Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
The drowsiness that had been pulling at Mei Lin since she’d woken up began fading as Ethan’s expression shifted from curious to confused to worried.
“Three minutes?” he asked whoever had called.
Until…what? She was already pushing back from the table.
Ethan ended the call. “We have to go. Now.” He crossed to the counter in two strides, grabbed a box, and shoved it into a plastic bag. “Get everything from the bathroom.”
She scurried down the hall and shoved toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, and shampoo into a zipper bag he’d left on the counter, then went to the bedroom, where he was already putting stuff into his backpack.
“Here.” She held out the toiletries, and he added them to an outside pocket while she sat to lace her sneakers. They ran to the living room and shrugged into their coats. He swung the backpack onto his shoulders and held out his hand. “Ready?”
She took it. “Let’s go.”
He opened the apartment door and peeked out, then headed away from the stairs at the front of the building where they’d come up the day before. He pulled her along the second-story outdoor corridor, past countless closed doors, to the far end of the apartment building.
They hurried down a staircase and out the back of the complex, through a small parking lot to a two-lane road. They crossed, and Ethan aimed for an alley.
It was narrow, barely wide enough for a scooter.
Just as they dipped into the darkness, noise erupted behind them. Brakes squeaking, doors slamming.
She looked back.
There were two black cars. Men were already out of the first one, moving toward the apartment building’s back entrance. They weren’t in uniform, but they walked like guards or soldiers.
One of them shouted orders.
Lu Feng. She’d have known his voice anywhere.
Ethan tugged on her arm, and she realized she’d stopped.
“Come on.” He pulled her down the alley.
“How did he find me?”
“Not now.” At the next block, Ethan checked for traffic, then crossed again. He wasn’t running, but he was so much taller than she was, and she had to jog to keep pace.
They ran to the right, then slipped into the mouth of another alley.
Ethan didn’t seem to have a destination in mind, just wanted to get as far away from the apartment as possible—and maybe stay off cameras.
Her legs burned, but Ethan didn’t let up his grip or his pace.
“I can carry you.”
“I’m fine.”
She wasn’t, but she was upright and she was moving.
Another alley. Another street. Another alley. Ethan wove through the city’s back channels like he’d been there before. Or maybe like he cared a lot less about reaching what was ahead than escaping what was behind.
She stumbled on a crack in the pavement.
Her hand flew out to steady herself, but there was nothing.
Ethan caught her before she hit the pavement.
“Here.” He swung the backpack from his back to his front and crouched, looking at her over his shoulder. “Hop on.”
“I can—”
“Now, Mei Lin.”
She was far too accustomed to taking orders. She climbed onto his back.
He straightened without comment and kept moving, faster now that she wasn’t slowing him down.
Six years ago, she would have been mortified. Now, she watched the alley behind them over her shoulder, trying to be grateful instead of ashamed.
They spilled from the mouth of the alley, right in front of a car idling at the curb. A man was leaning against the passenger door.
She gasped.
Ethan froze.
“Taibo,” the man said, though whether it was a name or some kind of super-secret password, she had no idea.
Either way, she felt Ethan’s relief.
Somehow, her American husband had arranged for transportation.
She slid down until her feet hit the sidewalk, then climbed into the backseat. Ethan followed her and closed the door.
Seconds after Taibo got behind the wheel, he pulled away from the curb.
She looked out the back window.
Nobody was following them. They were safe, for now.
The car smelled of stale cigarettes, but Mei Lin wasn’t complaining as the driver weaved farther and farther from the apartment complex.
When he’d pulled away from the curb, he’d asked Ethan where they were going.
“Are we safe?” Ethan had asked. “Or were we seen on camera?”
“It was a dead spot,” Taibo said. “I chose it for a reason.”
He’d chosen it? Not Ethan? Too many things were happening that Mei Lin didn’t understand. She needed to stop letting the world—even her husband—dictate her life.
Taibo tried again. “You have a destination—?”
“I don’t know yet,” Ethan snapped. “Just get us away from here.”
“Aye aye, captain.” Taibo’s accent was strong, making the flippant expression almost humorous.
That had been twenty minutes ago.
Mei Lin had watched the city give way to highway, highway to a two-lane road threading through withered fields.
