Deer Luhan,

Sometimes I really wonder what goes on in some of your minds.

Leigh

The cold air hit the three of us very suddenly as we stepped off the bus, even though it was nothing like as bitter as it had been up on the Great Wall.  Sehun blew on his hands while Suho scanned the area for familiar landmarks.

I tugged on the leader’s thick jacket sleeve.  “This way.”  I gestured to a building I remembered passing on the way, and Suho looked around, a little dazed.

“Are you sure?  I don’t remember seeing that.  Hey, aren’t those two cars parked illegally?”

I was getting used to his random comments on stuff that wasn’t totally relevant to the situation, so I applied force and started dragging him away in the required direction.  Sehun trailed after us.

Moments later, I caught sight of the two cars Suho had pointed out, which were indeed parked illegally on the curb below the building I’d pointed out.  My stomach nearly dropped out of me when I saw that they were black SUVs with tinted windows.

Calm down, Leigh.  There are any number of people with tinted-windowed SUVs in this city.  Not everybody obeys traffic laws.  It still didn’t help the fact that I didn’t particularly want to walk past them.  I reached instinctively for Suho’s hand for comfort, and he looked at me with some surprise, though he didn’t comment.  Sehun caught up with us and hovered at my left shoulder.

“Reckon they’re mafia or something?” he asked, pointing at the cars as they drew closer, his tone curious and almost excited, as if seeing something cool for the first time after hearing about it to death.  Then what he’d just said seemed to hit him.  “Wait, , do you reckon they are mafia?”

“I hope not,” I murmured.  The cars were only a few feet away now, parked in such a way that we’d have to go single file past them on the pavement or risk walking in the road.  But the fact that there was no sign of life from them was encouraging.

Though not quite enough for me to walk past them on the pavement.

“What are you doing?” Suho protested as I dragged him out onto the road.

“Prey instincts,” I told him.  “Trust me.”

He looked at me like I’d sprouted antlers.  I pointed to my face.

“Remind you of a certain somebody who looks like a deer?”

He didn’t get time to respond before four sets of SUV car doors burst open and Sehun shoved us further out into the road without warning, straight into the path of an oncoming policecar.  Suho’s instincts were quick enough for him to spin away, tucking me protectively into his side, and the police car slewed into the next lane, tyres and breaks screeching in protest as the cop driving jammed on the horn and swore at us.

Seconds later, an entire chorus of car horns erupted as traffic went everywhere in an attempt to avoid both us and the policecar and the gaggle of leather-clad skinheads who were also standing in the road, trying to get past a pair of cars which had rammed bumpers.  A single glance was enough to tell me that I didn’t want to be in the vicinity any longer.

“Are you okay?” Suho asked, holding me out at arm’s length and sweeping his gaze over me.

“Run,” I told him, placing my hands on his shoulders and giving him a shove.  “Run!”

There was a modicum of doubt in his eyes as he hesitated, but something about my expression must have convinced him I was serious, because he took off like a startled hare.  I legged it after him, vaulting over the bonnet of a car in an attempt to put a barrier between me and the shouting mafia who were beginning to find their way around the vehicles, and then fled across to the other side of the street, sending more cars swerving in a cacophony of screeching brakes and nearly getting flattened by a bus.

I hoped Suho would be okay.  He was fit and he could run, and the mafia were much more likely to pay attention to me, so there was a good chance he’d be able to get back to the dorm, particularly since he seemed to be a rock of good sense.  I hadn’t seen where Sehun had gone in all the chaos.  I just prayed he had the nous to get himself back to the dorm as well.

Hearing running footsteps behind me, I upped my pace and dived into a small sidestreet, hoping there would be crates or a skip or something to hide behind as they’d always served me so well in the past.  But the footsteps were too close on my heels for me to risk that until I had a greater lead.

If I hadn’t been sprinting, I would have gulped.  But it was much better for my windpipe to spit the excess saliva out instead of trying to swallow it nervously, so I hawked as I turned the corner at the end of the narrow street into an even smaller and narrower one.

A hand grabbed my shoulder, and I automatically reached across to flip the guy over my shoulder, but the hand vanished again before I could grab hold of it.  Half a step later, my right arm had been yanked down to my side and a very familiar set of fingers were laced through mine.

“Godd*mn, you run fast,” Sehun gasped out, staggering to a halt.  I stared at him.  Why in God’s name had he had the awful idea to follow me?  He wasn’t exactly a slowcoach, and he could easily have got to the safety of the dorm if he’d only followed Suho.

“What are you—?” I began, but multiple running footsteps alerted me to the fact that we’d soon have company.  “Sh*t.”  I broke into a run again, hauling Sehun along with me.  He was too out of breath to protest.

An excited shout alerted me to the fact that we were now in sight and I tugged insistently at Sehun, trying to get him to up his pace.  He kept up with me through the alley’s twists and jinks until we found ourselves at a t-junction, still with the mafia hot on our heels.  At least they hadn’t been trying to shoot us this time.

“Go, go, go,” I told Sehun frantically, shoving him to the left so that I could split off and he wouldn’t be in danger.

He staggered sideways from the force of my push and I extricated my fingers from his, but before I could even take a step, his hand had closed around my wrist and he yanked me after him.

“Whatareyoudoingit’snotsafeforustostaytogether!” I squeaked out as he pulled me along.  He whirled around, chest heaving and eyes wide, just as we reached another intersection.  They were becoming a thing today.

“We can’t lose you this close to sending you home,” he got out in a single breath.  “It’s not fair.  If I let you run alone, I don’t know if you’ll make it, and I’ll be d*mned if I let you out of my sight for so much as a second.”

I blinked at him.  That was all I had time to do before he was shoving me under a dirty sheet of tarpaulin that had been placed over a stack of crates just around the corner to the left.  The tarpaulin crackled noisily and the scent of fruit hit my nostrils.  Sehun crouched beside me, leaning his back against the crates and trying his hardest not to breath too loud.  I slumped into a sitting position, tucking my knees up to my chest.  It probably wasn’t the best time to be thinking about it, but my impression of Beijing thus far had been a whole lot of side alleys, waste disposal units and other things conveniently cropping up when I most needed them, and it was kind of funny.  I hadn’t even been to the Forbidden City.

The reason for that was placed firmly back in my mind at the sound of booted feet running past.  Sehun reached out for my hand and squeezed it, though I wasn’t sure if it was to reassure me or himself.

Silence.

Then more footsteps.  A bit of confused chatter.  The footsteps moved on.

Then silence again.  A long, long silence.

When the tension was on the brink of unbearable and I was about to demand why we were still sitting under th