Page 45 of Hunted Mate
As I get up, I notice I just did it on all fours. Naturally, I just put my hands out in front of me, braced against them, and arched and stretched my back until I felt better, then I stood up as naturally as if I always did things that way.
“Huh,” I muse to myself. “That’s different.”
I open the door. It’s not locked. Feels like it should be, but I guess they thought I’d stay where they left me.
I check the label on my door. I’m expecting to see my name, Calista Hart. Instead, it’s a much less personal moniker.
Specimen 001.
Since when am I a specimen?
Looking around, I come even more to the conclusion that this does not feel like a hospital. Hospitals are busy and have a very particular smell. It’s not even a private hospital that might be quieter, because those are well decorated and soothing to be in. This feels more like a laboratory. I can almost feel unseen eyes on me, assessing me. Cameras, maybe.
“You’re supposed to be in your room.”
The nurse returns. I look at him properly this time. He’s quite tall, quite brawny. His hair is cut in a short crop style. He has heavy brows and a slight accent that hints at an Eastern European origin.
“Oh, me? In the room?” I feign ignorance. “Can you tell me why I’m in the room again? Also, where are my clothes? And where’s a phone?”
While I am asking these questions, I am being pushed firmly back into the room, and the door is being shut in my face. This time, I hear it lock.
Oh, no.
I should probably be more worried. I might actually be more worried. Sometimes you don’t actually know how worried you are about something until a lot later, I’ve noticed. Sometimes, you think you’re fine, and then six months later you start twitching and can’t stop for two years. Maybe this is one of those kinds of fine.
Hard to say.
I pace around the room, noticing that I might not be quite as unscathed as I hoped. My bones are protesting, all the way to the marrow. They’re sort of aching in ways I didn’t know bones could hurt. Like I’ve been punched very specifically on the inside only.
Was I in some kind of accident? Where’s Gray? Does he know I’m here? Is he the reason I’m here? Did he betray me somehow? He is a filthy arsonist I barely know, after all. You meet a guy, he burns your life’s work to ashes, then turns into a wolf and you think that’s all he’s going to get up to, but maybe then he also gets you incarcerated in some kind of medical facility?
There are too many questions and no answers and no visual cues. The floor is white tile, and the walls are just plain sheetrock with plaster and paint, and the door is… yep, still locked.
I try the handle, jiggling it to see if I’m just doing it wrong. I push and then I pull, to see if that’s the problem. It’s not.
You have to check, though.
I start to think about ways out. Maybe there’s a handyMission: Impossible-style air vent? I do find a vent, but I could only go through it if I were the size of a small cat, or maybe a large rat. That’s the only other entrance or exit to the room besides the door.
Or… is it?
I’m not in construction, but I watched a reel once where a dog fell through a wall by mistake while playing. I start tapping the wall, listening for spots that feel more hollow, and others that have a more solid sound. I am not trying to hurl myself into a chunk of wood.
Once I think I’ve worked out where the studs are, I throw myself at the sheetrock next to the door. I use all my strength, figuring I’ll either get out, or maim myself trying. I’m in a hospital-type place either way.
The wall crumbles like an outdated social norm, and in seconds I am back inside the hallway. Also white. Also very little in the way of decoration. The white gown they put me in doesn’t give me much in the way of gravitas, but I remind myself who I am.
I am Calista Hart. I am an important woman, and when I want to get out of a secret laboratory where I am being held against my will for reasons that have not yet been made clear to me, I escape.
I walk briskly through the halls, looking for an exit sign. They’re legally required, and most places, even illicit laboratories holding heiresses hostage have usually been built by a contractor who knows it’s not worth the fines to not have the proper safety signage in place.
I have friends who have suffered the consequences of inadvertently trapping people in a maze with no out sign when they tried to pioneer a new kind of open office concept where actually all the cubicles went floor to ceiling. It was deemed a fire hazard, and was terrible for productivity because the employees were always getting lost. Some of them worked out interesting ways to navigate the maze, Hansel and Gretel style, but using paperclips or similar.
I don’t find a door to the outside, but I do find a big glass observation window that looks into some kind of clean laboratory. All the workers are wearing big blue hairnets and puffy suits, the kind you wear when whatever you are touching is something that absolutely should not be touched.
I’m wondering how afraid I should be. This doesn’t feel good, but also surely Gray wouldn’t let anything very terrible happen to me.
Where is Gray? Third time I’ve asked myself that, and third time there’s been no obvious answer.
