Blood Struck Read Online Free PDF Page A

broke contact as he returned to his seat.
    A little frazzled by what had just transpired, I grabbed my wine glass and gulped the fruity liquid down. As I moved to set it on the table after draining it dry, it exploded in my hand with a sharp crack.
    I never heard the bullet. Or maybe I did, but failed to understand the significance of the sound. All I knew was my glass shattered, spraying wine and shrapnel into my palm and at my face.
    I shrieked and dropped the glass, my other hand moving up to shield my head. The swish of wind overhead signaled the addition of arrows to the artillery raining down on the restaurant. They buried themselves in the wall with vibrating ‘thunks.’
    Kristos dropped to the floor, yanking me down with him. His eyes scanned the restaurant as bullets whined over our heads to thud into the wall behind us. “We have to get out of here.”
    I heard his words and agreed wholeheartedly with his assessment, but couldn’t respond. I was transfixed by my hand which welled blood in deep maroon. Lots of blood. So much blood.
    “Myra?” He gave me a little shake and then went flat on the floor as another arrow sailed over us, this one low enough I could have reached up and touched it as it flew by.
    I blinked at him, knowing I should listen to him, that what he said was important, but I couldn’t focus. Kristos seemed to sense my shock because he grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me toward the kitchen as more bullets zipped through the air above us.
    I watched my blood drip on the floor as we went, feeling increasing panic at the amount of it. “What is going on?” I had to yell to be heard over all the bullets and the sound of glass shattering as they hit the heavy chandeliers overhead.
    “Nothing good. Beyond that I don’t know.” Kristos pulled me through the kitchen, which had already been abandoned, to a back door and scanned the alley way. “Here, we’ll go out this way.” He glanced down at my bare feet. “Can you manage?”
    “Yes,” I said. Those shoes were a menace. Wearing them while running from gunmen didn’t seem like a path to continued good health, not in the presence of bullets and arrows.
    “Don’t panic if I run faster than you. I’m the target, you’ll be safer without me next to you. I’ll get a car and come back to pick you up, understood?”
    I nodded and then we were in the alley. At first, it was quiet and it seemed like maybe we would get away safely, but then bullets started pinging off the brick walls. I flinched each time one hit, but kept running. As he’d warned, Kristos rapidly outpaced me, moving so fast he was a blur. I tried to stick to shadows, grateful my dress was blue and not yellow. However, I knew my fair skin stood out in the dark making me easy to spot.
    I ran and tried not to think about what it would feel like to have a bullet smash into my exposed back. At the end of the alley was a busy street with lots of people. If I could just make it there I might be safe or find a cop even. Bullets dogged me every step of the way, showering me with shards of shattered brick. Why anyone would work so hard to target me, didn’t make any sense to me. Couldn’t they see Kristos wasn’t there?
    At one point, I whirled around and screamed, “Kristos is gone. I’m really not worth shooting.”
    A shadowy figure at the other end of the alley paused briefly and the bullets stopped flying for all of five seconds before coming faster than ever. Kristos had been wrong, I wasn’t safer without him, I was in more danger. I picked up the pace, widening my stride into a full sprint, rough pavement scraping my feet.
    Just as I reached the end of the alley, a bullet narrowly missed my head and drove sharp bits of brick into my arm and neck as it hit the wall. The brick ripped through my skin and hot blood rolled down my arm. At the same time, a squeal of tires announced the arrival of a silver sports car. The car stopped inches from taking me out at the