Page 50 of Veradel
You wouldn’t have to. You could use your bare teeth to rip him to shreds.
I swallow thickly, trying not to inhale the sweet scent of blood pulsing through the scared, trembling man in front of me, and some of my anger deflates.I wouldn’t do that either.
That’s my girl,Lucan says again, pride lighting up his voice.
My attention returns to the healer, who finally manages to splutter, “What does this doctor of yours need, then?”
“A centrifuge to start with,” I answer immediately.
The healer wets his lips nervously. “What kind?” I blink at him, and a slow, triumphant smile spreads across his mouth. “Benchtop, gas, high-speed? Surely, yourdoctorspecified the type you’d need.”
I dig the dagger just a tiny bit more into his neck, until his smile bleeds away.
“Anything portable,” I say, and pray that’s the right answer. “One with a back-up battery.”
The healer raises his hands and takes a step back, so I follow him, dagger still pointed an inch away from his chest, around some tables in the center of the room and to the opposite side. There, he nods over his shoulder—
At a small, cube-shaped machine with digital buttons lining the bottom and a circular porthole on the lid up top. A centrifuge.
I snatch it up with my free hand and manage to squeeze it into an inside pocket of my cloak, although the bulge of it presses against my waist. “Great! Thanks! Now I need…” I silently recall the list of other requirements Taika gave me earlier. “Sodium hydroxide, sodium chloride, pepsin.”
Too slowly, the healer takes me to various cupboards, and I stuff my pockets with bottles of liquids and powders with labels that I make sure to check, just in case he’s trying to lead me astray. But he doesn’t, and the laboratory doors don’t fly open. Nobody storms in to stop me.
Finally, I have everything I need.
“Well, it’s been a pleasure working with you,” I say politely, giving the healer a mock bow and finally removing my dagger from his space to twirl around.
“Now, wait a second!”
I don’t wait a second. I burst out of the laboratory door and pick up my pace in the hallway, using all of my restraint to not break out into a run. He keeps shouting at me, but I don’t stop, don’t glance back, just keep twisting and turning my way through the Healing Center until I’m almost to the main entrance again.
That’s when the loudspeakers crackle.
“Saskia.”
Arad’s maniacal voice fills the hospital, vibrating through my bones along with Lucan’s growl of warning in my mind. One of the cameras’ blinking red lights slowly swivels toward me, training its sights directly on me. A few passing healers stop in their tracks, eyes widening at the intercom in the corner.
With no time anymore to spare, I finally break into a sprint.
“My favorite Chosen One,” Arad laughs through the speaker, his voice following me around every corner. “So eager to return to me.”
The centrifuge in my pocket thumps against my thigh with each step. When I burst out into the main entrance of the Healing Center, every head cranks my way and the information clerk shrieks with a hand on her heart, but I don’t slow. Out the double doors, I don’t hesitate for even a moment.
Twisting, I find the closest foothold and heave myself upward with all my vampiric speed and strength, scaling the metal doorframe, up, up, up, until I reach Claudia.
Then, grabbing my knife again, I saw through the ropes until they snap, one by one.
Claudia’s body slumps into mine. I gather her carefully in my arms before launching myself back down to the ground, all in the matter of a few blinks.
Then I jump past the still-unconscious sentry and skirt around a herd of other sentries converging onto the main street.
They shout after me, demanding I stop, threatening to kill me as I start to run faster.
Slow down, baby, Lucan says soothingly.Right now, the sentries by themselves are no threat to you. But if you run too fast, you’ll show your hand. And all twelve Guardians will come after you in a heartbeat if they realize you’re more than they think you are.
I don’t look back. Running south, I force myself to stay at a pace equivalent enough to that of a human, but just out of reach of their swords. Claudia’s head lolls against my chest. Air swishes against my back as the sentries swing.
When I reach the farming fields, sprinting down a column of high-rising stalks, a cloud passes in front of the moon, shrouding the night with more darkness.
