Persona Read Free

cover. She looked young, in her terror, but her jaw was set—she would live, if she could.
    Too bad he’d missed that shot, Daniel thought as he pocketed his memory card and shoved the camera into the trash. He wasn’t going to get arrested for unauthorized photography, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to get shot in some publicity stunt. She was coming his way, and he knew when to exit the scene.
    But as Suyana dove toward the alley, there was another shot. She staggered and cried out—once, sharp—and he saw she had a bloody hand pressed to her left arm, that now the right leg of her jeans was blooming dark with blood.
    He had to get out of there.
    But she was running for the alley—lurching, really. She wasn’t going to make it in time to avoid a kill shot if it came, if this wasn’t a stunt. It might be a stunt. Either way, snaps didn’t get involved. The hair on his arms was standing up.
    Magnus was shouting, somewhere out of sight (the hotel?). A car engine flared to life (the cab?).
    Suyana was gasping for breath.
    You’re a sucker, Daniel thought, you’re a sucker, don’t you dare, but by then he was already out in the square, scooping her under her good shoulder.
    There was a bottle-cap pop from somewhere far away that he knew must be a bullet. Then they were running a three-legged race into the safety of the alley.
    He let go as soon as she was in the shadows, but she caught hold of his elbow with more force than he’d have guessed she could manage. The tips of her fingers were rough; they caught on his sleeve.
    â€œSave it,” he said, eyeing the street on the far side of the alley, to make sure it was clear when he ran for it, but then he made a mistake and looked back at her.
    Either she was a damn good actress or she was tougher than he’d thought. Her mouth was pulled tight with panic, but she looked at him like she was sizing him up.
    â€œThanks,” she said, and somehow it was a demand for information, which was funny coming from someone who was bleeding in two places.
    He couldn’t believe he’d gone out there. This was a handler’s job, if the shooting was even real—where the hell was Magnus?—and not one damn second of this was his business except behind a lens. This story had played out, and he was in enough trouble. He’d come back for the camera later. Maybe.
    He said, “I have to go.”
    Tires screeched around the corner, and from somewhere came the echo of footsteps, and the hair on Daniel’s neck stood up—his heart was in his throat, this was amateur hour, this was chaos.
    Who knew this was happening today besides me? he wondered, from some suspicion he didn’t want to examine.
    Suyana swayed, braced herself on her good arm against the wall like a sprinter on the starting line, her eyes fixed on the far end of the alley. There were footsteps, voices shouting. They’re looking for us, Daniel realized, and his blood went cold.
    Suyana looked up at him, and for a moment he remembered the footage from a few years back, right after terrorists hit the UARC, and she’d bored holes at any camera that crossed her like she was daring them to ask.
    She said, “Run.”

3
    He’d cased the neighborhood—it would have been a rookie mistake to go into something like that without an exit ready—so for thirty seconds he knew where he was going, and it was just another practice run.
    For thirty seconds he focused on the uneven pavement under his feet, on avoiding the tables that littered the sidewalk, on cutting across tricky intersections in a way that made it hard for, say, a police car to follow you.
    They saw few people, thank goodness—a tabac owner who peered at them through the window, an old woman who saw them and startled, a musician who got one look at them and spun on his heels the other way, his black bag banging against his back in his haste. Otherwise, for