Shaking her head, she huffed out a laugh at herself. She was in all sorts of a mood this evening. And who would blame her? But being temperamental wasn’t going to convince anyone to help her, and she needed help. She’d take every moment of frustration and rage and swallow it if it could get An-mei the help she needed faster. What Maylin had to do was be constructive, figure out next steps. There was always something else to be tried. Somehow.
And sometimes it seemed like every street in downtown Seattle was uphill. So no one would judge her if she took a breather up at the top of the alley and maybe stood at the corner a minute longer than necessary. If anyone did, she’d blame it on the crosswalk signal changing sooner than she thought she could cross.
Honestly, she needed to build up better cardio.
Screeching broke through her thoughts, the sounds of tires on wet pavement. She turned to her left and instinctively threw up her arm against the glare of insanely bright headlights.
“Down!”
A wall slammed into her left side, taking her to the ground and rolling with her until what was left of the air in her lungs was forced out in a whoosh as they hit the side of the building.
How? How had they rolled away from the street? And...what...?
Tires peeled.
“Are you okay? Hey!” The words boomed in her head from far away, like someone shouting through a fog.
Too many lights swam across her vision, images burned on her retinas blending with the streetlamps overhead. Her throat contracted and her lungs burned.
Breathe.
She gasped and cool air rushed in, clearing away some of the fog.
“That’s it, sweetheart. Take another breath nice and slow. Slow.” Strong hands patted her down, touched her with gentle purpose. “Does anything hurt? Your neck, your head?”
“The way you took her down, it’s amazing her skull isn’t splattered all over the sidewalk.” Another man’s voice floated over from some distance away. Or was it a shock thing?
Maybe she was in shock.
Did people’s feet get cold at times like this? Only her left one.
“Your left foot is colder because you lost a shoe when I shoved you out of the way.” A thread of amusement ran through the original speaker’s voice. She liked the sound of it. Kind humor, like what she heard in his words, was the sign of a good man. “I’m going to help you to a sitting position, but if anything hurts at all, you let me know right away and we’re laying you back down. Understood?”
“Yes.” She said it out loud on purpose, because she was pretty sure she’d been talking out loud anyway so it’d be good to know if she could do it when she actually meant to.
The same big hands she’d taken note of before took hold of her, one sliding under her neck to give her support as she came up to a sitting position.
“Slow,” her caretaker admonished.
His choice of speeds was frustrating.
“Had to be a DUI.” The owner of the other voice had returned. “Driver ran up one curb and down the other all the rest of the way down the street. Got a couple of letters off the license plate. Lizzy and Victoria are securing the immediate area and calling it in to 911. Ambulance en route.”
She turned her head to peer up. Blond hair, tanned skin, suit. One of the private security guys, the one who’d been snitching fried shrimp all night. She remembered Charlie coming to her nervous about whether to tell the guy the food was for the guests, but she’d laughed it off and made sure they kept the supply of that dish hot and ready. Fried shrimp were always popular anyway. Then what the man had said caught up to her.
“No ambulance. Really. I’m not hurt.” And she didn’t need to spend all night in the emergency room for a couple of scrapes and bruises. She hated hospitals with a passion.
“They’re on their way.” Her rescuer didn’t leave room for argument. “They can look you over first, then you can decide.”
His now authoritative tone, colder and clipped, sounded much more familiar than she’d initially thought. She peeked up at him through the escaped strands of her probably insanely messed-up hair.
Of course. She always had a special kind of ironic luck. The very man who wouldn’t help her earlier was now kneeling beside her, shielding her from the night breeze with an arm around her shoulders.
“By the way, Cinderella, one of my teammates found your shoe. Victoria says shoes this expensive matter to a lady.” The other man held it out to her. “Sorry, but I think it was a casualty. My name’s Marc and this is Gabe, but I gather you two already met earlier. Lizzy and Victoria are sweeping the area to see if there’s any security cameras we can mention to the police for possible footage of the car.”
Fantastic. She reached to take her shoe, planning to mourn the heel hanging by a few stitches later, but Gabe took it instead.
“Hey, I could get that fixed.” She hoped.
Gabe raised an eyebrow and tucked the shoe, careful of the barely attached heel, into his suit pocket. Most guys like him left the freaking temporary stitches in the pockets so nothing could go into those. “Your purse isn’t big enough for it. I’ll hold on to it until the medics get here and look you over.”