But a woman's panicked scream in the distance wasn’t something he could ignore.
Paris felt as if she'd already been wandering the streets of the city for an entire miserable day, even though it was probably more like two hours. Her feet were killing her, and she'd spent what little money she'd brought from the hotel on a map that she didn't understand. However, in that very short amount of time, she'd already managed to get completely turned around again and wind up in a smelly alley next to a trashy bar in the middle of nowhere.
This was not how she had expected her dream vacation to turn out. She was both angry at herself and angry at the student tour group for her situation.
Yes, she was a loner—when someone moved as much as she had as a kid that was to be expected. Paris had learned a long time ago that making friends was pointless. Just as soon as she got to know someone, she’d be off to a new town.
Atlanta, her sister, had had the opposite reaction to their childhood though. Rather than retreating into herself, she had become outgoing—the life of the party. Everyone was drawn to Atlanta, and Paris could only watch in admiration.
Leaving 3 “best friends” in one year had been enough for her. Paris had retreated into herself and consoled herself with the idea that she actually preferred being alone. It gave her more time to think and to study.
And anyway, in med school, who had time to make friends? There were the people in her first-year study group that she got together with once a week… but they didn’t really count. There were the three other black people in her cohort that she would give ‘the nod’ to when they passed each other on campus, but she didn’t really know them.
And so, while she was mad at the tour group—how could they have forgotten her!?—on some level, she knew she had no one to blame but herself. If she was more of a ‘people’ person, maybe this wouldn’t have happened to her.
Suddenly, for one of the few times in her life, Paris felt utterly, completely, desolately, lonely. A wave of self-pity washed over her, but she pushed back the tears that threatened to come and tried to focus on the problem at hand.
Think, Paris. Think.
She was a smart girl, she was used to making her own way in the world and having to find her way out of sticky situations. How many times had she been responsible for her brother and sister as a kid? How many times had she had to figure out how to take a bus to the grocery store, carefully count out the change she had found in the couch cushions for the clerk, and read the cooking instructions on the back of the box of mac and cheese?
She was used to a challenge. She could handle this. Paris straightened her shoulders and tried to ignore the early evening chill in the air.
The problem was… she was used to handling things in English. She didn't recognize anything, couldn’t read anything, and the urge to break down in tears was becoming pretty overwhelming. Paris had already tried three hotels, but all of them said—in what little French she understood—that they were full.
She wasn’t sure if her credit card would have had enough to cover a night in this swanky part of town anyway, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to spend the night sleeping in the street.
Paris was just about to turn around and try to retrace her steps back to the chapel to see if the guard might still be there—he had seemed friendly enough—when two huge men stepped out of the shadows sneering at her.
“You zeem to be lost, mademoiselle.” One of the men gave her a not-so-reassuring grin.
“We can, per-haps, ’elp you…”
Her stomach dropped straight down to her feet. Danger was danger in any language.
The croque-monsieur she’d had for lunch hadn’t been sitting well with her, and now there was a decent chance she was going to be sick all over herself.
This was how she was going to die, she was sure of it.
She did a quick mental assessment of her options.
Fight? Two against one wasn’t good odds—and who knew what type of weapons they had.
Flight? The large frame of both men seemed to take up the whole alleyway. There wasn’t much of a chance she could squeeze past them, even if she was inclined to try.
Freeze? That’s probably what they would expect…
The men ambled toward her, with dangerous confidence, leering at her and saying things in French that she didn't understand. She didn’t have to understand a word though to understand their intent, and Paris knew it wasn’t going to be a pretty outcome for her—that much she understood.
She backed up as far as she could into the alley until she hit the grimy wall behind her, hoping she might be able to use it as leverage if the men came too close to her. One of the men had his hand in his pocket, and her mind started spinning over every scenario, every possibility for what he could be about to pull out.
She only had one option left.
Paris had no idea where the courage came from, but she knew she was rapidly running out of other options.
She opened her mouth and started screaming.
And she just couldn't stop.
The taller of the two men covered his ears, and started yelling at her in French and running toward her. But her survival instinct was manifesting in hysterical screaming flailing, and while, logically, she knew this might not do her any good in the long run, she also knew it might be her only shot.
Her mama’s voice rang in her memory. Sometimes you have to just out-crazy the crazy, honey.
Paris made grunting noises and jumped up and down,
flinging her limbs from side to side. Her voice wouldn't quiet down.
If she was going to go down, she was going to go down screaming. And screaming. Until even her ears started to ring with the sound of her own voice.
When Paris saw the man reach back into his pocket and pull out a switchblade, she wasn’t sure if she should stop her screaming and flailing, or redouble her efforts. She wasn’t going to go down without a fight, that much was certain.
Suddenly, a large shadow loomed over the men and seemed to fill the alleyway. The shorter man with the switchblade suddenly flew forward to the ground, landing on the pavement with a violent thud, his face hitting the stones with a sickening crack.
The taller man spun around, screaming in French as the man on the ground groaned and gurgled in pain. Paris was far enough in the alley that she couldn't quite make out what was going on, but all at once the taller man was on the ground too, a splatter of blood following him through the air. Time passed in slow motion as both of the men scrambled to their feet, their hands raking against the cobblestones, and ran from the alley as fast as their feet would carry them.
Paris watched them disappear in stunned silence, and then bent over as her breath heaved and she retched several times. She sank slowly to her knees, her hands on the hard, uneven ground beneath her, grateful that she was unharmed.
It was only when she was certain they were gone that the reality of the situation fully washed over her, and she began crying hysterically. There was no holding back now—her body shook uncontrollably. She wouldn’t have been able to stop even if she had wanted to.
And then, there were arms around her.
Strong arms.
Long, muscular arms, pulling Paris tight to a hard, wide chest clad in a leather jacket and an obscenely soft shirt. He—whoever he was—smelled like heaven in the stench of the alley, his cologne subtle, but enveloping, like nothing she had ever smelled in her life.
As she sobbed into the stranger's chest, she took in deep lungfuls of him, her hands grasping his shirt, her fingers curling around the soft fabric, finding strange comfort in the anonymous man's gentleness. He ran his fingers up and down her back and whispered gently to her in an accent she couldn't place.