by K. A. Linde
“My little queen,” Harrington said with a feral grin, “how are we this morning?”
Reyna washed the glare from her face. “I’m being stuck with needles.”
“Ah, yes. Occupational hazard,” he said, sliding effortlessly into the chair. He crossed his legs and laced his fingers together in front of him. His eyes drifted to the chessboard and then he tsked. “You exposed your queen.”
“I…what?”
Harrington moved a piece and collected her queen. He grinned. “Never leave your queen unguarded,” he said pointedly. “Check.”
Reyna gnashed her teeth together and focused on what Meghan was doing. It was better than seeing Harrington’s triumphant face again.
“Well, what did you think of the rest of the ball?” Harrington asked, smoothly changing the subject. “I regret that I wasn’t able to see you afterward.”
Yeah. Regret. That was a word.
“If you’ve been to one, you’ve been to them all,” Reyna said with a nonchalance.
Harrington shot her an amused expression. His lips quirked up at the corners. “I’m certain that is true. I wondered if you had thought more about my proposition.”
Reyna swallowed. “I…thought about it.”
“And?”
“I don’t know.”
Lie. She definitely knew. She knew that she couldn’t stay here. That she was so desperate to leave. That she couldn’t go insane. She’d rather die than suffer at the hands of B again. But…she couldn’t live this pampered life of luxury either. It felt too much like giving in. And she wasn’t ready to give up all hope. Not when Beckham was still out there. Not when he could be trying to rescue her.
“My indecisive mouse,” he teased. She tried to ignore the bite in his voice. Her eyes glanced over to Meghan, who was dutifully ignoring the entire exchange. At least she’d gotten that part of the job correct.
“I need more time,” she finally blurted out.
“Was I not convincing enough?” He leaned his chin into his hand. A dangerous glint appeared in his eyes and his next words cut deep. “Perhaps there was something Beckham was providing that I am not offering.”
Reyna tried to remain placid. She refused to think about what Beckham had offered her. She cared for him so desperately and his absence was horrific.
“I could probably provide you sexual satisfaction too,” he said so casually she nearly choked.
Oh God. Disgust crawled through her stomach. And somehow he had made it worse.
“Um…no.”
“Not me, of course. Sometimes I partake with women, but usually because my lovers like it.”
Reyna wanted a black hole to open up underneath her and enclose her body. She never ever wanted to have this conversation with Harrington. Not in this lifetime or the next.
“That’s a…generous offer,” she made herself say. She feared him enough not to unleash on him again.
“But not enough to sway you?”
“I need more time.”
“I don’t like to be kept waiting,” he growled.
No.
She wanted to scream it in his face. She wanted to rage. She wanted to fight until her last breath. But could anyone fault her for wanting to survive? She didn’t think so. Still it felt like a betrayal even considering it. Her prison cell was already cushy, if a little boring. She didn’t want it to get worse and she didn’t want it to get better. She wanted to get out.
He must have read the indecision on her face. “It is either this or B. Those are your choices. I will have your decision.”
Reyna opened her mouth and found cobwebs keeping her from responding. She couldn’t do it. She had no answer.
“Now, Reyna,” he barked.
“No,” she gasped out.
He stared at her in shock. He never in a million years thought she would utter that word. Not after what he had put her through. Not after what she had endured.
“You would prefer to lose your mind than indulge in luxury?”
“No,” she repeated, her voice warbling. “I’d prefer my own freedom.”
“You should disillusion yourself of that notion,” he said, standing abruptly. “You will never leave here. You signed your own prison sentence. I was willing to work with you. To give you a wonderful life. Remember that you were the one to toss it aside so easily. This offer will not come again.”
Reyna raised her chin defiantly. She’d made her decision. Consequences be damned.
Harrington backhanded her hard across the face and she reeled in shock and pain. Her vision was blurry, ears ringing at the sheer force of the hit. “You are a very stupid girl…and I will break you.”
Reyna blinked away tears. She hated that she cowered away from him. Hated that same fear deep in the pit of her stomach from her encounter with B. She’d thought that she was already broken. That what had happened had reduced her to ash. Yet somehow she had found the resolve to still deny him what he wanted.
Harrington stormed from the room and she watched his retreating form with tears running down her face. His threat was a promise. She just hoped she survived it.
“That was incredibly stupid,” Meghan whispered barely louder than a breath.
“What do you know?” Reyna snapped. “I can’t be his pet. I couldn’t live with myself. I’d rather die than live that life.”
Meghan’s smile only grew. “Time to go back.”
“We haven’t done the venom.”
“The machine isn’t working. We’ll have to come back.”
“Fucking great,” Reyna muttered under her breath as Meghan removed the IVs and cleaned her up. She was stuck with a chatty incompetent nurse. And she thought Nancy had been bad.
Meghan walked her back to her room and followed her inside.
“You don’t have to be in here. Go fix the machine or whatever,” Reyna grumbled. All she wanted to do was flop back down on her bed and sleep away the rest of the day.
