Total Eclipse by Rachel Caine Page A

around it. One pale hand was resting on the tiled floor, and I could see blood dripping.
    As the security guards turned to look at the new-comer, I saw a glimpse of auburn hair.
    “David!” I shrieked it, couldn’t stop myself, and plunged for the knot of people without any regard for my own safety, or theirs. They sensibly got out of my way, and oh God, I was right. It was him.
    David was lying on the bench, curled on his side, breathing shallowly. His face was shockingly pale, and he looked . . . fragile. Terribly . . . human. There was blood, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
    He opened his eyes when I touched his face, and it took a few seconds for him to focus on me. When he did, relief flooded through him, and he tried to sit up. “No!” I said, and made him stop. “What happened ?”
    “I was right behind you,” he said. “But you were gone. You were gone, and I was running—”
    “You know this man?” one of the officers said. “Miss?”
    “He’s my husband,” I said. My voice was shaking. “David, are you okay?”
    “He ran into a plate glass window,” the guard said. “He’s got a nasty cut on his side. Paramedics are on the way. Sir, have you been drinking?”
    “What?” I sat back on my heels, staring up at him. I couldn’t honestly understand what he was talking about. “Drinking?”
    “He came out of nowhere and ran face- first into the glass,” the guard said. “Usually that means alcohol or drugs. Maybe both.”
    “No. No, he just—he was looking for me.” I looked down at David’s pale face, at the red, human blood soaking his shirt. “He was afraid for me.”
    “Guess I had no reason to be,” he said, and tried to smile, but it turned into a wince. “What happened?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Liar,” he whispered. His eyes closed for a few seconds, then opened again. “Cherise? I thought we told you to stay in the car.”
    She shrugged, back to her old self. “It’s the mall ,” she pointed out, blankly mystified. “I thought you were kidding. Hey, and I saved your girl, so there.”
    He looked at me a little doubtfully, so I smiled. “She did,” I said. “Although to be fair she almost got us both smashed, too.”
    “Sounds right. Help me up.”
    “Nope. You’re staying down.”
    The security guards didn’t quite know what to make of us now. . . . They’d pegged us as drunken troublemakers, but we weren’t acting that way. A little giddy with relief, maybe but not intoxicated—though I admit, if somebody had passed me a bottle, I’d have taken a generous swig right about then.
    All three of the guards’ radios suddenly crackled, and a voice on the other end brayed, “Get over here, guys, right now! South entrance, in front of the—”
    It broke up into static. The three security guards exchanged a what now? look, and then the most senior of them looked down at me. “Miss, you stay right here. Paramedics will be here in a couple of minutes.”
    I nodded, and the three windbreakers hustled off into the milling crowd, heading for whatever trouble was brewing. I started to return my attention to David, but I heard something.
    Screaming.
    Coming from the south entrance, which was all the way at the other end of the mall. The screaming was dopplering our way, and as I stood up to look, I saw that at the long straight end of the hall, people had rounded the corner and were stampeding in full flight in our direction. Some were still carrying shopping bags, but I had the impression that it was only because it hadn’t occurred to them to drop everything. They certainly weren’t slowing down as they ran, and I wondered exactly what could have put a full hundred dedicated shoppers to flight. Terrorism? Fire? Ebola?
    I felt a tremor through the floor, and felt a sick twisting in my stomach. “Change of plans,” I said. “David, up. We’ll help you get back to the car. “Cher—where’s Kevin?”
    “In the car.”
    “He let you go by