The jungle swallowed them whole. Lin Zhanfeng led the way through the undergrowth, one hand gripping Huang Wen's wrist, the other pushing aside ferns and vines that seemed to reach for them with grasping fingers. The darkness beneath the canopy was almost absolute, broken only by occasional shafts of moonlight that filtered through the leaves like silver needles. His damaged eyes could barely distinguish shapes in the gloom; he navigated by instinct and memory, retracing the path they had scouted the previous day.
Guan Zheng brought up the rear, his hand never straying far from the pistol holstered at his hip. Su Xiaoman was somewhere in the middle, her breath coming in ragged gasps, her city shoes slipping on the damp earth. They had been running for twenty minutes, and the sounds of pursuit had faded behind them. But Lin knew better than to relax. Bai Tianyou was too clever, too methodical, to let them escape without a chase.
"Stop," Guan hissed. "I hear something."
They froze, huddled together in the shadow of a massive banyan tree. Lin strained his ears, trying to filter out the ambient noise of the jungle. Insects chirped. A bird called somewhere in the darkness. And beneath those sounds, something else: the distant whir of rotors.
"A helicopter," Su Xiaoman whispered. "They're searching from the air."
Lin looked up, but the canopy was too thick to see the sky. The helicopter's rotors grew louder, then faded, then grew louder again. Circling. Searching. They were hunting them with aerial surveillance, and it was only a matter of time before the searchlights found a gap in the leaves.
"We need to keep moving," Lin said. "The extraction point is still two kilometers south. If we can reach the fishing village before dawn, we can hire a boat to take us to the mainland."
"And if the village is loyal to Duan?" Guan asked. "He owns this island. Everyone here depends on him for their livelihood."
"Then we'll find another way." Lin turned to Huang Wen, who was leaning against the banyan tree, his face pale and slick with sweat. The young man had been running on adrenaline since they pulled him from his room, but his body was still recovering from the kidney extraction. He couldn't keep this pace much longer.
"How are you holding up?" Lin asked.
"I've been worse." Huang Wen managed a weak smile. "At least I'm not waiting for a heart transplant anymore."
"We're going to get you out of here. I promise."
"Don't make promises you can't keep." Huang Wen pushed himself off the tree and straightened his shoulders. "I know what this place is. I know what they do here. If I don't make it, just make sure someone tells my family what happened. My mother thinks I'm dead. She's been grieving for three months."
Lin felt a chill that had nothing to do with the night air. "You were executed too?"
"Not executed. Kidnapped. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, just like you." Huang Wen looked at him, his eyes hollow with shared trauma. "They took me from a bus stop in Kaohsiung. Drugged me, brought me here. When I woke up, they told me my life was over, that I belonged to them now. They said my family had been paid, that no one was looking for me."
The story was different in its details but identical in its essence. Another life stolen. Another person reduced to inventory. Another name that would have been carved into a memorial stone if Lin hadn't found him.
"We're going to make them pay," Lin said. "All of them. Duan, Bai, everyone who had a hand in this. But first, we need to survive the night."
They pushed on through the jungle, moving as quietly as they could. The helicopter circled overhead like a persistent mosquito, its searchlight occasionally stabbing through gaps in the canopy. Each time, they froze, pressing themselves against the earth, waiting for the light to pass. Lin's heart hammered in his chest, his lungs burning with exertion. His body was still weak from months of captivity and surgery; every step was an effort, every breath a small victory.
An hour before dawn, they reached the outskirts of the fishing village. It was a small settlement of wooden houses built on stilts over the water, connected by a network of rickety docks. Fishing boats bobbed gently in the harbor, their hulls painted in fading shades of blue and red. The village was silent, its inhabitants still asleep, unaware of the drama unfolding in the jungle behind them.
Guan scouted ahead, returning a few minutes later with a grim expression. "There's a boat at the far end of the dock. A fishing trawler, big enough to make the crossing to the mainland. But there's a problem."
"What kind of problem?"
"The owner is sitting on the deck, cleaning a rifle. He doesn't look like he's planning to go anywhere."
Lin peered through the darkness at the trawler. A single lantern hung from its mast, illuminating a grizzled old man with a weathered face and hands that moved with the practiced efficiency of someone who had spent his life on the sea. The rifle across his lap was old but well-maintained, its barrel gleaming with oil.
"Maybe he's just cautious," Su Xiaoman said. "Fishermen in these waters have to deal with pirates."
"Maybe. Or maybe Duan pays him to keep an eye on strangers." Guan checked his pistol. "Either way, we need that boat. The helicopter will spot us once the sun comes up."
