Edge of Collapse Series (Book 2): Edge of Madness
Page 27
Raven took another step back.
A small part of her registered that she was too near the fence, but the horror crashing through her blotted everything else out.
She swallowed the acid rising in the back of her throat. “Zachariah, you should lie down—”
Zachariah didn’t seem to hear her. He lunged at Raven, seizing her arms with an impossibly iron grip.
Behind her, Vlad gave a tense, uneasy growl.
“Help me!” Zachariah screamed only inches from her face. Blood-flecked spittle struck her cheeks, landed on her eyelashes.
His hands were burning on her bare arms. His whole body radiated a terrible heat. She tried to jerk away, but he was strong, impossibly strong. “Let go!”
“Save me!” he shrieked.
Terror spiked through her. The mask was a flimsy thing, useless this close.
If a single microscopic droplet entered her system through her mouth, nose, eyes, or ears—she knew what would happen.
She’d watched the newsfeeds reporting the overrun hospitals, the millions of sick—then billions, all dying and dead.
Zachariah coughed again, splattering phlegm onto her face. His cheeks were hollowed, spidered with swollen, pulsing, purple-black veins.
Behind her, Vlad was working himself into a frenzy. He slammed against the fence, letting out a savage, rumbling growl.
“Back away!”
She looked up, still half-frozen in shock.
Her dad was running up the path from the direction of the lodge and the park entrance.
He waved his arms wildly. “Get away from him!”
Finally, Raven wrenched her arm free. She stumbled back, her spine striking the fence for an instant—Vlad snarling, hurling himself at the chain-link—before she regained her senses and staggered away.
Vlad’s massive claws scraped against metal inches from where her head had just been, the fence shuddering from his considerable weight.
The tiger wasn’t focused on her—his piercing yellow gaze swung between her father and Zachariah, his ears flattened, tail lashing.
Raven leaned against the wall of the tiger house, gasping for breath. “Dad.”
Her father stood between her and Zachariah, a tranquilizer gun gripped in both hands.
He pointed the gun at Zachariah, the man he’d worked with every day for over a decade.
His expression was taut, his eyes blazing. “He has it, Raven. He has the Hydra virus.”
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