Page 50 of My Masked Shadow
I shove Barbara around a corner just as the door behind us bangs again. The chair shrieks across the floor, metal scraping.
“I’m highly motivated,” I growl.
Caleb grunts. “Don’t die.”
The line goes dead.
I shove the phone back in my pocket and focus on Barbara’s back as we pound down the hallway, deeper into the hotel’s guts, goons on our heels and the whole night going to hell in a handbasket.
“Don’t let go of my hand, little bee,” I call out, lunging forward to catch her fingers again.
She laces them through mine without hesitation.
“Wouldn’t dream of it!” she yells back, voice trembling but strong.
That’s my girl.
19
BARBARA
If I ever fantasize about being chased again, someone needs to shoot me. Which is an ironic thought to have over the soundtrack of gunfire.
This is nothing like the lumberyard sim. That was dark and atmospheric and hot. This is fluorescent lights, slamming doors, and my heart trying to punch its way out of my throat.
“Run,” Ethan says, and for once, I don’t argue. My heels hammer against the tiles as we fly down the service corridor, stainless-steel carts and hotel staff blurring at the edges of my vision. Someone yells after us. Another shot thuds into the door behind us, muffled but unmistakable.
My legs wobble. “I can’t believe they’re shooting at us.”
“Yep,” Ethan says, weirdly calm. “Keep moving, little bee.”
I don’t even have the breath to cuss him out for being so... casual about this.
He’s right by my side, one hand clamped around my wrist, tugging me left, right, weaving us through a maze of corridors that all look the same. Every time I think about slowing down, his fingers tighten—silent, wordless encouragement.
We burst through a swing door into a commercial kitchen.
For a second, it’s chaos: line cooks shouting, someone dropping a pan, steam and garlic and oil-slick floors. A chef yells, “Hey! You can’t be in?—”
Behind us, the service door bangs open, interrupting the chef’s words.
Ethan doesn’t hesitate. He grabs a cutting board off a prep station and hurls it back the way we came. It smashes into the doorway, narrowly missing whoever’s following us, and buys us a half second of very creative swearing.
Then we’re through another door, out of the kitchen, and into a wide carpeted hallway lined with tasteful art.
I gasp for air, my dress hitching up my thighs. “This—this is not how I pictured our first fancy date going.”
“Happy to exceed expectations,” Ethan says dryly.
My heel wobbles on a runner. I grab for the wall. “I can’t run in these.”
He barely slows. “Take them off.”
“What—now?”
I hear distant, panicked screams. The gunshots must have finally registered with the guests.
“Now, Barb.”
