Unknown 9 by Layton Green (each kindness read aloud txt) 📕

to the side and saw a pair of doves in the courtyard, flapping with abandon near the entrance to the museum, right above the old magician. As the Chinese man roared and sprinted toward him, the magician slipped inside the building.

He’s giving us a chance to escape.

Andie felt sick as she scrambled over the remaining portion of the wall, scratching her arms and face on the brambles at the bottom. A line of palms and banana trees provided a barrier from the busy road running alongside the temple.

“Two black SUVs just flew past,” Cal said, catching his breath. “They’re circling the wagons.”

She couldn’t stop thinking about the old magician. Gritting her teeth, she told herself to have faith in his abilities.

Vehicles choked the street to their right, toward the entrance to the temple. Not far from their position, a group of young Vietnamese women in traditional dress were strolling down the sidewalk, laughing and chatting, sidestepping the bicycles and scooters. Yet a strange sight caught Andie’s eye: a bright-orange motorized rickshaw with an enclosed carriage and the words rickshaw obscura painted in white on the side. A pair of dragons surrounded the odd sign, intertwined in a fanciful pattern.

Every other rickshaw she had seen had an open carriage, so tourists could see the city. Maybe this rickshaw was a catering service, or had some other function. The driver was an elderly Vietnamese man with skin like burnished walnut, silky white trousers, and a matching shirt-jacket buttoned to the neck, similar to a Chinese changshan. Two braids of gray hair hung to his waist.

As the rickshaw passed, the driver waved in her and Cal’s direction, though it seemed unlikely he could have seen them through the trees.

“We have to make a run for it,” Cal said. Tires screeched in the distance, and shouts emanated from the courtyard.

Though not a perfect circle, the intertwined dragons on the side of the rickshaw caused Andie’s heart to flutter.

Something isn’t right about that rickshaw.

On a hunch, she aimed the Star Phone at it—and gasped when she saw, in place of the Rickshaw Obscura logo, a holographic image of the LYS symbol.

“That’s our ride,” she said grimly, and told Cal what she had seen.

“If we can trust it,” he said.

“I don’t think we have a choice.”

An idea came to her, and she remembered the surgical mask she had brought. She slipped it on and gave him a little push. “Go. I’ll be right behind you. Don’t let the driver get out of sight.”

“What? Don’t be dense—

“Go!” she said, hurrying away before he could finish, and before she lost her nerve.

She stayed close to the wall and behind trees as she ran, until she drew even with the group of Vietnamese women. Most of them were also wearing masks. Andie walked calmly out of a grove of palms and joined the group at the rear. There were over a dozen women, similar in age to Andie. She hunched so she wouldn’t tower over them, praying she would blend to an outside observer.

Glancing to her left, she saw Cal press through the crowd of people on the sidewalk and stroll right to the rickshaw, which was driving slowly near the curb as if trolling for passengers. The door popped open as Cal arrived. Once he entered, the door closed and the intertwined dragons on the side of the rickshaw disappeared, as if they had been a hologram all along.

Andie gawked, but no one on the street seemed to notice. With her brain screaming at her to run and join Cal, she forced herself to keep walking with the group of women alongside the wall of the Temple of Literature. As they reached the end of the intersection and turned right, Andie held her breath, knowing the Ascendants would be watching.

The entrance to the temple was in view. She glanced back and saw the rickshaw stuck in traffic. She couldn’t let it get out of sight.

She kept walking with the women. There were so many people on the street in front of the temple the sidewalk was barely visible. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the Chinese man’s female associate standing at the entrance, but the woman was watching people leave the temple, not enter from the street.

Because who would suspect I’d do something this foolish?

Forcing her legs to obey, Andie did her best to merge with the group of women, laughing when they laughed, pretending she was following the conversation. A few of them gave her a funny look, but no one made a scene.

And then she was standing right in front of the entrance to the temple. You can’t make it obvious. Someone will notice the phone.

She glanced back. The light at the intersection had turned, and the rickshaw would soon be approaching. This was her last chance.

She took out the Star Phone and touched the arm of the young woman in front of her. Startled, the woman turned to find Andie aiming the phone at her, giggling like a schoolgirl, pretending to take a picture. The woman looked confused and uneasy but her sense of decorum didn’t allow her to make a fuss. The Vietnamese were exceedingly polite, Andie had noticed, and she was banking on that now.

Before the woman turned away, Andie managed to aim the Star Phone at the entrance gate, and felt a thrill sweep through her as her world spun and the arched entrance to the temple became a cobblestone street with hanging globe lanterns, an image Andie etched into her mind the second she saw it.

She had what she needed. Instead of bolting, she walked a bit farther with the group. She couldn’t risk escaping quite yet. The woman she had touched on the shoulder kept staring at her, suspicious, but she never called out.

It took every ounce of willpower Andie had to keep moving down the street, knowing how vulnerable she was, now that every Ascendant in the city was looking for them.

After a fifty-foot walk that