Protect Me (16 page)

“You
doing okay, Lasser?” Boran asked, his forehead bunched up in concern and his bushy
eyebrows scrunched over his eyes. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but things
with your client seem… uh…”

“Yeah?”
Without thinking Hope shifted back into her normal posture, feet spread wide to
take her weight evenly and her hands hanging loosely by her sides. They stood
there at the edge of the ballroom, mirror opposites, both catching each other’s
eye and then glancing away to keep watch on their charges.

“Close,”
Boran said, which made Hope glance at him again, off schedule, because that
wasn’t what she’d expected to hear. She had thought she’d hear “tense”, or
maybe, “uncomfortable”.

Her
heart sped up and beat uncomfortably fast in her thinly clothed chest. “What do
you mean?” Hope asked, trying to sound bored.

Boran
looked sympathetic, which was so much worse than if he’d looked annoyed. “You
know what I mean,” he said, voice horrifyingly kind. “I saw the way you looked
at each other. It’s easy to get attached when it’s someone like that, but we
can’t afford it. Taking things personally is no way to operate.”

She had
to bite back a sharp retort, but Hope knew that Boran was right. Beyond Boran’s
shaggy head of hair, Rick looked strained and worried, his head bent over a
champagne flute, flicking unhappy glances her way but not moving to interrupt
her conversation. “I know,” Hope said quietly. “It’s not… This isn’t…”

Boran
took his eyes off his client long enough to walk around beside her and bump her
shoulder with his own. It was familiar and comforting in a way that reminded
her of deep laughter and the scent of desert sand stirred up by Jeeps. Familiar
in the way that a past life could be familiar; comforting in a way that maybe
Hope had left farther behind than she’d realized until now.

“Do
what you have to,” Boran said with a nod, and disappeared from her side.

Hope
did what she always did when faced with a problem - filled her time with work.
She stayed several unobtrusive steps behind Rick at all times. She shadowed his
footsteps as he shook hands and exchanged friendly words with one rich,
important person after another. It reminded her that this was still an option;
that this had never actually stopped being an option. She was still just as
good at this as she had been at the start.

Trinity,
Iseul, and Javier all wandered casually by and for some reason found something
else to do.

From
the beginning, Rick kept turning around to look for her. It took a while, but eventually
Hope let his gaze search her out. She caught the exact moment he saw her;
watched a breath of air rush out of his lungs and his shoulders slump in sudden
relief. It shouldn’t have warmed her, and she shouldn’t have been used enough
to the sensation to recognize it, but there they were. Hope wasn’t in the
business of denial.

Without
hesitation Rick made his way over to her. The expression on his face was a
ghost of his usual good humor and amusement at life, but he always had a smile
for her. And that warmed her too, though Hope kept her face solemn.

“Been
hiding from me?” Rick asked, sounding resigned.

She
shook her head. “Not hiding, just… thinking.”

The
edge of Rick’s mouth tugged up ruefully. Up close all of his sharp, clean lines
seemed to blur and fade into something less perfect and more human. A thread
was loose on his suit; his hair was ruffled at the front from where he must
have scrubbed a hand over his face. There were smile lines crinkled into the
corners of his eyes, and Hope wanted to reach out and trace them with her
fingertips.

“That
rarely works out well for me,” Rick said, his voice a low hum under the dull
roar of the ballroom.

Hope
crooked an eyebrow at him. “You want me to stop thinking?”

“Never,”
he said, low and surprisingly earnest. Rick brought up a big hand to rub at the
back of his neck and stared at her with his dark eyes. Hope wondered if she’d
ever met anyone else who managed to live with so few masks. The money had to
help, but she was sure that part of it was just Rick and his open heart. She
felt a sudden and shockingly fierce urge to protect him from anything that
would make him take his heart off his sleeve.

“Alright,
well, in any case, I have something to tell you.” Hope suddenly remembered
Iseul’s impromptu lesson and shifted her feet closer together. It seemed to
close the distance between them just a little more, though she hadn’t meant to.

“Yeah?”
Rick reached out and his hand hovered over her bare shoulder for a moment
before running it down the outside of her arm, just barely skimming her skin.
His touch burned. She wanted more.

“I
quit,” Hope said, her voice sure and strong, more confident in this one
statement than she’d ever been in her own words before.

Rick
blinked, surprise shuttering behind his eyes. He opened his mouth. Hope’s heart
rose up to meet his words.

At the
front of the ballroom an explosion crashed through the double doors.

CHAPTER TEN

There
was a moment of shocked silence before the ballroom exploded into pandemonium.
I
never can catch a break,
Hope thought with something close to resigned
amusement, while the majority of her mind occupied itself trying to figure out
if that was the noise of a bomb or of gunshots. It was remarkably difficult to
tell the difference in close quarters, even if you had experience with the
damned things.

“Do you
think that perhaps your resignation can wait?” Rick inquired politely. It was
admittedly impressive that he was able to accomplish this and still sound
casual about it while Hope was bodily dragging him underneath a table.

“Let’s
consider it officially on hold,” Hope said grimly. She crouched down behind the
table and stared out over the crumbs and scattered plates. “Stay here; if you
move, there will be violence, and it will come from me.”

Without
taking her eyes off the door - there was a lot of dust, low visibility, and
still lots of people flailing and running in no one clear direction - Hope
yanked her sleek little black purse off its thin chain and dumped out its
contents on the floor.

Rick
spluttered quietly. “Do most women keep arsenals in their purses?” he
whispered.

Hope
felt blindly along the floor. After a moment of consideration she flicked her
flat knife open and pushed it over to Rick, handle-first.

