He looked for blood, but didn't see any.
“Are you hurt?”
She was dazed, coughing, trying to push him away.
He held on. It was instinctive, that first shock, then as it began to wear off, the instinct to survive, to fight her way out of it.
“Are you hurt?” he asked again, but even as he asked it, his hands went back through her hair, feeling for any indication that she'd taken a blow to the head, then down her neck, across her shoulders.
“Can you stand?”
Numb, disoriented, she finally nodded. He pulled her to her feet.
“We need to go. Can you walk?”
She nodded again, holding onto him.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, at the sight of the shattered apartment building. “Marcus...”
She was in shock. He saw it in the expression on her face, her eyes wide and dark. She fought it, then fought him as she turned back toward the apartment building. He pulled her back.
“You can't help him now.”
“No!”
He held onto her.
“It might not be over!”
He scanned the street, cars that had been caught in the explosion of debris, people dazed, coming out of a Café across the street as clouds of smoke and dust billowed into the air.
There was no time to explain or try to convince her of the danger she was in out in the open. His arm tightened around her, pulling her with him, away from the shattered ruins of the apartment and the carnage, as the too-familiar sound of sirens filled the air.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
Everything was a blur as they sped through the streets of Paris—people on the street, traffic as he cut from one lane to the next, a closed street, the startled expressions of pedestrians as he cut down a sidewalk, then sped through an intersection and down another street, his gaze constantly going back to the rear-view mirror.
She had no idea where they were.
He downshifted, rounded another corner, cut through an alley, then out onto another street. And still had no idea where they were as traffic gradually thinned, and the rental car picked up speed.
Shock. She knew the signs and fought it as she caught pieces of his conversation with Anthony on the cell phone, the lights of the city fading behind them.
“I've got her,” James said into the phone; then, “I know. We're not coming back. It's too dangerous. “
There was a pause; then, “It's best you don't know.”
Hell, he didn't know. He only knew he had to get her out of Paris. They needed to disappear.
“Bon chance, my friend,” Anthony said as the call ended.
She had no idea where they were going, and then it didn't matter as heat churned out the vents, wipers skimmed rain from the windscreen, and darkness closed in.
He glanced into the rear-view mirror, making certain no one had followed from the roadway, then took the turnoff, slowly rolling past the inn with a small tour bus and several other automobiles in the car park.
On the street, tourists were still out in spite of the rain, walking along the sidewalk, entering a nearby restaurant.
