My hand shook and I wet my desperately dry lips as I considered what to do. And there was only one thing for it. I had to fucking run. I abandoned the phone beside Jonas and ripped the lanyard from around his neck which held a key card. I dragged the lab coat off of him next, putting it on before covering my face with his mask and visor. His feet were far too big for me to borrow his shoes, so I just had to hope no one looked too closely at my bare feet.
I stumbled to the door, running on adrenaline alone as my entire body quaked with weakness. I slipped outside and headed down the empty corridor in the direction of an elevator, my pulse thundering in my ears.
The tiles were icily cold against my bare feet as I moved as fast as I could toward the metal doors ahead. Before I reached them, they started to open and chatter sounded from inside. With a jolt of anxiety, I lunged toward a set of double doors beside the elevator and stumbled through into a brightly lit stairwell. I stifled a cough, my lungs feeling like they were about to pop in my chest as I held it back with all my might.
Stay in my damn chest, you explosive cough of doom.
My tongue was thick and heavy in my mouth as I gripped the railing and started moving down level after level, my breaths coming unevenly. If I can just get outside, get to a road, find help…
An alarm sounded like a klaxon in my head and I cursed, quickening my pace, nearly falling several times but somehow staying upright as I pushed myself harder and harder. I felt like Bambi on the ice, my legs as brittle as twigs. But the only Thumper I had cheering me on was my pounding heart in my chest.
I made it to the ground floor and shoved my weight against a fire exit door, depressing the bar that secured it. But it didn’t budge. Who the fuck kept fire exits locked??
“Shit,” I growled, pushing it harder, but the thing wasn’t opening.
The sound of running footsteps reached me somewhere further up the stairs and panic washed through me.
I have to get out. I can’t give up.
I ran for the door next to the stairs, pushing through it and finding myself in a large foyer with two security personnel with fucking guns at their hips staring out of a large, rotating door. My heart leapt as I gazed at the street ahead of them. Rain started tinkling against the floor length windows as I looked around for any other way out. But that was it. My one, single hope.
A reception desk lay empty opposite the doors and I ran boldly toward it, dropping down behind it before I was seen. I’d moved with all the grace of a drunk zombie, but had somehow made it here silently.
I pulled open the bottom drawer, rifling inside it for something I could use as a weapon, but there was nothing aside from a stapler and some equally useless stationary. Oh come on, gimme a break.
Static crackled over the guards’ radios and a female voice sounded through it. “Security footage shows her heading down the main stairwell. She’s – ah! She’s behind the reception desk.”
Fuck a fucking duck on a truck.
Heavy footfalls sounded, coming my way and I pushed myself to my feet, figuring I had no alternative as I threw the stapler as hard as I could. It bounced off of one of the guard’s heads and he grunted angrily.
“Stay back, I’m contagious,” I snapped and they slowed their approach.
The one I hadn’t struck glared at me as he pulled up a black face mask from his chin to cover his mouth and nose. “On your knees.”
“I’m the most valuable person in the world,” I blurted, pressing my shoulders back even though all I felt like doing was curling up on the floor and trying to drown the pain in my body. “You can’t shoot me.”
The guards shared a look that confirmed it and I ran for the door with my heart in my throat. Sure enough, no shots were fired and they clearly didn’t want to get too close to me and the Hades Virus either. That dirty cluster of death in my body was suddenly my only friend and I clung onto its hand as it offered me my only chance for freedom.
I wasn’t fast or graceful, but I was fucking desperate and the daylight pouring in from outside called to me like a song. I was most likely going to be caught, but maybe someone out there would hear my screams first.
I made it into the rotating door, pushing it around, almost tasting the fresh air. Then it slammed to a halt and I turned back with a snarl on my lips, finding the guards stopping it from moving any further. They started turning it the other way, one of them walking around with it to return me to them. I tried to force it back again with all I had, but my weakened body just couldn’t do what I needed it to and I almost heard the Hades Virus laughing maniacally in the back of my head.
I screamed as much as my lungs would allow, making as much noise as I possibly could, banging my hands on the window and hoping someone out there would see or hear, would call the police. It was no hope at all really, but doing nothing wasn’t in my nature. I couldn’t lie down and take this. And I may not have been able to fight right now, but I still had one weapon at my disposal.
I ripped the visor and mask off of my face as the door rotated back into the foyer and the guard grabbed my arm. I coughed as I tore at his face mask and he cursed, slapping a hand over my mouth and nose as he immobilised me against his chest.
My heart catapulted into my throat as I suddenly couldn’t breathe, his meaty palm clasped down too hard as my lungs laboured for air. I jerked in his hold, stamping on his foot and using my elbows to try and escape, but I was too weak.
Darkness curtained my eyes as a bunch of nurses in full biohazard suits ran toward us across the foyer and it was only a few more seconds before a needle was driven into my thigh. Everything went black as the strength of the drug overwhelmed me and I thought of my Night Keepers as the last of my hope faded with my strength.
They weren’t going to find me.
I couldn’t get free.
I had days left at the very most. My fate was paved, walled in on all sides as it led me to my final destination. And only a grave awaited me at the end.
"H ow fucking long is this going to take, man?" I asked, the impatience in my voice clear as I paced back and forth in front of the dining table in The Temple.
Saint sat there before his laptop, totally still, staring at the screen with his fingers steepled as he waited like a freaking statue and the rest of us tried not to lose our shit.
Well, me and Monroe were trying not to lose our shit - Kyan was currently on the phone to his uncle Niall while clenching his jaw so hard that I was fairly certain he was about to flip out. But he pretty much constantly flipped out these days, so I didn’t pay him much attention.
I’d been looking right at Saint when he’d answered that call, the colour draining from his face as the faintest sound of her voice reached me from the speaker for the briefest of seconds before it was cut off. One word was all she’d managed. Saint’s name. A plea for help, a single chance at a lifeline and less than a second of connection between them. But it was all he needed. Because this was Saint motherfucking Memphis we were talking about. One word and a call from an unknown number – she might as well have given him a full address and a time for us to swing by and pick her up. Thank fuck. Although the hour that had passed since that one, momentary, fleeting phone call had seemed to drag on into eternity while Saint worked his magic, pulled the right strings, greased the right palms and now we just had to fucking wait until it paid off.