Chapter 8
8
Lyla watched the shadow of worry cross her friend’s face. Gabby flicked her gaze from the books in her lap to the window and then back. “Penny for your thoughts?” Lyla wanted to know if there was anything else she could do to help. Changing rooms didn’t appear to be the only thing on Gabby’s mind. And who could blame her? Someone had broken into her room. At least Gabby wasn’t there when it happened. Lyla was thankful for that. She didn’t want to think about anyone kidnapping her friend. She wanted to protect her from going through anything like that again.
Gabby brushed her long, wavy hair behind her shoulders, exposing the growing look of concern. She sighed, looking up at the ceiling, probably to find her words. Concentration etched deep lines in her pretty face. “D-doctor Grimm.” Her lips puckered as if tasting something sour and repulsive.
“Doctor who?” Lyla had never heard the name before.
“Grimm. Looking. For. Me.” The phrase seemed to take all of Gabby’s energy, but a look of triumph, with a smile, flashed across her face.
“Was he at the lab with Sandy?” Lyla couldn’t recall a Dr. Grimm at her lab, though she was kept in a different location from where Gabby was being held—if Gabby’s chart was correct. How the baddies were funding all these labs, Lyla didn’t know. But there seemed to be a lot of them.
Gabby paused before nodding her head. Normally Lyla would take a hesitation to mean the other person was hiding something, but in this instance, she knew it took a lot of time for Gabby to focus on what she wanted to say, for it to come out in the correct order and with the correct words or gestures.
Lyla rubbed her chin. “Why do you think he’s looking for you? Because the map was in your room?”
This time, Gabby shook her head. Lyla was about to ask if she meant to nod when Gabby tried to explain. “Said… was… favorite… his.” Long pauses punctuated each word, but Lyla waited until Gabby finished to piece it together.
“He said you were his favorite?” Gabby nodded to confirm Lyla translated correctly. “That’s ominous.”
Gabby sighed, leaning back against the wall behind her.
“That’s… That’s really shitty.” Lyla didn’t know what else to say. It wasn’t often that she found herself at a loss for words.
The memory of the worm flopping around the corner in the hall popped into her mind. Was that somehow connected? “I need to tell you something.”
“What?”
“Remember when I told you I was at the library?”
“Nnyes…” The two words blended together in a long, drawn-out mix of both.
“Look how good you’re getting! You corrected yourself mid-word. And you haven’t confused your nods or head shakes since I’ve seen you today.” A bright happiness blossomed inside of Lyla. Her six months in hell had been rough, and the healing afterward wasn’t much better, but watching Gabby improve seemingly overnight was priceless.
“Focus.” Gabby seemed to have other things on her mind than her progress. Lyla could understand why. Someone might be here to recapture her.
“Right. I was leaving the library when I thought I saw a worm flop around the corner at the end of the hall. It was so weird to see that I convinced myself I was having a low-sugar hallucination.” The works tumbled out. The fast speech was a sign her energy reserves were filling up and almost back to normal.
“Flop?” Gabby raised an eyebrow in curiosity. “Worm?”
Though neither word formed a complete sentence, Lyla thought she understood the meaning well enough based off of Gabby’s tone. “Worms don’t usually flop, do they?” Gabby shook her head. “What the hell do you think it was?”
This time Gabby shrugged her shoulders. “Need. Tell Stone. Or security.”
Lyla took that to mean Gabby agreed that she needed to tell Agent Stone or campus security what she saw. It could be nothing, but it could mean the safety of Gabby—or others. Lyla briefly met Agent Stone when she first was rescued. He seemed nice enough. But he seemed kind of busy tracking. Maybe security could track the worm—or whatever it was—on the cameras.
“You coming?” Lyla asked Gabby as she stood up to leave and headed to the door, rolling her IV bag behind her. “We can’t let Dr. Grimm get you.”
Gabby looked cautiously at the door and bit her lip. Lyla could tell that the idea of leaving her room was unnerving.
“I’ll be right by your side,” she promised. “And I’ll do all the talking.”
Hesitantly, Gabby stood. “Okay.”
