The Hunt

23

ARIANE. It started off small, a distant whisper in the back of my brain, a tiny flare of fear and regret. I barely registered it over the buzz and warmth of the power building up inside me and fighting against the drugs they’d pumped into me at Laughlin’s facility.

But it remained, distracting me, pulling me out of the zone and the work I had yet to do.

Ariane, I’m sorry. I almost caught a rifle butt to the face that time, my attention pulled by that soft, distant voice.

So I removed the weapons from as many grasping hands as I could, snapping them together like twigs in a firewood bundle and hurling them into the water.

Next to me, Ford sent one of the Laughlin guards crashing into the remaining SUV, denting the entire side with the impact of his body. That man would not be walking away from that injury. Perhaps not ever walking again.

I felt a primitive rush of satisfaction that surprised me with its force.

Ariane…

This time, the voice penetrated, and it sounded odd, strained, frightened.

Zane. I turned to where I’d last seen him, expecting to find him watching wide-eyed and perhaps horrified by our actions. Instead, he was on the ground, a bright red stain spreading rapidly over the white of his shirt.

The sight sent a jolt through me, and I couldn’t move for a second, my brain trying to piece it together, trying to make it make sense.

The second shot. The one from Ford fighting with the guard. Zane. He’d been close. But not that close. Close enough, though, apparently.

The quiet place of power inside my head devolved into a gibbering mess of panic and fear.

He’s dying. Zane’s dying. No one loses that much blood and survives. MOVE.

I bolted, leaving Ford to handle those who were left. Too many, I knew.

I half stumbled, half fell at Zane’s side, my still-bound hands flying up to brace against the ground, his spilled blood sliding over my fingers.

“I’m sorry,” he said, turning his head to look at me. He was so pale. His lips looked like gray shadows. “For calling Dr. Jacobs. I thought…I thought Ford…I saw her leaving with your bag. I thought she was betraying you.” His mouth clamped shut suddenly, his teeth chattering. “You should go. Run while Ford has them distracted.”

“Shut up. Just…don’t talk.” I shoved my hair out of the way so I could see, feeling the rapidly cooling blood smear across my cheek. “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay,” I said firmly, as if it was an order that he would be required to obey.

I bit down on the inside of my cheek but couldn’t stop a muted whimper from escaping as I pressed on the left side of his stomach.

He gasped, his whole body tensing before releasing. “It doesn’t hurt that much. So it can’t be that bad, right?” He mustered a weak and wet-sounding laugh, then moaned. His eyes closed and a shudder racked him from head to toe.

“Right,” I lied, blinking back tears that blurred my vision. It would be better if it hurt. His body was in shock, protecting him from the pain. And there was so much blood, my hands and wrists were already warm with it. “You’re going to be fine.”

Against my will, diagrams of human anatomy—the position of major blood vessels and organs—memorized years before, flashed in my already woozy mind.

Arterial damage likely, the cool voice in my head recited. Possibly liver and lung as well, depending on the path of the bullet once it entered his body. If it ricocheted off a rib, spraying bits of bone—

“Help! I need some help here,” I screamed over my shoulder, losing my balance as I did. “Please, someone call an ambulance.” The words felt thick and woolly leaving my mouth, and I wasn’t sure anyone would understand.

Not that it mattered. No one was listening. As I watched, Ford went down beneath the remaining security personnel taking advantage of her still-weakened state from the drugs and the loss of Nixon.

Dr. Laughlin and Dr. Jacobs were shouting at each other, not seemingly aware of anything else.

Mara, the lone person who seemed to recognize there was a problem, struggled against the chief, who was pulling her into his SUV, where Quinn already sat in the front passenger seat, his eyes wide with terror and confusion. “Zane’s hurt!” Her panicked words were loud enough to be heard across the lot. “You have to let me go!” She shoved at her ex-husband.

But the chief didn’t stop until she was in the vehicle and he climbed in after her, forcing her into the middle, while he got behind the wheel. Seconds later, the SUV roared past, the wheels chewing up the grass, as the chief drove up the park embankment to reach the road. Mara’s fists against the glass were pale flashes of movement inside.

