The shrillness of my voice awakened the zombies. Moans and groans erupted all around me.
Hungry.
Eat. Must eat.
Lab Coat pushed to his feet and stomped from the room. If he failed to bring back a guard...
The side door opened, and Lab Coat stalked inside with a tired-looking guard at his side.
I did my best to hide my relief.
Frowning, the guard pointed a finger at me. “Be quiet,” he barked.
Smells so good.
Him. Want him.
Must eat...drain...empty...
Zombie thoughts...or Z.A.’s?
“I’m through being quiet,” I shouted. Bang, bang, bang. I punched at the bars, unconcerned by the sting in my already sore hands. “I’ll never be quiet again. You’ll have to make me.”
Reeve rushed to my side, her voice harmonizing with mine. “We want out. Let us out. Let us out.”
I laughed, but it wasn’t a nice sound. “So brave out there, aren’t you?” I taunted the guard. “Doubt you’d be so confident in here. I could take you down in seconds.”
“This is your last chance to be quiet,” he snarled, hand curling around the stick hanging at his waist. Then his gaze landed on Reeve and narrowed. He licked his lips. “But please, do me a favor and refuse it. I’ll come in there and show you just how brave I can be.”
“Let us out. Let us out.” Reeve.
“Coward!” Me.
Grinning a terrible grin, he pressed his thumb against the lock. When he pulled the door open, I shoved Reeve behind me and backed her toward Kat, who had woken up and now leaned against the far wall. All the while, I gripped the scalpel I’d stolen, the blade hidden by my arm.
He stomped toward us, his eagerness to get his hands on Reeve making him stupid. He grabbed me, probably intending to toss me to the side, but I struck without hesitation, stabbing him in the neck.
Howling, eyes going wide, he stumbled away from me. His knees buckled before he could exit the cage, and he went down. Blood gushed from the wound, leaking through his knuckles as he applied pressure.
Whatever’s necessary, remember?
“Scalpel,” Jaclyn shouted, jerking me out of the daze.
I tossed it to her, wondering why she needed it, then rushed out of the cage, closing in on Lab Coat. He remained on his feet, as if frozen.
“Don’t hurt me,” he pleaded.
“Like you didn’t hurt me?” I punched him in the throat with a blood-covered hand, and he, too, went down. I tore the badge from around his neck before stalking to the glass case where the tranq guns were stored.
In the hallway, an alarm erupted, screeching through the airways. Dang it. There was at least one more guard.
“Get Kat and get out of here,” I instructed Reeve, and pounded my fist into the glass. “I’ll get Jaclyn.”
Shards rained to the floor; my knuckles stung and bled. I grabbed the gun as the side door burst open, a single guard rushing through. Just before he reached me, I managed to turn and squeeze the trigger. He fell—right on top of me.
Struggling to breathe, I wiggled out from under him and turned to finish off Lab Coat, only to realize he’d already regained his bearings, found another badge to use on the door and rushed out of the room.
“Ali.” In the cage, Reeve was struggling to hold up Kat. I pocketed as many tranq darts as I could hold and rushed over to help, passing Jaclyn along the way.
She’d freed herself.
I looked around and computed how. The guard’s arm had been close enough for her to reach through the bars, and she had removed his thumb with the scalpel. We think alike. Then she’d used what she’d taken to unlock the door.
The guard had stopped writhing, was motionless in a pool of his own blood. Unblinking eyes stared off in the distance.
I’d taken a life.
WHATEVER’S NECESSARY.
A sob escaped me, a testament to the still-fraying rope holding back my emotions. It wouldn’t last much longer now. Shaking, I removed his badge and handed it to Reeve, just in case we were separated.
“Got another tranq gun.” Jaclyn came up beside me and gently removed Kat from my hold, wrapping her arm around the girl’s waist to remove half the burden from Reeve.
“You’re strongest. You lead the way.”
“I’m just going to slow you guys down,” Kat panted. “Leave me here and come back for me later.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “I’d rather stay here than leave without you.”
“Seriously, Ally Kat,” Jaclyn said. “Shut it.”
“Now follow me.”
I used Lab Coat’s badge to open the door to the hallway. We entered a long, narrow passage I was relieved to find empty. Maybe I’d disabled the only guards. Please, please.
“Where should we go?” Reeve asked, her voice strained.
I ripped the emergency exit map from the wall, considered the corridors and said, “This way.”
