Chapter 42: A Thread at Each Door

Lili evacuated the school with three clipboards, two borrowed vans, and a refusal to let any police officer write a student's home address on an unsecured page. "They have names and phone numbers," Hollis said. "They can have my phone number." "We already have your phone number." "Then use it. Their mothers trust me, and they don't know you." Neither of them got a smile from Dehai. He stood on the damaged training floor while parents carried out sparring pads, medicine kits, and boxes of uniforms. The city had condemned the rear half of the building until an engineer examined the cracked support. Classes would move to a municipal recreation room Lili had obtained before sunrise. No one called it temporary in front of Dehai. Mo lifted a crate from beneath the admissions counter. The weight pulled across the old seam below his ribs. His qi remained a shallow warmth,…