“Mom?” Zane’s voice drew my attention back to him. His eyes were closed, but a faint frown creased his forehead. He must have heard her voice.

“Yep,” I said. “She’s coming.” I choked on the lie and the lump in my throat.

Zane’s eyes opened, his gaze focusing on me momentarily. He smiled at me. “Hey. You’re still here.” Then his face crumpled as pain struck somewhere. A tear slipped free from his eye and ran toward his hair.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, leaning forward to press my mouth against his temple. If I could take this from him, I would, oh God, I would. “This is my fault.” If I’d been less selfish, if I’d sent him home, if I’d listened to Mara and Dr. Jacobs, Zane would be safe right now. Home and bored and perfectly fine.

A faint frown creased his forehead. “No…” he struggled. “Not your fault. My choice.” He swallowed with an effort, coughed, and then went quiet.

I lifted my hands to Zane’s chest in a panic, smearing blood all over what remained of his white shirt. I was reassured to feel his chest was rising and falling, though the space between each breath was irregular and getting worse.

But even more alarming than that, when I tried to focus in on his thoughts, I couldn’t hear him. Just scraps of words, random scattered images. A quick flash of a purple stuffed rabbit. The smell of a Christmas tree and the crinkle of wrapping paper. His mother, much younger than I’d ever seen her, smiling at him.

He was leaving. His body was giving up, his brain deprived of blood and oxygen, neurons giving off one last spark before they died.

And behind me, Jacobs and Laughlin continued to squabble as if nothing else was going on.

“Please!” I shouted, choking on my sobs. “Help me!” They were doctors, for God’s sake—not ones I trusted, but they had to be able to do something.

Then, suddenly, as if someone had heard my entreaty and responded, a siren rose in the distance.

I sagged forward in relief, leaning closer to Zane’s ear. My tears dripped onto his face, but he didn’t react. “Someone’s coming. Just hang in there.” I’d never felt more helpless in my life.

Behind me, I sensed the sudden change in activity. Footsteps scrambling, engines revving, and doors being yanked open.

Good. I nodded to myself, trying not to see the new stillness settling over Zane, as if all the tension was draining from him. Laughlin and Jacobs were leaving, gathering up their security personnel along with Ford and Carter and Nixon’s body, before the local authorities arrived. Let them go. I would wait here until help came for Zane.

“Just a few more minutes,” I said to him, ignoring the slowing blood flow from his side. If they started a transfusion right away—

Hands clasped around my shoulders, and without looking I shoved with my mind, the effort draining what little strength I had left. But the satisfying thud of a body hitting the ground, followed by a grunt of pain, made it worth it.

The sirens grew louder.

“You have to come,” Dr. Jacobs said from behind me, cautious but firm.

“No.” I didn’t bother to look at him. Dr. Jacobs wouldn’t get too close. He knew better than that.

“Ariane—”

“Don’t call me that,” I said, shrill, hysterical. “You don’t get to call me that.”

“All right. 107.” His agreement in that gentle tone somehow made it all so much worse. “You can’t help him. You know that.”

No, no, no. I turned sharply, scrambling to my feet, fury clearing my head temporarily. I would kill Dr. Jacobs for saying that, for breathing life into that reality with his words. I would stare him down and find his heart and crush it, just like he’d taught me.

But even as I moved toward him, I felt a sharp stab in my arm and recognized it with depressing familiarity. A needle, in the hand of someone less concerned with precision and more focused on just getting it done. One of the retrieval team members had snuck up behind me.

Dr. Jacobs’s eyes widened in alarm, and then his face melted away in a blur of colors, cartoon style. “No, that’s too much! With the other suppressant in her system already, she’ll—”

I didn’t get a chance to hear what I would do. A soft rushing sound rose up to greet me, sounding just like the ocean as I’d imagined it.

Everything went white, unimaginably bright, and then there was nothing.