“Luke?” I repeat. The name doesn’t ring any bells at all, but I remember how Ares had trailed off before. “To protect . . . ,”he’d started. Was that who he was talking about? Why his father had signed him up for boxing? “I didn’t even realize he had a brother. He doesn’t go to Airington, does he?”
“No. They filed a missing person report for him three years ago, and they still haven’t found him. Qin, are yousureyou want to be with him?” Jamie says suddenly. “Because, like, not going to lie, his whole family situation sounds super messed up.”
I’m not sure of anything anymore, but there’s this pull in my gut, a suspicion that I might have just found a critical piece to the puzzle I’ve been trying to solve since that first night.Luke. Missing person report. Three years ago.
But the more pieces I collect, the more terrified I am of how the picture will look once it’s finally complete.
After I hang up, I walk down to the lake alone.
On the outside, the park appears so blissfully normal. The aunties heading home on their electric bikes, pink scarves wrapped around their necks to fend off the evening chill, their arms practically melded to the front handle underneath thick polka-dotted blankets. The more sociable aunties practicing the choreography for their courtyard dance routine, gossiping with each other about someone called Lao Wang and Xiao Li and their new son-in-law as they swing their hips and swish their fans. The old men huddled underneath the cool white glow of the streetlights. Navy caps on, sometimes a pipe dangling between their teeth, faces somber with concentration as they watch a game of Chinese chess unfold over stone boards, hands behind their backs except to point out an obvious move.
Then I arrive at the lake’s edge, waiting. Watching. At first I can only see the moonlight pooling over the water, but when the moon reaches its highest point, the illusion of normalcy shatters.
I suck in a breath as the silver light ripples against the darkness, strange shapes emerging over the surface.
My heart strains against my chest, everything in my body suspended with both horror and hope.Please,I pray. I want so desperately to believe that the vision has changed already, that it’ll show me dancing at prom instead, smiling up at Ares, crowns gleaming on our heads. That after spending all that time with him, after the way he’d watched me while I tried on the dress, after the puppy, and the dinner, there’s a chance he’ll come around....
But then the shapes clarify slowly into the vision from my nightmares, and my stomach drops. Whatever I’ve done, it wasn’t enough. It’s still the same house engulfed in smoke and fire. The vision is even clearer than before. There are now two new figures in the periphery of the frame.
A middle-aged man with a crescent-shaped scar on his cheek, and a younger boy, standing next to him, his features twisted with panic. Maybe fourteen or fifteen at most. He looks familiar, though I’m certain I’ve never met this boy in my life.
The man looks familiar too, but in a different way. Like a face from a magazine cover or an old photo, someplace I’ve seen before... but where? He’s around my dad’s age, and from his suit-and-tie look, he would certainly fit into one of his circles. He could be any of the businessmen I’ve made small talk with at my dad’s functions.
Maybe that, then?
I inch closer to the lake until my feet are perched on the very edge, trying to commit the man’s face to memory—and to look for more clues, anything that will help me make sense of this.
But all I can focus on is the crimson moon, hanging in the sky like a blood-stained clock. A reminder that I have just a couple weeks left.
Mere weeks to completely alter my fate.
Mere weeks to stop Ares.
That night, I fall onto my bed, my stomach pressed flat against the duvet, and open up a new chat with Ares. Normally, I would wait longer after adding a guy on WeChat before messaging him, to avoid seeming too eager, but I can’t afford to waste any time.
I stare at the blank square of Ares’s profile, my thumbs hovering over the screen, my pulse thrumming. I shouldn’t be nervous.It’s just a message, and I’ve already planned out what I’m going to say, right down to the punctuation.
But I still find myself taking in a deep, shaky breath before typing out:
hey, have u seen my bracelet??
Then I quickly hit Sendbefore I can overthink it.
I’m rewarded at once with the familiar chime of the WeChat notification. A grin flashes across my face—until I read his reply.
Just two words:what bracelet?
Not the most enthusiastic, sure.But,I reason with myself,a reply is still a reply. Now it’s my move again. I can’t reply rightaway, though—it would make it seem like I’ve been waiting around for him with my phone glued to my hand like some sort of lovesick loser without better things to do.
And Idohave better—or at least more pressing—things to do. So I force myself to set my phone down flat on the pillow and head into the living room. I crouch down by the cabinets, rifling through them until I find what I’m looking for: our photo album collection. With an unpleasant pang that feels too close to nostalgia, I remember my dad’s insistence that physical photos justfeelbetter than scrolling through images on a phone screen.
I’d made fun of him for it before, but I have to admit that I’m glad to have the albums here, each of them neatly and methodically labeled by hand, the blue ink starting to fade in places.Chanel Childhood Photos Ages 0 to 3. Honeymoon Trip One. Honeymoon Trip Two. Honeymoon Trip Three. Family Photos. Cao Yunchen’s Business Photos 2015 to 2019. Modeling Photos 2015 to 2016. High School Photos.
My fingers brush over theFamily Photosalbum. I shouldn’t, it’ll only make me feel worse, but I flip it open to a random page, and my throat tightens painfully. It’s a photo of the three of us right here, in this living room. Sunlight shining through the curtains. I’m still a chubby-cheeked baby, cradled in my mother’s arms, and the house looks new. Cardboard boxes are open around us, packing paper and pieces of Styrofoam on the hardwood floors. Just moved in. My parents appear even happier than I remember. Younger too. So in love I can’t fathom how it could’ve ended. But this house—it had been around to witness that love. It’s the last survivor of their marriage, the lastphysical, tangible reminder that I used to belong to an actual family, a holder of our best memories and brightest years. To think of the house burning down, everything destroyed—
I swallow, and with a greater sense of urgency, I look through every single one ofCaoYunchen’sBusiness Photos.The images blur together: my dad clinking tiny baijiu glasses across banquet tables, standing somewhat stiffly in a row of men his age. But none of them looks exactly like the man from the vision.
Had I gotten it wrong somehow? Only imagined that I’d seen him before? But I’ve always been good with faces and names. Kind of have to be, to avoid offending new fake friends at parties. And my instincts have never failed me before....
