If You Could See the Sun (74)

Henry doesn’t move, though his eyes are wary. “What?”

“I think I recognize you,” the man says, and everything seems to freeze. Blur at the edges. The lights overhead flicker and the low parking lot ceiling threatens to collapse on me. “You—you were in that magazine article. And that China Insider interview... You’re the son of the SYS founder, aren’t you?”

For a split second, panic flashes over Henry’s features.

Only a second. But it’s enough.

“Who sent you?” the kidnapper growls, stepping around the car’s blazing headlights, his shadow stretching out menacingly over the concrete. He advances on Henry. “Who?”

Before I can react, Henry raises a fist and swings it into the man’s face. Hard. I swear I hear the crack of bone as the man hisses and stumbles backward, hands covering his nose, and all my thoughts fracture—

Henry punched somebody.

Henry punched somebody.

Henry Li just punched somebody.

Nothing about this night feels real.

Henry looks almost as stunned as I am; he stares at the hunched-over man, then at his own clenched fist, as if some unknown force might have possessed him. Which would honestly make more sense than what just happened; I doubt Henry has even given anyone a fist bump before.

But then the two other men rush over, and Henry tackles the first kidnapper to the ground with a resounding thud, and everything descends into utter chaos.

I can’t see what’s going on from where I’m hiding, can only hear the muffled grunts of pain and repeated collision of limbs, of bodies pushed onto the floor, and Henry’s voice when he yells—

“Catch.”

Something small and silver flies through the air in a perfect arc. I don’t even think; I just spring up and reach for it, my fingers closing over the metallic object. Car keys.

Of course.

Pulse speeding, I unlock the car and yank open the car door.

Peter’s curled up in the back seat, next to an opened pack of bottled water. Horror and relief crash through my chest at the sight of him. He’s alive. He’s alive and awake and staring at me like I might be a ghost as I free his arms, help pull him out. His knees wobble violently, but he manages to stand.

Ahead of us, the sounds of the struggle intensify.

Henry.

“Go inside,” I order Peter. “Wait for us by the door.”

He doesn’t protest.

While he hurries off, I seize one of the water bottles from the trunk and hold it like a baton, feeling its weight in my hand. It’s not heavy enough to kill someone, I decide, which is all I need to know before stalking forward.

The men don’t notice me. They’re too busy forming a kind of human sandwich: Henry’s got two of the kidnappers pinned under him, but he’s been held down by the tallest one. The same one who tied me up.

I’m more pissed off than terrified now, and I let my anger guide my aim...

The plastic bottle smashes into the back of the man’s head with a satisfying thunk.

As the man lurches sideways, I bend down and grab Henry’s hand. His knuckles are dark red, a thin bloody cut running down his thumb. My heart twists, but I know it’s not the time to apologize, or to thank him, or to voice the million other things I’m feeling in this moment.

“Run,” is all Henry says as he jumps to his feet.

And we do. We sprint through the narrow exit, where Peter’s waiting, and bolt the door behind us, then race up the stairs in a mad blur of pounding hearts and feet. Henry reaches his floor first, and then it’s just Peter and me, my hand secured around his wrist to keep him from falling. We keep going. We have to keep going. I don’t know if Andrew’s men have found their way inside or alerted someone else or if we’ll ever make it out of this mess okay. All I can do is urge my legs to move faster, faster still, mouth parched and knees sore, my lungs aching, dying for air as I cut the corner, pull Peter into the open hall of the ninth floor—

And crash straight into Mr. Murphy.





17


For the first time in forty years of Airington school history, our Experiencing China trip is cut short.

All because of me.

Well, technically speaking, Vanessa Liu is responsible for the abrupt change in schedule too. Of all the guys in our year level, it turns out she’d been harbouring a secret crush on Peter, so when she’d gone to his room to confess—only to find Jake half-asleep and Peter’s bed empty—she’d feared the worst and notified Mr. Murphy.

The timing couldn’t have been worse, really. If Vanessa hadn’t been so drunk, she would never have stumbled into Peter’s room after I’d already kidnapped him, nor would Mr. Murphy have shown up in a bathrobe to search for him the exact moment Peter and I hurtled up the stairs.

Everything unraveled pretty quickly after that.

Mr. Murphy had taken one look at my expression, then Peter’s stunned face and the thin trail of blood trickling from his hairline, and sent him to the hospital for a suspected concussion. Then he’d informed Peter’s parents, who’d screamed so loud into the phone I could hear the whole conversation from six feet away. After they finished threatening to sue the school and the hotel for gross negligence, they’d sent out a private jet to bring Peter home—presumably to be treated at a better hospital.