Page 39 of Miles

“You know better than I do,” he whispered, and we crossed the room as quickly as I could with a cast on my leg.

I wanted to tear the damn thing off and run, but he was right. They might hear it. He locked us into the small, windowed room where he’d waited for my x-rays to process and motioned for me to get under a table before turning off the lights.

“They’re out there,” I breathed, halfway between terror and rage.

Who the hell did he think he was? I had underestimated him. Somebody must’ve given me away, somehow.

My hair hung in my face as I knelt on all fours, cursing how awkward it was to hide with casts on. Couldn’t they have waited until Phillip removed them? What was I even thinking? People could’ve been dying, and I was worrying about my discomfort.

A fresh round of gunfire made me jump.

“Don’t worry about our guys,” Phillip whispered, crouching beside me. “We’re all ex-military. Anybody who dared come in here would regret it. I almost feel sorry for them.”

“Don’t feel too sorry,” I muttered, barely managing to keep from covering my ears as another burst of shots rang out. “They’re getting closer.”

“It’ll be fine,” he replied, but his tone was tight enough to tell me he feared otherwise.

He reminded me of an animal waiting to pounce—or to run from the hunter.

He raised himself up just enough to look over the edge of the window. “Still in the clear.”

“Do you have any weapons in here?”

He shook his head, grimacing. “No, never thought to keep any in here. Never really had to use these facilities much before you came along.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. None of this is your fault.” A reassuring smile started to spread across his weathered face, but was instantly cut off when the door leading into the x-ray room from the hall burst inward.

I covered my mouth with my hand to stifle a shriek.

Phillip held a finger to his lips, both of us making ourselves as small as we could.

In his case, it wasn’t much good—while he wasn’t as large as Miles and the rest, he was hardly a small man.

The knob rattled.

We exchanged a look.

He touched his finger to his lips again, then slid out from under the table fast enough to keep me from trying to stop him. Not that I could’ve if I’d tried. I couldn’t breathe when he stood up, facing the window.

I couldn’t see above his knees, but I imagined he was staring down whoever prowled on the other side.

“What do you want?” he barked, sounding for all the world like a soldier on the battlefield. It seemed funny, feeling pride for a man I didn’t know. But he had saved me. And he was saving me again.

Or trying to.

The glass wasn’t bulletproof. I screamed when bullets shattered the glass and shattered him.

He hit the floor, eyes already glazing over. They stared at me, unseeing.

My fault my fault my fault.

The lock wasn’t much use after someone shot it out, and the door swung open.

I was a caged animal, or as good as, trapped under a table. Nowhere to go. I could only wait for the man who strode into the room to find me and pull me out.

Glass crunched under his feet as he took his time, drawing out the tension until I wanted to scream for him to get it over with. I didn’t need to go that far, for he bent over to look at me.

He looked vaguely familiar.

One of Antonio’s henchmen. A cold-blooded murderer, too.

“Look who I found,” he sneered.

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