Page 85 of Run for Her Life
She pushed harder, dodging a tangle of hanging cables, ducking under a half-collapsed shelf. Her hand grazed something sharp but she didn’t care.
A heavy thud. He’d slammed into something. A rusted metal cabinet, shoulder-first. She heard a sharp grunt, low and pained, but he didn’t stop. The sound of his footsteps staggered for half a second but then he was sprinting again, clutching his shoulder.
Then—a sound.
The slam of a door. A bang. Silence. She skidded to a stop in a wide loading bay, straining her ears and eyes. There was only one exit—a side door swinging slowly shut.
Zoe stood there, her chest heaving, scanning every shadow, listening for the slightest hint of breath or movement. The facility backed onto a main street with a maze of alleys.
Nothing. Just the creak of metal. A drip of water. She glanced at her hand. A cut ran through the middle of her palm, scarlet red blood dribbling from it like dew drops. The burning sensation finally hit her. But nothing stung more than the fact that he was gone. He had gotten away.
“Are you up to date with your tetanus shot?” the nurse asked, wrapping Zoe’s hand in a bandage.
“Yes.” She had had to be after her regular injuries at the fight club.
While the nurse made quick work of securing her hand, she swung her legs back and forth as she looked around the cold, sterile hospital bathed in a pale, white light. Surrounded by tired eyes, half-read pamphlets, and machines that beeped in different rhythms, Zoe loved hospitals. The smell of bleach and latex mingled into something so distinct and comforting. She saw it as a place of hope.
“All done!” the nurse announced. “The woman you brought in is in room 302 on this floor. She should be good to talk now. She was dehydrated and exhausted but we gave her some fluids and broad-spectrum antibiotics. She’s awake.”
Zoe nodded. “Thanks.” She hopped off the bed and found the room where a guard from the sheriff’s office and Aiden sat. “Where’s Lisa?”
“She’s securing the crime scene and the game.” Aiden stood up and fixed his tie and glasses. “Dawn got wind that the product has been found and wants it back but it’s evidence.”
“At least we found her.” She finally said the words out loud. She stopped outside the door before going in.
“What is it?” Aiden asked behind her.
“I don’t know…” The words died in her throat. Her surroundings rippled like she was part of a watercolor painting. She waited for the enormity of the events to hit her. She knew she felt relief that they’d found Amy; she knew that she felt vindicated after killing Viktor. But her body wasn’t registering the intensity.
Was she even here?
A solid hand touched her shoulder, tethering her back to reality. “Zoe?”
He rarely called her by her first name. She blinked widely and then shook off his hand before opening the door.
Amy was draped on the hospital bed. Her hair fanned wildly around her face. Her body skinny as a whippet, having lost mass since Zoe last saw her. Her face had shallow bruises, and wires dug into her skin. But it was her eyes that haunted Zoe.
The bewildered, dazed eyes that saw things no one else did.
“Amy, you remember us?” Zoe perched at the foot of the bed while Aiden sat on a stool.
She nodded like it was a chore. “Agent Storm.” Her voice came out rough and coarse. “Is this real?” She looked around, tears welling in her eyes. “I can’t tell…” She began squirming and her pulse ticked faster. “This isn’t real. This isn’t…” She began thrashing her body, jerking against the restraints. Her fingers tore at the wires digging into her pallid skin. Monitors blared. A raw, guttural scream clawed its way out of her throat as if her body were rejecting the space around it. A group of nurses burst into the room, pushing Zoe and Aiden to the back.
Zoe watched in horror as they sedated her. “What was that?”
“A woman who doesn’t know the difference between what’s real and what isn’t. That’s what spending a long time playing that immersive game does.”
Amy’s body slackened. Her screams subsided and her breaths became deeper. The nurses left except for one—a middle-aged, no-nonsense one. “She needs to rest. Have you informed her family?”
“They’re on their way. But we need to talk to her,” Zoe said.
“She’s been through severe psychological trauma,” the nurse countered. “She’s in no state to answer any questions.”
“Look, in such cases the first few hours are critical,” she explained. “There is a lot of information that is fresh in her brain because she still thinks she’s in that environment. The more time she spends away from it in a safe place, the more her brain will start to forget the small details and begin the process of acclimatization by suppression. Whoever did this is still out there.” He had been within reach and he had slipped away. Zoe wanted to punch herself. “He’ll do it again.”
The nurse looked unsure, then Aiden spoke up. “I’m a trained psychologist. I know how to handle this.”
“All right. But if this happens again, then I’m kicking you out,” she said before leaving the room.
