Page 3 of Ash Storm

Play it cool.

“Keep going,” she hissed at her friends.

There are three of us and only one of him.

We just need to get past him.

Beside her, Chloe made a choked sound, but Reka didn’t stop to look at her friend.

And a part of her, the part that had been trained since childhood to be sociable, to look for the good in everyone, still couldn’t believe this was happening to her.

Maybe I’m misreading the situation.

Maybe he’s just a man on his way to work.

He’ll step aside and we’ll just—

A knife appeared in the man’s hand, disabusing her of any such notion. The large, curved blade glinted in the sunlight. But what really scared Reka, what sent her into breathless panic, was the change in his expression, how it went from cautious to hungry in the space of an instant.

As if he’s taken off a mask.

The man took a step closer to them, blocking their path.

Aileen screamed, driving Reka to action.

“There’s three of us,” she said breathlessly, as much to remind herself as anything else. “We split up and run back the way we came.”

She bodily turned her friends around, propelling them to action. After the initial push, Aileen bounded off down the street like a rabbit. Chloe, in her dainty ballerina shoes, struggled for a moment but finally found her footing and ran after Aileen.

Reka glanced behind them, then wished she hadn’t, because the man with the knife was running, too.

Fear spurred her on, and though Reka had never been a sprinter, she’d also never had this good a reason to sprint before. Her trainers hit the cobbled stones hard, each step reverberating against her shins as she pushed herself harder and harder.

She easily overtook Chloe and raced on, each step taking her closer to Aileen, who hesitated at the end of the street.

“Turn right, Aileen!”

Right, the way they’d come. They had to get back to the stores and the people.

And they were so close. So close, Reka could almost taste it.

Safety.

Freedom.

A small scream behind her stopped Reka short.

No.

Chloe was struggling in the man’s arms, her waif-like form jerking and hitting wildly as he pulled on her ponytail. When she was close enough, the man jerked on her elbow, pulling her back like it was no effort at all.

Aileen faltered, looking back at them, and Reka knew she was seconds away from running back to them. And Reka knew, intuitively, that was the worst possible outcome.

No.

“Keep going, Aileen! Get help!”

She didn’t wait to see if Aileen did as she’d asked.

She ran back, pulling her keys out of her small backpack as she did so, relieved that she’d forgotten to put them in the hotel room safe. Dropping the backpack on the dusty ground, she clutched the small pepper spray in her suddenly sweaty palm.

She prayed she remembered to use it—tried to think of how long ago her uncle had given it to her—then prayed pepper spray didn’t expire. She tightened her right hand around the small canister, leaving her thumb free to discharge the spray, and rushed at the two figures.

“Let her go!” she screamed, pressing the top firmly in short one-second bursts, the way her uncle had taught her. She directed the spray at the man’s face—since he was a head taller than Chloe, Reka figured she wasn’t likely to hit her friend.

She hit the jackpot with the third or fourth burst, which had the man howling and recoiling from them. His hold on Chloe loosened as he grabbed for his eyes.

Yes.

Reka stepped in closer, taking advantage of his temporary blindness to pull on Chloe’s arm and tug her away.

“Let’s go!” she cried out.

Chloe stared at her in horror, and it took Reka only an instant—but it was an instant too long—to realize Chloe wasn’t staring at her, but rather at someone behind her. Reka turned her head, just as something hard slammed against her temple.

Her last conscious thought was for Aileen. She hoped her friend had managed to get away.