I sucked in a breath. Was I in trouble?
She glanced nervously around me, eyes flickering upward into the darkened air and into shadowed corners, as if searching for something unseen. Suddenly, she grabbed my arm with a trembling grip and whispered hoarsely, “I have exactly one minute, but I need to tell you something.You’re not safe here.”
The floor fell from beneath my feet.
“What?” I whispered.
She pulled me in closer to her, wrapping her arms around my neck as if we were hugging.
“I need you to be quiet and listen to me. Do not say anything back.”
Myheart hammered in my throat, and a ringing hummed in my ears.
She leaned in closer, pretending to fix my hair.
“Your game is about to start. If you don’t play it, they will come for you.”
“Wha—what? Who’s coming for me?” I asked, my voice trembling with fear.
“Don’t say a word!” she whispered urgently, glancing nervously around her.
“They change the game frequently. The players are constantly changing. Don’t trust anyone. Not even Max.”
By the time I blinked, her expression had recomposed into sterile professionalism. The only tell was the faint tremor in her hands as she went back to arranging paperwork on her desk.
My stomach was in knots. What the fuck was she talking about? Whatgame?
She opened her desk drawer, rifling through her supplies until she found a small pink packet. When she closed the drawer, she glanced at the clinic hallway before passing the package into my palm.
“Take this, please,” she murmured. “Start it tonight. Do not skip.”
I stared at her, throat dry. “What is it?”
She nodded her head as if to say, ‘I will not answer that.’
I looked down at the package. Birth control pills.
“I don’t… need these,” I said quietly, trying to hand them back. “I’m not?—”
She recoiled before I could finish, snatching her hand away like I’d tried to burn her. “Start it tonight,” she repeated, voice trembling under the surface. “And don’t ask questions. Not here.”
Her eyes flicked back over to the clinic door again. Someone walked past outside. She held her breath as we both heardfootsteps, then silence. Nurse Campbell pressed her lips together so tightly they blanched white.
“I’m not sexually active,” I whispered, instantly hating how weak I sounded.
She blinked once. “Don’t assume anything, Mackenzie. Everything you’ve known up until this point is a lie.”
My pulse thundered in my ears. “What? Why?”
She ignored me, turning away. She sanitized her hands, straightened a stack of folders, and smoothed her shirt, as if she could tidy her panic back into place.
By the time she faced me again, she wore a polite smile. It was eerie. She looked at me as if we hadn’t just crossed a line into a different fucking reality.
“Drink plenty of water in this heat,” she said brightly. “I recommend at least one gallon a day. Max needs double that with how big he’s gotten.”
Then she sat down at her desk.
“Have a great day, sweetheart.”
