Chapter 42
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
A howl sounded in the distance, and Mei Lin’s heart lurched. She looked at Summer, whose eyes widened.
“What was—?”
“Shh.” Summer shook her head, gaze skimming the forest.
Something had made that sound. An animal? What kinds of animals prowled these woods?
But it hadn’t sounded like an animal. It’d sounded like a man.
Ethan? Please, Lord. Please protect him.
Mei Lin and Summer were crouched behind the spiky bush, the hill behind them. Twigs were poking into Mei Lin’s neck and head, and she had to fight the urge to brush them away.
Summer didn’t move. She barely seemed to breathe. Perhaps she was like Callan and Asher, trained for warfare.
Mei Lin was trained to tend wounds and check fevers. To move and keep moving. But in prison, where the smallest motion drew a guard’s eyes, she’d learned to be still.
In all those years, seeing women hurt, watching some die, Mei Lin had never felt as helpless nor been as afraid as she was right now.
Callan had slipped away a few minutes ago, opposite the direction Summer had indicated that Grant went. Alyssa had gone deeper into the trees, “watching the flank,” whatever that meant.
They all wore earpieces like the ones the man had provided in Fuyin that had allowed Michael to direct them. His voice in her ear had been comforting when she’d been in the hospital.
More than comforting. He’d gotten her out of there. He’d probably saved her life.
Right now, nobody was talking. There were no instructions. There was no comfort.
Was quiet good?
A branch cracked, close.
Summer must’ve tapped her comm unit because Mei Lin heard three distinct thumps. Then, Summer spoke directly into her ear, the words barely louder than breath. “Don’t move.”
Mei Lin knew her assignment. “As long as they don’t know where you are, Ethan will be safe.
” Alyssa had given Mei Lin instructions before she’d walked away.
“If they see you and confirm that you’re here, we don’t know what they’ll do.
We need to keep them busy looking. So no matter what happens, you do not show yourself. Understand?”
If staying out of sight would keep Ethan alive, she’d crouch behind this bush forever. Except Lu Feng wouldn’t wait forever. When he didn’t find her, he would give up. And then, what would become of Ethan?
Alyssa spoke in her ear now. “I’m coming. You two stay down.”
The minutes stretched thin. Dusk had come to the woods, the shadows pooled deep between the trunks, though the sky above the ridge still held a little light.
Off to the left, a sound rose and broke.
A grunt, then the snap of brush underfoot.
There was a scuffle that had Mei Lin’s heart racing.
It ended before she could fix where it came from, and the trees closed over the silence.
Who had grunted? Who had gone down in the leaves? Callan? Alyssa? Or had it been one of Lu’s men? The not-knowing pressed on her chest until it hurt to draw breath.
“Got him.” Callan’s whisper came through the comm. “Tying and gagging.”
Before Mei Lin could relax, more footsteps came. A man stepped into sight ahead of them, his phone’s flashlight sweeping the brush, his breath fogging in the cold.
As he moved closer, Summer tensed, energy wafting off her so palpable that the man must surely feel it.
He was moving closer. Through a gap in the bush, she caught the long line of his jaw.
She’d seen this man before.
In Changsha, the day she’d run from the train, she’d noticed him because he’d stood a head taller than the men around him, scanning the crowd with a phone pressed to his ear. She’d guessed he was working with Lu Feng.
He’d crossed an ocean to find her.
Mei Lin didn’t breathe. The beam of his light slid over the leaves a yard from her shoe, climbed the slope, and moved past. His steps crossed in front of them and kept going, the crunch fading into the trees. Another few feet, and he would be out of sight.
But the man stopped, tapped something into his phone, then turned suddenly. His light swung across the slope and flashed in her eyes.
He took a step back, raising his gun.
Summer launched off the ground and barreled into him, one arm hooking hard across his throat, hauling him down. The phone went flying. His other arm swung wide, the pistol still in his grip.
“Help!” Mei Lin hoped Callan heard, but she couldn’t wait for him. She threw herself onto the man’s arm, catching his wrist in both hands and pinning it into the dirt with all her weight.
He bucked. His other elbow cracked into her cheek, and white burst behind her eyes, but she didn’t move off that arm.
His grip remained tight on his gun.
But Summer was still squeezing his neck.
The man’s thrashing slowed and stopped. He went loose, and his eyes closed.
For a moment neither she nor Summer moved. Summer’s breath came ragged over the man’s shoulder.
Mei Lin took the gun and placed it behind her, then checked his pulse. “He’s still alive.”
“I’ll tie him up. See if you can find that phone.”
Mei Lin picked her way among the trees and bushes. It couldn’t have gone that far. There—a dark glint against the leaves. She picked it up, but the screen was dark.
Had he texted someone? Or called?
She had no way of knowing.