Fight for Me Read Online Free Page B

face with her sleeves. They came away dark and wet and warm. Horrified, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
    Oh my God, I killed him, dead, dead, dead, his blood’s all over me.
    “Are you okay?”
    What to do? What to do? Think, Natalie, think. Oh my God, he’s dead.
    Her breath started coming in short pants, and she realized she was hyperventilating.
    Don’t panic, don’t panic, there’s no time to panic. But he’s dead, he’s dead. There’s so much blood.
    Abruptly, she sat up, gasping for air. She looked down at herself. There was blood and bits of white and gray . . .
    The bile rose in her throat and she clapped a hand over her mouth, crawling away on her hands and knees on the grimy pavement.
    Get away, just get away. What have I done? I killed him, killed him, killed him.
    “Are you okay?” the voice asked again.
    Natalie spun, and her eyes focused on her rescuer, getting a good look at him for the first time. His eyes were hard and fierce, and for a moment she regretted not listening to his demands that she run. She should be scared. This man was dangerous. He looked it, and she’d already seen firsthand what he was capable of. Would she be any safer with him?
    Yes.
Instinctively she knew she was. He’d put his life on the line to save hers. She could trust him.
    Looking into his eyes just now, she felt the panic slowly begin to leave her and her thoughts became a little more coherent. Looking at him, in the middle of this blood-soaked horrible alley, she found her center in an unlikely place—in the abyss of his dark eyes. Something clicked when she looked at him.
    “Are you okay?” he repeated.
    She nodded, then glanced to the side at the body next to her. His back was to her and through his hair matted with blood, she could see
into
his head. She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face away. Even though she knew the answer, she had to ask.
    “Is he . . . did I kill him?”
    His expression was grim, and she knew she had. She was a murderer.
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
    No, stop.
There was no time for this. She looked at the man’s face again and found her focus.
    His face softened a touch, and he held his hand out. “Come on.”
    She looked up at him. “What should we do?”
    “We need to get out of here.”
    She looked over at the body once more and wrapped her arms around herself. “I killed him.” Her lip trembled, but she sucked it in. This was no time for tears.
    “You had no choice.” He paused. “Why was he after you?”
    “He was sent by my father.” Her voice was mechanical. She didn’t even know this guy’s name. She squeezed her eyes shut.
That’s not important right now.
“My father is not a good man,” she added.
    Sirens blared in the distance.
    “Fuck.” He grabbed the gun and hastily wiped it down with his T-shirt, then hesitated briefly before tossing it into the Dumpster.
    “We need to get out of here,” he repeated, holding out his hand again. The sirens got louder, their urgency snapping her out of her fog, and she put her hand in his. He pulled her to her feet, and her body brushed close against him.
    “Where are we going to go?” she asked.
    He scanned the alley with a calculating look in his eyes. “Over the fence. Can you climb?”
    She looked over her shoulder at the chain-link fence behind her. Her legs were still wobbly beneath her, but she grabbed her backpack from where it had fallen and slung it over her shoulders. “Yes.”

    Even though the woman—Knox hadn’t even thought to ask her name yet—claimed she could climb the fence, he had his doubts. As she slid her feet into the chain links, he put his hands on her waist to help her up. He climbed a few feet below her, ready to catch her if she slipped. The wounds on his arms burned, and the slash from X’s knife was reopening, but he ignored the pain, focusing on her instead.
    He would not let her fall.
    She reached the top and threw one leg over. He picked up the pace so he could