: Chapter 19

“Andrew. Glad you got my message.”

Andrew She almost falls out of his chair when he sees me enter the school conference room. He’s seated at a giant oval table meant for at least eight people, but right now, it’s only the two of us in here. Just like I wanted. The place is perfect for private conversation; we’re far away from the classrooms, the door is shut, the entire room windowless, and the overhead heater is blasting loud enough to mask what should be a very interesting conversation.

“Alice,” Andrew croaks. Licks his lips. “What—what are you doing here? I thought you’d left the school.”

I don’t say anything. I grab the chair opposite him, cross my arms over my chest, and wait for my sentence to register. Watch him as he squirms.

One, two, three—

“Hang on.” His brows pull together until they’ve practically formed a single line, a dark slash over his forehead. “You were the one who messaged me? But I thought Henry—”

“Well, obviously you wouldn’t have come if you knew that I wanted to see you.” My words hang heavy in the air between us, and I’m both surprised and kind of thrilled by how threatening I sound. I’m not even acting, really; the anger comes easily. All I need is to think about Andrew’s kidnapping request and the fact that he’s been hanging out at school as if everything’s normal, as if he’s innocent, while I’ve been sobbing alone in my room. “Did you get an email from the school, too?”

Andrew’s eyes go very round—then they narrow. “Yeah. I did. The school told me all about your accusations.” He shakes his head. “I—I can’t believe you lied about the app.”

“It wasn’t exactly a lie,” I reason, leaning forward and propping both elbows on the table. I may or may not have Googled best power stances on the car ride here with Henry, and he may or may not have laughed at me. But it seems to be working. “You literally hired me to kidnap Peter.”

“You—you were the one who kidnapped him.”

“Only under your orders,” I shoot back. “I may be complicit, but you’re the one who’s guilty.”

“As if. My family lawyer will be the judge of that.”

“No. They won’t be.”

Andrew blinks at me, his face going slack for a second. Clearly, he was expecting the fancy lawyer card alone to shut me up. Rich people can be so predictable sometimes.

“I have the right to sue you for false accusations,” he insists, though he already sounds more uncertain than he was earlier. “We could launch an in-depth investigation.”

“You could,” I agree, shifting into another one of the Top Ten Most Effective Power Stances of All Time, “but I personally wouldn’t.”

“What…”

With two fingers, I pull out the BMW keys I’ve been keeping in my pocket and hold them up in plain view, letting the shiny metal catch the artificial lights. Andrew’s face pales. The heater above us roars louder.

“Your men dropped these the other night,” I say pleasantly.

His mouth opens and closes like a goldfish. “Where did you—” He cuts himself off. Taps his nails on the polished table surface, eyes flicking away. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. You can’t really prove the car—”

“Can’t I? What if I matched up the keys to the license plate N150Q4?” I speak over him, savouring the look on Andrew’s face when he recognizes the number. Wow, this feels even better than answering a Kahoot question correctly in front of the class. “Between that, the message you sent me on Beijing Ghost, and the lawyer Henry’s going to lend me, the evidence is kind of stacked against you.”

“Whoa, wait—he’s going to lend you a lawyer? Henry Li? You?” Andrew looks like he’s only just now realizing the nature of my relationship with Henry, and hates himself for the oversight.

I shrug. “Well, Henry’s company has twelve lawyers. All graduates from Harvard, Tsinghua, or Peking University. He can definitely spare one if things get messy for me.”

A dark vein jumps in Andrew’s forehead. He’s sweating profusely—from the heat or nerves, I can’t tell. Maybe both.

Either way, I seize the chance to keep talking. “Look, Andrew, I’m short on time, so I’ll just spell it out for you. If you take this to court, or sue me—if you dare try to absolve yourself of this crime—you’re most definitely going to lose. You’re also definitely going to waste time and money and resources—”

“So would you,” Andrew interjects.

“I know,” I say, keeping my voice level. “But I don’t have an important company position to worry about. If this case were to blow up, and news were to get out that you and your father hired someone to kidnap a child just to secure a promotion… Well, it wouldn’t look too good for you, would it?”

“No.” He shakes his head. More sweat forms along his hairline, trickles down his cheek. “No. No. That’s not…” He trails off and stills, as if something’s just occurred to him. Looks up at me. “You had other clients for Beijing Ghost, didn’t you?”

