Page 4 of Black Bay Protector
“Whoareyou?“ she breathed, staring wide-eyed at him as the horror of what he just predicted flooded through her.
“Introductions can wait.” Pushing her toward her closet he said, “Get some shoes on. We need to run.”
This wasn’t happening. And how many times was she going to tell herself that before she realized that thiswashappening? She may not have done anything to cause it or deserve it, but she’d been dropped in the shit just the same.
Fine. She’d put shoes on – pants too, pants would be good – she’d go with him to get away from the threat of more soldiers, or whatever they were, and as soon as she was able, as soon as he dropped his guard, she was making a run for it. She had her cell, she would call the police once she got away.
As if he’d heard the thought – mind reading as well as super healing? – he plucked the phone from her stiff fingers, dropped it on the floor, and smashed it to bits with his booted foot.
“Hey!”
“They can track it.”
Track it? Had she been thrown into some spy thriller? Nearly hysterical, she screeched, “Why would they? I’m nobody!”
The man let out a gruff sound of annoyance. “By now they know everything about you. Where you work, who your friends and family are, where you shop, and your preferred breakfast cereal. They aren’t going to let this go. They won’t risk me having told you something.”
“You haven’t told me anything!” she screamed, sick to her stomach with fear at what he was implying. Herfriends? Herfamily? Were they in danger?
He nudged her shoulder, pushing her closer to the closet. “Quickly now. We’ve gotta go.”
Inside, Paige was shaking like a leaf with a mixture of fear and adrenaline, but she was also angry and her anger won, giving her a burst of courage. Resentment surged through her in a wave. This was all happening because of him. Because he’d crashed into her apartment. She deserved an explanation, dammit. If her life was in danger under the assumption that she knew something, then she at least wanted the satisfaction of knowing what that something was.
“What have you gotten me into?” she demanded, her arms crossed over her chest.
“Shoes first, explanations later.”
Paige glared at him, refusing to budge. The guy just shrugged. “You can walk out of here on your own two feet, lady, or I can carry you out. If you stay, you die. Period. I’m not letting that happen.”
Leave with him or die. Those were her choices. Another round of nausea surged through her gut and she caved. With a nod, she moved to her closet and began quickly yanking on a pair of jeans. Her thigh protested with a sharp sting when she dragged the denim over it, but she ignored it and reached for some socks, pulling them on before stuffing her feet into her running shoes.
He didn’t even give her a chance to tie them, just grabbed her arm again and pulled her along with him. The sight of the bodies in her living room had her stumbling over her own feet, and the man pulled her closer with a barked, “Don’t look,” as he hustled her through her smashed front door. Out in the hallway, Paige had to jog to keep up with his ground-eating stride as he towed her along behind him. “Where are we going?”
“Out of here.”
How very illuminating, the snarky portion of her brain chimed in.
The rest of Paige’s brain was still having a hard time processing the situation. This was so far out of her wheelhouse that it was ridiculous. She wasn’t a risk taker, wasn’t adventurous. Her idea of pushing the envelope was trying a new restaurant, not fleeing her apartment with a stranger in the middle of the night. What she wouldn’t give to see a nice, sympathetic police officer with a badge right now. Instead, she was stuck with someone with fangs, whose body spit out bullets like they were nasty-tasting jellybeans. A person who even now was dragging her along telling her they needed to hurry while his yellow eyes practically glowed as they scanned the darkly lit stairwell. They raced down floor after floor. Every breath was wheezing out of her lungs and her legs felt like jelly by the time they reached the bottom. Yes, a sympathetic cop would be so nice right now, and as soon as she could, she was going to find one.
After yanking the woman along for quite a distance, keeping them concealed in the darkened alleys between the buildings of the medical complex, Jace finally stopped to give her a breather. The woman was cute with her messy blond hair and sweetly attractive features, but she wasn’t very stealthy. Her breathing was loud and labored, and her shoes had been slapping the pavement with every step she took, announcing their position to anyone who was listening. He would have picked her up and carried her, but he needed his hands free if he needed to fight. As he watched her bend over, her hands braced on her thighs to draw some much-needed air into her lungs, he felt bad that he’d gotten her into this situation. But he’d feel a lot worse if she ended up dead. She may not know it, nor want it, but she was now his to protect.
Almost there. His van was parked just around the corner, hiding in plain sight among similar delivery vans. But if the guards had discovered it, gotten there first, he’d be putting her in the middle of an ambush. He’d already unintentionally endangered her, he wouldn’t compound that error by being careless now.
Raising his finger to his lips, he signaled for her to stay quiet while he palmed his SIG and slid the slide back just enough to make sure he had a round in the chamber. Unlike the guards, he hadn’t had a suppressor attached so had avoided using it and drawing more attention from unsuspecting neighbors. He rectified that now.
Like all of his people, he was an expert with a wide range of weapons and explosives, but when given the choice, Jace preferred hand-to-hand combat. Getting up close and personal with his prey satisfied his primal instincts, but with the woman with him, he couldn’t afford to draw things out and put her at risk.
Turning his back on her, he cautiously looked around the corner toward the van, his senses alert for any sign of movement. He knew the moment the woman started edging away that she was planning to make a run for it.
Snapping his hand out without looking, he snagged her wrist and pulled her up against his back. She landed against him with a quiet oof, followed by a muffled curse.
He got it. He did. He was a stranger to her. Someone she had no reason to trust, and he would’ve liked to have had time to explain the situation to her, but that’s not where they were right now. They needed to get the hell out of Dodge. These people wouldn’t just be looking for him anymore, they’d be looking for her as well now and they weren’t the type who messed around. Proof of that was in the armed response they’d sent to her home combined with the quick response time since he knew he hadn’t been unconscious for overly long. If there was even the slightest possibility he’d passed information to her, they wouldn’t hesitate to torture her or, more likely, execute her to contain the breach.
“We need to run,” Jace quietly told her, not waiting for a response before he hauled her along behind him with the grip he still had on her wrist.
Keeping low and moving fast, they reached the van and Jace slid the side door open. “Get in.”
“Oh, sure, let me just jump right in your windowless van,” she muttered sarcastically. “Is there a sign inside that says free candy?”
