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  “Don’t go so fast,” one of the men said, his voice full of exertion. “I want this to last a long time.”

  In a second, she knew they’d have her, pulling her into a basement stairwell, doing the dark things that usually happened during commercial breaks on television. She’d end up like a poor character in one of the many Law and Order shows, nothing left but clues.

  She wasn’t going to make it to the end of the block. Her shoes were slipping off her heels, and even all the adrenaline in her body couldn’t make up for her lack of speed. Just ahead, six feet or so, there was a door or what looked like a door with a slim sliver of reddish light coming from underneath it. Maybe it was a bar or a restaurant. An illegal card room. A brothel. A crack house. It didn’t matter now, though. Miranda ran as fast as she could, and as she passed the door, she stuck out her hand and slammed her body against the plaster and wood, falling through and then onto her side on a hallway floor. The men who were chasing her seemed to not even notice she had gone, their feet clomping by until the door slammed shut and everything went silent.

  Breathing heavily on the floor, Miranda knew there were people around her. She could hear their surprised cries at her entrance and see chairs as well as legs and shoes, though everything seemed shadowy in the dark light—either that, or everyone was wearing black. Maybe she’d somehow stumbled into Manhattan.

  Swallowing hard, she pushed herself up from the gritty wooden floor, but yelped as she tried to put weight on her ankle. She clutched at the legs of a wooden chair, breathing in from the sharp pain that radiated up her leg.

  “How did you get here?” a voice asked.

  Miranda looked up and almost yelped again, but this time it wasn’t because of her ankle but at the face looking down at her. Pushing her hair back, she leaned against what seemed to be a bar. The man bending over her moved closer, letting his black hood fall back to his thin shoulders. His eyes were dark, his face covered in a gray beard, and she could smell some kind of alcohol on him. A swirl of almost purple smoke hovered over his head and then twirled into the thick haze that hung in the room.

  She relaxed and breathed in deeply. Thank God. It was a bar. And here was one of its drunken, pot smoking patrons in costume. An early Halloween party or surprise birthday party in get-up. That’s all. She’d been in worse situations. Being on the floor with a broken ankle was a new twist, but she could handle herself.

  “I just dropped in,” she said. “Can’t you tell?”

  Maybe expecting some laughs, she looked around, but the room was silent, all the costumed people staring at her. Or at least they seemed to be staring at her, their hoods pointed her way. Miranda could almost make out their faces—men and women, both—but if this were a party, no one was having a very good time, all of them watching her grimly.

  Between the people’s billowing robes, she saw one man sitting at a table lit by a single candle, staring at her, his hood pulled back from his face. He was dark, tanned, and sipped something from a silver stein. Noticing her gaze, he looked up, and smiled, his eyes, even in the gloom of the room, gold. For a second, Miranda thought she recognized him, almost imagining she’d remember his voice if he stood up, pushed away from the table, and shouted for everyone to back away. Had she met him before somewhere? But where? She didn’t tend to meet robe wearers, even at the weirdest of poetry readings.

  Just as he seemed to hear her thoughts, nodding at her, the crowd pushed in, murmuring, and as he’d appeared, he vanished in the swirl of robes.

  “Who are you?” the man hovering over her asked, his voice low, deep, accusatory.

  “My name’s Miranda Stead.”

  “What are you?” the man asked, his voice louder, the suspicion even stronger.

  Miranda blinked. What should she say? A woman? A human? Someone normal? Someone with some fashion sense? “A poet?” she said finally.

  Someone laughed but was cut off; a flurry of whispers flew around the group and they pressed even closer.

  “I’ll ask you one more time,” the man said, his breath now on her face. “How did you get here?”

  “Look,” Miranda said, pushing her hair off her face angrily. “Back off, will you? I’ve got a broken ankle here. And to be honest with you, I wouldn’t have fallen in with you unless three degenerates hadn’t been chasing me up the street. It was either here or the morgue, and I picked here, okay? So do you mind?”

  She pushed up on the bar and grabbed onto a stool, slowly getting to standing position. “I’ll just hobble on out of here, okay? Probably the guys wanting to kill me are long gone. Thanks so much for all your help.”

  No one said a word, and she took another deep breath, glad that it was so dark in the room. If there’d been any light, they would have seen her pulse beating in her temples, her face full of heat, her knees shaking. Turning slightly, she limped through a couple of steps, holding out her hand for the door. It should be right here, she thought, pressing on what seemed to be a wall. Okay, here. Here!

  As she patted the wall, the terror she’d had out on the street returned, but at least then, she’d been able to run. Now she was trapped, her ankle broken, and she could feel the man with his deep distrust just at her shoulder.

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  Copyright © 2006 by Jill Shalvis

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  ISBN 0-7582-1956-3