Bang, bang, bang.A rattling sound like someone beating on a door in the distance sounded through the quiet lab. My adrenaline spiked immediately, my intuition picking up on something in the air. It wasn't just someone who wanted to visit with Dr. Wells. Like recalling a taste from one's childhood, the feeling of urgency from nine years ago coated my tongue with a bitter tang.
Bang, bang, bang.For one off-kilter second, the sound was exploding shrapnel outside my field clinic entrance, each percussive shot echoing through my chest and causing fear to pool in my gut. But then my awareness reeled back to reality, and I balled my hands into fists. "Do you usually get visitors after hours?"
"Not like that," Wells said, his expression concerned.
"Stay here." I moved cautiously through the small lab to the waiting room, cracking open the door that separated the two areas. The darkness from the waiting room made it difficult to see much, but movement on the other side of the frosted glass main door caught my attention. Someone knocked hard on the door, and from the shadowed form I could make out, they were leaning heavily against it.
Wells poked his head out from the lab, ignoring my directions earlier. "Can you see who it is? All my employees have entrance cards."
"I can't make it out, but I'll check," I said, waving him away. I didn't carry a firearm on me, despite my jumpy nerves. Or maybe because of them. It had been nine years sinceAfghanistan, but it really was the gift that kept giving. I opened the oak door that separated the waiting room from the main lab, and as I neared the glass door leading out to the stairway, I caught a glimpse of yellow dress. "Ninja?" I asked incredulously.
Chapter Three
FROST
I picked up my pace, running to open the locked door. Evelyn stumbled inside, but this time it wasn't clumsiness. I caught her as she pitched forward, clutching her arm and looking almost as pale as the cotton gauze peeking through her fingers. She didn't seem to notice that a stranger was holding her. She shook violently, her head bowed and honey brown hair curtaining her face. "Wells," she gasped.
"It's Frost," I corrected her, tightening my hold on her so I supported her slight weight. She smelled like something sweet… something I couldn't place. It was floral and fresh, and it contrasted sharply with the antiseptic scent that filtered out from the lab. She was cold in my arms, trembling like she'd been in a snowstorm, and her teeth chattered loudly.
"I need help," she got out, her face buried in my chest. I tried to look her over, but she went stiff as a board. "W-Wells, please."
"He's back here," I said, completely at a loss. I led her across the waiting room, and she leaned against me heavily, her head tucked down and hand gripping her arm tightly. Her hair slid away from her neck, and I caught a glimpse of a slowly blooming bruise around her neck. I halted. "What isthat?"
"Please," she hissed, still refusing to meet my gaze.
I acquiesced, making slow progress to the door, but then Wells met us, opening it with wide eyes. "Evelyn?"
She looked up finally, her gaze latching onto him. "Dr. Wells," she choked.
"What happened?" he asked, his voice a rush of concern. He hurried forward to meet us, putting his hands on her shoulders to look her over.
Evelyn's only response to that was to crumple her features and dissolve into quiet tears. We managed to cajole her into the main lab where I cleared a rolling chair, and we sat her in it. My eyes raked over her, taking in details I hadn't been able to see in the dark waiting room. Bruise on her neck. Gauze on her arm that she held firmly. Her cheek was bruised, too, and her coloring was pale but there was no cyanosis around her lips. The trembling could be anything—diabetic, shock, pain response, head trauma. I held myself back from doing a full triage as Wells crouched in front of her, his sharp eyes making the same assessments I was.
"Evelyn," he said, his voice low and soothing. "Tell me what happened so we can help you."
Evelyn's breath hitched, and she swallowed twice, wiping tears from her cheeks. "I was attacked. In the—in the bathroom." My temperature rose to an unnatural degree at that, and I had to bite my tongue from asking who, where, and in what direction they'd gone.
Wells' dark eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Did you tell the security guard? Call 911?"
She shook her head sharply. "I won't."
Wells kept his gaze trained on her but he was clearly thinking. Slowly, he said, "Alright. Tell me what happened."
Evelyn fumbled with the bag still on her shoulder. "It's easier if I show you," she began, the words tumbling out of her mouthwith sudden rapidity. "I was—they took my blood. I don't know how much. But this is why they attacked me. It's an email."
"Hold on," I scowled. "Whotook your blood? You have bruises on your neck and face. I don't carewhythey did what they did. Are they still in the building?"
She lifted an uncertain look my way. After licking her lips, she shook her head. "They're gone, I think." She swallowed again. She had to be dying of thirst. I knew how patients responded to traumatic events better than most. "They grabbed me and took my blood. That's all."
"With what?" Wells asked patiently. "You keep saying they took your blood."
"It was dark," she replied with another hitching breath. "Needles? They stuck me…" she faltered, looking away in panicked thought. "With something. It didn't feel like one needle." She glanced at her arm where she was holding a piece of gauze in a death grip. "They cleaned the blood and then left me."
"I'm calling the police," I said definitively and put my hand in my pocket for my phone.
"No!" Evelyn practically shrieked. She launched out of her chair to grab my wrist, and the chair rolled backward, bumping into a table. Her fingers tightened around my wrist, her nails digging into my skin.
Wells caught her around the shoulders. "Evie, calm down."
