“You don’t have to be in here. Go fix the machine or whatever,” Reyna grumbled. All she wanted to do was flop back down on her bed and sleep away the rest of the day.
Meghan glanced down at her watch. She was muttering something to herself. “Three, two, one,” she barely breathed. Then her eyes jumped back to Reyna and she produced a small metal gun.
“What the hell?” Reyna cried.
“Give me your arm.”
“Don’t shoot me!”
“Reyna, we don’t have time.”
“I swear, no matter what I said, I don’t want to die. Please.”
“I’m not here to kill you,” Meghan said, waving the little gun around.
“Then why do you havethat?”
Meghan grabbed Reyna’s arm forcefully in her hand, her gentle nursing skills forgotten. She pressed the tip of the gun to Reyna’s forearm and then pulled the trigger. A little buzz shot across Reyna’s arm, and she gasped.
“What the hell was that?”
“I deactivated the tracker in your arm. We have ten minutes,” Meghan glanced down at her watch again. “Nine minutes and twenty-seven seconds to get you the hell out of here.”
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.
