Chapter 25 Break-Ins and Big Threats
twenty-five
Break-Ins and Big Threats
My body floats through the portal and I land in the pantry of our coffee shop. My euphoric mood is cut down by a blaring alarm and icy wind. My heart leaps into my throat and I run from the pantry to the front of the shop.
It’s destroyed, windows shattered, black paint splashed against the walls and furniture, display case broken. Glass snaps under my Docs and I look down to see my cute spiral galaxy cup broken in a dozen pieces. The star-speckled black saucers were thrown at random like frisbees.
I suck down a deep gasp of air and the fissure in my heart cracks open, spilling anger all over my chest.
We worked so hard.
This was ours.
Sirens scream in the distance. Red and blue lights flash across the wall, and I snap back into myself. I run up the stairs to the apartment and throw open the door. It’s dark, but there’s light coming from under their bedroom door.
“Zixin!” I yell as I run down the hall.
There’s a loud scrape on the other side of the door and then it opens. Zixin has a kitchen knife and teary hate in his eyes.
“They ruined it,” he murmurs. “Just like Ma and Ba’s wuguan.”
I push the knife aside and hug him. “But they didn’t get you.”
I reach out for Nai Nai and she hugs us both around the middle.
Tire screeches sound outside and the sirens go dead.
“This is the police!” a man yells downstairs. “If anyone is inside, make yourselves known!”
“Put the knife down,” I whisper to Ace as I pull away.
I jog toward the front room. The apartment looks untouched. I’m guessing the alarm went off the second the broke in. They only had time to fuck up so many things before they had to flee.
“We’re up here,” I yell down the stairs, then add for clarity, “The Feng family.”
I’ve heard enough horror stories of people being hurt in their own homes because of jumpy police.
“Everyone come downstairs, slowly,” the officer says. “Hands visible at all times and prepare to present your identification.”
I grab my bag from the counter with trembling fingers. My heart might just beat out of my chest. I turn and motion Zixin forward with Nai Nai. We take the stairs slowly, the wood creaking so loud it could wake the dead.
There are two officers standing in the entryway of the shop with weapons drawn but not raised.
“How many of you?” one asks.
“Three,” I say. “Me, my little brother, and my grandma. ID is in my bag.”
The lead officer holsters his weapon and approaches me. “I’m Officer Davis. Do you know if the suspects are on the premise?”
I shake my head.
“They drove off,” Zixin says.
The second officer pulls out a notepad. “Could you describe the vehicle?”
Officer Davis takes my ID when I offer it to him. He checks it against something on his tablet, then asks, “Who is Lanying Feng?”
“That’s me,” Nai Nai says, raising her hand.
The second officer continues to question Zixin, and I take a step back to allow Nai Nai space. Davis dives in on getting her detailed account.
“The window breaking woke us,” she starts. “We heard them throwing things, but they didn’t speak loud enough for us to hear what they said.”
“You just moved in a few weeks ago, correct?” Davis asks, looking at me.
“Yeah, from Boston,” I say.
My phone rings from somewhere deep in my bag. It’s late, and I’m guessing it could only be one person. I don’t want to answer Lei’s call, especially not with a cop here. I snake my arm in and silence it.
“Have you had any encounters with anyone in town, anything that might lead you to believe someone has ill intent?” he asks.
Nai Nai looks at me questioningly.
“We met the owner of the craft store, Lacey…something,” I say. I’m just realizing I don’t know her last name. “But she’s really nice. She’s been so great and supportive. She would never do this.”
Davis nods. “Has anything else of note happened?”
Some gangsters from Boston came all this way to threaten me.
My phone rings again. Shit.
I pull it out with dread in my veins.
Detective Armhurts.
“Uh, I need to take it,” I say, holding up the phone.
Davis nods. “Sure.”
I turn away and answer. “Hey, Detective, how are you?”
“The security system went off fifteen minutes ago and you didn’t call to let me know it was a false alarm, so I’m following up.”
She sounds tired.
“I’m sorry,” I say, guilt hitting me. “Yeah, so, someone broke in and trashed the place.”
“Someone,” she says, suspiciously.
Ceramic cups crunch underfoot as I step toward the pantry. “Shang’s son came to the shop yesterday.”
