Chapter 26 #2
The apartment building was three stories of weathered concrete tucked at the edge of a cornfield, now brown for the winter. Empty clotheslines crossed the balconies. The stench of coal fires overwhelmed the wet earth and fallen leaves.
Mei Lin crouched beside Ethan a few feet from the edge of the forest. The walk had been too much, and it was all she could do not to cuddle up with the dry leaves and fall asleep.
“Do you think we missed them?”
Ethan glanced at his watch. “They’ll be here.”
It’d been a little over two hours since they’d left the park. Considering their moped had been stolen and they’d had to walk, they weren’t that late.
The cold worked into her jacket. She tucked her hands inside her sleeves and watched her breath drift, white and thin, into the November air.
A bicycle ticked past on the narrow road, an old man bent over the handlebars. A dog barked in the distance.
Then, an engine rumbled. It wasn’t a scooter or moped but something bigger.
A pickup nosed around the bend—dusty blue, dented along one side, the bed stacked with wooden crates under a green tarp. It rolled to a stop in front of the building. Two men got out.
The driver wore a cap that shadowed his face. She guessed he was closer to her parents’ age than hers.
The passenger moved around the truck bed and scanned the woods. He was dressed in khakis and a white button-down, tall and lean. He had the same eyes she’d seen across the dinner table a thousand times.
Her breath caught in her throat, and she stood and stepped forward.
“Mei Lin.” Ethan gripped her elbow. “Wait. We don’t know—”
“It’s him.” She broke from the trees, half-running.
Renshu turned at the sound. Then he was striding toward her, his arms open.
She stepped right into them, and he drew her close and lifted her off the ground.
“Mèimei.” He spoke into her hair. “It’s really you.”
She couldn’t speak. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on.
It was a few moments before he set her down and held her at arm’s length, looking her over before pulling her in again.
“You’re too skinny.”
“You hugged me.” It was an old joke between them. “Brothers don’t hug.”
“This one does today.”
She laughed into his jacket, and then the laugh turned into tears. She was angry with her brother for breaking their parents’ hearts. But she’d also missed him. She’d always love him, no matter how far he strayed.
“Ethan.” Renshu straightened, and she stepped to his side.
Her husband’s eyes were narrowed. He looked like he was ready to snatch her and run. “I’m surprised to see you.”
“She’s my sister.” Renshu’s English wasn’t as practiced as hers. “Of course I help.”
“Of course.” Ethan shook his hand. “Thanks for being here.”
“Get in the truck.” The driver spoke Mandarin, his voice almost as familiar as her brother’s.
“Pastor! I didn’t recognize you.”
His eyes twinkled, but his expression remained stern. “We’ll talk in the truck.”
“Yes.” Renshu moved in that direction. “Get in. We have long drive.”
Pastor Su climbed behind the wheel while Renshu opened the back door and waved them inside. Mei Lin slid in, Ethan following. She shoved both of their backpacks onto the floor. The seat was cracked vinyl patched with duct tape and smelled like wet dog.
Renshu took the front passenger seat and pulled the door shut.
The truck shuddered into gear, and they were moving.
“How did you know we’d be here?” Mei Lin switched to English and addressed Ethan. “Did you call him?”
Renshu answered. “Someone told Bàba you were alive.”
That had her turning to Ethan. “You didn’t tell them?”
“I didn’t want to get their hopes up. Gavin filled them in.”
She leaned over the bench seat toward Renshu. “Bàba called you?”
Pastor Su answered, his English more broken than Renshu’s. “He call me. He say find somebody to help, so I call Renshu.”
“But…” She turned back to her brother, hope bubbling inside her. “You’re part of the church again?”
“No.” His lips compressed into a line as if the thought disgusted him.
“I knew he would protect you.” Pastor Su gave Renshu a warm look. “Give your sister and her husband what you brought.”
“I forgot.” Renshu reached toward his feet and came back with two large bottles of water and a canvas sack.
She handed one of the bottles to Ethan, who opened it and traded her for the closed one. They both drank deeply. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was.
She peeked inside the bag and found warm bao buns wrapped in foil and sweet pastries. “You might be stubborn, but you are still my favorite brother in the world.”
He almost smiled at that. “Lucky for you, I’m your only brother.”
“Very lucky for me. I couldn’t have handled two of you.” She handed Ethan one of the buns and took one for herself. “I’m glad you’re here.” She switched to Mandarin. “Ethan said you joined the Party.”
Her brother’s face was lined with too many wrinkles for his age. “We were told you died. How could you do that to our parents?”
