Black Keys (The Colorblind Trilogy #1) - Rose B. Mashal Page 0,100

hopped out of the car, and fear made a home in my heart, growing even bigger when the door to my right was opened by the very same guy who’d stopped the car.

I gripped my cross with both of my hands from above my clothes, holding it even tighter than just a moment ago, my prayers ringing in the back of my head, and panic throbbing inside of my heart. My tears were choking me and burning my eyes, but the fright that was consuming me was too massive to allow them to really fall to my cheeks. The anxiety of not knowing what would happen was almost enough to knock me out cold. Almost enough. But not really.

My first thought, after seeing that he wasn’t the prince, was imagining that Janna had set me up. I couldn’t think of any other way someone could follow me or know of my escape so fast, but the smile I saw on his devilish features, followed by ‘Janna’ while he looked at my frightened and hidden form told me that that wasn’t the case.

He thought I was Janna.

The fact that he didn’t use her ‘Ameera’ title before her name added to the fact that he’d ordered the driver, who was also a guard, to stop then leave the limousine told me that he was royal. My thoughts turned to thinking that he might be her other brother, wanting to say a final goodbye to his sister before she left the kingdom for God only knows how long. Just because I was the luckiest girl on earth.

Oh, God! What do I do?

But then I remembered that her other brother was just a few months younger than the prince, which made him only twenty-three, and the bearded guy looked much older than thirty–it couldn’t be him.

Wondering who this guy was drove me so crazy that I wanted to scream. I was so scared, confused and plain terrified.

He spoke to me. A lot. I knew that if he paid just the tiniest bit of attention, he’d know I was shaking with fear. His words sounded like questions, but I didn’t understand more than that, and of course I couldn’t speak, couldn’t utter a word. And that made the situation even worse.

It was only when he stuck a foot inside the car that I couldn’t take it anymore. I knew there was no way out of this for me, but I wasn’t going down without a fight. I opened the door to my left and hopped out of the car.

He restoreth my soul: He guideth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

I thought that maybe I’d find a car passing by that I could get into, or maybe even find the BMW with the keys inside. Maybe I could drive it and flee, or maybe the stupid driver might even take me away from this guy. I didn’t know. I just wanted to be away from him and that was it.

Four steps. Four steps were all I managed to take with my unhelpful heels before I felt a hand gripping my arm tightly and pulling me to a stop. More words in Arabic, some yelled, some questioning, and when I saw his eyes narrowing, I knew he’d gotten the idea of me not being Janna.

The bearded guy’s head tilted to the side, his hand still gripping my arm and his eyes still narrowed, looking at me closely as if trying to figure out the mystery of who I was. I watched in terror as his eyes wandered over my body, from my head to my hand that was still pressed tightly to my chest and over my cross, and down to my feet. There, his eyes lit up, the frown on his forehead cleared, and the devilish smile returned to his lips when his eyes found mine. I wondered for a moment if the blue of them was showing through the material that was hiding them.

His grip on my arm grew tighter and I almost winced in pain. Though I knew there was a huge chance that I was already busted, I still wouldn’t dare to utter a thing, not even a loud breath; my gasps, though, were out of my hands, I couldn’t control those.

He mumbled a few more words in Arabic, and I could’ve sworn that my blood not only ran cold, but froze when he came even closer to me, so that our faces were almost touching–despite my efforts to