He kept seeing flashes of movement out of the corner of his eye as he closed in, and slammed the large blade back into its sheath before lunging out of the bushes, easily knocking the far smaller woman into the ground. He pushed two fingers against her lips, the other hand drawing the knife, as he moved to kneel beside her, his head turned to the path she had made in her desperate flight. He had seen enough to realize she was in distress, and while he felt bad about knocking her down like that, if the pursuit he thought he had seen was hostile, a couple bruises was better than a bullet hole. He waited a moment, seeing if anyone was following her, or if it was just his overactive imagination again, before removing the two fingers from her lips, and moving them to his own, using a single finger in the universal gesture for silence.