tent.  Rikki tore off the protective cap just as a large figure fell hard through the quarantine sheet. It was too dark to see his face, but the body was all wrong, too thick and hulking to be Amiri.  She smelled blood. 

The man saw Rikki.  He lifted his gun.  She lunged.  Small, fast, desperate; she hit him hard in the chest and jabbed the needle into his face.  Aiming for his eye, but his cheek was good enough.  He screamed.  Rikki tried to knock aside his weapon. 

Amiri appeared.  He grabbed the man’s head and twisted.  Rikki heard a sound like cracking knuckles, then silence.  The gun dropped.  She snatched it up, safety off, grip sticky with blood.  She did not give the dead man another look.   

Movement flickered at the corner of her eye, just beyond the torn plastic barrier.  She aimed, adrenaline high and wild, but kept her finger off the trigger.  Focusing.  Listening.  Amiri stepped in front of her, facing the flimsy wall.  She heard the sounds of a brief struggle – a distinctive pop, one loud shot – followed by a sharp intake of breath, a muffled curse that was suspiciously American.  Rikki forced herself to breathe.  The gun was slick in her hands.  She heard distant screams and thought of Mack, the nurses, everyone who had come here to help.  This could not be happening.

Amiri said, “Eddie.  Over here.” 

Rikki gave him a sharp look.  “A friend?”

“Yes.”

The plastic sheeting to the quarantine section rattled.  She felt light-headed, out of her mind.  “He can’t.  He can’t come in here. We’re contagious.” 

“Doctor Kinn -- ”

Rikki took a step toward the barrier.  “Stop, Eddie, whoever you are.  Don’t move.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” said a young male voice, far too close for comfort.  “Contagious or not, you don’t have much of a choice.  You have to leave.  Now.”

Amiri took hold of her arm and for a moment she forgot herself.  Training took over.  She fought, using all her strength.  He lost his grip, grunting with what sounded like surprise, but he was faster than her and his arms clamped down.  She tried kicking him and he only squeezed harder, pressing his mouth against her ear.  He smelled like blood.  His hands were slick.

“We must,” he whispered harshly.

Yes, she thought, finally gazing down at the dead man beside her – neck twisted, syringe jutting from his cheek.  Hell, yes.

But she could not say those words.  She turned her head, peering up into Amiri’s eyes.  “If we contracted the disease, we are contagious.  We will kill innocent people, everywhere we go, anyone we come in contact with.  I won’t do that.”   Even if she was prepared to use the gun in her hand to defend her life.  No conflict there.  Shooting men intent on murder did not, in her opinion, count. 

Amiri’s hands tightened; he shook her, just slightly, and in a voice so low it was almost a growl said, “Eddie, are the Peacekeepers evacuating?”

“Trying to,” said the young man, still out of sight.  “They were taken off guard.  Some are trying to find the medical personnel, but it’s chaos out there.  That’s why we have to hurry.  I don’t know how much longer the planes will stay grounded before someone panics.”

“Indeed,” Amiri murmured, and then louder:  “Go and find us some biohazard suits.  Make certain yours is secure.”

Eddie pushed back through the barriers.  Rikki began to protest, but Amiri covered her mouth with his hand. 

“I am not ready to die,” he said in a hard voice.  “And while I live, so shall you.  We are leaving here, and you are coming with us, even if I have to carry you.”

Rikki pushed away his hand.  “And if we hurt others in the process? Can you live with that?”

Amiri said nothing.  He shoved Rikki across the isolation ward, and though she put up a fight, he was the strongest man she had ever encountered, and nothing she did broke his stride. 

She could have played dirty.  Part of her wanted to.  But there was another part, ruthless and fierce, that wanted to run with him.  Run fast, run long, and never mind the consequences.  High ideals be damned.  Because she also wanted to live.  She wanted to fight for every breath, even if it killed.  Even if all she had left was a day or an hour.

Go, whispered a tiny voice. Don’t look back.

She did not.