Page 54 of Veiled Fantasies

Out of the muddle, something resonated in her mind–the dull clunk of metal dropped on wood. “The key!” She motioned with one elbow. “There! They put the key—” Erik hushed her rising voice with a quick finger to the lips. “They put the key there!” An urgent whisper now. “On the table!”

He was over and back in a flash, working the key in the cuff. Free! She rubbed her raw wrists while trying to get her legs under her, suddenly turning into a gangly, newborn colt. Her synapses were overloaded with a thousand mixed commands.

Flee! Think! Pull yourself together! Breathe! Run!

Erik pulled her up and anchored her to his side. She focused everything on that. Do as he did. Keep quiet and follow. She blinked hard and crept with him to the doorway, then held her breath as he listened at the curtain. Erik’s eyes bored into her with a hard look, all business.Ready?

She was absolutely not ready. Her heart was thumping a hole in her chest. She needed more time, but she nodded, clutching a fistful of his shirt.

The rifle went first, then Erik, with Jill right behind. They crept down the hallway, past one curtained doorway, then another. Hushed voices carried on a conversation in a side room. She couldn’t see past Erik to the door but knew it had to be near. Her pulse was racing, muscles screaming to run for it. Why was he so slow?

Step by agonizing step, they inched on, past the next doorway.

It happened so fast, Jill couldn’t react. Neither could the woman who stepped out from behind the curtain on their right. For a split second, they stared at each other until a shrill cry broke out from behind the veil. A stout man pushed out behind the woman, grumbling, then shouting. Jill watched it all unfold in slow motion—the man’s bulging eyes, Erik dropping a shoulder and slamming hard, butting the man back into the room with a loud crash, and the woman’s piercing screams.

The voices in the room ahead fell silent, then burst into shouts as Erik pushed her ahead. She barely cleared the man emerging from the left, her legs moving all too slowly toward the door.

Erik body-checked him into the wall and started yelling. “Get out! Out!”

Jill leaped to the door, tugging desperately. Locked? She pushed instead and tumbled out, head over heels. Pandemonium erupted behind her, and fresh air pulled her onward. She was out!

She took a leaping step and immediately tripped over the prone body of a man. She didn’t dare wonder who it was or what had happened. Her mind screamed one order, over and over.Get away! Get away!But where was Erik?

She turned just as he came lurching through the doorway, shouting “Go! Go!”

That was all she needed. She shot away, not caring exactly where. Just away. She careened around several tight corners and wheeled onto the main axis of the souk, sending a burlap bag of hot red spice flying through the air. It caught in her nostrils, searing her eyes and throat, but nothing would have made her slow. Nothing.

On the straightaway, her legs picked up speed at last. She bashed a few surprised figures aside and ducked as jangling dresses swayed above, nearly ripping down a display. A wild commotion behind, voices everywhere.

Out! Get out!

It was only when she reached the street, half blind in the sudden dark, that she hesitated. Erik flew out behind, nearly slamming into her. He motioned to the right.

“There!”

Headlights flashed; a taxi was waiting. She heard a metallic clatter as Erik jettisoned the rifle into the shadows and dove into the cab.

“Drive! Drive!” Erik shouted. The bewildered driver took one look at the men rushing from the souk and floored it. They were in! They were off!

Safe?

The driver cursed as he screeched around a corner, straight into an armada of flashing red lights. Jill watched him fight the wheel out of a near spin, then rush on. She swiveled to the rear window to watch a police fleet close in on the souk. Their headlights caught the startled, sour face of the Armenian, along with several others, just emerging from around the corner.

She didn’t understand any of it. She didn’t want to understand. She pulled her head into her arms and balled up as tightly as she could. Something pressed in from her left, and she tried to shoulder it away until she realized it was Erik, wrapping himself around her.

That’s when she collapsed into a limp, heaving mess and completely let go.

* * *

Jill had only the vaguest of memories of finally drifting off to something like sleep, curled in a ball beside Erik, back in the hotel. She tried to lose herself in his scent and his cottony warmth but awoke screaming in terror until Erik’s gentle strokes eased her back to sleep.

When she woke a second time, Jill found herself transported to one of those magical winter mornings in Sweden. The two of them spooned together in a peaceful little cabin. The blanket was a thick pile of snow that muffled all sound; all but the steady thumping of his heart.

When her mind threatened to revisit the previous night, she jerked it back to the present.Don’t go back there. Here is much nicer. Now.The cabin, with its freshly chopped wood waiting beside the fireplace. Timber walls and frost-laced window panes keeping the world at bay. She concentrated on Erik’s warmth, his soft breath near her ear.

Let go.

But some things, she just couldn’t let go.

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