The tape sprang to life and unwound with a shrill “ZZZZZ!” flinging itself around and around her wrist so tight it cut off her circulation. While she battled that, the six staplers hit her back and arms over and over while the seventh darted for her neck.
Hailey staggered to the door.
The tape caught her other hand, binding both together, yanking them up and away from the latch, as the staplers slapped against her with an unrelenting click-click-click-click-click and periodic ka-chonk of the staple gun.
“Tomas!” she yelled, looking desperately into the glass of the door she couldn’t reach. “Help me!”
Immediately, Tomas appeared, raised his eyebrows, shot into the room, and created enough of a distraction for her to high-tail it out of there.
Hoping to find Asher, Hailey punched the out-between, and with her hands bound tightly with Scotch tape, stumbled outside and headed straight for the observatory, moving her torso as little as possible…trying not to think about a thousand staples lodged in her skin, especially the ones from the gun, which felt like they’d splintered bone.
Asher will help, she told herself, but when she reached the tower door, she found it locked.
“Asher,” she called, but he didn’t answer.
After shivering and bleeding for thirty seconds on his doorstep without a response, Hailey spun around stiffly and walked as gingerly as she could toward Eureka Hall. The temperature hovered around ten degrees that night, and Hailey’s breath came out in curt, painful puffs.
Shaking violently and holding her arms as still as she could with her hands still painfully bound, she trudged up the stairs, trying not to disrupt her shirt, which, along with her bra, was pretty much sewn into her back and glued into place by dried, frozen blood.
At last she reached the third floor, and thankfully, Fin’s door was wide open; his light flooded the hallway. When Hailey stepped onto the landing, he shot out of his room.
“Where have you been? It’s past midnight—where’s your coat—”
He cut himself off and rushed across the hallway, ripping the tape off her wrists and rubbing them gently.
Hailey sighed, still shivering as blood returned to her fingers.
“I got stapled.” She turned rigidly around to show him.
“Oh, Hailey,” he breathed. “Come in here.” He led her to the community room opposite the stairs. “Wait here a sec,” he told her. “I’ll go get the tweezers.”
Hailey stood like a statue until he returned.
“Oh, man,” he said as he looked at her back again.
“How bad is it?”
“There’s several…hundred,” he estimated, and when she pivoted to look at him, he gave her a half-frown. “Surprised you didn’t run to Asher.”
“I did,” she grunted as she sat on top of a table. “He wasn’t home.”
Fin’s face tightened, and he curled his tongue as he yanked the first staple out of her neck.
“Ouch! They’re all over me,” she breathed, remembering to count to eight before she exhaled.
“…lucky staples…” Fin muttered softly, as he removed another one from her back.
“Ouch!”
“What are you doing?” Giselle demanded, appearing in the doorway.
“Removing staples…?” He jerked a big one out of Hailey’s arm.
“Ouch!”
“You know what I mean,” Giselle spat.
“Shouldn’t you be in the lab getting your bolts tightened?” he jeered.