“What of it?”

“They’d be able to prove you’re lying. Beijing Ghost wasn’t a study app—it was a criminal app. With them backing me up—”

“Do you know how much dirt I have on the kids in our year level?” I raise my eyebrows. Did you seriously think I wouldn’t have thought of this beforehand? I add in my head. “Even if I didn’t blackmail them, do you expect them to willingly reveal to the school or the police the sort of things they hired me for?”

His nostrils flare, lips setting into a sullen line. I’m right, and he knows it. He looks so defeated, so helpless, with his massive frame hunched over the low table, that for a moment I almost feel bad for him.

Almost.

“Fine, fine, fine. You’ve made your point,” he finally mutters. “What do you want me to do?”

I try not to show how weird this new dynamic is to me; I’m always the one doing what others want, the one desperate enough to agree to pretty much anything.

“Just go along with my story,” I instruct. My mouth feels dry all of a sudden, likely in anticipation of what’s to come. I wish I’d remembered to bring a bottle of water. There were so many in the back of Henry’s company car. “A representative from the school board will be meeting with us soon.”

He frowns. “Soon? How soon?”

I grab my phone and fire a quick text at Henry: All done. He responds immediately with a thumbs-up. “As in…now.”

Right on cue, the conference room doors swing wide open, and Henry and Chanel stride in like characters from a movie scene. Seriously. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were moving toward me in slow motion, and dramatic music started swelling in the background. Since school has technically ended by this hour, they’re both wearing their own clothes, instead of uniforms. Henry looks distractingly attractive, dressed in the kind of crisp, tailored black suit that wouldn’t make him seem out of place on Wall Street, and Chanel has on this elaborate, shoulder-padded blazer with gold buttons.

Next to them, my discount supermarket sweater must look even cheaper and sadder than usual—which is the whole point. When I messaged Chanel today about helping out at this meeting, I’d asked her to dress as nicely as she could, and made the same request of Henry.

For my plan to work, I need to swallow my pride and really lean into the desperate-student-attempted-crime-just-to-survive look.

On the heels of Henry and Chanel, a woman who can only be Madam Yao, representative of the school board, makes her entrance. She doesn’t so much walk as glide into the conference room, her movements streamlined like a shark in water. Everything about her is elegant, unnervingly precise—from the string of delicate pearls arranged around her neck and her silver-streaked gravity-defying bob, to the hard angles and creases of her unsmiling face.

Even in heels, she’s shorter than I am, yet she manages to tower over everyone as she moves to take her seat at the head of the table, barely even reacting when Henry helps pull out the chair for her like the gentleman he is.

For a long time, she doesn’t speak. Just fixes each of us with her cold black gaze—first Andrew, then Chanel and Henry, who are both now standing close by my side, then finally…me.

Despite the hot air blasting through the vents at full force, my teeth chatter violently.

“Sun Yan, was it?” she says, breaking the silence at last. Her accent is part British, part Malaysian, and something else I can’t quite identify. All I know is that she looks and sounds like old money, and that she probably already hates me. “I believe we corresponded over email.”

“Yes.” I try to match her formal tone. “Thank you for your prompt response.”

She ignores me.

“And this…” She turns to Andrew, who immediately stiffens in his seat. “This is Andrew She? The student who reached out via the study application named Beijing Ghost, and offered money in exchange for the execution of the kidnapping?”

I shoot Andrew a quick, warning look.

He pouts, but nods once. “Y-yeah. That’s me.”

“Well.” Madam Yao sniffs. “I do wish we didn’t have to meet in these unfortunate circumstances. The school board is deeply disappointed in both of you, you know. It is difficult enough running one of the top schools in Beijing without having to deal with a major potential lawsuit. Peter’s parents are still very angry, as I’m sure you can imagine, and someone is going to have to take full responsibility. After all, Airington would never condone such lowly criminal behavior.”

I doubt it’s a coincidence that her eyes land on me. The easy target. The only one who isn’t paying full school fees, who doesn’t have the ability to donate entire school buildings. Despite Andrew’s confession, it’s still more convenient for the school if I’m guilty, rather than him.

I grit my teeth. If I’m honest, part of me had been hoping to settle all of this in a polite, nonconfrontational fashion, but I guess that’s off the table. Madam Yao can’t even look at me without looking down on me.

