The Wind and the Horizon (Book 2 in the Starborn Series)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The only visible reaction Em had to May's announcement was the tension pulling at her shoulders.

"Where?" she whispered, throwing quick, surreptitious glances to her right and then left. She didn't want to tip whoever was following them that they had noticed.

"A few feet behind us," May whispered back, knowing that breaking into a run would have been the worst decision she could make but desperately wishing she could anyway.

"Melanie?"

The memory of the relentless Loyal woman who had pursued them more than a year ago in Tenna, flipping their whole world upside down, flashed through May's mind. Her stomach clenched.

"No." Thank goodness.

Em licked her lips and May could tell what she was thinking - they were sitting ducks out in the open like this; they needed to lose the agent.

Based on the amount of people milling through the massive main hall of York Central Station, it was clear the city was a busy and popular place to be. Everyday commuters wove expertly through swarms of gawking and disoriented tourists. May noticed a rather large gathering - a tour group from the looks of things - congregating close to a coffee stop built into the smooth limestone. She nodded discreetly in their direction.

"Good call," Em muttered. Without another word they crisscrossed through a stream of people heading in the opposite direction, splitting up just enough to make it harder to keep an eye on both of them without wandering out of sight of each other.

May got to the tour group first and wedged her way into the cluster as if she belonged there. She kept her head down and, rather than stopping in the false sense of security the densely packed crowd provided, continued through to the other side. The tourists themselves were in such a state of disorganization they didn't spare her a second glance. She emerged in time to see Em skirting around the far side of the group, the hood of her sweatshirt up and ducking low.

Moving faster now, they scurried into the coffee stop and around the line. Em scanned the room.

"If there's a way out of here," she said. "It's going to be through their back room."

Behind the counter and the three hectic baristas hung a curtain that blocked the back from sight. May homed in on the solitary woman working the bar - young, pretty, with plenty of black eyeliner - and leaned over the counter to get her attention.

"Do you need the bathroom key?" the barista asked, sounding not unfriendly but certainly distracted.

May shook her head. Em watched her carefully, wondering what her girlfriend was up to with the frightened look she had pulled over her face like a mask.

"Is there a way outside through the back?" she asked in a hushed, hurried voice. "There's a creep who was on our train and now he's following us around."

For the first time the girl stopped moving, her expression dropping in an instant. Her dark-lidded eyes flicked up to the buzzing line of customers as if she might be able to pick the guy out without knowing more than what May had told her.

May was banking on the chance that the barista probably could have, had their pursuer been real.

"Shit," Em hissed, turning sharply away from the crowd and tugging on the drawstrings of her hood. "I just saw him lurking in the hall."

"Okay." The barista glanced quickly at her co-workers before nodding toward the curtain. "Come with me."

She waved May and Em around the counter and held back the curtain so they could slip through.