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The minivan’s tinted windows flatten the afternoon sky into grey. Treeline scrolling into suburbs, the buildings gaining height; Vivian stares out at the scenery and imagines — idle, distant — the trajectory of a body from an open car door.
From the seat beside her, Zhao Qiang says, “You look a bit like his dead wife. Get him to lower his rates for you.”
Her phone buzzes. Zhao Qiang’s sent her an article from years ago: Burglary-turned-murder, policeman’s wife. Almond eyes and long dark hair. Vivian runs her fingers through her hair, loosening it, and combs a lock across her shoulder to look the part. Another doomed young woman to add to her repertoire.
They reach the city on the edge of golden hour, the glass facades of its buildings glazed with fire. They let her out across the road from the lawyer’s office — no reason to reveal their licence plate, false or not — with a few words of threat-laced encouragement.
There’s another minivan by the entrance. As Vivian nears, the vehicle’s door slides open, releasing two pastel-dressed figures. The first with a hoodie pulled up, hands in pockets, followed by a teenager with twin ponytails. The incongruity makes Vivian freeze, keeping her distance as the two head into the building.
On the threshold, the girl half-turns. Vivian’s too far away to see her face. Recognises something in it, still, inchoate yet familiar; lets the feeling fade before it can coalesce into realisation.
The lawyer meets her in a glass-walled office on the second floor. Offers her a cup of tea, the sunset stretched out behind him.
“We’d like more information on this man,” Vivian says, as rehearsed, handing over the printout of their next target. “They say that you’re the best in this business.”
“You’re too kind.” Qian Jin glances at the page. “What sort of information, exactly?”
Vivian curls a hand into the lock of hair by her collarbone; affecting nervousness, vulnerability. “Social ties. Major incidents in his past. Anything that could... help us in our trade.”
“Weaknesses.”
“Yes,” Vivian replies, shifting her tone — bright, grateful.
The lawyer’s lip curls in barely-muted disdain. Vivian wonders if info-brokers like him consider themselves cleaner than the rest of the underworld. If he retains a police-era aversion to conmen.
If he retains anything else from his police days. If he would take pity on a young woman forced into crime. If he would want a chance to save her, this time. She thinks of the two teenagers leaving the car, bright against the sleek darkness of their surroundings. Would someone truly steeped in the underworld take in such children? What if—
“Do you enjoy it?” Qian Jin asks.
Vivian blinks in only half-feigned confusion. “Sorry?”
“Toying with men’s hearts.”
His stare is cold, cut-glass. A chill runs down Vivian’s back. She realises what it was, now: how that girl had looked at her, not quite in hope, before turning back and disappearing through the door. A trapped animal returning to its cage.
Qian Jin laughs, an insincere mercy. “But how rude of me. Let’s discuss the rate, then.”
Vivian nods. Outside, unwatched, the sun slips beneath the skyline’s false horizon.
/
On the way out, she sees the girl again: alone on a couch, hands twisted together in her lap. The girl glances up, a startled rabbit; looks away as swiftly.
Something bitter rises in Vivian’s throat. She doesn’t know what the girl is doing here, what Qian Jin might be making her do. It doesn’t matter. What’s clear is the misery in her posture, her fear of meeting a stranger’s eyes. And yet she sits here, still, despite the open door downstairs.
Vivian knows that escape is an illusion. That doesn’t matter either. She wants to grab that girl by the shoulders, demand: Why don’t you run? You want to, don’t you? Wants to take her by the hand and lead her out, into the city that stretches dark and anonymous away from here. To believe for a moment that they can disappear.
Light fades into evening. The minivan waits.
The office door swings open again.
“Where’s your brother?” Qian Jin asks.
Tianxi shakes her head, hands half-raised. Qian Jin makes an impatient noise — but then Tianchen appears, heading down the corridor towards them, and Tianxi’s hands return mutely to her lap.
“Well?” Tianchen says as he arrives. He doesn’t look at Tianxi. She doesn’t mind. She’s used to him acting this way when Qian Jin’s around.
“An easy job.” Qian Jin passes him a rolled-up sheet of paper; glances at Tianxi, then taps at his phone. “I’ll share the details later. Before that, take a quick look at our visitor — check that she’s who she claims to be.”
The ping of a notification. Tianchen takes out his own phone, swipes at the screen. Tianxi catches a glimpse of it: a poorly-framed back view of a woman leaving Qian Jin’s office.
“Sure,” Tianchen says. “I’ll let you know.”
“Don’t take too long.”
Qian Jin leaves. Tianchen watches him disappear around the corner before he turns to Tianxi, finally, and takes a seat beside her.
“Tired?” he asks, soft enough to pass for kindness.
She knows the answer he wants. Nods, moving closer to lay her head on his offered shoulder; curls her fingers around his when he reaches out.
(Through the haze of half-shared consciousness: the weight of a phone in her hand. A photograph. Her brother reaching through her into another’s mind — smooth leather of a car seat, the vehicle’s low hum, disorientingly familiar until Tianxi catches the reflection in the window. The woman she saw earlier, empty-eyed in the dark glass. Outside, the comet-trails of city lights.
Vivian’s despair washes cold and suffocating over her. Tianchen can’t feel it. He slips beneath the surface of the present, sifting through memories. A shabby bedroom behind a locked door; the smiling faces of targets; a kick to the ribs. The prelude to today’s meeting, negotiations rehearsed. Tianxi’s face through Vivian’s eyes.
Her brother pauses on that last memory, irrelevant as it is — searching for something in Tianxi’s lowered gaze, the way she holds her own hand. In the present, Vivian watches the city lights flash by, sparser and sparser in the settling dark.)