Down the hall. Around a corner. Another hall, another corner. In the stairwell, our breathing and footsteps echoed off the walls. But those were the only sounds. No one was following us. Others would be here soon, though. I was certain the alarm had already been reported to Kelly, wherever he was.
Kat’s head lolled to the side as the girls carried her down, down, down the steps. As fatigued as I was, as undernourished, as wounded, my trembling seemed to magnify with every new inch of ground I gained.
Finally we reached the end of the well, and I used the key card to open the door.
“—remote camera show they entered the stairwell.” Kelly’s voice rose above a symphony of pounding footsteps.
Dang it! How had he gotten here so quickly?
Jaclyn and I shared a look of absolute, utter panic.
“I want you six to comb every inch of it. And I want a man posted on every floor. We’re dealing with four half-starved teenage girls. You should have no trouble finding and subduing them.”
As yet unnoticed, we dragged Kat to the side of the now-abandoned security desk.
Perfect timing. A group of men whisked past us. Six entered the door we’d just left, and one muttered, “We aren’t paid enough for this.” Some entered the elevators. They were all dressed haphazardly, as if they’d been roused from sleep and had had to hurry. There must be a facility close by. Like army barracks, maybe. We’d have to be careful to avoid it.
I gazed longingly at the wall of glass doors leading outside.
“You two,” Kelly said as he entered the elevator, “wait here.” There was a white bandage wrapped around his neck. He was pale, almost as shaky as I was. “Call me if they make it this far.”
The doors closed on him.
The two men he’d left behind assumed their positions, forcing us to inch our way around the desk to continue to hide our presence. I sat for a moment, trying to decide on our next move.
There was only one thing to do, really.
“Wait here,” I whispered, and crawled to the end of the desk. I peeked around the edge, noting the exact positions of the guards. Then I set a dart beside my thigh, readied my gun, aimed.
Deep breath in...hold...ouuut...I squeezed the trigger.
There was a gasp, a rustle of clothing—then a heavy thump. The first guard had just gone down.
Yes!
“What’s wrong?” the other asked, racing to his side.
He saw the dart in the man’s thigh, frowned and glanced up.
Before I could finish loading the gun for round two, he was placing a walkie-talkie at his mouth.
“Mr. K, I found—”
I fired.
His knees buckled, and he went silent.
“Found what?” Kelly demanded over the walkie-talkie.
So close! “Come on,” I said, and Jaclyn and Reeve tugged Kat to her feet.
Together, we rushed forward. We stepped on the guards, too tired to leap over them, and shoved our way past the glass doors. Frigid air enveloped us, worse because we were without coats, hats and gloves. We wore only T-shirts and jeans.
Since our captivity, the snow had continued to fall, and there were now several inches covering the sidewalk and parking lot. Kat wouldn’t last long. “Hang on,” I said, going back inside the building, meaning to take a coat from one of the guards. But pulling the garment off a deadweight proved to be too much for me. Failure!
Plop.
A cell phone had just fallen out of one of the pockets. Silver lining. I picked it up and rushed outside. With Kat tucked between us, Reeve and I angled away from the lamps in the parking lot and toward the darkness of the landscape.
A treacherous-looking hill loomed ahead. It was covered in ice, but there were also trees. We could hide there. Maybe we’d freeze to death. Maybe we wouldn’t. I didn’t care anymore, as long as we were out of Kelly’s clutches.
As we ran, I dialed Cole’s number. Or rather, I tried to. The motion—on top of my trembling—caused me to misdial. Come on, come on. You can do this. I tried again, succeeded.
He answered on the third ring, demanding harshly, “Who is this?”
“Cole,” I panted.
“Ali!”
“That’s Ali?” I heard Frosty say in the background. “Ask her about Kat.”
“Ask her about Reeve,” Bronx rushed out.
“Help us,” I interjected. “Have to...help us.”
“We are, sweetheart,” Cole said, and I heard the worry in his voice. “We are. We finally tracked your location, and we’re almost there. Hang on just a little longer.”
“Escaped building...headed for...hill. Kat, medical attention. Kelly...after us. Cold. Jaclyn...alive.”
“Faster,” he commanded whoever was driving. “We’re two minutes away, baby. Just hang on,” he repeated.
“Miss Bell,” Kelly suddenly called out, and in my panic, I dropped the phone. “I know you’re out here.”
Reeve gasped.
Jaclyn growled.
Forget the phone. I picked up the pace, soon bypassing the first line of trees. Wind gusted, and, I thought, sliced at my skin. Two minutes. I could outwit my enemy for two minutes. Actually, one minute, forty-five seconds now.
