Chapter Seven
“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 threw 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 matching 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 feed should loop for another seven minutes. 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. All she could do was hope that Meghan knew what she was doing and they wouldn’t run into anyone. If this was a hoax or Harrington’s doing, she didn’t know how she would survive.
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 it was confusing when Harrington took her to see B and then the ballroom, but this was so much worse.
She would have had no chance of getting out on her own. None at all.
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.
She’d never seen anyone on either of her two previous trips out of her room, but she’d figured Harrington had engineered that.
It seemed too lucky that the long white hallways of closed doors and bright overhead lights were all empty.
Reyna caught sight of a camera in a corner.
It wasn’t blinking red like the ones in her room always had.
Meghan must be telling the truth—the cameras were really down.
As they came to another corner, Meghan stuck out her hand and they both skidded to a stop. Reyna stood there with wide eyes as she waited for her breathing to even out.
“We have to get to the stairwell—it’s only a couple more hallways. 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 quick nod to show she understood.
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 held scientists and doctors and nurses working in lab gear, wearing the crisp white lab coats she’d associated with the nurses of Visage.
A few wore button-ups and ties underneath their coats.
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. No amount of medical advancement would ever make up for the horrors she’d endured. She hoped all these people rotted.
“Smile,” Meghan ground out.
Reyna shoved her fierce anger down deep. Then she smiled. It took real effort not to bare her teeth and shoot savage glares at the people they passed. She had to appear placid, bland. 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 the nurses we sent for.”
Reyna shot Meghan a worried glance, but Meghan only nodded. “Yes, sir.”
It startled Reyna to realize that this man was a vampire.
He didn’t have the usual 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 again.
“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 vamp-kind,” 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.”
“Reyna, we don’t have time.”
“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 this girl. 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.
If we can save someone else, don’t you think we should? ”
Meghan puffed out a breath. “Yes, of course I think we should save someone. But we’re on limited time here. If we miss our rendezvous, we’re done for.”
“How much more time will it take to extract her?”
Meghan dug through the tablet, pulling up the information on the subject. “Fuck, her name is Jodie and she’s just around the corner.” Reyna could see the resolve in Meghan’s eyes. “Fine. We’ll grab her. Stay close and do exactly what I say. This way.”
They hurried down the hallway and around a corner, stopping before a blank door.
Meghan was right. Jodie’s room only added a minute onto their timeline.
Meghan tapped a code into a pad at the door, and it slid open.
Reyna reeled back at the sight before her.
This room was a true prison cell. A real one, nothing like the lush accommodations Reyna had been given.
She really had been lucky these past weeks.
It was a ten-by-ten box with a metal bed in one corner supporting 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.
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.
She took one look at Meghan and Reyna in the doorway and skittered backward into the corner.
“It’s not time.”
“It’s Jodie, right?”
The girl reared back in alarm at the sound of her name. As if she hadn’t heard it in a long time. “Yeah?”
“I’m Reyna.” Reyna beckoned to her. “We’re here to get you out. Come with us.”
Jodie’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 breaking you out, and we’re on a tight schedule. Do you want to come with us or stay here?”
Jodie’s eyes darted back and forth between them quickly. “How do I know you’re not lying?”
Meghan retrieved her little gun from the bag on her shoulder. Jodie looked at her with alarm. “It’ll deactivate the tracking device in your arm.”
“You’re serious?”
Reyna nodded. “Just let her do it and then we’ll be out of here. I swear.”
Jodie narrowed her eyes before extending her arm to them. “If this is a trick…”
Meghan pressed the gun against the device, and it buzzed once. “Done. Now let’s move.”
Jodie ran her hand over the tiny knot in her arm. “Y’all are for real?”
“No one deserves this.” Reyna gestured to the prison cell.
“We have to go,” Meghan said. “We have less than three 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.”
Meghan ushered them out of the room. They backtracked through the corridors until they finally hit a stairwell.
Up they went. Around and around and around.
Reyna lost count of how many flights they climbed.
Jodie stayed close between them. Her labored breaths made it clear that she hadn’t been exercising like Reyna had.
Even with her exercises, Reyna was still panting as they climbed the stairs.
“Where…are…we?” Reyna gasped out between breaths.
“Visage headquarters. 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,” Meghan said.
Reyna gave a tight nod and kept filing up the stairs.
“Two more flights,” Meghan said. So close.
Just as they reached the next landing, an alarm blared overhead. Reyna skidded to a halt, colliding with Jodie. Both of their eyes widened with fear as they turned to Meghan.
“What the hell is that?” Jodie 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?” Reyna hissed.
“Someone knows you’re gone,” she whispered. “Our window just closed.”