Lyla smiled. She led the way, feeling like she would have skipped if her cautious friend hadn’t been walking so slowly. She offered her hand to hold, and Gabby took it, lacing her fingers thorough hers. The nurses and doctors buzzed about down the hallway, weaving in and out of rooms. Some wore scrubs, others white lab coats; all of them looked busy. Not wanting to bother them, Lyla stopped at the nearest nurses’ station, where a man with red, curly hair stopped his typing on the computer long enough to glance up at Lyla.
“Can I help you?” The smile he offered didn’t quite reach his eyes, and Lyla could see he was stressed but still trying to be pleasant.
“Do you know if Agent Stone or the security guards are still around?”
“I haven’t seen them in a little bit. Sorry.”
Lyla did her best not to be disappointed or impatient. She couldn’t imagine the stress of working here. Though, in her opinion, it was far more stressful to be one of the patients. “Can we go find them?”
The nurse shook his head. “No one is allowed to leave the hospital wing without permission.”
Lyla bit her lip in a mix of frustration and worry. “But it’s really important.”
He sighed. “Even if you had permission to wander the campus, there’s no telling where Agent Stone is. He was hot on the trail of a scent when he walked past. The best I can do is send an email for you and he’ll get back to you when he can. I think all of security is doing a sweep of the perimeter.”
“Can’t wait.” Gabby spoke up, to Lyla’s surprise. She turned away from the nurse to look at her friend, who had a look of determination she’d yet to see on her face.
Lyla turned back to the nurse to elaborate. “Gabby and I have something important to tell them. It’s about the same thing Gabby has talked to Agent Stone about—the break-in to her room. I think.” She glanced behind her at Gabby, and Gabby nodded.
“Okay, all right, one sec.” The nurse picked up his phone, looking at his computer screen before punching in an extension. After a few moments, he hung up and tried another set of numbers. After another minute, he put the receiver back in its cradle. “Agent Stone didn’t answer his office phone, and the directory doesn’t have his cell phone. I can send an email to let him know you need to talk to him urgently. I can message security as well. They didn’t answer there when I called either. They must be still out of the office checking the perimeter and left their walkie-talkies on the charger… again.”
“What about ASS Agent Sparks? She was working my case.” She briefly met the fiery ASS agent once and immediately liked her.
He clicked around on his computer. “She’s not in the directory. Is she on staff here?”
“Oh.” Lyla felt herself deflate. “No, I guess she’s not.” She blushed, remembering they were at a FUC facility and Agent Sparks worked for ASS. How could she forget such a detail after her run-in with Agent Lee earlier?
The nurse nodded sympathetically. “I’ll mention in the email that you’re looking for her too. Maybe Agent Stone knows how to get ahold of her. There, I just sent it. They’ll be down to talk to you when they can.”
“But—"
“I understand that this is important to you two, but that’s the best I can do for now while they are busy. As soon as they’re free, they'll touch base with you.” The nurse’s eyes softened with understanding.
Lyla bit her lip, holding back additional sass. The nurse was right. Even if it felt like an emergency to them, it didn’t mean they had immediate access to the agents.
“Are either of you in immediate trouble? I can page security to come up and talk to you now. One of them will have to briefly stop their check of the perimeter though.”
“No,” Gabby piped up again. “Stone. Please.”
The nurse nodded.
Lyla looked back at Gabby. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” She said it with enough certainty that Lyla didn’t argue.
“All right, thank you,” Lyla said dejectedly to the nurse, turning away from the station. She felt somewhat comforted when Gabby patted her shoulder, until a scream pierced the buzzing of the hospital wing.
“What’s going on?” she asked as staff and patients alike started to run in various directions.
“The hippos are loose,” someone shouted. “In the hospital! Everyone must return to their rooms and shut and lock your doors.”
She’d heard rumors of a marsh on campus filled with, hippos. She imagined they were usually confined to their ecosystem, but somehow, they were being shepherded into WANC. More specifically into the hospital wing. This couldn’t be an accident.
“Hurry,” the red-haired nurse urged, standing up from his chair.
Lyla and Gabby did as instructed, each fleeing in opposite directions, toward their own rooms. Lyla was glad the floor was smooth so her IV pole easily slid with her, not catching on anything in the panic.
The noise had barely faded when Lyla made it to her room and shut the door behind her. Not surprisingly, it sounded like a herd of hippos were stomping down the hall. The linoleum shook under her feet while the water in the glass on the table bounced around and the pebble next to it fell to the floor. Lyla opened her door a crack as a hippo bounded past. She shut the door and relocked it, pressing her back to it as her mind ran in various directions.