Time to go on the offensive.

“Someone should take responsibility,” I agree with forced calm. “Which reminds me—did you read the article I sent you?”

Her voice is cold. “I don’t see how that’s relevant right now.”

“Don’t you?” It goes against my every instinct to talk to an authority figure like this, but I plough on. “Because the article should offer a vastly different perspective on the events leading up to the kidnapping. My perspective. If it were published, who do you think the public would side with? The working-class girl who resorted to helping her rich classmate pull off a crime just to pay for school, or the classmate who devised the whole thing for personal gain, and yet was still given the benefit of the doubt by everyone in charge?”

Madam Yao’s thin lips press together until they’re almost white. Yeah, she definitely hates me.

“I bet people would also find it interesting,” I continue, “that I was put in such a difficult position to begin with. I mean, Airington’s second main school objective is that it’s accessible for all, right? That it welcomes students from different backgrounds? Yet you have a twenty-million-RMB mini golf course and only one scholarship offer for the entire student body. And it’s not even a full scholarship. Do you even realize how much money 150,000 RMB is? How long it’d take for anyone below the upper middle class to earn that?”

The more I speak, the angrier I get, and the steadier my voice grows. I think of all the people like me, like Lucy Goh or Evie Wu or even the young woman from the restaurant with Chanel’s father. The neglected ones, the unlucky ones, the ones who want more than they’ve been given. The ones who have to crawl and scrape and fight their way up from the very bottom, who have to game a system designed for them to lose. Always the first to be punished and blamed when things go wrong. Always the last to be seen, to be saved.

And I know that’s not going to change within a matter of days or even years, but maybe it can start with something like this: with me, sitting across from Madam Yao, Henry and Chanel positioned by my side, wrestling back power from the powerful bit by bit by bit.

“You believe that someone should take responsibility,” Madam Yao says stiffly, when I pause to take a breath. “But based on what I’m hearing now, and what I’ve read, you don’t think that someone should be you, correct?”

I lay my palms flat on the table. “Look, I’m not saying that I’m completely innocent, or that I’m the victim here. I made some wrong choices, and I’m genuinely sorry Peter’s injured. It should never have gone that far. However,” I add, before she can try to twist my words again, “I am saying that this case should be handled fairly, and that the consequences should be proportionate to our actions, not our places in society.”

“Of course we’d handle it fairly,” Madam Yao says, in such a dismissive way she might as well outright state she’s lying. “But even if we didn’t, do you really expect a single unpublished article to sway our opinion?”

Chanel snorts.

Madam Yao’s eyes flicker up to her. “Is there something funny, Ms. Cao?”

All things considered, I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that Madam Yao has no problem identifying Chanel right away, but it still makes my fingers curl.

“Oh, nothing, really,” Chanel replies, her voice breezy. “But I wouldn’t underestimate the power of a single article if I were you. Don’t you know how easy it is for things to go viral these days? Especially when they’re posted onto a platform with twenty million active followers?”

At last, a small crack in Madam Yao’s stony mask. “I’m afraid you will have to be more specific. What is this…platform you are speaking of?”

Henry steps in, his arm resting deliberately on the back of my chair: a casual reminder to everyone that he’s on my side. “Well, as you may know, Madam Yao, my father runs the biggest tech start-up in all of China.” For once, I don’t correct him with second biggest. “We have a mass following across our many apps, as well as various social media accounts. Connections to the media. Resources we could access in an instant…”

“And not to brag, but we’re both kind of popular in our social circles,” Chanel chimes in, smiling sweetly. “I know like, forty international kids from my school in Australia who are thinking of coming back to Beijing to study. I was planning on recommending Airington to them and their families, but now, seeing the way you’re treating my dear friend Alice… I’m not so sure.”

“I’m not so sure, either,” Henry says, all solemn, and I have to swallow back a bubble of hysterical laughter at the look on Madam Yao’s face. Her lips are almost invisible. “My father and I may be forced to reconsider whether Airington even deserves all those donated buildings. In fact, I don’t know if I want to stay at a school that favors some students over others.”

“I’m also not sure,” Andrew offers. Everyone turns to stare at him. “What?” he says defensively, sliding lower in his seat. “I thought we were doing a thing.”

“Yeah, and you just ruined the thing, Andrew.” Chanel rolls her eyes. “You’re not part of this.”

