Page 67 of Stolen By the Billionaire
Two men barged into her room, raising guns with stiff arms at her.
Active shooters.
Dive.
Zigzag.
Throw books and pencils.
But Sarah froze.
As if she were dreaming, weight pinned her to the mattress like the sheets were chain mail made of lead.
A streak of blue and darkness crashed through the doorway and bowled over the two men, their bodies collapsing under the onslaught.
The sheets released Sarah, and she rolled over the side of the bed and onto the rug on the wooden floor.
Her fingers threaded through the gray yarn rug.
Hard thumps and male grunts and shouts erupted past the foot of the bed.
Underneath the bed, the box spring was resting on a wooden base. Sarah couldn’t see the door from underneath it nor crawl under it to hide, so she scrambled to tuck her legs in and make herself as small of a target as possible.
Thuds of heavy fists slamming into meat, splats and scrapes of bodies hitting wall plaster, and the grunts of the men raising in pitch, becoming more enraged, reached where Sarah was hiding.
Beyond the end of the bed, legs with shoes scissored, kicking. A torso fell with a man’s snarling face looking up and away from her before he pushed himself to stand, and then he flopped down again with a stunned, unblinking stare before he more slowly dragged himself upright again.
The door smacked the wall, and footsteps hammered the wooden floor in the hallway outside.
The scuffling stopped.
Blaze’s voice whispered through the still room, “Sarah? Are you here?”
She opened her mouth, but no voice came out.
Wasn’t she supposed to be screaming and trying to distract the active shooters?
She swallowed, the sandpaper sides of her throat grating against each other, and she tried again. “I’m here.”
Blaze careened around the edge of the bed, stretching his hand toward her. He growled in a low voice, “Right now. With me. No talking. Run.”
22
No Plan Survives
Blaze
Blaze towed Sarah through his house, pausing to crouch to peer around corners, resting lightly on his fingertips and bare toes like a praying mantis before proceeding.
Every time he sucked in a deep breath, pain shot through his side as the ends of his shattered ribs grated against each other.
Behind his shoulder, Sarah’s breathing was light and shocky. In the bedroom, he’d swept his hands over her soft tee shirt and limbs to make sure no hot, sticky blood flowed from a wound, even though he hadn’t heard any gunshots. They might have had a knife, but she seemed intact.
Blaze could help Sarah deal with the trauma later. He was good at that.
Down one hallway, he shoved her up against the wall with his back to her and surveilled behind them, then dropped to the floor again for a corner, and then their path was a straight shot to the gym.
He shoved open the door, wheeled Sarah around inside, and flipped the locks on the door behind them.
