Page 15 of Tempest

Please, sir, just let me go home. Please, please, PLEASE I’ll do anything!

I sprint through the halls as blindly as I entered them, footsteps echoing in my ears. I can’t be sure if they’re real or in my head. All I know is what I saw—what I remember—and that I must escape this maze of nightmares before I’m caught and stare into the eye of a gun again.

My breaths are so hard as I run, so heated, that they must be turning into steam in the air, clouds of panic I must break through until I can find a door, an exit, an escape—

“Oof!” I slam into a hard torso on my next turn that doesn’t bend against my sudden weight.

Hands clutch my arms, digging so thoroughly, the hard leather of my jacket does nothing to quell the shocking pain.

“Where the fuck have you been?” rains down on my head.

Glancing up, I notice sharp cheekbones piercing through the hellish shadows, emerald sparking through the skeletal hollows of his eyes.

Tempest.

“I—” I gulp, then in turn clutch under his arms, my nails poking into his skin through the thin cotton of his shirt. “I saw—there was…”

I snap my head around, convinced this Miguel will be the next to materialize, his weapon aimed at the center of my back.

“Wait, hold on.” Tempest’s hold loosens. He releases me with one hand, using his finger to steer my chin back to him. He bends ever so slightly to meet my eye. “Who did you see?”

Somehow, my mind snags on his question. Later, I’ll call it my survival instinct. “How … how do you know I saw someone?”

Tempest’s jaw tics, but he holds my stare. “A lot of shit goes down in these types of auctions. Did you know these are black market goods?”

“What?”

He lowers his eyelids. “Thought so. I’ve already directed my sister and Mila to get the fuck out of here. They told me they lost you. I was tasked with locating you. Lucky me, here you are. Are you being followed?”

“I don’t know. Yes. He saw me. I think he saw me.”

“Who did?”

“A man named M—”

“Tempest? Are you insisting in addition to your non-invitation to also meddling backstage?” a disgruntled voice calls from a close distance away. “I’d much rather you fuck with my clientele and convince them to open their wallets with your infectious, if misdirected, charm.”

Tempest angles his head toward the call. “Shit,” he mutters, then comes back to me. “Get out of here. Now.”

“Who is that?” I send a panicked glance over is shoulder. “Is there more of them? He said there were men stationed around the building—”

“There’s an entire infestation of them, princess. Take the emergency exit before you’re discovered. It’s in the holding room where they’ve been carting in the works to be sold. I’ve called you girls a car to take you home. Meet them at the north entrance.”

“But—”

Tempest gives me a not-so-gentle shove to the side. His hand disappears from my arm, and in its place is a tingling, aching feeling from being held by him too long and not long enough.

My heart kicks up in speed. When Tempest had me, the pounding in my ears had stopped. I could hear and see, and I wanted to tell him everything. To curl up into his unforgiving chest, convinced there was a safe spot for me in his arms.

How could that be?

Tempest turns to face the voice, his profile sharp edges and porcelain flawlessness. He risks glancing to the side, at me, his lips curling into a hiss. “Go, princess.”

But is he safe? My eyes dart to the place where Miguel could appear at any moment, then to the opposite end where the other commanding voice came from. Tempest is blocked in on both sides. What if this third man has a gun, too?

Tempest’s eye twitches as he waits for me to make a move.

“I can’t leave you,” I whisper as bravely as I can.

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