were staring at Jake.
Brianna shivered. The men both had the same short, midnight-black hair slicked back from high foreheads. And both of them had the same washed-out gray eyes, narrow gazes directed sharply at Jake. The intensity of it was almost like a physical weight that pushed at Brianna and made her feel queasy.
She shivered. “Jake, do you know those two…?”
Her words faded away as she turned to him and saw how his expression had changed. His face had darkened, eyebrows lowered, teeth bared in a snarl. She hardly recognized him.
“Jake?”
“We need to go.”
He grabbed her wrist and started quickly back down the sidewalk, not giving her a chance to argue or ask what was wrong.
Over her shoulder, she saw the two men coming through the door to the hotel. They were walking slowly, steadily, after them. A small knot of fear was starting to form in her stomach. Who were these people? Who was Jake?
“Don’t ask,” he said, as she opened her mouth to do just that, keeping pace with his steps. “Just please, trust me. We need to stay away from those two.”
“Who are they? What do they want?”
“They want me.” That was all he said. Then there was only the running.
Brianna wondered to herself why she was allowing him to drag her down the streets of Blue Earth like this, past shops and homes and people. Streetlights came on in response to the deepening dark of nighttime, and the crowds of people who had been out earlier were now slowly disappearing, leaving few others out and about besides her, Jake, and the two men following.
She looked back over her shoulder again. The two men were still there, walking slowly, not rushing, and yet managing to stay not far behind.
Jake saw them too, and ground his teeth in a scowl. He took them off the main road, down several side streets, taking as many turns as he could. “Jake, where are we going?” she asked him.
“Somewhere we can hide.”
They came to a red brick building with stone steps leading up to a red door. Without hesitation he led them there. Brianna saw “Blue Earth Community Library” spelled out in gold stick-on letters across the door.
“You’re not seriously going to hide us in a library, are you?” she asked him. “Wait, why are we hiding at all? Why don’t we just call the police? Don’t you have a cell phone with you?”
He held his hands gently on either side of her face, turning her eyes up to his. “Brianna, I need you to trust me,” he said.
And she did. His touch left her cheeks burning and for a moment she felt slightly dizzy.
Jake took hold of the door’s brass handle and tugged. It didn’t open. It was after eight o’clock now, and scanning the sign in the window next to the door Brianna saw that the library wasn’t ever open past six at the latest. “Jake, there’s no one here.”
“Good. This will go easier if there’s no one else around.”
He tugged on the door again, one hand on the handle, one hand stroking the frame slowly. And this time it opened.
She blinked in surprise, looking from the door to him. Jake shrugged and pulled her inside. “Someone must have forgotten to lock it.”
Inside there was one large open room, with two smaller rooms leading off from either side. Two overhead fluorescent lights had been left on, dimly lighting the place. She saw three parallel rows of shelving units marching down the center of the room, packed with books, and more books lining shelves along the walls. A counter with computers and papers stood along the wall to their left.
Brianna had always loved libraries. Loved to sit in them for hours and just explore the different books until she found one that caught her imagination. She stared at all the stories around her now, words and ideas and information waiting to be shared. Libraries were magical places for her.
Except of course, when she was running in a panic from strange men stalking her through the night.
She listened but couldn’t hear anyone else in