Even so, when Brooklyn took another step forward, Trevor had to fight the urge to reach out and pull her away. He doubted Ian would take it well. Seeing some guy grab his friend—especially since the two teens were clearly more than that—would freak him out.
Trevor thought Brooklyn might bring Ian completely out of his hybrid state, when the pounding of footsteps echoed in the hallway. Just like that, the rage-filled hybrid was back.
Trevor reached out and jerked Brooklyn back just as Ian’s claws and fangs extended again. With a growl, the kid took off running down the hallway in the opposite direction from the approaching footsteps.
Trevor grabbed Brooklyn’s hand and followed after the hybrid. Brooklyn didn’t need any extra urging to run after her friend.
Trevor had horrible visions of the hybrid teen running loose through the common area and around the three floors of patient rooms. If there was one thing the patients here at Stillwater didn’t need to see, it was an enraged hybrid running through the halls. They’d never be right again.
But when Ian reached the end of the corridor and didn’t slow down, Trevor realized that the hybrid wasn’t planning to terrorize the halls at all. He was planning to escape.
The kid—who couldn’t be more than a hundred and sixty-five pounds soaking wet—threw himself at the first window he saw, smashing through the glass and the steel security bars like they were dry sticks. Trevor cringed at the force of the impact. Hybrid or not, that had to hurt like hell.
Trevor got to the window first, but Brooklyn was a close second. Two stories below, Ian raced through the dark for the wall. He hurdled it like it wasn’t even there, then disappeared into the woods.
Trevor and Brooklyn were still standing there when Brand, Mahsood, and eight big orderlies came running up. He’d expected them to be carrying Tasers, so he was shocked to see three of the beefy men carrying handguns. Where the hell had they gotten those?
“What are you two doing out of bed?” Brand demanded.
The psychiatrist’s heart was pounding like a drum, but that could have been the excitement of the moment and his mad dash down the hallway. It was difficult to tell. There was no mistaking the spatter of blood along one side of the doctor’s lab coat. Or the fact that it wasn’t Brand’s. Which meant the man had been in the isolation ward when Ian had escaped his bonds and laid into some of his torturers.
So much for the good Dr. Brand being an innocent bystander.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Trevor said. “I’m not used to the place yet, I suppose. Brooklyn and I were walking around the common area when we heard a god-awful screaming and crashing sound. We came to investigate and found the window like this.”
Beside Brand, Mahsood’s dark eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You didn’t see who broke it?”
“No,” Trevor said. “Whoever crashed through the window was gone before we got here.”
Brand stared at him for a long time before turning his gaze on Brooklyn. “What about you? Did you see anything?”
Trevor glanced at Brooklyn, hoping she didn’t lose it and start ranting about her boyfriend smashing through a window while sporting fangs and claws. She looked worried as hell about Ian, but she was keeping it together.
“I didn’t see anything, Dr. Brand.” She eyed the orderlies. “Did someone escape from the wacky ward? Is that why you have guns?”
Brand scowled. “No one escaped. And the Stillwater facility does not have awacky ward, Brooklyn. You and Miles need to go to your rooms immediately. And I don’t want either of you telling the other patients about this. We don’t want to alarm them. Understood?”
Brooklyn nodded. Trevor did the same, then put his hand on her back, urging her forward. As they made their way down the hallway, Brand began giving orders for the orderlies to get their butts outside and start searching the grounds.
“What did they do to Ian?” Brooklyn asked softly, glancing nervously at Trevor. “It’s like they turned him into an animal.”
“I’ll explain everything later,” Trevor told her.
“Do you think Ian will be okay out there?”
“I hope so.”
Luckily, Ivy and Landon were camped out in the woods in case he needed backup. He only prayed they found Ian before Brand and Mahsood did.
As he and Brooklyn rounded the corner, Trevor glanced over his shoulder to see Mahsood watching them. Something told him the man hadn’t believed a word he and Brooklyn said. That was likely going to be a problem.
* * *
“I almost have it.” Dreya’s voice came through softly over his headset. “Just another few minutes.”
“You don’t have another few minutes,” Braden told her, fighting to keep his voice even as he watched the monitors set up in the back of the van. “The security guard doing room-by-room checks is already on your floor. You need to shut down that computer and get out of that office.”
“I can’t,” she said. “Not until I find the file we need.”
