Read Online Personal Assistance (Entangled Ignite) by Louise Rose-Innes - Free Book Online Page A

to the southern motorway. Instead, they zigzagged through town, merging with other people, acting as normally as possible.
    There was less talking, though. He issued instructions on which way to go, and when to stay in the shadows, but apart from that, he remained silent. She didn’t feel much like speaking anyway. She was still trying to get her head around the fact that she was a walking memory stick of information, vital to ending this war.
    He put a hand on her back and pointed down a short road, bustling with pedestrians. “Watch out!” he called, gripping her arm and pulling her out of the way as four men stormed past at a run.
    Although he was doing a supreme job of looking after her, she was very much aware that his priority—his duty—was to get the information into the right hands as quickly as possible.
    If something happens to you, at least I can still get it out.
    The road widened into a busy square, where the two main roads from the east and the west connected in a giant circular intersection. Intended as a recreational area for workers from this business district, it contained some impressive modern architecture, mixed with ancient buildings from centuries past, bordered by a five-lane traffic circle. Right now, however, it was packed with angry civilians and rebels.
    “This doesn’t look good.” She watched as a man fired his rifle into the sky. Someone else yelled an anti-government slogan, and soon a group of them were chanting it, waving their guns in the air.
    The crowd got thicker as they watched from the approach street. There was a feminine cry behind them, and both Hannah and Tom spun around. A woman had been pushed to the pavement by two burly men in suits. She was pale-skinned, with dyed blond hair in a ponytail.
    “Oh my God, it’s Anwar Abdul’s men. I recognize them from the compound.”
    “Don’t look at them,” barked Tom, but it was too late. They saw her face and broke into a run toward them, one touching his earpiece.
    Breathless with panic, she dug her fingers into the fabric of his shirt. “What should we do?”
    “We’re going in,” he said, grabbing her hand and running into the square toward the excited mob. “Hopefully we can lose them in the rally.”
    An array of bullets pinged off the wall next to them, sending fragments of paint and concrete falling to the ground. “They’re shooting at us,” yelled Hannah in disbelief, not that he wouldn’t already have figured that out.
    He gripped her hand even harder. “Keep going. A moving target is harder to hit.”
    It better be.
    He weaved around pedestrians on their way to join the rally, and she tried her best to keep up with his long strides without stumbling. Eventually they had to slow down as they melded with the thickest part of the crowd.
    The mob was two or three hundred men-deep and growing by the minute. There didn’t appear to be any women around. She glanced over her shoulder, but because of the animated nature of the crowd, she couldn’t make out the two men that were following them.
    “They won’t risk shooting here,” he told her. “Come on. Let’s get to the other side.” He squinted at her, and whatever he saw in her expression caused him to add, “It’s going to be fine, just… Whatever you do, don’t let go.”
    Don’t let go. She gulped and gripped his hand as if her life depended on it. The swarm of protesters was packed so tightly into the square that it buzzed with a life force of its own. The mob propelled them forward, toward the center of the chaos. Several times she lost her footing, and had she not been clinging to Tom, she would have been crushed underfoot.
    Protesters fired their weapons up at the sky, egging on their fellow freedom fighters. Amidst the general roar of the crowd, she could hear chants of “Free Syman!” in Arabic.
    A loud bang sounded as someone discharged a shotgun only meters away. The noise of the crowd dimmed, and she clutched her head, knowing as she