“Why didn’t you notify me? This is a serious security issue.”
“I didn’t notify you because…”
Because he has leverage against me that you can do nothing about.
“Because?” she prompts.
There’s no lying my way out of this one. If I want to maintain some level of police protection against Lei, I have to tell her. I need to protect Zixin and Nai Nai. They are my responsibility. Not my ma and ba.
“My parents have been held against their will in China for the last four years. The Zhao family are in control of them.”
“Jaw-hwey.” She sighs my name. “Why didn’t this come up sooner?”
“You can’t do anything for them,” I snap at her patronizing tone.
“Yes, but we could’ve done something for you. We could’ve made it impossible for the Zhao family to contact you.”
“So I just wouldn’t know if Ma and Ba were being tortured because of me?”
“Are they being tortured?” she asks.
I swallow back the emotion threatening to spill out. “Zhao Lei implied heavily that they would hurt them if I didn’t sign a contract that says I made everything up about Zhao Shang.”
“You didn’t sign it, did you?”
It stings that she’s more concerned with her evidence than for my family. Evidence that I did falsify. I was never in the room with Shang when he discussed his plans or revealed his books. I only know of them because of my magic…
Bitterness spreads over my tongue. “No.”
“Good, that’s good,” she says. “I’m sorry that you’re in this position, truly. There’s not much I can do about your parents if they’re outside U.S. jurisdiction.”
“Not much, but something?” I ask, hope blotching out my anger.
“It’s possible we could get in contact with the U.S. embassy, if you know where in China they’re being held. If their passports are still valid, we could petition their local police to search for them.”
A message dings in my ear, and I pull my phone away to look. My stomach bottoms out and knocks the air from my lungs.
“Baba,” I murmur, touching the pixilated image of him on the screen. He’s holding a sign with today’s date and two words written in English.
Please sign.
He looks tired, but not weak. He’s standing tall with a firm expression of defiance on his face. Mama isn’t in the picture. I wonder…
I swallow my tears.
Tears aren’t going to help right now.
“Jaw-hwey, what’s happening?” Amherst asks, reminding me she’s still on the phone.
“I just got a message. It’s a picture of my father,” I say.
“Send it to me, and the number they texted from.”
I forward the contact and the picture to her as I try to get my lungs to fill all the way.
“Are the police with you?” she asks.
I nod, then realize she can’t hear that. “Yes.”
“Good. I’ll contact the local department and ask them to post someone outside for you tonight. We need to get you back to Boston and into one of our safehouses.”
“No,” I blurt.
“No?”
My throat is tight and my chest is hot. Leaving Rhazan in the middle of all this feels too horrible. I couldn’t stand it. But my family’s safety…
“I mean, we just got here. Just got settled. I don’t have any way to make money other than this coffeehouse. We would be entirely dependent on your department to take care of us.”
“That’s what going into a safehouse is,” Amherst says. “We take care of you.”
I have no ground to stand on for staying here. None that I can admit to her, because if I say it out loud, it’ll sound insane. I met someone here and they’re worth risking my family’s safety over. It sounds insane to me, too. And selfish.
“Let me talk to them about it,” I say, stalling for time. I can’t make this choice right now. I can’t bear to.
“Sure. For now, just try to get some rest. We’ll have someone watching your place tonight, and I’ll call you in the morning.”
I take a deep breath and sigh. “Thanks, detective.”
She’s quiet for a moment, like she’s deciding what to do with my gratitude. Finally, she settles on, “You’re welcome.”
I hang up and look at the picture one more time. There’s a weight in his stare, as if he could communicate with me through this one still frame. He’s telling me to stay as strong as him.
“I’m trying, Baba.”
But my father’s strength, his stubbornness, got them where they are. My mom wanted to give in, and if they had…would I be in an arranged marriage with Lei? If he was telling the truth, maybe.
The thought has acid churning in my gut, souring the back of my throat. There would’ve been no escape for Zixin after that, and he deserves better than the life of a gangster. He has greatness in him, and a skill I could never have. In their hands, he would be a weapon.
“Ms. Feng?” Davis calls from the doorway.
I whirl around and draw on false composure to steady my expression. “Yes?”
“We need a statement from you,” he says.
