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The beams of light came closer. She could hear them talking to each other in Mandarin and felt a scream build in the back of her throat.
Suddenly, a beam of light hit her right in the face. She bolted, heading away from it, but she felt someone tackle her from behind, and she went sprawling into the leaf litter. She felt something scape across her cheek and down her neck painfully, and cried out. The man who had tackled her flipped her over, grunting something.
She heard Ben Goh say something harsh in Mandarin as he came toward her. A light blinded her.
“Jesus, look what you did to her face!” he hissed. “Get her up!”
The thug pulled her up to standing and pinned one of her arms behind her back. Ben came closer with the light to inspect her.
Bianca could feel the sting of a cut on the side of her face, right where her cheek and her ear met, and the sting went all the way down to her collarbone. Her jaw felt sore, too, like something had hit her across the face.
Ben paced around in a circle with his hands in his hair, swearing. He stopped, and shrugged, like he was making a snap decision. He said something in Mandarin and the thug holding her pushed her forward, frog-marching her back toward the house.
“Just let me go, Ben,” she said as she was pushed past him.
He muttered another curse to himself as he followed along behind.
“Ben!”
“You really fucked this up, Bianca,” he said. “Why couldn’t you just stay in your damn room?”
She knew she was injured, and apparently, it was bad enough that Ben knew there was no way he could say she’d done it to herself. Whatever happened now he couldn’t pass this off as a friendly get-together and hope it would fly. Not now there was blood.
“Just let me go,” she said, trying to sound calm, but her chattering teeth and quavering voice made it nearly impossible. “It’s only going to get worse.”
Ben walked along silently for a while. “Yeah,” he agreed regretfully. “For you.”
The words made her insides roil with fear. Ben knew he couldn’t talk his way out of this anymore, and there was no longer any reason for him to keep her safe. When they got back to the house and tried to shove her into the back of the SUV, she knew if she got into that car, she’d never get out of it. She fought them and started screaming even though she knew no one was close enough to hear her.
Ben said something in Mandarin, and then she felt one of the men holding her kick the back of her knees. She crumpled, falling down in front of the other one, and the one behind her held her down by her shoulders. He pulled out a gun and cocked it, aiming at her head.
She was going to die.
There was a ping and a cracking sound as the glass window on the door they were trying to push her through spiderwebbed and broke. And then the thug with the gun was collapsing on top of her.
She heard Ben shout something in Mandarin and he and the other thug took off running. Bianca pushed and scrabbled to get out from under the weight of what she was now realizing was a dead man on top of her.
She was still screaming when she heard Elias’ voice and felt his hands lifting her up off the ground.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re safe now,” he said, holding her tightly with one arm and moving her away from the body. In the other arm, he held a long, black rifle. He swung the gun around by its strap until it was across his back, and then he wrapped both arms around her.
She sobbed her fear out into his chest, smelling the acrid gunpowder mixing with his scent, while he cradled her against him.
“It’s okay.”
“You found me,” she choked.
“I found you,” he said soothingly. “Of course, I found you.” He pulled back so he could see her face, and his eyes flared when he saw the scape down the side of her face. He tilted her head. “What did they do to you?” he asked, his voice unnaturally low.
“I was running and they—that one,” she said, indicating the dead man on the ground. “He jumped on me from behind and I slid across the ground on my face. Is it bad?”
“Is that all he did?” Elias asked carefully.
She nodded and he hugged her, relieved. After a few moments, she said, “So I’m guessing it’s pretty bad.”
Elias actually laughed. He squeezed her tighter and rocked back and forth with her, whisperingfunny girlto himself.
He suddenly pulled back. “Subject is green,” he said, not speaking to her. Bianca noticed he was wearing an earpiece.
