Chapter 234: We’re All Starving

Jingwei watched the boy reach for his mother.

He was small enough that the man behind him could hold him in place with one hand, and his sandals dragged over the entrance mat whenever he tried to move.

The knife remained beside the man’s thigh, but the woman had seen it. She stopped struggling and began speaking to him, her words coming too quickly for Jingwei to follow through the microphone.

The former employee turned toward the child, then looked back at the mobile base. He no longer bothered to smile.

"You can end this without anyone getting hurt," the former employee said. He spread his hands toward the hotel as though offering them something reasonable. "We only want you to open the rooms."

Jingwei glanced at Hanchuan.

His friend was watching the man with the knife, his expression unchanged. Behind them, Qinghe had leaned forward, but he remained in his seat. Nobody asked Zhiyi to find a way to open the shelter.

"Let the boy go," Hanchuan said through the speaker. "We aren’t opening anything while you’re threatening people."

The former employee shook his head and pointed toward the rear wing again. Jingwei let him keep talking while he studied the doorway.

The older man who had been standing at the window was gone, and the people behind the glass were moving farther into the lobby. They had seen what was happening and knew enough to get away from it.

The boy’s mother called his name. He pulled harder toward her, and the man holding him bent to say something near his ear. Jingwei’s hand settled around his rifle.

"I can see him clearly from the side window," Jingwei told Hanchuan quietly. "Keep the others where they are."

Hanchuan looked at him for a moment, then stepped aside.

He didn’t ask whether Jingwei was certain or offer to do it himself. Jingwei was grateful for that as he moved from his seat, carrying the rifle low enough that the men outside wouldn’t see it immediately.

Zhiyi looked up as he passed. Her hand rested on Shichen’s arm, and her face was pale, but she met Jingwei’s eyes without trying to stop him.

He continued toward the window, aware of the six people inside the vehicle and the locked rooms beyond the courtyard.

Opening either would put all of them within reach of men who had brought out a child to get what they wanted.

Outside, the former employee grew impatient.

"Are you listening to me?" the former employee demanded. He came through the open gate, taking several steps toward the windshield. "Tell whoever has the keys to get out. We don’t need all of you."

Hanchuan stayed at the microphone while Jingwei opened the narrow side window. Hot air rushed against his face, carrying the smell of burned wood and rubbish left too long in the sun.

He had expected it to sting his skin more than it did, but his attention was already on the hotel entrance.

"Nobody is getting out," Hanchuan replied. "Tell your friend to put the knife down and step away from the boy."

The man at the doorway heard him. His mouth twisted, and he lifted the knife toward the child while the woman screamed.

Jingwei fired before the blade reached him.

The man fell backward against the door, pulling the boy off balance before his hand slipped from the child’s shoulder.

The boy landed on his knees and scrambled toward his mother. For a moment, everyone else seemed to freeze around him.

Then one of the men holding the woman reached beneath his shirt.

Hanchuan’s shot came from the front of the vehicle.

The man dropped beside the awning, and his companion released the woman so abruptly that she stumbled. She caught herself against the wall, ran to her son, and folded over him with both arms around his head.

Jingwei kept his rifle raised while the surviving man backed into the lobby. At the gate, the former employee had stopped with his hands half lifted.

The gatekeeper crouched behind the stone post, leaving his companion alone in the driveway.

"Keep your hands where we can see them," Hanchuan told the former employee. "If you reach into your clothes, I’ll assume you’re reaching for a weapon."

The man spread his fingers and lifted both arms.

His face had gone slack with shock, and he looked back at the doorway as though the men on the ground might get up again. Jingwei watched him while his own breathing settled. He could still feel the rifle against his shoulder, but the child was moving beneath his mother’s hands.

Qinghe’s voice came through the exterior speaker.

"Take him behind the wall beside you," Qinghe told the woman. "Stay away from the men on the ground. Is he bleeding?"

The woman pulled back far enough to look at her son. She checked his face and shirt with shaking hands before drawing him toward the low garden wall.

He clung to her waist while she moved, and Qinghe had to repeat the question before she shook her head toward the vehicle.

Jingwei closed the window once Hanchuan had the driveway covered. His hearing felt muffled, and he wanted water, but he returned to the camera controls first.

The man who had fled into the lobby appeared at a side entrance and ran toward the ruined gardens without looking back.

"The one from the awning is leaving through the side," Jingwei told Hanchuan. He kept the camera on him until the building hid him. "I haven’t seen a weapon in his hands."

Hanchuan nodded without turning from the former employee. "Take off the keys and put them on the ground. Slowly."

The man obeyed, fumbling at the clip on his belt. When the keys fell, he flinched at the sound and raised his hands again.

"I didn’t tell him to bring out the boy," the former employee said. His voice had become thin, and he kept looking between Hanchuan and the hotel. "You heard me. I was only asking you to open the rooms."

From behind the garden wall, the woman lifted her head. Her son’s face was pressed against her shoulder, and she kept one hand over his ear.

"You told him to fetch my son," the woman said. She spoke loudly enough for everyone in the courtyard to hear. "You said I’d learn to keep my mouth shut."

The former employee turned toward her, anger briefly overtaking his fear. Jingwei saw it disappear when he remembered the rifles.

The woman rose with the boy held against her, then pointed toward the keys lying in the driveway.

"Don’t let him take those," the woman told them. "The square one opens the kitchen storeroom. Make him show you what’s inside before he tells you we were all starving."