Andrew scowls. “I’m never part of anything.”

“Well, maybe if you stopped hiring people to kidnap your classmates…” Chanel mutters.

“I obviously wouldn’t have had to hire anyone if I were in like, a squad,” Andrew protests. “I bet the members of BTS could just call each other to help out with that kind of stuff.”

“Andrew,” Henry says on an exasperated sigh. “You have grossly misunderstood the point Chanel was trying to make.”

“As well as like, the general situation,” Chanel adds.

Madam Yao clears her throat loudly.

“Right. So sorry, Madame Yao,” Chanel says, applying just enough sarcasm to her voice to get away with it. “Back to what we were saying—”

Madam Yao raises one pale manicured hand in the air. A ridiculously large emerald ring gleams on her middle finger, beneath a thin band of sparkling diamonds. “You’ve said quite enough, Ms. Cao. All of you have.”

“And?” Chanel prompts, totally unfazed. “What do you think?”

I hold my breath, my heart punching my ribs.

I’m only around seventy-eight percent certain how Madam Yao will respond, which, statistically speaking, isn’t the best odds. But if there’s anything I’ve learned from my time running Beijing Ghost, it’s that the people here care about reputation above all else. Reputation is currency, a source of power. The same way that money is only valuable because everyone deems it so, Airington is only considered elite and exclusive because rich parents keep wanting to send their kids here.

That would change pretty quickly if we made good on our threats.

“I think,” Madam Yao begins, her words laced with equal parts venom and resignation, “that Sun Yan here has proven just how…important she is to the Airington student body, and how much she has to say on the subject. The school board will review her and Andrew’s involvement in the kidnapping accordingly. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” The chair squeaks as she pushes back her seat and rises, straightening her already-immaculate silk blouse with a grimace. “It appears I have a few calls to make.”

And just like that, she’s off, her kitten heels clacking every step of the way to the door.

Once she leaves, the temperature in the room seems to warm by a few degrees. I stretch in my seat and exhale a long, tired breath. I hadn’t realized how tense my muscles were until now.

Andrew looks around at us hopefully. “So, uh, do you guys want to hang out for a bit or—”

“Andrew, again, you’re not part of this,” Chanel interrupts, hands on her hips. “And shouldn’t you be, like, taking this time to reflect on your actions?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he grumbles, his face falling. “Kidnapping is bad. Being a criminal is rough. Never hire smart people to do your dirty work for you.”

Henry pinches the bridge of his nose. “Please just go.”

As Andrew slides out of his chair, still sulking and muttering under his breath the whole time, I turn to Henry and Chanel.

“Thank you guys so much,” I say, instantly hating how awkward I sound. “It really… It means a lot. And Chanel—I’m sorry to have messaged you so last-minute. And for kind of ghosting you these past few weeks. I swear I—”

“Alice. Oh my god.” Chanel shakes her head at me with a kind of affectionate incredulity. “We barely even did anything except flex a little. You’re the one who came up with this whole idea and wrote the article and all that. Besides,” she adds, her voice growing serious, “it’s pretty fucked-up how the school was treating you. If I’d known earlier…”

“You couldn’t have. I didn’t want you to.”

She sighs. “Well, at least now we do. Henry and I have both been worried as hell about you, you know.” She pauses and nudges Henry, who pointedly looks away. “Especially Henry. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so distracted in class before. He even answered wrong to a basic chemistry question that I knew.”

I raise my brows, a slow smile rising to my face. “Really?”

Henry makes a low, noncommittal noise with the back of his throat. Busies himself adjusting the cuffs of his sleeves.

I won’t lie, the suit really does look good on him. It doesn’t hurt that he just threatened one of the most powerful people in Airington for my sake. And when he finally meets my gaze, crow-black curls falling just over his brows, biting his lower lip, something fills the tight space between my ribs. A lovely pain, a tender ache that feels suspiciously close to longing. Not just that, but… For the first time since our Experiencing China trip ended, I allow myself to acknowledge how much I’ve missed him. God, I’ve missed him. I somehow still do, even though he’s standing right in front of me.

I must’ve zoned out of the conversation, because the next thing I know, Chanel’s grinning at me like she can tell exactly what I’m thinking, and Henry’s saying, “Do you want to go home now?” and I feel kind of dizzy. My whole body feels overheated, like a laptop that’s been left charging for way too long. Electricity courses through my veins.

