Hearts of the Hunted Read Online Free Page B

crossed her arms and stopped to look at me,
it was appraisal and not anger I saw. "I'm looking for you ," she
said.
    I shook my head. "There's
a reason I don't dress like this," I said, gesturing to the cute
dress I was wearing. "I need to be able to run, to react, to hide.
I can't do that dressed like a princess."
    Her eyes took me in again,
and they were wistful and sad. "You're gorgeous all dressed up like
that," she said and turned to start walking again. "It would just
be nice to see you looking lovely and happy rather than ready for a
fight every minute."
    I stood for a second,
staring at her back, and then had to jog forward to catch her,
balancing carefully on the short heels. This time I reached for her
hand, and she let me take it. "I live a dangerous life," I said
quietly. She only nodded.
    We moved away from
commerce and into entertainment, passing a variety of hotels,
clubs, and bars as well as jewelry stores with signs like 'Cash for
GOLD!' and plenty of restaurants of various quality. "The movie
theater is a block that way," she said, pointing. "I was pulled
into this alley." She gestured to a narrow gap between a dance club
and a small, cozy bar with a glass front. Her voice was steady but
tight, and she clutched my hand so hard that my fingertips started
to tingle with discomfort. I didn't try to loosen her
grip.
    "Did he take you
somewhere?" I asked as gently as I could.
    "I think so, but I—" She
turned to me, a look of panic on her face. "I don't remember. I
don't remember where he took me! I remember him hurting me, and I
don't think I was outside, but I can't remember where we were!" She
took a sharp breath, breathing hard, and I pulled her into my arms,
backing her away from the alley until we couldn't see down its
threatening depths anymore.
    "It's okay," I whispered,
"He probably told you to forget. It's okay."
    Her whole body shook, but
she held tight to me and fought against the tears. "I came back to
myself about a block from here. I was just sitting on the sidewalk
in front of a hotel," she said in a strained voice. She pulled
away, and I followed her to the hotel, my heart cracked and
bleeding for her.
    "We don't have to do
this."
    "We do! We have to! It was
here." She pointed to a spot on the sidewalk in front of the Sunset
Heights hotel, an unimpressive eight-story brick
building.
    I nodded and gestured to a
little deli across the street. "Go sit. I'm going to go into the
alleys and look around, and I really don't want you back there,
okay?"
    She looked like she wanted
to fight me, but the fear in her eyes betrayed her, and she finally
nodded and backed away, waiting for a break in traffic before she
retreated across the street.
    There wasn't much to see
in the alleys, but they were connected by a narrow lane that
probably wasn't used by anyone but garbage men, bums, and the
occasional rapist or mugger. I felt hideously out of place in my
pretty, girly dress, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up
painfully as if someone were breathing down my neck.
Unobtrusiveness: yet another argument for wearing the dark,
unmemorable, utilitarian clothes I usually preferred.
    And yet somehow it felt
almost as if I were a flower in a dark shadow—a ray of light that
trespassed on the wicked darkness—as if I were in the right, and
the darkness was wrong instead of the other way around, and my very
presence there was helping to push it back. I snorted.
Fairytales.
    I exited through the alley
where the creep had grabbed Hannah having seen nothing but a couple
of sleeping bums and a lot of trash. Stepping into the sunlight was
like stepping into a shower after a long trek through the
woods—cleansing and desperately needed.
    Hannah had taken another
corner table and put her back to the wall, and I smiled sadly to
see the new habits of mistrust and fearful caution taking root in
her. She'd ordered me a sandwich, and I sat beside her (my back to
the other wall) and thanked her.
    "I figure your job