The hallway was quiet, nearly deserted, though the lights overhead blazed brightly. We passed several tired-looking nurses and an orderly mopping a section of floor.
“Ava,” the man said from the head of my bed. “The bag’s half gone.”
“Then we were right.” The woman walking beside me fell silent a moment before adding, “It’s about time.”
“Too bad it had to happen like this. She’s suffered a lot.”
“At least we’re sure. And there won’t be anything to explain to her family. They’re already prepared for the worst.”
“She might not cooperate. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“She must cooperate. There’s too much at stake.”
I didn’t like her clipped tone, or any of their words. They were talking about me, but I couldn’t understand the context. None of it made sense. Maybe the drugs had scrambled my brain.
When they began discussing transfer papers with another man, icy suspicion crawled through my mind. Where were they taking me? Maybe they weren’t with the hospital at all. As they loaded me into an ambulance, panic ramped up my breathing, but no one noticed my distress. My mouth refused to utter a sound.
The woman sat by my head while the man stayed at my side. I didn’t see who was driving. “This bag’s gone,” said the man. “I’ll get a new one. I’ll start another IV, too. The idiots already amputated half her left arm. She’ll need the extra.”
My left arm was gone? Bile threatened to choke me. No! This was too much. I couldn’t survive another minute.
Yet when the man put the second IV in my upper chest, I felt another rush of cool liquid, and my body gulped it down as though it were life itself. My fear numbed at this relief, and I dozed as the ambulance cruised through the streets, rousing a little each time we stopped at the traffic lights. I heard honking, a snatch of music, the throb of the engine, and my own breathing, which seemed loud and fast in the small confines of the ambulance.
Something was very wrong. They’d told my mother I’d be back within an hour, but we’d been driving too long for that now. Not to mention that removing me from the burn center would lower what minimal chance I had of survival. Yet whoever these people were, they didn’t seem to want me dead—for now.
I tried to move, but the only limb I could get to obey me was my right arm. I lifted it halfway in the air before the man grabbed it. “It’s okay, Erin. I really am a doctor. Best one in the world, I daresay. I’m Dimitri, and my friend is Ava. We’re here to help you.” To the woman, he added, “She’s a fighter.”
“So it seems.” Satisfaction laced Ava’s voice, and I felt a sudden and distinct hatred for her. What did she want from me? Was she an organ harvester? It was the only rational explanation—though utterly terrifying.
Dimitri laid something on my chest. Another IV bag. “Hold onto this.” He placed my right hand over the bag. Immediately, a delicious coolness entered my fingertips even through the plastic bag and the bandages. I blessed him silently and gave myself up to this drug-induced hallucination.
The next thing I knew, I was being rolled into a cavernous room. I had the impression of large crates and of a woman sitting in front of several computers which she seemed to be using all at once. One of the computers was connected by a thin black cord to a woven metal headpiece the woman wore on her head like a crown. Her chair turned toward us, one hand twisting up a circular section of the headpiece that obscured one eye. “Good, you’re back.” A smile spread over her face.
I stared. I’d been wrong thinking Ava and Dimitri were the most assured, compelling people I’d ever seen. This new woman had the same confident bearing as the other two, but it was coupled by straight dark hair, a heart-shaped face, slanted Asian eyes, and flawless golden skin. Her revealing green tank showed an ample bosom and a torso that fell to an impossibly thin waist, flaring again for perfect hips. Her delicacy and utter perfection was the kind that inspired poets and started wars between nations—and made me feel completely inadequate.
I knew that feeling well. I felt it often in the presence of my mother.
“Cort’s got the room ready,” the woman said. She was younger than the others, perhaps in her late twenties, though her dark eyes were far too knowing for true innocence. A chill shuddered in my chest.
“Thanks, Stella.”
I knew Stella meant star in some other language, and the name fit her perfectly.
We were moving away, and Stella vanished from my line of sight. My thoughts of her cut off abruptly as I was wheeled into a smaller room, bare except for what looked like a coffin on a long table.
A coffin!
My heart slammed into my chest, its beating furious and erratic.
Ava withdrew scissors from the pocket of her lab coat and started cutting the bandages from my feet and legs. Dimitri began at my head. I caught a glimpse of blackened tissue, the bloody stub of my left arm. Tears leaked from my right eye, but I couldn’t see anything through my left and I doubted I still had tear ducts there. Now I knew why Tom had felt the need to lie. No one could be this badly burned and survive.
If by some cruel twist of fate I did live, I would be a monster.
I tried to struggle against them, but any tiny movement sent shards of pain in every direction until it seemed pain was all I had ever known. Neither would my mouth open to scream, though hoarse sounds of distress issued from my throat, sounding grotesque and panicked. My chest convulsed wildly with the effort. Before too long, my throat became too raw for sound, and even that haunting noise ceased.
“It’s okay,” Dimitri said, his voice gentle. “It’ll be over soon.” Somehow I didn’t feel comforted.
When I was nothing more than a mass of burned and bleeding raw flesh, Ava and Dimitri lifted me into the coffin. Exquisite torture. My vision blurred and darkened. Nausea gouged at my insides.
A gelatinous substance oozed around me and the pain slightly eased. Dimitri pushed it up against my chin and smoothed a layer over my entire face. They’re drowning me in Jell-O, I thought, but Dimitri made sure I had ample space beneath my nose to breathe. The syrupy sweetness I’d felt with the IV bags was increased a hundredfold, as though each of my damaged nerve cells had become a conduit for an IV.
Dimitri’s face leaned close to mine. “I’ve added something to one of these IV bags to put you out. It’d be impossible for you to sleep in this stuff otherwise. But you’ll heal better if you aren’t awake.” Already I struggled to keep my good eye open.
Ava stood by the coffin looking in. “Don’t fight it, Erin. You’ll have your answers soon. Sleep, Granddaughter. Sleep.”
Granddaughter? I must not have heard her correctly.
Well, I suppose there could be worse ways to die than cradled in a coffin full of sweet gelatin. I gave up fighting and let my right eye close.
END OF SNEAK PEEK. To purchase The Change (Unbounded #1) for your Kindle, or to read the book description, please click here. You can also continue to the next section to learn more about the author and her books.
About the Author
Rachel Branton has worked in publishing for over twenty years. She loves writing women’s fiction and traveling, and she hopes to write and travel a lot more. As a mother of seven, including a two-year-old, it’s not easy to find time to write, but the semi-ordered chaos gives her a constant source of writing material. She warns her children that if they don’t behave, they just might find themselves in her next book! She’s been known to wear pajamas all day when working on a deadline, and she is often distracted enough to burn dinner. (Okay, pretty much 90% of the time.) A sign on her office door reads: Danger. Enter at Your Own Risk. Writer at Work. Under the name Rachel Branton, she writes romance, romantic suspense, and women’s fiction. Rachel also writes urban fantasy, paranormal romance, and science fiction under the name Teyla Branton. For more information or to sign up to hear about new releases, please visit RachelBranton.com.
BOOKS BY RACHEL BRANTON
; Romantic Suspense
Tell Me No Lies
Your Eyes Don’t Lie
UNDER THE NAME TEYLA BRANTON
Unbounded Series (urban fantasy)
The Change
The Cure
The Escape
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Book Description
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Epilogue
Sneak Peek! The Change
About the Author
Books by Rachel Branton
Under the Name Teyla Branton
Your Eyes Don't Lie Page 33