Do I want to go home now?

“No. Not yet,” I say, more sharply than I mean to. Henry tenses, his expression bemused. Chanel merely winks. “Just—just come with me.”

Without another word, I grab Henry by the wrist and lead him out the building, across the empty courtyard, and into the shelter of a small pavilion well concealed by the school gardens. Pale chrysanthemums bloom from the shadows like fresh snow, almost the same shade as the pagoda’s five tall pillars.

I push Henry against the closest one, bracketing his body with my own.

This isn’t like me at all.

My heart’s beating at twice its usual rate, and I know I’m not thinking clearly, that there’s too much adrenaline and euphoria left over in my bloodstream from the meeting, but right now, I don’t care. I truly don’t care, and it’s kind of terrifying.

It’s also kind of thrilling.

“Okay,” I say, because I know Henry’s waiting for me to speak. To explain. “Okay, so here’s the thing: There’s no guarantee what decision the school board’s going to reach in the end, right? And there’s no guarantee when or where we’ll see each other again, or if I’ll even be allowed back on school grounds, so I just think… Well, I’ve been thinking about it for a while now, but I guess I was in denial, or just scared…” I pause, scrambling for the right words. If the right words even exist for this strange heat inside my chest. “There’s so much out of our control, but I can control what I do now, with you, or else I’ll probably kick myself for it later. You know what I mean?”

We’re standing so close that I can feel Henry’s muscles tense as I wait for his answer, hear the subtle shift in his breathing. After what seems like an excruciatingly long pause, he replies, “I…do not have the faintest clue what you’re saying.”

I bite back a frustrated sigh and look at him. Really look at him, at the rare hints of uncertainty mixed with amusement in his elegant features, at the slight part of his lips, the scorching black of his eyes.

Dimly, I remember myself thinking not too long ago that we could never kiss. Something about stubbornness. Something about discipline. I remember thinking a month ago about how much I hated him, how I couldn’t bear to even be in the same room as him.

Now I can’t bear the few inches of distance between us.

“You know what? I’m just going to go ahead with it,” I decide out loud.

Henry freezes and stares at me as if I’m speaking another language. “With what?”

“This.”

I draw in a sharp breath. Focus on his lips.

Then, before I can lose my nerve, I seize Henry Li’s collar and kiss him.

Or rather, I sort of smash my face against his, which is exactly as smooth and romantic as it sounds. I don’t even have time to register how it feels when he jerks his head back with a muffled yelp.

I release him, mortified, and see him raising one finger to the corner of his mouth, a stunned expression on his face. Both his lips and ears are tinged red. “Alice. You just bit me.”

Well, shit.

“I—I’m so sorry,” I babble, fighting the urge to flee to the other end of the universe. Oh my god. Why did I just do that? What was I thinking? Why am I even alive right now? “I swear I wasn’t—It didn’t—”

I break off when I see Henry double over, his shoulders shaking. For one horrifying, heart-stopping moment, I’m scared I might’ve actually caused some severe tissue damage.

Then I realize that he’s laughing.

All my concern boils into indignation.

“It’s not funny,” I protest, my cheeks hot, my voice coming out embarrassingly shrill. “This—this was meant to be a very serious, touching moment, and you were meant to fall desperately in love with me on the spot and discover how good I am—”

The rest of my words die on my tongue as Henry straightens, laughter still dancing in his eyes, cups my face in one hand, and presses his lips against mine.

This time, I do register the kiss, everything from the warmth of his skin to the brush of his lashes when he closes his eyes and—

Wow.

It’s nothing like the way they describe it in the movies, like all the stars aligning and fireworks exploding across an ink-black sky. It feels both quieter and bigger than that, as simple as coming home and as dizzying and all-encompassing as the wind rushing in around us. It feels like a thousand banished and buried moments have been building up to this—to us alone and untethered and weak with wanting—and maybe they have.

A low, embarrassing sound escapes the base of my throat.

Henry responds by leaning deeper into the kiss, and the world goes hazy. All I can think about is his lips, so devastatingly soft on mine, and his hands, now firm around the back of my neck, tangling deep in the roots of my hair…

There’s a slight chance that he’s better at this than I am.

Just this once, I’ll let him have it.