Lin studied the old fisherman for a long moment. Then he made a decision. "I'll talk to him."
"Lin, that's insane. If he's working for Duan—"
"Then I'll deal with it. But we can't steal his boat. We're not like them." Lin adjusted his dark glasses and stepped out of the shadows before anyone could stop him.
He walked down the dock with his hands visible, his posture open and unthreatening. The old fisherman looked up as he approached, his hands tightening on the rifle. But he didn't raise it. He just watched, his eyes shrewd and calculating.
"Good morning," Lin said in the dialect of the southern coast, which he had picked up from construction workers who came from those regions. "I'm sorry to disturb you so early."
"You're one of them," the fisherman said. "From the medical resort. I can tell by the glasses. They all wear dark glasses after the surgeries."
"I'm not from the resort. I'm a patient. Or I was, until I escaped." Lin stopped a respectful distance from the boat, his hands still visible. "There are others like me. People they've kidnapped. People they're harvesting for organs. I'm trying to get them out."
The fisherman was silent for a long moment. Then he set down the rifle and spat into the water. "I know what they do up there. Everyone on the island knows. But we don't talk about it. The resort brings money. Jobs. My son works there as a groundskeeper. If the resort closes, this village dies."
"Your son. Does he know what happens inside those buildings?"
"He knows enough to keep his head down and his mouth shut." The fisherman's voice was bitter. "We all do."
Lin stepped closer, his hands still raised. "I'm not asking you to close the resort. I'm asking you to help me get to the mainland so I can tell the world what's happening here. Once the story is out, the authorities will have to act. Duan Zhenghong will be arrested. The donors will be freed. And this island can become something better than a graveyard."
"And what about my son? What happens to him when the resort closes?"
"I don't know. But I know what happens to the people inside if the resort stays open. They die. One by one, piece by piece, until there's nothing left." Lin reached up and removed his dark glasses, revealing his damaged eyes. The fisherman flinched at the sight of them. "They took my corneas. They took my kidney. They took part of my liver. They were going to take my heart before I escaped. Your son might not know the details, but he knows enough. And one day, he'll have to live with what he knew and didn't stop."
The fisherman stared at Lin's eyes for a long moment. Then he stood up, slinging the rifle over his shoulder. "Get your people. Quickly. The helicopter will be back in twenty minutes."
Lin felt a rush of relief so intense it almost brought him to his knees. "Thank you. Thank you."
"Don't thank me. Just make sure you tell the world what happened here. Make sure everyone knows what Duan Zhenghong did." The fisherman began untying the boat from the dock. "And when you see him, tell him Old Man Chen from Pelangi sends his regards."
The trawler chugged out of the harbor just as the first light of dawn began to creep over the horizon. Lin stood at the stern, watching the island recede into the distance. The jungle-covered peak, the white sand beaches, the cluster of buildings on the southern peninsula. It looked peaceful from a distance. It looked like paradise.
But paradise was a lie. Paradise was a mask that monsters wore to hide their true faces.
Su Xiaoman joined him at the railing, her face haggard with exhaustion. "We did it. We actually did it."
"We got Huang Wen out. But there are others still in that facility. Other donors. And Duan is still free."
"Prosecutor Huo will take care of the facility. Now that we have a living witness and the records from the binder, he can get an international warrant. The donors will be freed."
"And Duan?"
Su Xiaoman was silent for a moment. "Duan will run again. He's too rich, too connected. Even with the records, it could take years to bring him to justice. Years he'll spend finding new islands, new donors, new ways to cheat death."
Lin stared at the disappearing island, his damaged eyes watering from the salt spray. "Then we don't wait for justice. We bring justice to him."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that I'm not going to spend the rest of my life waiting for a trial that might never happen. Duan Zhenghong destroyed my life. He destroyed Xiaowei's life. He destroyed the lives of everyone on that memorial stone and everyone who's still trapped in his facilities. I'm going to find him, and I'm going to end this."
"Lin, that's not justice. That's revenge."
"What's the difference?"
Su Xiaoman opened her mouth to answer, then closed it. The question hung in the air between them, unanswered and perhaps unanswerable. In the distance, the island of Pelangi faded into a smudge of green, then vanished entirely beneath the horizon.
Behind them, in the cabin of the trawler, Huang Wen was sleeping for the first time in weeks without the fear of waking up to find another piece of himself missing. Ahead of them, somewhere in the vast expanse of the Pacific, Duan Zhenghong was planning his next move, unaware that the man whose life he had stolen was still alive. Still fighting. Still coming for him.
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