2

LI

I never imaginedit would happen in Emerson Pass. Not after my years in Chicago, where I lived in the shadows, eyes cast downward and my steps as careful as a stray cat, hoping no one noticed me. Here in my hometown, I felt safe, even loved. If not for my music or my close friendships with the Barnes siblings, it might have happened sooner. I’d become complacent, walking as bold as I pleased and playing music with Fiona Barnes almost every night at her brother’s club.

That’s when they got me.

I’d only been home for less than twenty-four hours. It was nearly 3:00 a.m. The club had closed at half-past two, but it had taken me a few minutes to pack up my instruments and count the tips left in the jar on top of the piano. Fiona had gone home with Cymbeline and Viktor, but I’d stayed behind to lock up. Flynn and Phillip had gone home to their wives hours before this.

My car was around back where Flynn asked the employees to park if the club was busy. The club was always crowded these days, thanks to Fiona and me and the cheap booze. Fiona and I made music almost as scandalous as the illegal gin. Not the same music we made on Sundays at church. But close to God just the same.

I walked in the footsteps left behind since the last snowfall. My legs were long and I had to pull back my usual stride to fit my feet in the tracks. When I got to my car, I’d already started to shiver and buttoned up my long wool coat. These clear nights were so pretty they’d take your breath away, but they’d also freeze a man or woman without a blink.

The door to my car was frozen so I had to tug extra hard. I’d just opened it when something yanked me backward and into a snowdrift. Then they were there, hovering over me. I’d seen them earlier in the club, sitting at a table in the corner, tossing back gins all night. Their breath came in clouds, obscuring their faces. Wool hats pulled to their eyebrows. Eyes hidden in the shadows. Bulks of darkness in the dark.

One of them kicked me in the stomach with the tip of his boot. Pain. Another kick, harder this time.

“What are you doing, slant eyes? Where’s your friends, huh? Nobody to protect you now, is there?”

A different voice, slurred from drink. “You think you’re such a fancy man, don’t you? Acting like you belong with Fiona Barnes.”

One of them dropped to the snow and pummeled my face with his fist while the other one kicked me repeatedly in the back. They could break me in half. Or make it so I couldn’t walk again.

He was up again now and kicked me in the shin. I yelped in pain and instinctively curled into a ball to protect my most vulnerable area. What about my hands? Would they break my fingers? Anything but that.

“Let’s finish him off,” one of them said. “So he can’t identify us.”

“He shouldn’t even be here.”

“You should have gone home where you belong. We don’t want you here.” He backed up his comment with a kick to my head. The pain exploded behind my eyes.

“Stop,” I whispered. “Please stop.”

“Shut up.” Another racial slur. One I’d heard often in Chicago.

“Let’s get out of here before someone sees us.”

I covered my face and waited for death to come. This was the way it would end, out here under the moon with the snow to numb my wounds. In that moment, my life was as clear as the sky. It was the people who mattered. The kindness shown to me. And Fiona. Her lovely slender fingers poised above the piano keys. The sound of her soprano voice. The way her black curls fell over one eye when she was at the keyboard.

Fiona. If I died, Grandmother would find the letter in my pocket. At least Fiona would know how much I’d loved her.

A kick in the back made me cry out in pain. My vision clouded. I would pass out soon, I thought. And I’d welcome it. From afar, I heard a shout, followed by a gunshot. And then they were gone. Flynn and Phillip appeared, kneeling by my side. Where had they come from? Hadn’t they already gone home? Was I hallucinating?

“Are you all right?” Flynn’s voice was hoarse and scared.

“Who was it?” Phillip asked. “Who did this to you?”

I peered up at them, my vision blurry. “I saw them in the lounge earlier,” I muttered before groaning in pain. “But I don’t know them. Too many new people here.” They were the ones who should go back to where they came from.

“Can you stand, or should we lift you?” Flynn asked.

“It’s only my middle,” I said. It was hard to breathe. They might have cracked a rib with their boots. I kept that to myself.

They helped me up. My legs felt as though they had no bones or muscles with which to hold me up. I slumped against Flynn. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

“We had to finish up our inventory,” Phillip said.

“I don’t think I can drive,” I said.

“Do you want us to call Theo?” Phillip asked.

Theo was one of our town doctors and the other half of the Barnes twins. Flynn and Theo. Good friends. Their father was the reason my grandmother, Fai, and I had survived way back when. Now here I was again, fighting against the snow.

They led me over to Flynn’s car. I hadn’t noticed it parked down at the other end of the employee lot. They helped me into the back seat and Flynn took a flask from his pocket. “Take a nip of this. It’ll help with the pain.”

He would know, I thought. He’d almost lost his life when a bullet had torn into his chest. Before Christmas. It was now February.

“Who would do this?” Phillip asked as he climbed into the driver’s seat.

Flynn had already settled into the passenger seat by then. “And why? Do you have enemies like I do?” He turned around to look at me. I could only see through one eye. The right was swollen almost shut.

“Not that I know of,” I said. “But one called me a name. For being Chinese.”

Flynn cursed. “We’ll find them and make sure they don’t ever do something like this again.”

“I didn’t fight for freedom to have this happen in our town,” Phillip said.

But this was their town, not mine. I could pretend that I belonged like these two fair-skinned, Irish- and English-descended men, but when it came down to it, I did not. I was not welcome in America. Or pretty much anywhere except China. But that was no longer an option. I’d lost that chance when my father and grandfather left it all behind in search of gold.

I groaned when we hit a pothole.

Tags: Tess Thompson Emerson Pass Historicals Historical
Source: readsnovelonline.net