The Boy Who Glowed in the Dark

CHAPTER 52

Luo realized the girl was his daughter. He knew it by the gleam in Adam’s eyes.

She was a dark angel. A lithe beauty. She had her mother’s athletic frame after all. Her father’s inscrutable eyes. Even under dire circumstances, with boomerangs and bullets flying, there wasn’t a hint of panic about her. How strong she looked. It was his proudest moment, to know he was seeing his offspring in the flesh. It was just as he imagined it would be in his wildest dreams. All that was left was for her to look him in the eyes. She’d glanced at him once as he glided down the staircase, but Bobby had grabbed her hand and yanked her from the sofa before she could realize who he was. Before she could see that it was her long-lost father who’d come to her rescue—

A gunshot. A blow to the back. Someone set his shoulder blade on fire.

Luo tumbled down the stairs. His head bounced off wood. He tried to remember where he was and what was happening, but he couldn’t. All he knew was that he was falling and there was nothing he could do about it

A second gunshot. His thigh burned.

A third gunshot. A noise beside his head. Something pierced a surface beside him.

What surface?

His eyes regained focus. A white ceiling. A staircase above him.

He was on the stairs in a criminal’s house with his daughter and the boy. A man in an expensive-looking suit was coming down the stairs and shooting—

These Russian mafia types and their clothes…

Luo lifted his gun. Stared down the barrel of the bodyguard’s weapon and squeezed the trigger.

Two shots rang out.

A force knocked Luo back to the floor. A bullet. A hot iron in his chest. Near the heart. He’d been shot.

Luo lifted his head. The bodyguard lay slumped on the stairs, a hole in his forehead. Luo looked down at his chest. His shirt was soaked. Right near the heart. He could feel his constitution weakening. He’d seen enough chest wounds to know he was bleeding out.

He was dying.

Luo’s mind raced. He’d never speak with Eva. She’d never look into his eyes. Their souls would never connect. At least not above ground.

It didn’t matter.

He was dead, but she was alive and would survive. The boy would see to that. No matter what the obstacles ahead of them, the boy would protect her. Luo’s final vision was of the boy scaling the wall. He’d never seen anything like it.

The boy would be able to protect her.

The boy was no longer human.

The boy was something more.