I follow the officer out to the bar. The need to clean up, to hide the damage on the ground that so plainly reflects my insides, is strong.
I curb the instinct to scootch the shattered pieces around with my feet while Davis asks me standard questions.
I try to lie as little as possible. Where was I when it happened?
Out on a date. With who? My boyfriend. Where? His place.
When he’s done, the other officer approaches with his clipboard. “Station wants us to post up here for the rest of the shift and keep an eye out.”
Amherst, doing as she promised.
Davis nods. “You all get some sleep now. We’ll be in the cruiser just outside until six, and someone will take over for us then.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Their departing footsteps are loud with crunching glass. I take Nai Nai’s arm and help her up the stairs to the apartment. We turn on the light and sit in the living room together.
“Amherst wants to bring us back to a Boston safehouse, and I think that’s best, but I wanted to talk to both of you first,” I say.
Ace is shellshocked. He swallows thickly and nods. “Yeah, whatever you think is best.”
Nai Nai is quiet as she thinks. She looks up at me, her brow furrowed. “Why would he attack the shop?”
“To show us he can do whatever he wants,” I say. “What does it matter? He proved we’re not safe here.”
She smirks. “What’s the point of that?”
I calm my lizard brain down and think it through. “He wants us to leave. He wants us back in Boston.”
She nods sagely. “Why?”
I start thinking like Lei, like Shang.
They need us under their control. In their custody.
They may have been aiming to do that tonight, but when the alarm went off, they changed plans.
This is a small town, and covering up our disappearance here would be harder.
They have nowhere to hide, and it’s hours back to Boston.
The chance of successfully holding on to us here is a lot lower.
But they have to know we’ll go to a police safehouse when we go back…
unless that’s exactly what they want. If they have someone inside the force who could help them, we’d be in one of their dungeons before the end of the first night.
There’s a large international airport, and hundreds of ways out of the city if they need.
They have a lot more resources to get what they want.
“They’re trying to corral us into their cage,” I say.
“Are we farm animals?” Nai Nai asks, defiance in her voice.
“No way,” Ace says.
I shake my head. “But this location is compromised. It’s not safe for us here.”
“It’s not safe there, either,” she says. “And they don’t have a big brooding fire demon down in Boston.”
“Oh! Let’s just take Raul with us!” Ace says with a giddy smile.
I drop my head. “He can’t leave. He’s magically bound to this location.”
Nai Nai pulls a sheet of paper from her cardigan pocket and folds it open. It’s neatly organized with runic designs and a list of materials. She looks up at me with a crazy gleam in her eyes.
“We can make it safe here, with his help.”
It’s the protection we would need against Lei—against anyone who would do us harm. I snatch the page and trace the lines as I work out all their meanings. It’s diabolical. I never thought to combine runes like this…
“But Rhaz-aul…”
I groan.
“His name isn’t Raul, that’s gonna keep throwing me off. It’s Rhazan.”
“Period,” Ace says with a broad grin. “Definitely a demon name.”
“But anyway, there are these magical police that are watching him. If he were on this side when any of this went down,” I say, gesturing to the page Nai Nai has constructed, “he’d be in deep shit. Like, sentence-extending shit, or worse.”
“Sentence?” Ace asks.
I wave him off. “It’s a whole thing. I’ll let him tell you.”
Nai Nai hums. “Then we get others to help us. You have friends.”
“A friend,” I correct.
“And her wife,” Ace adds. “I’m sure Lacey already told Jamie about everything.”
“And I can call Deelia,” Nai Nai says with a bright smile.
I stand to pace. “This still isn’t going to work. Ace, you can’t go to school. Lei can get to you there, or on the bus.”
“Then call my principal and tell him I have strep, or chicken pox, or whatever contagious thing would keep me out of school for a while until we figure it out.”
I look between my little brother and our grandma. “Is this what you want? To stay here?”
Ace shrugs. “If we were really in a safehouse in Boston, we’d be on total lockdown. Not much different being trapped here, except we get customers, and make money.”
“And the added bonus of a brooding fire demon,” Nai Nai says, her eyes practically turning heart shaped.
I chuckle and rub my hand down my face. “All right. What the hell. Let’s trick this place out like Home Alone.”