Meghan glanced down at her watch. She was muttering something to herself. “Three, two, one,” she barely breathed. Then her eyes jumped back to Reyna and she produced a small metal gun.
“What the hell?” Reyna cried.
“Give me your arm.”
“Are you out of your mind? I’m not going to let you shoot me!”
“Reyna, now! We don’t have time.”
“What are you? Are you here to kill me? Do you want me to dead so Harrington runs out of blood? I swear, no matter what I said, I don’t want to die. Please.”
“Jesus Christ, I’m not here to kill you,” Meghan said, waving the little gun around.
“Then why do you have that?”
Meghan grabbed Reyna’s arm forcefully in her hand, her gentle nursing skills forgotten. She pressed the tip of the gun to Reyna’s forearm and then pulled the trigger. A little buzz shot across Reyna’s arm and she gasped.
“What the hell was that?”
“I deactivated the tracker in your arm. We have ten minutes,” Meghan glanced down at her watch again. “Nine minutes and twenty-seven seconds to get you the hell out of here.”
Chapter 7
“You’re…rescuing me?” Reyna asked in complete disbelief.
“Trying to.” Meghan rushed over to the breakfast cart she had wheeled in earlier and pulled a bag out from the bottom. She opened it and started throwing clothes at Reyna. “Change into these and hurry. We’re running out of time with the cameras down.”
“Are you with Elle?” she asked hesitantly.
“Yes,” Meghan groaned. “Now hurry!”
Reyna had a million questions, but the look of urgency on Meghan’s face said everything. There wasn’t time.
She stripped shamelessly and pulled on a nurse’s outfit. Meghan adjusted Reyna’s hair so that it covered some of her fa
ce, shouldered the bag, and then nodded. They moved to the door as one. Meghan checked the hallway and after finding it empty, hurried her out of the room.
“The cameras are down all the way to our destination,” Meghan whispered. “The entire feed should loop through that time and won’t arouse suspicion. If all goes as planned, we’ll have you out of here before anyone even notices that you’re gone. Are you ready?”
Reyna gave her a curt nod. She was ready to get out of here. Abso-fucking-lutely.
Meghan didn’t waste any time. They were all but sprinting as they moved together. Reyna just prayed they didn’t run into anyone. All she could do was hope that Meghan knew what she was doing. If this was a hoax or Harrington’s doing, she didn’t know how she would survive.
And still they kept moving through the maze of hallways. Down to the end, around the corner, another hallway, left turn, right turn, left turn, right. She had thought that it was confusing when Harrington had taken her to see B or when the creepy vamp guard had taken her to the ballroom. But this was so much worse. She would have had no chance of getting out on her own. None at all. That was a pipedream.
At least she’d prepared herself in other ways. She’d never been happier that she had taken up running. Her muscles ached but her breathing was measured. She felt good. Energized even.
It was probably the adrenaline fueling her body. But she would take any benefit at this point.
They turned another corner and still there was no one. Not that she’d ever seen anyone on any of her trips out of her room either. She had figured Harrington had engineered that. It seemed too lucky that the only thing they passed were long white hallways of locked doors and bright overhead lights. Reyna caught sight of a camera in the corner. It wasn’t blinking red back at her like the ones in her room. Meghan must be telling the truth. The cameras were down. They were going to get the hell out of here.
As they came to another corner, Meghan stuck out her hand and they both skidded to a stop. Reyna stood there with rounded eyes as she waited for her breathing to even out.
“We have to get to the stairwell from here. It’s only a couple more hallways and then we’re there. But this area is busier than your sector. Act like a nurse and if we’re stopped, let me do the talking.”
Reyna gave her a nod of understanding. No problem with her.
With a deep breath, Meghan directed them into the new sector. They passed a series of glass rooms. Most of them were empty but a few had scientists and doctors and nurses working in lab gear. Many of them wore the crisp white lab coats she’d associated with the nurses of Visage. A few wore button-downs and ties underneath the coat. Goggles hung around their necks or were perched on their noses as they looked down into microscopes or at little petri dishes. Blood bags hung on racks behind their heads.
Experiments.
They were doing experiments with the blood. She shuddered and wondered if her blood was being used for this too.
An irrational anger suffused her body. No amount of medical advancement would ever make up for the horrors she’d endured. She hoped all these men and women rotted.
“Smile,” Meghan ground out.
Reyna shoved her fierce anger down deep. As far as it would go. Then she smiled. It was with real effort that she didn’t bare her teeth and shoot savage glares at the people. She was placid, bland even. She had to be like Nurse Nancy to get through this.
They were about to clear the corridor when a doctor stepped out of one of the rooms.
“Hello there,” the man said, snapping his fingers at them, “you must be who we sent for.”
Reyna and Meghan exchanged worried glances. Meghan nodded. “Yes, sir.”
It startled Reyna to realize that this man was a vampire. He didn’t have the same magnetism or terrifying lethal threat. It wasn’t until he flashed his fangs at them that she even realized she should be afraid. Had she grown so accustomed to vampires that she didn’t see them for what they were anymore? Or were Beckham and Harrington that much more formidable?
