Forgiving Paris: A Novel(32)

Sixty seconds. Eliza forced a laugh. “We’ll tell the guards later! They won’t care—just this once. I’ll tell my father it was my idea!”

The noise on the floors above them went quiet. And then Luke and a woman appeared at the window. This time Luke wasn’t dressed like one of the men from the Blue Breeze. He was in dark jeans and a dark blue polo shirt and he had a gun in his hand.

He was breathtaking. The most handsome man Eliza had ever seen.

But Luke didn’t make eye contact with her. He acted like he’d never met her and in a single heartbeat the room was in chaos. Luke and Terri pushed the window open wider and turned to the girls. “Come on.” Luke smiled at the girls the way an older brother might do. “We need to go. Now.”

Eliza felt sick and elated all at once. It was happening. They were really getting out of here, but they had only seconds. That’s what Luke had told her. Seconds or something awful might happen.

One of the younger girls started to scream and Eliza rushed to her. “Don’t!” She used her most urgent voice. “I said I’d keep you safe. These are good people.” Eliza couldn’t breathe, couldn’t exhale. “This is Luke and Terri. They’re getting us out of here.” Eliza shot a look to Rosa. “Help me. Please. We don’t have much time.”

Rosa and the other teens seemed to suddenly understand the desperate stakes. As if they’d practiced for this moment a dozen times, they immediately began working with Eliza and Luke and Terri to help the girls one at a time out the window and into the yard.

Next Terri climbed out to be with the younger ones and finally it was just Luke and Eliza. She was almost out the window when she saw the door fly open. It was her father standing in the doorway, his face a twist of rage and hatred. Before Eliza could duck or scream, he aimed a rifle at her head.

This is it, she thought. But at the same time, Luke threw himself in front of the window, in front of Eliza, like a human shield, and as her father’s bullet hit him, Luke fired back.

In an instant, her father was on the ground, blood spilling out around him.

Eliza only stared, her body shaking. She was alive. What had just happened? Luke grabbed her father’s gun and ran back to the window. His shoulder was bleeding, but Eliza was watching her father, waiting for him to say something. Her father always had the last word. But not this time. The man who had terrorized her and held her captive since she was nine years old didn’t get up.

Didn’t move.

“Come on.” Luke climbed out the window and started to hurry across the grass. As if he wasn’t in pain and he hadn’t just been shot by her father. He looked back at her. “Keep up, Eliza.”

She ran as fast as she could. She had no choice. As they reached the stairs, gunfire came from the side of the house and bullets whizzed near them. She was going to die, they both were. But then different bullets rained down from the helicopter still overhead and someone on the ground cried out. After that the shooting stopped.

“Go, Eliza!” Luke ran behind her as she took the stairs.

She saw the children ahead of her, trying to run in their terrible gowns. Get in the bus, she silently screamed at them. God, get us to the bus. And then finally in a blur they were all on board. Luke took the seat next to the driver and as the vehicle started to move, Eliza stood and counted.

Sixteen girls. They had all made it out alive.

Eliza shook as she sat down. What about Luke? Blood was soaking his dark blue shirt. Was he badly hurt? Eliza couldn’t worry about him. She looked out the window as the white wooden porch of the Palace disappeared from sight.

Her father was dead.

The gunfight had taken only seconds, but now here they were and her father wasn’t going to hurt any girl, ever again. The bus drove onto a skinny road and then onto a grassy cliff, where it parked close to the edge. And suddenly something occurred to Eliza.

Since she was first brought here, this was the only time she’d been off the Palace property without a gun at her back. She stood and motioned to the girls. “Come on.” The young teens hurried from their seats, scrambling down the aisle.

Rosa put her hand on Eliza’s shoulder as she rushed past. “Thank you.”

Eliza nodded. They were the best words she’d heard in eleven years.

Even before she stepped out of the bus, a helicopter was landing, the largest one Eliza had ever seen. Two men in helmets and full military gear jumped out and began lifting the girls inside. Then one of the soldiers saw Luke and he shouted to someone in the aircraft. “Help! He needs a medic!”

A different soldier from inside the helicopter helped Luke up and moved him toward the back. At the same time, Agent Terri and the others on Luke’s team helped the girls into two rows of seats facing each other.

Eliza sat three spots from the rear, where a man was working on Luke’s shoulder. Four of the girls were quietly crying, but most of them just looked shocked. Poor girls, Eliza thought. She’d never seen them cry. Crying wasn’t allowed at the Palace.

The sound of the helicopter filled the air. One door was still open, but the men in uniform sat at the edge, their feet dangling out, guns aimed at the ground. Like they were ready to fight anyone who tried to hurt them.

Eliza closed her eyes. Her head was spinning, trying to get her mind around so many details. Her life at the Palace was over. Her father was dead. And she was overcome by the fear that had been her constant companion since she met Luke.