Mouth bitter, Aiden took out the photograph of Hui Ye, tracing his brother’s smile.How could you just leave me like this?The thin paper crinkled beneath the stress of his fingers. He watched the smile warp into Hui Ye’s ever-infuriating smirk, reminding Aiden again of the strangers in their living room begging for mercy.
With body burning of fury, he stored Hui Ye away. He made his way up the stairs where his stepmother waited with her arms crossed.
“Will you hurry up?” she hissed, snatching his arm and dragging him into the living room. Mr. Zhou waited with an impeccably tailored suit, a pin of the Zhou family surname, and a tightly fitted tie around his thick neck. He looked pointedly down toward Aiden.
Aiden willed himself to stare back, swallowing. “Mr. Zhou,” he said smoothly.
Mr. Zhou gestured. “In the car,” his voice rumbled. “You get instructions at the manor.”
“Yes, sir.” Aiden followed the humongous man out. Outside, a driver smoked by a Mercedes. He snuffed out the cigarette when Mr. Zhou approached. With his hand resting carefully on the handle of a gun, the guard patted Aiden down, checked Aiden’s wallet, and glared at the photograph he kept of his brother.
Even so, the driver mercifully didn't remark on the picture. He returned the wallet to Aiden and said, “He’s clear,” to Mr. Zhou in Chinese.
Once the car lurched forward, Aiden stopped counting his breathing. Hands cold and clammy, gasps escaping, and world tilting, he spent the rest of the ride trying to remember Hui Ye’s lessons and failing to recall a single word.
The Zhou family manor came to view.
• • •
“No questions. No complaints. Your stepmother said the best way to train you is to get you started on the easier stuff. You should thank her wisdom and mercy in dealing with you.”
Mr. Zhou led Aiden to his office, where a stack of papers waited. The man tossed the papers to the ground and left the room with his hands held tightly behind his back. Aiden fell to his knees, scrambling for the scattered paper. He checked the first item on the list of to-dos.
Carrying items from the garage to the designated storage room.
The man provided him no map, no further instructions, and no one to rely on. People roamed the halls dressed smartly in suits, but they spared not even the slightest glance toward him. From dimly recalled childhood memories of those potlucks which he now knew were business meetings in the shadows, he remembered the entire Zhou family resided in this home. In those memories, the manor was easy to navigate with simple turns and rooms close by.
By the time he found the garage and the pile of boxes he needed to move, he was too tired to think about which set of hallways might have led him to the garage in the first place.
I must’ve walked through this entire house.Right, left, right. Or right, right, and left? He played a game of chance with every hallway explored, feeling one of his hands against the walls like he was blind every few seconds as if it would somehow magically give him directions. Dark wallpaper with white outlined roses lined the cold manor, and they loomed with the lack of paintings hanging.
Aiden was panting by the time he found the storage room. His shoulders burned from the boxes that towered above his head. Skipping backward on one foot, heart racing at watching the boxes teeter, he kicked the storage door open to abnormal walls of metal.
The scent of bleach flew up his nose. Chilling air stung his face.
He gripped the boxes tighter so as not to drop them in the shock.Don’t think. Just do what you’re being told. Get it over with. This could’ve been worse.
His hands threatened to drop everything, and his legs begged to race away despite his commands.
He dashed out of the cursed room, slamming the storage room shut. Gasping, Aiden looked at his next assignment. “Organize the files in the library.” The same wallpaper leered at him with every turn of the hallway. Up the stairs, down the stairs, left and right he wandered. He observed the doors, the only unique indicator in the existence of the manor. Metal doors, wooden doors, and painted doors, he noted, stared at them and memorized their surfaces. After passing a door with slightly peeling paint three times, exasperation overtook him. He collapsed to the ground, staring at the list.
“Organize the files in the library,” he read underneath his breath. He willed his legs to stand, but his body refused to move against the burn. If only he could find the library. If only he knew where every room was located in this house.If only…
Yin Mei’s ghostly disappointed eyes stared a hole in the back of his head. He Bao’s disdain and Zhu Zhu’s apathy hovered over him like a cloud. Groaning, Aiden forced himself to stand and searched the house fruitlessly for another hour before he found the so-called library: a tiny room with only three bookshelves.
Piles of papers waited for him. Joy he couldn’t understand burst from within. He collapsed onto the ground with a smile, reading and separating the paper into different piles. His feet burned even at the rest. Against his better judgment, Aiden looked at each paper slowly, relishing in the hard ground.From within the company,he read silently and placed it down on one pile.
Internal observations.
Aiden froze, staring at the notes written by one of the guards.
“Suspicious man lurking around the premise of the company’s building. Claimed to be lost and asked for directions to another corporation’s address. Either a federal agent or a remnant of the Guo family,” he read aloud. “Guo family.”
The kidnapper’s panicked eyes in Hong Kong flashed in his mind. “Tell me about the Guo family,” Aiden repeated the kidnapper’s questions to himself.Who is this Guo family that even Zhou is worried about?Before he could wonder more, a guard entered the room with clenched hands.
Without warning, he grabbed Aiden by the scruff of his neck and dragged him down the hall to Mr. Zhou’s office. Aiden hid his hiss of pain to himself, falling to the ground. He grasped at the carpeted floor, braced his body, and sat up with his head lowered. The list of tasks fell from his hands to the ground.
The guard picked up the list and handed it to Mr. Zhou.
