Page 80 of Shadowing You

He took her hands and held them to his chest. “I promise I’ll come back for you.”

“What if something happens? What if you’re seen, or you get hurt, or⁠—?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

She would argue, except this man had come to one of the biggest, most populated nations in the world with no plan at all, and he’d tracked her to the proper city and then found her when she’d called.

If anyone could figure it out, Ethan could.

“I’ll stay and rest. If someone comes, I’ll go down the trail we came up yesterday and wait for you.”

“That works.” He dropped her hands and reached for their empty bowls.

She caught his wrist. “I’ll clean up. You hurry and go so you can hurry back.”

He seemed to hesitate. Maybe he was reconsidering his plan. “If you’re sure.”

“Yes. Go.” Because she didn’t have a better idea. They needed help getting out of China, which meant he needed to talk to Michael.

Ethan put his coat on, and she walked him to the door. “Lock it behind me.”

She put her hands flat against his chest under his coat, where she could feel the steady drum of his heart beneath the layers of fleece and shirt. “Be careful.”

“I will.”

“You promise?”

“I won’t risk making it back to you.” He kissed her lightly, barely a brush of lips. “See you soon.”

She closed the door behind him, then went to the window and watched until he disappeared into the trees.

He had trusted her yesterday, going to the hospital and then on the mountain in the dark. He’d let her lead him through a country that wanted them both dead because she had asked him to. He’d wrapped her cold feet in his own jacket, then kept her warm all night long.

Now he was walking down a mountain in a country he didn’t know, all alone because she was too weak to walk with him.

Bring him back to me, Father. Please. Bring him back.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The village was smaller than Ethan had expected, a cluster of tile-roofed buildings, a few dozen at most, strung along a road that had been paved once, a long time ago. Studying it from the top of a hill—one of the many he’d traversed since he’d left Mei Lin hours before—he doubted he’d find a coffee shop, no matter how much he craved a large cold brew.

He approached from the trail and headed for a lane that ran parallel to what looked to be the main street, stepping around a sleeping dog that smelled like it hadn’t had a bath since…ever. A woman, hanging laundry on a line stretched between her house and a skinny tree stared at him as he passed. They probably didn’t get many six-foot-something white guys in this neighborhood.

He smiled at her, keeping his pace easy and his head down slightly. He hadn’t spotted any cameras, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

There were still zero bars on his phone when he located a single-room shop that carried a little of everything: shelves of canned goods and dried things in bags, a glass case at the front with cigarettes and batteries and phone accessories. A television mounted high on the wall played what sounded like a cooking show, the volume loud enough to be distracting.

The man behind the counter watched him through narrowed eyes. Maybe foreigners came through occasionally, hikers and the like, but probably not this time of year.

Ethan nodded a greeting, then perused the shelves. He found two flashlights and a small nylon backpack. He found a box of bars that he hoped had protein. Wasn’t like he could read the labels.

Dinner would be trickier. He grabbed a bag of noodles. The Chinese characters on the canned goods weren’t helpful. He studied the pictures and settled on what looked like a bean and pork situation. He added a package of crackers and a small bag of dried fruit.

After selecting batteries for the flashlights and checking to make sure they worked, Ethan scanned the candy display and chose a handful of White Rabbits, Mei Lin’s favorite.

He paid, and when the clerk had handed back the change, Ethan pulled out his phone and held it up so the screen was visible. “Service?”

Looking at the screen, the man said something in Mandarin and gestured vaguely toward the north, pointing up.