She wished she hadn’t insisted on going to the souk in the middle of the night rather than the hotel. The accident had been just an accident. Fender benders were a dime a dozen in this part of the world. That hadn’t been a shot she’d heard, it was a car backfiring, and Thorne hadn’t had a gun, it was the light shining on his cane.
That all made more sense than her silly overactive imagination. Taking a shuddering breath, she released the death grip she had around her waist and breathed in and out slowly. Crazy sauce. Thorne’s crude observation in the taxi, the reaction she had to him physically, and her overactive imagination had taken her on a crazy detour. She needed rest. And protein. And chocolate.
Isis took the opportunity to catch her breath, her eyes trained into the darkness, alert to a danger she couldn’t identify and wasn’t sure even existed. Whatever—or whoever—was after them, her body was still in flight-or-fight mode despite her pep talk. Her rapid heartbeat pulsed behind her eyes, and sweat trickled down her temples and between her breasts. Her jeans and cotton shirt clung to her damp skin like a shroud. Plucking the shirt away from her chest with one hand, she pressed the fingers of the other into the stitch in her side, and leaned forward to ease the pain.
Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she could make out the bulky shapes of closed stalls across the alley. She saw a large rat skitter by her hiding place, its eye glinting briefly in the light. Isis grimaced. Give her a spider any day, but beady eyes, twitching whiskers, and evil, scritchy little pink feet grossed her out.
She pressed back against the door just as the rat swung its beady red eyes in her direction. If that thing ran into the doorway near her practically bare feet, she was going to lose it. “Get lost!” she said, more mouthing than making a sound. “Go on. Shoo!”
The sound of someone approaching, breathing hard, shut her up fast. The scrape of a shoe coming from the direction Thorne had disappeared in made her sag with relief. Good, he was back. She almost stepped out of the doorway, but thank God something held her back. She froze as two shadows ran by. This time there was no mistaking the fact that both men were armed. She pressed against the door at her back and tried to become invisible.
Minutes later, Thorne called her name softly as he approached out of the darkness. Despite his limp, his steps were a lot quieter than those of the two men who’d run past. His fingers unerringly manacled her wrist and he gave a little tug to get her feet moving. “Let’s go.”
“Two men, armed, ran that way.” She indicated south, knowing his cat eyes would see the gesture.
“I doubled back to follow them. Now we’re behind them. At least until they figure it out. Ready?”
Apparently he didn’t have a “slow-start” button. He went from zero to sixty, hugging the walls as they ran. The sounds from the main thoroughfare beyond the souk were muted, and only a handful of people witnessed their passing as they clung to the shadows.
“You don’t have to hold on to me like a bag of laundry. I’m running as fast as—”
“Quiet.”
Really? Isis was tempted to say “Fuck you!” and take her chances. This was getting ridiculous. She had no idea where they were, who those men were, or why they were running. But maybe they could stop and ask some questions? Or maybe Mr. Macho-Take-Charge could take half a second to explain what was happening and why, without issuing terse orders and dragging her around by the arm, willing or no.
“You know—”
“I don’t care. Shut up and keep moving.”
“Go to hell!” Isis muttered as she kept moving.
Thorne used her wrist as a fulcrum to keep her slightly ahead of him. The deeper they went into the market, the fewer people they encountered, until they seemed to be alone on the planet, and still he moved quickly through the oppressive darkness.
He yanked her into another deep, dark, smelly doorway. Slamming his muscled forearm across her chest, he pinned her to the studded metal door as if she’d break free and sprint off on her own at any minute. It took several minutes to catch her breath and be capable of speech. At least it seemed as if this