Chapter 34
Kiss of Fire
Briar
My breath whooshed from my lungs as I was ripped away from the driver, and it only took me a second to realize it wasn’t Lucas coming to meet us and surprising me. The person pulling me was pulling too fast and wasn’t stopping. And when his other hand clamped down over my mouth immediately after and he started whispering my full name, I realized this had to have been the person responsible for my anxiety.
I screamed against his hand and thrashed; people stopped to look with dumbfounded expressions as he pulled me through a small gap between the two stores.
No, no, no! This isn’t happening!
“I’m going to get you out of here, Briar Chapman,” he whispered again on a rush. “It’s going to be o—” He cut off with a grunt and stumbled when I snapped my head back against his face.
I regretted it instantly. Black spots danced across my vision and the cramped alleyway tilted although he was still holding me straight up. I struggled to get out of his hold, but my pathetic attempt at an escape had only caused him to tighten his arms.
People began screaming and running away from the storefront sidewalk seconds before gunshots tore through the air.
The man started running backward again, and I screamed against his hand and doubled my efforts. I dug my nails into the man’s arm and tore as hard as I could and bit down on the meaty part of his palm covering my mouth.
A growl sounded in my ear, and he dropped the hand from my mouth.
I screamed as loud as I could for help, but my voice was lost in the chaos on the street. Turning in the arm still holding me tightly, I shoved against the man’s chest and clawed at his face as I yelled for him to let me go.
But he was large with thickly muscled arms, and every few seconds his arm constricted tighter
around me.
He grabbed my waist and lifted me off the ground as he started running again, but before he could get me over his shoulder I shoved my knee into his groin and scrambled to my feet when he dropped me.
“Bitch!”
“Someone help me!” I shouted as I ran past him toward the storefronts. I’d only made it halfway up the alleyway when I was yanked backward by my hair, forcing a cry to rip from my chest. I screamed for help over and over as he gathered my fists into one hand across my chest to restrain me from another attack, then slammed his other hand over my mouth again.
Another gunshot rang out, this one deafening as it echoed through the alley. The man holding me whirled around and forced me higher up on his body to use me as a shield for his chest and face, and I cried with relief against his hand when I saw the driver walking toward us with his gun raised.
He didn’t say anything, just walked quickly as his eyes darted over me. When the man began matching the driver’s steps with his own, the driver’s eyes found mine and locked. After a few steps the driver’s eyes flickered down to the gun and then back up . . . a few steps more and his eyes settled on something near my feet.
I didn’t know what he was trying to tell me and I was shouting against the man’s hand for the driver to just do or say something. The man holding me laughed.
We were nearing the other end of the alleyway, and the driver finally barked, “Lift your feet!”
I lifted at the same second the man holding me turned to run, but the driver fired, and the man holding me stumbled and roared in pain. His knee buckled, and we started falling, the ground coming up fast when another deafening shot filled the alley.
“Miss Holt!” The driver was suddenly there, yelling, but his voice sounded off with how loud my ears were ringing.
The driver ripped the man’s hand off me and pulled me from his body, and I turned to see blood pooling from a hole at his temple.
A horrified cry left me and my body trembled uncontrollably as I scrambled to get farther away.
“Miss Holt, are you okay? I need to know if you are okay. Miss Holt, please say something. Miss Holt. Miss Holt!” The driver wrenched my face toward his, away from the dead man. “Have you been hurt, Miss Holt?”
I think I shook my head, but it could have been from the way I was already shaking so violently. “H-h-h-h-he . . . oh my—he’s dead,” I screamed.
The driver quickly pulled me toward the opening of the alleyway. Sirens could be heard in the distance, and the sidewalk that had been filled with shoppers was now empty.
A shuddering breath left me and I covered my mouth to mute my next scream when I realized it wasn’t.
The body of the woman who had stopped us to ask for directions lay unmoving on the sidewalk. Blood pooled from her head.