“Get her out of here, Reid,” he growls, ignoring her completely and keeping his eyes on me. “Go!”
He doesn’t have to tell me twice. Tucking my arm around Freya’s back, I lift her up and make a break for the wing of the stage, doing my best to keep my body between her and the screaming crowd.
The second gunshot is a whole lot louder than the first.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Freya
Ihavebeenafraidbefore, but never like this.
“Elliot!” I gasp.
He does not stop moving, which means I cannot stop moving. With the second gunshot, we stumbled to a back hallway that is far too small for us to be running through, but that has not hindered my bodyguard or decreased his speed. He is right next to me, an arm around my waist as he hurries me toward the nearest exit.
But I need to go back.
People are in danger. Someone has a weapon, and someone else may have gotten hurt, and I cannot run when I need to ensure everyone is—
“Freya!” Elliot growls, pushing me faster. “Keep moving!”
We reach the doors, and Elliot bursts through them without first making sure the coast is clear. Thatis unlike him.
The guard stationed at the door swears loudly before realizing who we are, and then his eyes go wide. “Sir?”
“Armed assailants inside,” Elliot says with all the gruffness of a seasoned soldier. “One confirmed casualty. I don’t know who else might have—”
“I need to go back!” I say with all the force I can muster. Which is not much. My limbs have begun to shake, threatening to collapse beneath me. “More people may be hurt.”
Elliot clenches his jaw. “No.”
“Yes!”
“Elliot!” Sander barrels through the door we came through, his eyes wild. “It’s chaos in there. You need to get her out of here now!” I have never seen him afraid like this, and terror shoots through me. Where is Hex?
I step forward. “What’s going—”
“Unlatch the horse!” Elliot orders the guard. He grabs my arm in a vise-grip and pulls me toward the waiting coach without yielding.
The instant the horse is freed from the coach, Elliot lifts me onto its back despite the lack of a saddle, and with the help of the guard, he climbs up beside me and urges the horse forward.
“This horse is not meant for riding,” I say as people start filling the street, escaping the arena behind us. It is an unimportant thing to note, even though the animal is far too large for me to comfortably sit astride. I feel as if reality is playing out on a screen in front of me and I am detached from my body. The real problems are too big for me to process. I still try.
Markham was injured. Someone tried to shoot me. My brothers are still in danger. Elliot has tucked an arm around me and kicked the horse into a canter, heading for one of the passes, toward our next stop where the vehicles will be waiting.
The city falls behind us in a blur.
We have been riding for hours or minutes. I do not know. My heart is aching and my mind spinning, and Elliot holds so tight to me that breathing is difficult. Instead of the city, nothing but trees surround us now, and Elliot has slowed the horse to a walk and moved us into the forest rather than on the open road.
As we continue to ride away from the arena and the people who need me, I ask a question despite knowing the answer. “Can we go back?”
Elliot grunts and shifts behind me. “It’s not safe.”
But a dense forest is acceptable? “We should not have left, Elliot. We should not have run when we could have helped.”
“You could have been killed,” he argues, loosening his hold on me. “If Grimstad hadn’t…” He grunts again.
He sounds angry. Is it really so difficult to admit that Markham might be a good man? “That is why I have to go back! He was hurt!”
