Page 81 of If You Could See the Sun
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 satisfyingthunk.
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,technicallyspeaking, 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 roomafterI’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.
The rest of the year level was ordered to pack their bags and check out before sunrise, so we could catch the earliest train back to Beijing. No explanation was provided.
But by now, I’m sure everyone’s come up with their own theories on what happened; the cause behind Mr. Murphy’s frantic calls at 4:00 a.m., the shriek of the ambulance siren cutting through the night, the terrible look on Wei Laoshi’s face ever since...
And, of course, the reason I’ve been separated from my cohort, forbidden from speaking to anyone and forced to sit in the teachers’ train compartment instead. I haven’t even had a chance to check on Henry. To see if he’s okay. None of the teachers have brought up his name so far, which means he’s at least evaded suspicion, but I can’t stop thinking about the fight last night: all his potential injuries, the thin cut on his fist.
I can’t stop worrying about him.
“Alice, I’d like to give you a chance to explain,” Mr. Murphy says. He’s sitting directly across from me, hunched over awkwardly to avoid bumping his head on the upper bunk.
I’m hunched over too, but it’s fear that keeps my spine bent, my eyes down, rather than a lack of space.
“Explain what?” I mumble, stalling for time.
“I spoke with Peter before he was taken to the hospital, and he said you were there in the hotel room with him.”
I clench my teeth. It’s too hot in here, the walls threatening to close in, the low ceiling lights blinding like a policeman’s torch. A drop of sweat rolls down my neck.
“He also said,” Mr. Murphy continues, with some uncertainty, “that you almost seemed to...appear out of nowhere. That he isn’t sure how you got into the room in the first place.” He pauses. “Does that sound right?”
A choked, gurgling noise escapes my lips when I open my mouth to protest. I swallow, try again. “He wasconcussed,Mr. Murphy,” I say finally. “He couldn’t—I mean, have you ever heard of anyone appearing out of thin air before? Outside of movies and comic books? It—it’s ridiculous.”
Mr. Murphy shakes his head. “While the idea itself does appear far-fetched, and quite obviously defies the basic laws of physics, I’m afraid to say that the other parts of his story do add up.” His expression grows stern, and my heart seizes. “For example, when I asked Vanessa Liu about you, she recalls you being in Henry Li’s room at around midnight. But Mina Huang tells me you left shortly after Vanessa—at a time that coincides with a mysterious knock Jake Nguyen received on his door—and did not return at any point. As another example,” he goes on, listing each point off with his fingers, “I’ve contacted the hotel for security footage, and they noticed something rather...peculiar. That is, there’s no record of you entering Room 2005 at all, yet somehow, you were seenleavingthe room with Peter.”
If I wasn’t so concerned about being expelled or sent to jail, I might actually be impressed by Mr. Murphy’s detective work right now.
He sighs. “See, I don’t believe in supernatural abilities, Alice, and I don’t want to believe that you would be the type of person to commit such a crime. There is also something to be said about the fact that, regardless of what happened prior, you did help Peter escape in the end...”