This was too convenient. And what timing. Right before she’d tried to get word to FUC and ASS about the strange worm she’d seen, disaster struck.
Suddenly, it occurred to her that she and Gabby should have stayed together. What if this was a distraction for the intruder—or the Dr. Grimm Gabby mentioned— to snatch her friend? Her heart pounded in her chest. They should have come to Lyla’s room together. She shouldn’t have risked leaving Gabby alone, especially after promising she’d keep her safe.
Well, that was a promise she intended to keep, so she’d have to do something about it now.
But how would she get down the hallway without being spotted by a hippo? The things were ginormous and dangerous. They could gulp her down in two bites. Maybe one, if it was a bigger hippo. Goodbye, Lyla.
Maybe there was a way she could make it to Gabby’s room without becoming a snack. She looked to her trusty IV bag. “I think it’s time we parted ways for a little bit.” She sighed. She was only permitted to shift under doctor supervision at the moment, and she hadn’t tried shifting more than once in any one day.
But if the loud ruckus outside her door was any indication of how well wrangling the hippos was going, she guessed things were pretty dire. Gabby needed her.
Lyla smiled at her IV bag. “Well, here goes nothing.” She disconnected the line. Lyla peeled off her clothes and threw them onto the hospital bed. She tiptoed to the door, afraid the hippos outside would sense her. She opened the door a few inches and stepped back.
It'd been a while since she shifted without supervision. Was her body replenished enough to be able to make the transition for the second time in one day? She’d find out.
She called forward the familiar sensation. First a tingling. Then an ache followed by goosebumps across her skin that slowly sprouted feathers. Like tiny saplings springing forth from the ground after planting a garden, her plumage sprang up from her skin. Her body began to shrink simultaneously. The ache in her bones grew as they became less dense. A bird couldn’t fly with human bones. Everything in her body had to change. Even her heartbeat sped up.
Exhaustion set it. It was the slowest shift of her life, but she did it. Lyla perched on the table next to her hospital bed. Now was the real test. Could she fly? Her wings flapped about eighty times per second. That’d put a strain on her new glucose reserves for sure. But Gabby was worth it. If Lyla made it there, that was. And that wasn’t even thinking about the chances of her becoming hippo lunch.
Lyla willed her tiny wings to flap. At first, it wasn’t enough to get her off the table. She sputtered around like a baby bird learning to take flight. A hop here, a hover there. As she kept at it, her wings settled into their usual rhythm. After liftoff, she tucked her little bird legs under her. If she could take it slow, she would’ve hovered a bit before heading out of her room, but there was no time. Gabby could be in danger. At the very least, she was alone and frightened.
She sped toward the open door, flying out into the hall. She narrowly escaped the jaws of a hippo eating dirty sheets and hospital gowns in the hamper of a nearby cart. It chomped away, swallowing the fabric whole, letting out a large burp after sucking down the tie of a bathrobe like a spaghetti noodle. The scene was something from a B horror film.
She sped past that one, seeing the chaos behind. Equipment lay knocked over on the floor. A mess of knotted cords with gauze and syringes sprinkled on top, like a hospital supply sundae, sat in the corner by the nurses’ station. A nurse stood on the counter, swatting at a smaller hippo with a broom. The creature seemed to think it was a game, dodging the blows before getting bored and grabbing the broom with its massive jaws. The handle snapped in half as it chomped down. The nurse gave a high-pitched squeak before running away to take refuge in a nearby vacant room as the hippo continued to crunch the broom like it was a giant pretzel rod.
Lyla’s wings began to ache from the strain on her muscles to pump as fast as they needed to in order to float her down the hall. She stayed near the ceiling, not wanting another close call with the giant maws of a hippo. She realized belatedly that she wasn’t sure how she’d open the door to Gabby’s room, but she’d cross that bridge when she got there. Hopefully, it wasn’t locked—the door, not the proverbial bridge.
The cart filled with lunch was parked next to Gabby’s room. How unfortunate. She wasn’t sure what hippos ate in the wild, but the ones from FUCN’A seemed to enjoy grilled cheese sandwiches and pudding. If Lyla’s plan had been to turn back into a human to open the door, she certainly couldn’t safely do that with the hippo camped out, snacking on the patients’ lunches. What would lure a hippo away? Even more importantly, how could she do that as a hummingbird?
