Persona Read Free Page B

bridge by now. He could see her leaving a blood trail straight through the cathedral and out the other side.
    Someone was coming up behind them—lightweight, carrying metal, in a hurry.
    Her eyes went wide as saucers. She backed up two steps, grimacing against the pain, and turned to bolt.
    â€œHold it,” Daniel hissed.
    A moment later, a teenager raced past them, clutching a familiar camera tight by the strap as it rattled against his fist. (Daniel knew exactly what making a break for it with a stolen camera sounded like.)
    After the kid rounded the corner, Suyana held still longer than she had to. Her eyes unfocused for a second; she blinked slowly, took a breath that sounded like it cost her. He wondered if this was one of the things they taught you to do—if diplomacy was half smiles and firm handshakes and the other half was pretending you were about to be sick to get out of a bad situation.
    â€œOkay, I’m not in on it, you got me,” he said, just to say something, and smiled just to have something for his face to do.
    If he was lucky, she thought he was a busboy who went out for a smoke and got caught in the crossfire. If she figured out he was a snap, he was in trouble. For all the time they spent in the public eye, Faces didn’t like the idea they were being watched, and the IA-approved national photographers didn’t stand for competitive press.
    And if she left him, he’d lose this chance. The next he’d hear about her would be on the news, with IA press taking portraits of her in blood-spattered clothes as she emerged from the alleys of Paris, having escaped the gunmen she’d hired for show. Or the gunmen were real, and she’d be dead. Either way, he’d miss the story.
    â€œYou need a hospital,” he said.
    She shook her head. “I’m fine. We need to get going.”
    Every sentence that came out of her mouth made her stranger. “Well, then let’s call”—he bit off your handler , he wasn’t supposed to know that—“someone.”
    â€œMy handler can wait,” she said, the way she’d talked about the necklace—sharp, angry at him for playing dumb.
    He shrugged off his jacket and draped it across her shoulders. As he moved closer she tensed, but he stood beside her as though they were a couple, wrapped an arm around her to help hold her up. She was solid as stone under his hand. He could feel her fingers still pressing tight against the wound. She seemed awkward more than afraid, as if it had been a long time since she’d hugged anyone.
    â€œWe’ll have to keep to the small streets if you can’t run,” he said.
    She tested her right leg. Her lips thinned. “Fine.”
    Wherever she was going, she was damn fixed on getting there. If he could manage this story, it would be the making of him. He was smarter than he’d been when he’d fled home. He could wring the truth out of Suyana Sapaki.
    If his heart was still pounding, that made sense. If the worst of his panic had vanished while he was talking to her, he didn’t think about it.
    â€œWhat is there in Montmartre, anyway?”
    She smiled. “I’ll show you.”
    It was the smile she’d given Magnus, wide and false, when she was right in the middle of a lie. Oh, he thought, we’ll see about that.
    â€œAll right,” he said. He squeezed her shoulder against the flow of blood. The fabric under his fingertips was damp.
    They turned onto the avenue, ducked into the narrow street across the way, and headed north, where the sun was just beginning to set on Montmartre.

4
    Suyana weighed her options.
    It was difficult—she was light-headed from bleeding, and a stranger was steering her through the streets of Paris as fast as she could manage, which was more frightening than being shot at.
    When you signed up for the IA, they told you over and over to think about the possibility, just to get you used to the