The question was such a shock that it took her a moment to comprehend what he was asking. “You think I was hiding on purpose?”
“You were dead. Now you’re alive. Where have you been?”
“I was in prison.”
His black eyes seemed to darken. “For what charge?”
She couldn’t tell if Renshu was angry that she’d been accused of something, or angry with her for having broken the law.
Ethan gripped her hand and tugged her toward him, leaning close to her ear. “Be careful how much you tell him.”
Ethan didn’t trust Renshu, and maybe she shouldn’t either, considering he worked for the people who were searching for her now.
But he was her brother. She leaned forward again and explained what she’d discovered six years earlier and how she’d been incarcerated without a trial and without any charges.
“Somebody took a bribe,” Renshu said. “Who was this man breaking the law?”
“A doctor I worked for, Lu Feng.”
That had him squinting. “You’re wrong. Dr. Lu is well respected in China.”
“If he’s such a good man, then why did he have me thrown in jail?”
He brushed her question off with a wave of his hand, as if nothing she said mattered.
She’d always been the one who didn’t know anything in their family.
Renshu was the smart one, the handsome one, the one her parents had paid to send to college.
She’d fought so hard to study to be a nurse partly to prove to them and her brother that she was more than just a little sister, one to be married off to the first man who showed interest. She’d earned a scholarship to college.
Even so, to Renshu, she was still irrelevant.
She wanted to make him see reason. But her brother was as stubborn as a sick donkey, and he seemed farther from God than he’d ever been.
She didn’t have the energy to argue with him.
Pastor Su cleared his throat. “Dr. Lu is the co-chair of the Global Initiative Against Human Exploitation. He’s supposed to be protecting people from trafficking.”
“The Party trusts him,” Renshu said, “which is how I know you’re wrong.”
“You think the state can’t make mistakes? It’s not God, even if it pretends to be. Your Party can’t be trusted.”
“You’re the one who can’t be trusted.” Renshu’s words filled her stomach like poison. “You were in prison, and now you’re out. Did you escape? Is that why they’re hunting you?”
“Are you going to turn me in, brother?”
His eyes widened in shock, then softened, and she saw a flash of the boy he used to be—the boy who’d loved her and played with her and protected her.
He grunted and faced forward, arms crossed.
Pastor Su’s eyes caught hers in the rearview mirror. “We will take you safety. Nobody is getting turned in today.”
She reached over the bench seat and squeezed the older man’s shoulder. “Thank you for being here.”
Ethan tugged her toward him and wrapped his arm around her. Though he couldn’t have understood their argument, he must have picked up on the anger in the words she and Renshu had traded. He whispered, “You okay?”
“Some things don’t change.”
“Mm.” He seemed to consider that. “Our God is a God of miracles, sweetheart. There’s no heart He can’t reach.”
Her husband was right, even if Renshu felt unreachable.
“Eat, drink, and sleep.” Pastor Su had switched to English. “We move you to a boat tonight. Then a hard ride to Seoul. You need rest.”
Ethan leaned forward. “What happens in Seoul?”
“Someone has a plan,” the pastor said. “You will be safe.”
After they finished the food and water, she curled against Ethan’s side.
He kissed her forehead. “Rest, sweetheart.”
She would have preferred to speak with her brother, but the boy she’d known had been gone for a long time. Her throat was aching, and sleep was coming for her. Rather than fight it, she closed her eyes.
Don’t let us get caught on the road. Or in Weihai. Or on the boat.
So many things could go wrong.
Hours later, Mei Lin checked the zippered pocket of her jacket. The evidence was still there.
“Did you think it was going to run away?” Ethan’s smile was tight.
“It would be tragic to lose it after everything we went through to get it.” She pushed it into Ethan’s backpack and secured the clips.
She’d slept off and on, but she didn’t feel rested at all. If anything, she felt more exhausted than she had before she’d climbed into the truck nine hours before.
Pastor Su killed the headlights a quarter mile from the dock and eased the pickup the last stretch in the dark. The engine still rumbled, but she hoped not loudly enough to be heard.
Cold air that tasted of salt slid through Renshu’s open window. Mei Lin could see the massive shipping port to the east, where containers were stacked like buildings and dwarfed by cranes.
The fishing pier was closer and older, a collection of worn structures surrounded by a chain-link fence.
In the distance, lamps glowed orange halos over wooden docks beside fishing boats that bobbed on the black water.
Pastor Su eased the truck into a gap between a dark shed and a wall of empty crates and killed the engine.
Renshu turned in his seat. “Are you ready?”
Ethan looked determined, though not eager, for what was to come.