Page 103 of Shadowing You

He pulled Mei Lin to a stop. “Do you have a plan from here?”

She looked from one end of the alley to the other. “They just said to come out and turn left. I don’t know where that’ll take us.”

“Let’s see what Alyssa says.”

She nodded, and they stood across from each other in the stinky space. He couldn’t speak for her, but standing still went against all his instincts.

“I think I know where you are. You should head to the left down the alley.”

“We did that.”

“Good. There’s a main road. You’ll have to cross it. I’ll tell you when.”

“Gotcha.” They jogged to the end. The alley ended at the lip of a busy street. He pulled up short in the shadow of the buildings behind his wife and waited. “We’re ready.”

A long pause, then, “Cross now,” Alyssa said.

They bolted across the street between a slowing truck and an oncoming scooter and reached another alley, as narrow as the first. They ran to the end, which opened in a neighborhood. The houses here were surrounded by walls. They stayed in the shadow of the taller buildings until they found an opening, then ran between two low walls and came out on the edge of a stand of trees.

He slowed and exhaled his relief.

Mei Lin stood beside him, one hand on a pine trunk, the other still wrapped around his.

“Alyssa,” he managed.

“Still here.”

“What now?”

“There’s a footpath.” Her voice was breaking up, the signal thinning. “Looks like a trail. Walk north until you hit it, then follow it east. It cuts through to the town where you’ll meet your contact.”

“How long?”

“It’s a few miles. Michael says not to dilly dally.”

Right. Because that’s what they’d been doing in China—dilly dallying. “We’re on our way. Thank you.”

“Sure.” A pause. Then, “Stay safe. We’re praying.” She ended the call.

He pocketed the phone, and they started up a small incline into the forest. He was happy to put that town behind them.

For a long stretch, the only sound was their breathing and their shoes on the needle-strewn ground. He kept waiting for shouts, but none came.

“What happened in that shop?” he asked after a while. “How did you know they were Christians?”

“I saw a picture on the wall.” She pushed the hair off her face. “A shepherd with a lamb, so I asked.”

“And she said yes, just like that?”

“Of course.” Mei Lin didn’t seem surprised, but Ethan was.

He thought about the cost of admitting to being a Christian in this country. Not to mention the cost of hiding two strangers being hunted by police.

Those strangers had saved them. If not for Mei Lin, they’d have been caught.

If not for Alyssa watching on the other side of the world, he and Mei Lin might still be searching for a way out of the city. Or they’d both be in handcuffs.

At the hospital in Virginia, Ethan was the senior resident in his department, responsible for managing the chaos of the ER. Here, he was a foreigner who didn’t speak the language and couldn’t tell friend from foe.