My eyes widen in horror, and I suck in a gasp just as blood begins to trickle from his mouth. “Dr. McKullan.”
I start to race toward him when he drops to his knees, only as his body falls forward, Elias appears directly behind him, a long, bloodied blade dangling from his fingers. “Hello, kitten,” he purrs, his vile gaze roaming over my body as I skid to a halt, terrified for Dr. McKullan on the floor. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“No. NO!” I scream, horror pounding through my veins as I hastily back up, my gaze constantly flicking back to Dr. McKullan as he begins bleeding out. I need to get to him. I need to stop the bleeding. If I can just get a team in here, we could still save him, but it needs to happen now.
Elias laughs and steps over Dr. McKullan, not even bothering to have worn the mask to cover the sickening injuries still covering his face. Then as I continue to back up, he looks at my mentor. He crouches down and grips Dr. McKullan by the hair, pulling him up and exposing his neck, making my blood run cold.
“No,” I cry as Elias laughs.
“RUN!” Dr. McKullan demands just moments before Elias swipes the blade clean across the base of the good doctor’s throat, spilling every last drop of his blood. Dr. McKullan goes limp in Elias’s hand, and he carelessly drops his body as I gape at the scene in horror, my chest heaving as my hands violently begin to shake.
“No. No, no, no,” I cry, my whole body trembling. How can this be happening? He was supposed to retire. He was going to spend long days watching his grandkids in the pool. He was going to take his wife around the world just like she’s always wanted, and now he’s just . . . just dead?
Elias straightens to his full height, focusing his wicked stare on me as the blade dangles by his side, dripping blood onto the clinical linoleum. “Now, kitten. It’s just me and you, just as it’s always supposed to have been. There’s nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. You’re all mine to do with as I please.”
His voice wakes me out of my shock, and it’s as though someone electrocuted me with the defibrillator machine. My body doesn’t stop shaking, and I force myself not to glance back at Dr. McKullan, having to come to terms with the fact that there’s nothing I can do for him now. I have to try to save myself.
The buzzer sounds for the big double doors, and my gaze automatically flicks toward the entrance. Anders strides in, his face clammy from his ordeal in the bathroom. One step is all he needs to sweep the room, and in an instant, his hand is reaching for his gun, springing into action just as Knight trained him to.
He casually walks toward me, his gun pointed directly between Elias’s eyes, not stopping until he’s positioned right in front of me, physically protecting me with his body. “If you had any sense, you’d put the blade down,” Anders tells him.
The bastard laughs as though he’s the one in control. “One of my brother’s protégés, I see,” Elias says, the sound of his voice sending chills sailing down my spine. “How disappointing.”
Anders shifts his stance just a fraction, his chin angling toward me while he keeps his trained stare on Elias. “Stay right behind me,” he tells me. “We’re going to walk to the door. You’re going to swipe your access card. Then you’re going to run. Find a crowd of people and call Knight.” I nod, but it’s not enough for Anders as he pushes for more. “Tell me you understand.”
“I understand,” I say, instinctively reaching for the back of his shirt, holding on to it as though it’s my only lifeline. He starts to walk, moving slowly, and I move with him, taking one step at a time.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Elias says, his tone so fucking chilling, it makes me want to throw up. “If you had any sense, you would turn around and walk out that door. I might even allow you to leave with your life.”
Anders laughs, and the sound is full of mockery. “Unlikely.”
“Alright,” Elias says as we continue making our way to the door. “You were warned.”
Then, with the fastest flick of his wrist, Elias launches the blade across the room with the kind of precision that only comes from years of training, and within the blink of an eye, the sharp blade plunges deep through the center of Anders’s chest.
I scream in horror, and as Anders drops to his knees, he immediately begins shooting. “NOW. HARPER!” he roars at me, and I don’t waste a single second, sprinting the rest of the way to the door. My hands tremble as I grab my access card and frantically swipe it over the card reader.
The door takes forever, and as it finally registers my card and flashes green, I barge through it, the sound of Elias’s laughter ringing out behind me. “I’ll be seeing you, kitten,” he calls. “You’ll be all mine.”
The door slams shut behind me as my feet pound against the linoleum, sprinting toward the stairwell as more gunshots boom from within the morgue. Only there’s something different about these. There’s a finality to them that makes my stomach sink, and as my eyes sting with unshed tears, I scramble for my phone in my pocket, bringing up Knight’s number immediately.
“Doll?” he answers on the first ring.
“He’s here,” I cry, sprinting through the hospital. “Elias is here.”
25
HARPER-RAYN
My body trembles as I sit on the couch, staring at the wall ahead with my knees pulled right up to my chest, the vision of Dr. McKullan’s throat being slit haunting every waking moment.
It’s barely been twenty-four hours since the attack, and I can’t bring myself to even want to breathe. It’s my fault. All of it is my fault. If I had just allowed Elias to claim me, to take everything from me, he would never have come after Dr. McKullan, and Anders wouldn’t be in a hospital bed, fighting for his life.
This is never going to stop. I’m never going to have peace from him, never be allowed freedom to live my life. He’s going to keep coming for me and hurting the people I care for until he gets what he wants.
Elias is a disease. He’s a cancer, and he will continue to blacken my soul until there’s nothing left. He will infect me, hewill take everything from me, one person at a time, until I have nobody left, and he will love every fucking second of it.
I’ve been numb ever since I broke free of the morgue and sprinted up the hallway. The whole SWAT team was there in minutes, along with a medical team who immediately sprang into action, doing everything they could to save Anders, but from the location of that stab wound, I don’t know if it’s possible. He’s been in and out of surgery three times over the past twenty-four hours. His heart is desperate to give up, but he can’t give up. I can’t have his life on my conscience too.
