“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 face, 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.”
Reyna gave a tight nod and kept filing up the stairs.
“Two more flights,” Meghan said. So close.
Just as they reached the landing at the next flight of stairs, an alarm blared overhead. Reyna skidded to a halt, colliding with the other girl. Both of their eyes rounded with fear as they turned to Meghan.
“What the hell is that?” the other woman asked.
“Meghan?” Reyna asked.
Meghan turned frightened eyes toward Reyna. “Shit.”
“What?” Reyna asked.
“Control your breathing. Get it under control. Both of you.” Meghan fixed Reyna’s hair, brushing more in front of her face. It was clear that she was trying to look confident, but her hands were shaking.
“Meghan, what is happening? Tell me!” Reyna hissed.
“Someone knows you’re gone,” she whispered. “Our window just closed.”