I’ve never seen an ocean in real life. The wave sounds were an audio overlay of the videos I used to meditate. I could tell. Does the middle of the ocean sound the same as the ocean that touches the beach? What’s the part that touches the beach called? How can I do this if I have no experience with oceans, beaches, or that middle part? Why did I pick to visualize something I’ve never seen?
I’m such an idiot.Gurgle.
“Dammit, I ruined it!” I yell out loud.
Pounding from outside the ventilation shaft answers me.
It’s Liam and his goons! Time to run!
The tapping on the ventilation shaft follows me as I race forward. I take two lefts where I remember passing an incline…but it’s not there! I must be turned around. The tapping is closer. I’m going to have to cross a vent soon, where their arms might catch me through the slats. What if the cover is gone and they can pull me out?
I’ve got to stop panicking, or my guts will burst. Already, my bellybutton feels like a fire is building behind it. Will my intestines explode with it, firing like a tiny cannonball?
Breathe, Alette. They use sound to track you. Stop crying. Keep your feet going. I mean it. Silent crying. Settle down and think.
My shoes are too loud. I stop to remove them. My socks are slippery, so my movements are slowed by half…which also makes less noise.There we go.If I keep my wits, I may escape…or at least find a bathroom to reclaim some of my dignity. My heart slows its gallop to a slow pounding. I do a one-eighty turn and shuffle my way through the maze of vents. Down two floors,a right, a left, not another left—I can’t wander in circles. The tapping has stopped, so I’ve lost my pursuers.
The alarms silence their deafening screams.
I swallow my panting, so my breathing doesn’t echo off the metal walls.
If they unlock the hospital, there’s a chance I can get free. But my bowels need a release before anything else. The urgent pushing against my insides is at odds with my will to run. Physical activity puts my sphincters to the test. My ulcerative colitis means that my body marks anything that hangs around in my intestines for too long as an illness. The old food must be evacuated. Right. Now.
“Please help me,” I say between pants as I burst through the air vent in a cloud of dust. I don’t care who is in this room as long as it’s not Liam. While it was naïve to think he wouldn’t take my attack personally, I didn’t anticipate him getting this mad. His face after I bit him will haunt my nightmares. “You’ve got to hide me.”
“The hell we do,” barks the giant beast in the hospital bed. Every inch of him is covered with silvery hair…except for his mouth full of fangs. He snarls and growls at me like I’m lunch. “Are you the little demonic sprite behind the hunt? You’re lucky they turned off the alarms, or I’d turn you in for quiet. Maybe I still will for spite—”
“Serik, stop it,” snaps a human woman. At least I think she’s a human. Her black hair swishes at her waist as her facial piercings sparkle under the fluorescent lights. “Forgive his rudeness, he’s grouchy after having his balls snipped.”
“In the name of love,” Serik grouses.
“You want to do this in front of a stranger? Let’s go. We should be mobile ordering our winter supplies since we missed the fall harvest, but you’d rather fight. We have to think about Gleb and Hannah, too. We don’t have a baby seat in my car, since we came here toavoidhaving babies! I’m too fucking tired to argue with you,” she shouts. “It’s over—”
“Yep, I won,” he says with a fangy smile that makes my blood run cold. He stretches far enough to hang his feet over the end of the massive bed while folding his arms over his head. How can she goad such a beast?
“You’d think they enlarged his balls, the way his ego tells the story—”
“You love’em, Kaitlyn.”
“Are you a priestess?” I ask. Because if she is, I’d love to pick her brain on spells for colitis. Anything to banish my pain while still keeping my insides intact.
“No, I’m an accountant,” she says with an eye roll. “I’m here to settle a score with my mate…the man-baby with fifty pounds of ice on his junk.”
“It hurts,” he whines.
“I don’t mean to intrude. Can I use your bathroom?” I ask as I scurry to their adjoining bathroom. I flick on the fan, wishing it were louder. Good thing my hosts are too busy arguing to hear me disrespect their toilet.
“I told you I was fine with IUDs—”
“I’m not letting someone play with my pleasure box! When you agreed to become my mate, your cunt became my playground. I refuse to let some prick—”
“He’s a doctor like the doctor who snipped you! Should I be jealous of Dr. Stein?”
“You saw the doctor who operated on me. Ugly SOB, without a minute to learn my name, let alone the desire to fondle my goods—”
“Then he could have inserted another IUD—”
“Not into my mate,” came the roar from the opposite side of the wall. The tiles rattle inside the shower, as if threatening to jump off the wall to run for cover.
