How long had I been gone? Five minutes? Ten? Long enough for the doctor to send someone after me, probably.
I had to find Serena, but so far all I’d managed to do was run around like a rat in a maze.
I rounded a corner and froze. A white-clad program coordinator and a guard were standing at the end of the passage. Their backs were to me as they spoke in hushed tones.
Move, I ordered my legs. Move!
I rocketed back around the corner.
Someone had wedged one of the plastic plants into a small nook. I squeezed in behind it and crouched down. My knee hit the base, and my heart went into cardiac arrest as the plant tilted and almost fell.
Please don’t look this way. Please don’t look this way. I mouthed the words like a prayer as footsteps approached.
“It’s just a few more tests. You want help, don’t you? You don’t want to be sick, do you?”
“No,” said a frail female voice, the syllable uncertain and unspecific.
Hope leaped in my chest. The voice was so weak that it was barely audible, but it was Serena. It had to be.
I peered around the plant as the voices reached the intersection of the two hallways. The program coordinator half turned in my direction just as I got a clear look at the girl. It wasn’t Serena. It wasn’t anyone I had seen before.
Disappointment threatened to crush me, but was quickly shoved aside by the girl’s appearance.
Her skin looked like tracing paper and the shadows under her eyes were so dark they could have passed for smudges of ink. Her lank brown hair grazed the collar of a shapeless white tunic. She was wearing the same sort of wrist cuff we’d all been fitted with, but her arms were so thin, I wasn’t sure how it didn’t slip off.
She really did look sick—desperately sick.
The guard wheeled an IV stand. The plastic bag was filled with liquid that was the same light blue as the windshield wiper fluid Tess kept in the trunk of the car. It dripped down a tube that wound around the girl’s arm and into her skin.
I bit my lip. Werewolves weren’t supposed to get sick—except for bloodlust. And whatever was wrong with the girl, it couldn’t be that. Less than 2 percent of people with LS developed bloodlust. It left you wild and frantic, and she didn’t look like she had any strength at all. She looked like she was being drained from the inside out.
“I think . . . if I can go back to my room . . . I’d feel . . . if I could rest . . .” She twisted the hem of her shirt between her fingers.
The program coordinator ignored her words and started ushering her down my hallway.
Fear constricted my lungs. I tried to make myself smaller behind my plastic plant, but there was no way they could walk by and not see me.
Suddenly, the girl collapsed. The guard just managed to keep her from falling while the program coordinator lunged to catch the IV stand.
“What’s wrong with her?” The guard supported the girl with his left arm, keeping his right hand—his shooting hand—near his holster.
“Exhaustion and stress, probably.” The program coordinator kept one hand wrapped around the IV stand. With his other arm, he helped take some of the girl’s weight. “She hasn’t slept in days. We’d better take her to the infirmary, though. Just to be certain.”
They headed straight down the hall, bypassing my corridor completely. Either I had gotten turned around, or they knew a faster way back to where I had left Kyle.
Relief surged through my muscles as their voices faded.
I crept out of my hiding place and approached the spot where the hallways intersected. The coast was clear.
Nerves buzzing, I turned left. That was the direction they had come from. With any luck, it would be where I’d find Serena. The fact that I didn’t have a plan beyond “make sure she’s okay and don’t get caught” suddenly seemed more than a little problematic, but I forged ahead.
This corridor was different from the others. It had white tile instead of gray carpet, and most of the doors had keypads next to them. After a short distance and another turn, the hall ended in a heavy steel door. I had a feeling I had just found the detention block.
“What are you doing here?”
I whirled. A guard stood ten feet away.
His uniform strained over the kind of bulk that had more to do with Dunkin’ Donuts than muscle. Thick black brows pulled together as he took in my hair and clothes. He stared at me like I was a bomb on the verge of exploding. “How did you get in here?”
I struggled to string words together, but my throat wouldn’t cooperate.
He reached toward his holster.
He’s going to tase me. The thought ripped through my brain as he hauled his weapon free.
I threw all my weight forward, aiming myself at his shoulder like a cannonball. I didn’t have the strength of a werewolf, but I knew how to hit someone and leave them off balance.
The Taser went skidding across the floor and the guard stumbled.
I didn’t make a grab for the weapon or wait to see if he went down; I just ran.
Within moments, I was lost. Every corridor looked the same. I pressed a hand to my side as my muscles pulled in a stitch. Somewhere behind me, I heard a stream of obscenities and thunderous footsteps. How was it possible for one person’s footsteps to be so loud?
Because it wasn’t just one person. The realization slammed through me, urging my legs to move faster.
I threw myself around another corner and collided with a door. The impact sent me ricocheting and I ended up on my butt on the floor.
I tried to push myself up, but it was too late: a figure was already stepping around the corner, Taser drawn.
I cringed against the wall as the redheaded guard—Tanner—came into sight.
When he saw me on the floor, he let out a deep breath. He lowered his Taser but didn’t reholster it. “Are you going to make me use this?”
I shook my head. My heart hammered so hard that black spots filled the hallway and hovered in front of my eyes like swarms of flies.
The other guard hurtled around the corner, Taser drawn, finger poised over the trigger.
“She’s fine,” said Tanner, eyes locked on the Taser. “She’s not putting up a fight.”
Was he helping me?
“She ran,” spat the guard. “Threw herself at me and ran. And she’s covered in blood.”
I raised a trembling hand to my forehead. The skin was tacky. Kyle’s blood, I realized. I had gotten it on my face in the infirmary. The guard’s fear suddenly made a little more sense.
“I didn’t . . .” I swallowed and glanced at Tanner. He had taken Serena, but he was definitely the more reasonable of the two men in front of me. “My friend was hurt. I brought him to the infirmary. It’s his blood. I stepped outside and got turned around.” The words came out in a rush and I had to pause and catch my breath. “I only ran because I thought he was going to tase me.”
“You’ll be lucky if that’s all I do.” Turning beet red, the guard reached down and grabbed my arm. He pulled me up so hard and so fast that my shoulder popped and I had to bite back a gasp.
Keeping the Taser an inch from my face, he hauled me around corners and down hallways.
“You really think this is something to bother her with?” asked Tanner from somewhere behind me as I was yanked across a small waiting room and up to a gray door.
A receptionist froze in the act of hanging her coat on a hook. A purse and brown paper bag sat on the desk behind her. “She said she’s not to be disturbed.”
“She’ll be disturbed for this.” Still holding my arm, the guard holstered his Taser, then pounded on the door. The door, like the others, had a keypad next to the lock, but it also had something the others didn’t: a small nameplate bearing fourteen letters.