Above her, Will swung down with confident ease, arms and legs outstretched before he dropped without a sound and straightened.
“Who’s up there?” she whispered.
“Well, it wasn’t the Girl Scouts trying to sell cookies.”
Right. Okay, then.
One million dollars.
More than she’d ever dreamed of, and a chance for justice. She wouldn’t be a victim, not ever again, but in order to get to that point, she had to help Mr. Tall, Gorgeous, and Surly here find Tomas.
Then a funny popping noise interrupted her thoughts, and the bark exploded above her head.
Will grabbed her, and protecting her with his body, shoved her in front of him and around the corner of the building. “Move,” he said, but he didn’t need to shove her again because there came a series of popping noises now.
Gunshots, she thought slightly hysterically.
They were being shot at.
And she was running for her life.
Another pop, and this one whizzed by her ear. She tripped over the sidewalk and would have fallen on her face, but Will slid an arm around her and yanked her upright. “Go. Go, go, go.”
“I am,” she panted.
“Faster,” he suggested, not panting even a little. “Way faster.”
• • •
Will could have moved more quickly on his own, but he was towing Jade, whose legs were far shorter than his. Spurred on by the thought of a bullet tearing through their flesh, he tugged her hand, propelling her down the row of condos.
Unfortunately, they were moving in the opposite direction of his truck.
“Where to?” Jade gasped.
At the end of the row now, he glanced back. No more chunky man in black hanging out Jade’s window with his Glock and silencer.
Which meant he was tearing through the condo and down the stairs to get out here.
That gave them only a few seconds at most.
They needed to get to his truck, but that was out of the question for the moment because it meant backtracking, and possibly running into another trigger-happy intruder. “Here,” he said, and pulled her around the corner.
There was a garden, thankfully lush from spring rains. Against the building grew a long line of some sort of tall bush, perfect for camouflage. Flattening Jade against the wall, he looked into her eyes. Glassy and dilated, and she was breathing like a misused racehorse. “Are you hurt?”
“S-someone was shooting at us.”
Cupping her face, he tilted it up. “Are you hurt?” he repeated.
“Not as much as I’d be, if any of those bullets had hit their target.”
His lips twitched into a rare smile, or at least half of one. It’d been a long time since he’d felt like smiling at all. “We have to keep moving.”
“We passed my car.”
“Yes, with the four slashed tires.”
She gulped hard. “Slashed?”
“When the coast is clear, we make a run for my truck.”
“And then what?”
Her body was trembling, and he pressed just a little closer to try to help. “You know what then.”