LESS THAN TWO MILES AWAY, the filthy-rich wastrels headed indoors, drenched from head to toe. At first, they’d said they wanted to drive off-road vehicles. Halfway through, they decided that wasn’t exciting enough and switched to dirt bikes. Now, after screaming their way around the mountain, they were all soaked.
Fei Du unbuttoned his collar, threw his helmet aside, and accepted a towel, then reached up to comb back his wet hair. He had to admit that death-defying entertainment was certainly cathartic.
“Fei-zong, you’re not leaving today, are you?”
The beautiful woman who’d handed him the towel was looking at him, her chin in hand. Her La Panthère perfume melded with the humid air and wafted straight toward Fei Du, intense but cold. The girl’s sophisticated aura contrasted with the adrenaline rush of racing in the rain, a temptation practically custom-made for Fei Du.
At his side, Zhang Donglai laughed like a hyena. Fei Du didn’t even need to wonder; he knew exactly who’d planned this.
Fei Du looked at the girl. Staying the night wouldn’t hurt, but for some reason, he just couldn’t summon any interest. The scent of La Panthère seemed to lack something wild. It was as though he was desperately craving ghost peppers and had instead been served a steak covered in black-pepper sauce. He ached, longing for something stronger, heavier; even if he couldn’t get it, he wouldn’t settle for less.
Thus, although he smiled at the girl politely, he pretended not to catch her hint. “I am, in fact. I have some business to take care of tomorrow morning, so I’ll have to go to work early. I’ll head back to the city in a bit.”
The girl looked a bit disappointed. “You made the trip all the way out here, and it’s so dark now—the roads would be difficult to navigate. It’d be dangerous to go back at this point.”
“More dangerous than riding a dirt bike in a thunderstorm? You know, I originally wasn’t even going to come today, but I somehow had the feeling that if I didn’t, I’d regret it.” Fei Du’s sweet, flirty remarks seemed to come out effortlessly as he gazed at the girl. “Seeing you, I know that my intuition was right. I don’t regret coming. It would’ve been worth it even if it’d been raining knives.”
The girl flushed at his gaze and failed to come up with a response.
Fei Du picked up a bowl of ginger tea. He’d just decided to leave after he finished it when the club owner came by. “Lord Fei, if you want to head back, please at least wait a while,” the owner said. “I hear the roads have been closed. Some madman has apparently hijacked a bus full of schoolkids and hidden somewhere in the area. They’ve sent the SWAT team out.”
✦ ✦ ✦
THE CRAZY HIJACKER stood guard over the bus’s only door with a machete in each hand. Unafraid, he pointed one blade each at the only two other adults. Then he threw an old dumbphone to Hu-laoshi. “I want you to call them now.”
Hu-laoshi glanced at the girl in the floral dress, then at the cowering driver. She slowly accepted the phone and the paper list of the students present, then dialed one of the parents. “Hello… Th-this is…the teacher in charge of the field trip, Hu Lingling. We were hijacked along the wa—ah!”
The hijacker poked the back of her neck with the tip of the machete. The sharp pain, and her cold sweat, played havoc with her nerves.
“Don’t say useless shit,” he ordered. “Just tell them I want cash. They can either pool their own funds or find a sucker with money. I want five million, brought to my chosen location before daylight. Once they have the money, I’ll tell them where to bring it. I don’t care if they want to contact the police. These kids are in my hands, and for every cop car I see, I’ll pick one of these brats off. And If I can’t run, I’ll bomb this bus. You’ll learn what ‘burnt to a crisp’ really means!”
✦ ✦ ✦
THE CALL CUT OFF with a click. Luo Wenzhou looked up.
“We’ve got a rough location, Boss,” Lang Qiao reported. “It matches the signal from the kid’s GPS shoes. How are we getting there?”
Luo Wenzhou thought for a moment. “How’s the investigation into the teacher and driver going?”
Lang Qiao froze. “Why? Didn’t they say they ran into the hijacker on the way…?”
“How would a lone hijacker know that the bus was full of kids? And even if he did, where’d he get the confidence to take on two adults alone?”
Lang Qiao’s expression turned horrified. At that moment, Tao Ran’s call came in. “Sergeant Luo, we’re looking into the driver, Han Jiang’s, home. He sold most of his furniture recently. His neighbors say he might be in debt from a gambling addiction.”
✦ ✦ ✦
HU LINGLING’S HEART RACED in her chest. The hijacker before her was gesturing smugly, his machete weaving through the air.
Things can’t continue like this, she thought, again meeting the eyes of the girl in the floral dress. The child seemed to understand her gaze. She curled up by the bus window, quietly cracked it open, triggered the alarm, and threw it outside.
When the sharp sound of a siren erupted next to the bus, the machete-wielding hijacker froze. Seizing the opportunity, Hu Lingling jumped up and threw herself at him. They rolled, grappling, out the half-open door of the bus. Ignoring the pain of the freezing blade slicing her body open, Hu Lingling yelled at the driver, “Get moving! Drive!”