Not fear in general. Specific. Directed.
The kind that comes when a gaze locks onto you like a scope.
I glance sideways, scanning the crowd.
People. Movement. A man in a gray coat. A woman with a hood. A kid darting between legs.
Nothing obvious.
But my pulse picks up anyway.
My escort on the left shifts. His nostrils flare. He smells something too.
“Jordan,” he murmurs, barely audible.
“What?” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer.
He just moves—fast—placing his body half between me and the crowd.
The vendor frowns. “What’s?—”
A sharp pop splits the air.
Not a gunshot. Something smaller. Like a suppressed discharge or a micro-charge.
My left escort jerks, and a bloom of dark spreads on his shoulder.
Blood.
My brain goes cold and clear.
“Oh my GOD?—”
“Down!” the other escort barks.
People scream. The market erupts. Vendors duck. Stalls collapse. The air fills with panic and the sour stink of fear sweat.
A second pop.
The vendor behind the tarp collapses backward, eyes wide, knocked flat by the shockwave of bodies trying to flee.
I drop instinctively, hands slamming onto gritty ground that smells like old rain and grease. My compad thumps against my ribs.
A hand lunges toward my jacket pocket.
Not to stab me.
To grab.
My eyes snap up and I see them—two figures in the chaos, moving with discipline that does not belong in a market stampede. One reaches for me while the other covers with a compact energy weapon angled low so nobody notices until it’s too late.
They’re not here to kill me.
They’re here to steal my compad.
My throat tightens.