Lyla looked to the trays. Maybe if she disguised herself as a tasty snack, the beast would follow her. If hippos lived in the marsh, maybe they liked vegetation. It was worth a shot anyway. She spied a salad on the lower shelf of the cart. She zipped down on tiny wings, careful to avoid the snapping mouth of the hippo. She burrowed in the lettuce, hoping some of the leaves would stick to her. She grabbed a large piece in her beak. Flying with it proved difficult. The salad debris made her less aerodynamic, and her dropping energy levels wouldn’t manage the extra weight for long. She would have to make it work. She was determined to make it work.
She fluttered toward the nostril of the large hippo as it was about to taste the tomato soup. It lapped up a mouthful before grimacing. Apparently, that wasn’t to the liking of the creature. Hopefully the lettuce in her beak would be.
She waved the leaf in front of the beast’s nose. Its nostrils dilated as it sniffed after her. The inhalation nearly sucked Lyla into the face of the hippo. She quickly flapped away. The ground shook as it followed, its large paws stomping on overthrown trays of food and garbage, squishing the refuse between its toes.
Jaws snapped at Lyla as she lured the hippo down the hall. It moved faster than she intended. Or maybe that was because she was slowing down. She was no longer able to zip around like normal. Her energy reserves were burning up quickly. If she had a meter that showed how full her gas tank was, the needle would be hovering awfully close to E.
She dropped the lettuce from her beak as she spotted a metal rack of shelves up ahead against the wall. She flew toward it, soaring through the lowest level. After hiding behind a box of bandages and gauze, Lyla peeked around the corner to see where the hippo ended up. Its jaws snapped down on the opposite end of the broom the smaller hippo was munching on. The pair played tug-o-war with the pole.
Lyla took this as her cue to zoom as fast as her tired little wings could carry her to Gabby’s room. Midair, she transformed back into her naked human form. She landed on her feet with a thud. She didn’t judge the landing right. Her ankle made a nauseating popping sound, nearly giving out on her. She ignored the pain and twisted the door handle. With a click, the door swung open. Lyla rushed in, slamming the door behind her before she took in the state of the room.
She gasped at what she saw.
The overturned hospital bed lay on top of the scatter of word puzzle books on the floor. The fluorescent reading light over the bed flickered, the plastic cover now a spiderweb of cracks as if someone—or something—had crashed into it. This couldn’t have been the work of a hippo. They couldn’t open and close doors.
“Gabby?” She waited for a response, crossing her arms across her bare chest to keep the cold out. Goosebumps—or more accurately hummingbird bumps—erupted across her flesh with the cool air the air conditioner was pumping out. As she took another step, something hard dug into her foot. “Ouch!” She hopped over it. A small black object the size of a rock sat on the floor. She crouched down and picked it up. It was a hard plastic figurine. Of a crow.
Lyla turned around, searching for the tray table that slid across the bed. She figured since the crow had appeared after Gabby’s visit with her family, it must have been a gift from them, and Lyla didn’t want it getting broken. That was when she noticed the glass in the window was gone. The jagged remains of glass jutted out of the pane like the long canine teeth of the hippos in the hallway. Except, unlike the hippos, these glass fangs were pointed at the ends.
Lyla glanced at the floor, expecting to see glass strewn across it. Aside from the mess of the books, bed sheets, and bed, the floor was clean. The cold linoleum bit into Lyla’s soles, sending a shiver up her bare back. She crept closer to the window.
“Gabby?” she tried again, though her voice nearly failed her. It caught in her throat, nearly drying up like her depleted stamina.
A warm breeze greeted her from the broken window. It was oddly pleasant and unexpected in the chaos of the hospital wing. Lyla’s heart hammered rapidly in her chest as if she were still in hummingbird form. “Gabby?” The whisper of air barely crossed her lips.
She looked out the window, hoping to find Gabby in the courtyard. Aside from the missing tray table and picnic tables farther down, the courtyard was empty. It appeared to Lyla that someone had thrown the small table out the window to break the glass. Could it have been Gabby? Did she not trust that her room would be safe from the hippos and tried to get out?
Lyla wanted to hope so, because the alternative was so much worse.
As Lyla’s knees gave out, she was struck with a terrible revelation. Gabby was gone.