Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
We rushed through a labyrinth of beige corridors, turning right, then left, then right again, running for what felt like miles and miles.
“Sorry about this,” Hashleigh puffed. “Sometimes we send people down here to get their photos taken, and by the time they find Jerry, our photographer, they’re so frustrated they could explode.
And then Jerry takes the worst photo he possibly can and refuses to reshoot it.
It’s awesome. Here we go.” We burst out through an emergency exit, out to what looked like a service alley between office buildings.
I couldn’t tell where we were. Concrete surrounded us on all sides.
“The Financial District is that way,” she said, pointing.
“Thanks, Hashleigh.”
She bowed. “Thank you, my Queen. If you ever need anything, we will be right there to help you.”
Despite my panic, I took the time to shake her hand warmly. “I’ll try and keep in touch. Sorry we have to run.”
“Toodles!” Cecil pushed me with his nose. “Bitch, you better run. I can smell cheap aftershave and a nice little blend of wet dog and eau du piggy in the wind. I think your detective is coming this way. You’re right. He really is stalking you.”
“He really is.” I pumped my arms, bolting down the street as fast as I could in my expensive high heels, Cecil jogged beside me. “If you can smell him, does that mean he can smell us?”
“Oh, definitely. He’s a werewolf; he would have already memorized your scent. He won’t need eyes on us to follow us. We’re going to have to run faster and find a crowd to get lost in.”
My high heels weren’t made for running. “Why didn’t we take a car?” I groaned.
“Because San Francisco is such a wonderful walkable city?”
“Shut up and run,” I grunted. We clattered down two more side-streets and came out in the Financial District. There were no crowds here. Only a handful of people were around, so I power-walked in the direction of downtown, looking for some bodies to get lost in.
Cecil padded right beside me, sniffing the air occasionally. “Keep going,” he said shortly. “He’s still on our tail.”
We rushed on.
After a minute, it got inexplicably darker. The buildings around me seemed to be closing in. “Is it me, or is it getting colder?”
Cecil didn’t reply.
I looked down; Cecil was gone. In fact, there was nothing below my waist, just an endless swirl of blackness. Night had fallen around me and underneath me, too. I had to keep running.
I looked up. Above me, the night sky was moonless and starless, an empty void of nothingness that stretched out forever.
My lungs constricted. Panic clawed at my chest. I kept running. My hospital gown billowed out with every step I took, bright white in the darkness. The tie of my gown dangled around my legs, threatening to trip me with every step, but I couldn’t stop.
I couldn’t stop. If I stopped, they’d catch me. A sob escaped my lips. I kept running.
It wasn’t fast enough. They were chasing me. They would force me to go back.
I pumped my arms, running faster. My pulse hammered a frantic, desperate pounding, as if the blood in my body was trying to escape, too.
I had to get away; I knew it with every fiber of my being.
This place was going to kill me if I stayed for a moment longer.
I couldn’t take it anymore, not for one more second.
Every day, I felt a little more of myself leaching away.
Everything I was, everything I had been, it was all crumbling into nothingness.
If I wasn’t mad before, I soon would be.
I was nothing here, in this place. Nobody.
Worse than nobody. I was pitiful and pathetic. Just another crazy old lady who’d had a mental breakdown and didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t.
A voice echoed in the darkness. Susan. Susan! Get back here, right now!
They were coming. Heavyset women with bright-colored hair and fake reassuring smiles.
Broad-shouldered men with tattoos who spoke at you and didn’t listen.
They were chasing me. They were coming after me with syringes, needles.
A primal fear gripped me, terror that made my chest shrink. I could barely breathe.
They were going to hold me down. Restrain me. Inject me. Drug me so I couldn’t think. No.
I ran faster, sobbing wildly. He was here. Peter, the warden, the one I’d slipped past tonight so I could escape. He was right behind me. I could hear his rough breath in my ear. Susan, don’t be stupid. You can’t leave. You’re sick. You can never leave. What do you think you’re doing?
He hit me from the side. I opened my mouth and tried to scream, but nothing came out.
Nobody could hear me scream. Nobody would help me. There was no escape.