“Wonderful. Please bring patient X13276 from her room.” He handed Meghan a tablet.
“Yes, sir,” Meghan said.
“She’s here for her final. Pity,” he said with real remorse.
“Her final, sir?” Reyna choked out.
Meghan gave her a sharp look.
“X13276 is the first to be responsive to our testing. We’re going to put her through final paces to see if we can duplicate her blood to make the treasured blood antidote.” He beamed as if he were giving her great news.
“So, vampires wouldn’t have to have blood matches?” Reyna asked in horror. Meghan’s answering glare said she didn’t mask it well enough.
“Precisely. It’s a huge leap for vampkind,” he said, laughing at his poor joke.
“Great news, Doctor. We’ll get her and deliver her promptly,” Meghan said. She practically tugged Reyna down the hall and away from the doctor.
When they were out of earshot, Meghan shoved her. “What the hell were you thinking? We don’t have time to stand around and debate the benefits or consequences of a blood antidote.”
Reyna chewed on her lip as a plan formed in her mind. Her eyes darted from the doctor who had just disappeared to the tablet in Meghan’s hand and back. “We need to get that girl.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“No, I’m not. Think about it for a second. We can rescue this girl. We can get her out of this place. You saw what my life was like. Now imagine what it must be like for someone who is being experimented on. Plus, didn’t you hear what he said? She’s the key to a blood antidote. I don’t want that to happen any more than you do. I know it’s crazy and out there, but if we can save someone, don’t you think we should?”
Meghan puffed out a breath. “Yes. Yes, of course I think we should save someone. But we’re on limited time here. If we miss our rendezvous, then we’re done for.”
“I get it. It’s risky. I’m with you. But no one deserves this place or to be experimented on. Please, we have to at least try. If it’s a bust, then we abandon it.”
Meghan must have seen the determination in her eyes. She nodded. “Okay, we’ll give it a try.” She scanned the tablet for instructions. “This way.”
They raced down the hallway until Meghan screeched to a stop in front of a blank door. She tapped the code into a pad at the door, and it slid open. Reyna reeled back at the sight before her. This room was a prison cell. A real one. Not like the lush accommodations Reyna had been given. She had never realized how lucky she had been these last weeks until she saw the room that opened before her eyes.
It was a ten-by-ten box with a metal bed in one corner with a thin lumpy mattress and an off-white sheet. A pail sat in another corner for waste and a drain opened in the middle of the floor. Markings coated the once-white walls. There were no windows. One incandescent lightbulb hung from a string in the ceiling. Otherwise it was just a box—a horrible fucking box.
It took a moment for Reyna to come to terms with the state of the room and focus in on the black woman who had jumped up from the bed at their approach. She was no older than Reyna, wearing a threadbare version of the standard-issue white uniform to which Reyna had grown accustomed. The woman was tall and rail thin with unruly curly hair that was utterly incredible. She took one look at Meghan and Reyna in the doorway and huffed wildly.
“We’re here to get you out. Come with us.”
The woman’s eyes widened in shock. “I don’t know who the hell you are but—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Meghan breathed under her breath. “We’re on a tight schedule. Do you want to come with us or stay here?”
Her eyes darted back and forth quickly as if debating whether this was reality. “Hell yes, I want out of here.”
“Good,” Meghan said, retrieving her little
gun. The girl looked at her with alarm.
“It’ll deactivate the tracking device in your arm,” Reyna told her. “Just let her do it and then we’ll be out of here. I swear.”
The woman narrowed her eyes at the both of them before extending her arm to them. Meghan pressed the gun against the device, it buzzed, and that was that. The woman ran her hand over the tiny knot in her arm.
“We have to go,” Meghan said. “We have less than five minutes to get out of this building while the cameras are down. I don’t have extra clothes for you. You’ll have to pretend to be our patient. Act docile—or better yet, pretend to be drugged on a vamp bite.”
“Y’all are for real?” she asked, suspicion still glinting in her dark eyes.
“No one deserves this.” Reyna held her hand out to the prison cell.
The woman shook her head in disbelief. “Okay. Okay…I’ll come with y’all.”
“Finally. Now, let’s go,” Meghan said, ushering everyone back outside.
They backtracked through the corridors until they finally hit a stairwell. Up they went. Around and around and around. Reyna lost count at some point. The other woman stayed close between them. Her labored breaths made it clear that she hadn’t been exercising as Reyna had. Even with her exercises, Reyna was still panting as they climbed the stairs.
“Where…are…we?” Reyna gasped out between breaths.
“Visage. I’ll explain later,” Meghan told her.
Visage.
This whole time she had been in the building where Beckham worked. She’d been living, eating, breathing, surviving, and also slowly dying, and she’d been doing it in this fucking place. Practically in plain sight. How could Harrington get away with this? How the hell was it even possible?
“I’m going to kill him” was her only response.
“We’d all appreciate that, but right now keep it down.”