He apparently didn’t have the strength to tell her what he was going to do, however, and he just blearily poked at the screen of the phone, which kept slipping in the sweat that coated his hands.
“Who’re you calling?” Maisie asked, more to keep him talking than anything else, but again, he didn’t answer. He just, with what was obviously great difficulty, lifted a hand to press the phone to Maisie’s ear – and thencompletelykeeled over.
“Shit!”
Maisie swerved as his weight hit her, earning her an infuriated honk from the car in the next lane, which she totally got that she deserved, but still. How rude!
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
Using all her strength, Maisie managed to heave Rhys’s weight off her, propping him up in his seat as best she could.
Not good,she thought, as she glanced over at him. His breathing was shallow, his face sweaty and white as snow. It was clear he wasn’t going to last much longer.
That’s it. We’re going to the hospital. I don’t care what this ‘Agency’ is or what this guy wants, I don’t have any other choice.
She was so busy trying to keep her eyes both on the road and on Rhys that she didn’t realize that she’d been hearing a voice saying, “Hello? Hello?” until it had been going on several seconds by the time it registered.
After a moment of extreme confusion, Maisie realized the voice was coming from Rhys’s phone – he’d dropped it when he collapsed, but clearly he’d managed to dial a number first.
Ugh, where did it go?
By some miracle of luck, the phone had wedged itself between her butt and the driver’s seat – all she had to do was pick it up.
If I get a ticket for this, you’re paying it, buddy,she thought, sending a venomous look in Rhys’s direction as she lifted the phone to her ear.
“Who’s this?” she asked, hoping there weren’t any cops around. Thankfully, the afternoon traffic was comparatively light.
There was a long pause from the other end of the line. “Never mind that. Who’sthis?”
“My name’s Maisie Dawson,” she snapped, though she didn’t like this guy’s tone. “And I’ve currently got a car full of some guy who calls himself Rhys Richardson, and he’s in a bad way. I have no idea who you are, but he seemedprettyinsistent I talk to you. So start talking, and tell me what I’m supposed to do here.”
There was another long pause. “What do you mean, Rhys is in a bad way? What’s happened to him?”
“You’ll have to be the one to tell me,” Maisie said, as she turned a corner. “He’s been shot. But that’s not all that’s wrong with him. There’s some kind of burning green goo in the wounds, and I have no idea what it is.”
On the other end of the line, she thought she heard a sharp intake of breath.
“Right now I’m taking him to the hospital,” she continued, when nothing else was forthcoming. “Even though he –”
“No. No hospitals.” The guy on the other end’s voice was firm but calm. “They wouldn’t know how to treat what you’re looking at.”
Maisie gritted her teeth.
“Are you sure you’re really the only ones who can help him?”
“Yes. I know you don’t have any reason to, but right now, I’m asking you to trust me, and to do exactly what I ask, if you want Rhys to live.”
Well, obviously I do,she thought, her eyes darting to where Rhys wasnotlooking good at all.But what the hell am I walking into here?
“All right,” the guy on the other end said. “Stay calm. I’ll give you directions. Just follow my instructions, and everything will be okay.”
Chapter 4
Rhys didn’t return to consciousness with a gentle fluttering of eyelashes and a drifting into awareness, so much as he crashed back into life like a sledgehammer going through a slab of concrete.
He gasped, confusion still gripping him, as he sat bolt upright on… whatever it was he was lying on, grasping at his throat. The last thing he could remember was the sensation of it closing too tightly to let his breath into his lungs, the sound of his straining heartbeat thudding in his ears as it struggled to keep going…
“Welcome back.”
