Page 108 of Shadowing You

“How did you know we’d be here?” Mei Lin switched to English and addressed Ethan. “Did you call him?”

Renshu answered. “Someone told Bàba you were alive.”

That had her turning to Ethan. “You didn’t tell them?”

“I didn’t want to get their hopes up. Gavin filled them in.”

She leaned over the bench seat toward Renshu. “Bàba called you?”

Pastor Su answered, his English more broken than Renshu’s. “He call me. He say find somebody to help, so I call Renshu.”

“But…” She turned back to her brother, hope bubbling inside her. “You’re part of the church again?”

“No.” His lips compressed into a line as if the thought disgusted him.

“I knew he would protect you.” Pastor Su gave Renshu a warm look. “Give your sister and her husband what you brought.”

“I forgot.” Renshu reached toward his feet and came back with two large bottles of water and a canvas sack.

She handed one of the bottles to Ethan, who opened it and traded her for the closed one. They both drank deeply. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was.

She peeked inside the bag and found warm bao buns wrapped in foil and sweet pastries. “You might be stubborn, but you are still my favorite brother in the world.”

He almost smiled at that. “Lucky for you, I’m your only brother.”

“Very lucky for me. I couldn’t have handled two of you.” She handed Ethan one of the buns and took one for herself. “I’m glad you’re here.” She switched to Mandarin. “Ethan said you joined the Party.”

Her brother’s face was lined with too many wrinkles for his age. “We were told you died. How could you do that to our parents?”

The question was such a shock that it took her a moment to comprehend what he was asking. “You think I was hiding on purpose?”

“You were dead. Now you’re alive. Where have you been?”

“I was in prison.”

His black eyes seemed to darken. “For what charge?”

She couldn’t tell if Renshu was angry that she’d been accused of something, or angry with her for having broken the law.

Ethan gripped her hand and tugged her toward him, leaning close to her ear. “Be careful how much you tell him.”

Ethan didn’t trust Renshu, and maybe she shouldn’t either, considering he worked for the people who were searching for her now.

But he was her brother. She leaned forward again and explained what she’d discovered six years earlier and how she’d been incarcerated without a trial and without any charges.

“Somebody took a bribe,” Renshu said. “Who was this man breaking the law?”

“A doctor I worked for, Lu Feng.”

That had him squinting. “You’re wrong. Dr. Lu is well respected in China.”

“If he’s such a good man, then why did he have me thrown in jail?”

He brushed her question off with a wave of his hand, as if nothing she said mattered.

She’d always been the one who didn’t know anything in their family. Renshu was the smart one, the handsome one, the one her parents had paid to send to college. She’d fought so hard to study to be a nurse partly to prove to them and her brother that she was more than just a little sister, one to be married off to the first man who showed interest. She’d earned a scholarship to college.

Even so, to Renshu, she was still irrelevant.