“Oh,
definitely,” she told him as she picked up a small gun and cocked it with
practiced hands.

“Should
that be hot?” Rick asked. Hope had to bite down a laugh.

“You
should be
quiet
,” she chided. She clicked the safety off, her hands
perfectly steady.

The
haze of smoke started to clear from the front of the room. Hope forced her eyes
to unfocus; after a moment she picked out the pattern of slow movement as a few
shadowy figures wove their way between tables.

Heading
straight for them. Of course.

Hope
ducked down and stared into Rick’s eyes, very close and very bright. The
adrenaline made things look different, more vivid, so that she noticed every
sharp line of his face, the slightly olive tone of his skin. She knew
unquestioningly that in forty years she would be able to recall the precise
shade of gray of his tuxedo, and the melting brown of his eyes.

“Incoming,”
she told him, and he nodded. Rick pulled the flat knife off the ground,
fumbling with it a little, but wholly game.

“What
now?” he murmured.

Hope
jerked her head to indicate the mirrors. Rick made a face, which meant that he
understood what she meant.

It only
took Hope a second to yank off the strappy stilettos. Then the two of them were
moving, winding their way between chairs and under tables. Luckily the room was
still loud with the sounds of panic and scuffing feet, and though Hope listened
intently for any sharp cries or cut-off screams, none came.

If she
hadn’t been in love with Rick before, this might have done it all on its own.
The journey from the middle of the floor to the back doors they’d entered
through seemed to take forever, but Rick never stopped or questioned her.

The
mirrors she’d installed were their saviors. Hope blessed them over and over as
they made their way to the back of the room. Using the mirrors she managed to
keep them away from the three men advancing slowly, clearly hunting for Rick.
Hope spared a thought for her friends - new and old - but her old friends could
take care of themselves, and her new ones weren’t likely to be in much danger.

Not
after Hope’s next move.

The
last table was a good four yards from the door. Hope stopped and turned to
Rick, who looked at her questioningly. In the mirror the three men swept closer
and closer, unaware of how near they were to their target. She breathed in
deeply and let the air go.

“I’m
going to stand and you’re going to run,” Hope said in the quietest voice she
could manage. Rick’s forehead scrunched up in denial. She raised a hand off the
ground. “They’re not going to shoot. If they’d wanted you dead they could have
killed you before. So listen - run to the lab, don’t stop for anyone. I’ll meet
you there. The sooner you get through those doors, the sooner I can follow you.
Got it?”

For a
moment Hope thought that Rick was going to argue or at least kiss her. But the
indecision in his face smoothed out into resolve; he gave her a sharp nod and
gathered his legs underneath himself.

“Ready?”
he breathed. Hope grinned.

Rick’s
hand shoved off the table and his footsteps echoed in Hope’s ears; she jumped
to her feet and off to the side, drawing the eye of the hunters, who seemed to
turn toward her in slow motion.

“What’s
up?” Hope shouted, which was perhaps not the cleverest thing she could have
said, but in real life your witty comebacks mattered a lot less than getting
the right reaction at the right moment.

Even if
you are very well trained, there are certain instinctive reactions that just
make sense, and thus are almost impossible to beat down. Though the three men
had caught the sharp movement of Rick taking off toward the door, all three of
them snapped their heads around to look at Hope when she shouted for their
attention.

It was
only a second or two. It was enough time for Hope to see that two of the men
were of roughly medium height and one was on the short side, all of them with
weather-beaten features and sun-bleached hair. It was enough time for Rick to
slip through the doors and for them to thud closed after him.

“Stop!”
The short man in front commanded in a harsh, accented voice. Hope blinked and
then drew her gun - as in turned out, in unison with the three men. The
scattered screams and footsteps in the ballroom went suddenly quiet.

“I
don’t think so,” Hope said, her voice as steady as her grip on the gun.

The man
inclined his head. “A pity,” he said. He didn’t sound particularly regretful.
If she hadn’t been listening she wouldn’t have noticed it, but Hope’s trained
ears picked up the soft click of the safety being pushed off on his gun.

In a
smooth motion Hope drew her gun upward and took one sure shot.

The
gunshot cracked across the ballroom, somebody gave a cut-off shriek, a mirror
shattered, and hundreds of tiny pieces of glass rained down over the ballroom.

Hope
turned on her heel and took off running for the door. She slammed into the
double doors and sprinted down the hallway as fast as she could. There was no
time for relief about the fact that the bad guys hadn’t recovered their wits
enough to shoot a bullet into her back. She grabbed fistfuls of her long
flowing skirt, hiked it high over her thighs, and bolted up a flight of stairs.

All of
the scared-rabbit instincts lurking in Hope’s brain screamed at her to stop and
hide, to listen for footsteps stampeding after her, to wait until they passed
by. Just like every other similar time, it was a very real temptation.

But
that was a good way to get killed. Sitting around and waiting very rarely did
much but give the baddies a chance to find you. Just like every other time,
Hope’s training and better instincts won out. The truth was that it didn’t
matter whether or not they were coming after her, not right now, not if she
could get far enough away. She needed to draw them out in this direction, away
from Rick’s lab, before she could get there herself.

Well,
the three men were pretty close on her heels, and being quiet was really damn
hard barefoot in a dress. At this point if she could lose them she’d be doing pretty
swell.

Now at
the top of the stairs, breathing hard, Hope lengthened her stride and ran down
the hallway, letting the thick carpet absorb the noise of her footfalls. She
strained her ears and though she heard shouts and heavy footsteps not too far
behind her, they didn’t seem to be coming much closer. Hope forced herself to
sacrifice some speed for silence; she dropped down to a jog and moved back down
another flight of stairs on quiet cat feet.