Ethan had been on the phone for most of their ride, voice low, shoulders hunched toward the door. He was talking low and fast. She’d caught the words Hong Kong. Flights. Someone named Michael.
She’d let the English wash over her without trying to make sense of it. Her body hummed with spent adrenaline, and she’d decided, somewhere between the second alley and Taibo’s car, that it was easier to let Ethan think for her.
Where had the real Mei Lin gone? Had Lu Feng and prison really killed her?
No. She was alive. She was a married woman, a professional. Intelligent, or at least she used to be.
Lord, help me think. Wake up the real me.
The prayer was barely a thought, but it settled something in her chest. She drew a slow breath and watched the brown fields slide past. This was her country and her language. These people were her people. Six years behind bars hadn’t changed that, even if it had changed her.
Lu Feng wasn’t part of the Public Security, but obviously he knew somebody who was.
She’d met him in 2019, a doctor in the small hospital where she’d worked. Cheap shoes, a crooked tie, but he’d been good with the patients. He’d seemed to care.
It had all been a lie, of course.
Even so, he’d been a small-time criminal, or so she’d thought.
But he’d found her three times now. He had men at his disposal, which meant he had money and connections.
He wasn’t small-time anymore.
She knew what a man like Lu Feng could do with power and position. And what he’d do to keep it.
She studied the truth carefully, the way she’d once studied a patient’s file, looking for clues. If Lu Feng could find her in Changsha, he could find her in Hong Kong.
If he had enough resources, he could find her in Vancouver or Toronto or…anyplace in the world where detectives could be paid to track down people.
She’d once believed she’d be safe if she left China. But six years was a long time to amass a fortune in cash and connections.
If Lu Feng wanted her gone, a border wouldn’t stop him now. It would barely slow him down.
Leaving China wouldn’t make her free.
The realization should have frightened her. Instead, it settled inside her, cold as her prison ward.
There was only one way to be free of him. She’d pretended it wasn’t true when she’d walked out of the prison gate and called Ethan. She’d let herself forget, believing Ethan would get her out of China, and distance would protect her.
It wouldn’t. She was on Lu Feng’s radar, and now Ethan was too.
Mei Lin had to finish what she’d started.
The evidence should still be where she’d left it. If she could get it to the right person, then Lu Feng would face justice for what he’d done.
Not just for her, but for every woman whose life he’d destroyed.
Without the evidence, she would be running for the rest of her life.
She was still working through the geography when Ethan ended his call.
“Take us to Yiyang,” he said to Taibo.
“Gotcha, chief.” Taibo, it seemed, had watched some American television.
Ethan faced her. She’d seen him, of course.
But this was the first time she’d looked past the man in her memory to the one sitting with her today.
He looked older than his age, as if more than six years had passed.
Too much red surrounded his striking eyes, and the dark beneath them displayed his fatigue.
She didn’t know where he’d been for the last six years, but when she’d called, he’d come.
“Who was that?”
“My cousin.”
“I didn’t realize…”
“It’s a long story.” One he didn’t seem to want to tell at the moment. “We’ll switch cars in Yiyang.” His eyes flicked to the driver. “We’ll go from there.”
To Hong Kong, then Canada. Then Ethan would do what he’d been trying to do six years ago, before the pandemic—get her a visa and bring her to the States with him.
Assuming…a lot of things. Like that he hadn’t moved on from her. Like he wanted not just to rescue her but to be with her.
Assuming he still wanted them to have a life together. It was the thing she’d wanted more than anything, even if she’d stopped hoping for it.
But she couldn’t have it, not yet. “Okay.”
Ethan studied her, eyes narrowed. He knew her, even now. What was he reading on her face?
She gave him the best smile she could manage and turned to the window.
She would tell him, but not until there was no one who could repeat what she said to the wrong pair of ears.
He’d argue. He’d probably be furious with her, not only for what she wanted to do now but for what she’d done back then. He’d call her reckless and foolish, tell her she’d risked her life for nothing. He’d say whatever he had to say to talk her into getting out of China.
She couldn’t give in. Help me stand firm, Lord. Help me finish what I started.
She had yearned for freedom since the day she’d been arrested. She’d yearned for Ethan since the day they married. No, since long before that, even before she’d left Vancouver.
But she couldn’t have either, not until Lu Feng was finished.
She had no choice. She had to finish him.