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The air was cool and crisp and clean, and she drew in deep lungsful of it, drinking it like water in a desert. Slowly her panicked heart quieted its racing beat, slowly her breathing returned to a semblance of normalcy, and she looked out over the rooftops of Paris on a cold winter’s morning as the first hint of calm touched her heart.
She leaned back against him as he supported her, letting the fear and tension drain from her body. “If you’re tired of dealing with me then why don’t you just let me go?”
He didn’t answer. He simply shifted her body against his, and his face was next to hers as he looked out with her. “How long have you been claustrophobic?” he asked. “All your life? You don’t strike me as someone who’d be crippled by complexes.”
“Since I was eight. We own a lot of land in North Carolina, including an abandoned mine where my older brothers used to play. They didn’t know I’d followed them, and I got lost there, and they didn’t find me until the next morning. I haven’t been able to bear dark, closed-in places ever since.” She was talking too much, but she couldn’t help it.
He said nothing. The air was icy cold—she could see her breath in front of her, see the mist from his mouth as well, and the two mingled in the sunlight before dissipating. She was still wrapped in his coat, but even through the layers of clothes she could feel the strength and power in his lean, elegant body.
And then the strength left her, and she sagged, and he lowered her down to the bed, reaching up for the handle on the blacked-out window.
“Please don’t close it,” she said. “I don’t think I could stand the darkness again.”
“It’s cold,” he warned her.
“I’ll survive.”
He left the window open a crack, just enough to let a narrow shaft of light into the room, as well as a few flakes of snow, and then he knelt down on the bed beside her. “The thing is,” he murmured, “you have my coat. This room was cold already, but with the window open it’s going to be freezing.”
She tried to sit up, to pull his warm coat from her body, but he pushed her back on the bed with alarming finesse. And then he lay down next to her on the narrow bed. He covered them both with a thin wool blanket, turning on his side and pulling her back up against his chest, spoon-style. He was warm, even through the coat.
“I’ll give you the coat,” she offered in a whisper. She didn’t like having him so close to her.
“Screw the coat. Just be quiet and let me sleep for a few hours. We can argue about it when I wake up.”
“And what if I’m not here when you wake up?”
“You will be. If you try to leave I’ll shoot you. I’m a very light sleeper, and I’m not in a good mood. I suggest you try to sleep as well.”
She moved her face against the threadbare mattress. Her cheekbone hurt, but Hakim hadn’t touched her face. Hadn’t gotten to it yet. And then she remembered. “You hit me!”
“And I’ll do it again if you don’t stop yammering,” he said in a sleepy voice. “I did it to save your life. You were making such a fuss someone could have overheard you.”
“Then why would you do it again?”
“To keep me from killing you,” he said in that matter-of-fact tone that drove her crazy. “Now be quiet and let me sleep.”
Clearly she wasn’t going to be able to dislodge him, and any more attempts at trying would probably wind up with another enforced sleep, or possibly something worse. She shut her mouth, keeping her eyes trained on the narrow shaft of light that somehow made her able to breathe. As long as she could breathe she could survive. The things she had seen, had heard, were too horrific to even comprehend. If she stopped long enough to really feel anything but this odd, terrified numbness then she’d start screaming, and nothing would make her stop, unless Bastien snapped her neck as he’d threatened to do. She was cold, inside and out, cold and numb, and all she could do was try to survive. She took another breath, and without any warning the vision of Sylvia’s body flashed into her mind and the numbness began to crumble.
She’d only seen her for a second, but that brief glimpse was forever burned into her brain. Someone had cut her throat, so deeply that Chloe could see bone. The pool of blood had been thick and viscous, and her eyes had been open and staring. Somehow that was the worst. Sylvia staring sightlessly into the world that had left her behind, and it had been Chloe’s fault. She was the one who was supposed to be dead, not Sylvia. Sylvia, whose only fault was to love life too much. To prefer a good time to a weekend of work in the country.
Sylvia wouldn’t have poked her nose where it didn’t belong. She would have cheerfully gone to bed with Bastien, translat
ed and come back home with no disturbing questions. She’d always had the ability to ignore nagging discrepancies, but she’d died anyway, because her friend couldn’t leave well enough alone.
“Stop thinking about it.” Bastien’s voice was a sleepy whisper in her ear, just a breath of sound. “There’s nothing you can do about it, and brooding will only make it worse.”
“It was my fault.”
“Bullshit.” The word sounded strange in such a quiet voice. “You didn’t kill her. You didn’t even lead them to the apartment—she was dead before you got there. For what it’s worth, she died quickly.”
“If I hadn’t taken the job—”
“‘If’ is a waste of time. Let her go. You can mourn her once you’re safe at home.”
“But—”
He put his hand over her mouth, silencing her last protest. “Go to sleep, Chloe. The best thing you can do for the girl is survive. Not let them destroy you, too. And in order to do that, you need sleep. I need sleep. Enough.”
