sideways, down, away.
By the time she was able to scramble after them, Charlie had utterly vanished into the crowd.
Numb with shock and horror, Sibyl ran—limping—in the direction Charlie had gone.
"Have you seen a soldier with a runaway horse?" she gasped out to people she passed.
A few pointed out a direction; others just shoved her aside. Sibyl kept running. Always, he was just a little farther ahead or down a twisting, rubble-choked side street. She couldn't catch up. Pain in her lower body reminded her with every jolting step that she'd been violently raped and beaten just hours previously. The bruises were beginning to stiffen.
"Charlie!" she sobbed uselessly, knowing he couldn't possibly hear her this time.
She had to pause for breath. Sibyl leaned drunkenly against a none-too-steady wall and sucked down filthy air