Page 72 of Shadowing You

Ethan took the turn.

She directed him through another couple of turns, away from the markets and into a residential area she’d avoided when she’d lived here. Around them, the world turned grayer and dirtier. So did the people. It would be a good place to hide.

“Take a left at the next intersection.”

He slowed and put on his signal but had to wait for a lag in traffic before he could turn.

She peered down the road.

A shiny black sedan was parked two blocks down, very close to, if not right in front of, the place Michael had secured for them. Two men stood beside the car in dark jackets.

There was something wrong.

At the next intersection, a police car drove past.

“Don’t turn.” She sounded frantic. “Keep going. Keep going.”

Ethan flipped off his turn signal and continued forward.

“What happened?” Michael asked.

“There were police there.”

“There’s no way they were there for you,” Michael said. “I just got the address myself.”

“Does it matter?” Ethan snapped. “Surely the hospital reported what happened. If they saw the car and the plate⁠—”

“Right.” Michael’s voice was flat. “You were smart not to take the chance.”

“Now what?” Ethan’s voice was sharp. “We need to get off the road.”

“Keep moving while I look for something.”

“Won’t work,” Mei Lin said. “There are cameras everywhere. We have to dump the car and get out of town.”

Ethan glanced at her. “Where?”

The alley behind the temple might not have cameras. The footpath along the drainage canal…

There’d been no surveillance of those places six years ago, but now?

She had no idea.

The trail. She used to jog a portion of it when she was twenty-one and her body still did whatever she asked. On warm days when she didn’t have to work, she’d go much deeper into the forest, far from town where the only sounds were twittering birds and breezes rustling the leaves.

She’d never been a stick-to-the-path kind of person. She’d liked trudging along the bracken, seeing what most people never saw. There’d been a place… It could work.

“There’s a forest,” she said. “It’s on the north edge of town.”

“A forest?” Ethan braked at a light and looked at her. “We have no blankets, no food, no water⁠—”

“I know.”

“You’ll freeze to death.”

Not we’ll freeze. He was worried about her, but she was the one who’d gotten them into this. “Ethan, trust me.” She slid her hand around his forearm. “Please.”

He looked forward again. “Michael, what are our options?”