The Key to Fear - Kristin Cast Page 0,28

held up his hands as he backed through the Violet Shield that coated every entryway within the MediCenter. “Say no more. I get when I’m not wanted.” He glanced at his cuff. “I’ve gotta go anyway. But I’m always up for a good story, and I’ll be down here for, you know, ever.” He tossed her a sparkling smile before disappearing around the corner.

Elodie nearly tripped over the bot loading color-coded tubes into their corresponding receptacles as she craned her neck to watch him leave. “That was … strange.” She glanced at the bot as if it cared about or was even aware of the encounter she’d just had. “Water baths and mole people. Super weird.” Her cheeks heated as a grin lifted her lips.

Elodie dug through the crate of glass tubes the bot had attached to its front until she located the bright yellow cylinder labeled Propofol. She stared at the large grid of boxy receptacles and flashing lights until she located the row of tubes for the eleventh floor and the flashing yellow rectangle. She rolled the glass cylinder of medicine between her hands before reaching up and exchanging the empty tube for the full one. A few mechanical clicks and the yellow light ceased flashing.

Elodie’s heartbeat ticked up a notch as she made her way back to the elevator. Yes, she was nervous about Patient Ninety-Two’s state when she got back to her unit, but tremors of excited anticipation ran beneath the anxiety.

Maybe she would see the ELU employee and his curly, dark mohawk again. Whoever he was.

The elevator opened and Elodie requested her floor. She clenched her fists by her sides in an attempt to regain control of her nerves as the metal box carried her back to the unknowns of her own unit and Patient Ninety-two. What would she do if Aubrey was still awake, crying, pleading for her mother?

The doors opened and Elodie stepped into the LTCU.

Aubrey’s door was open, her room empty, and the unit ablaze with violet.

Lieutenant Commander Sparkman raced down the fifteenth-floor corridor. Her knuckles drained of color as she gripped the gurney’s metal sides and braced herself. Her decades of military training hadn’t prepared her for this, couldn’t have prepared her for this. They had nearly arrived at the lab. Its gleaming metal doors were only two turns ahead. Two hundred paces to the first turn, seventy to the second, and a final one hundred and fifty to the lab. Four hundred and twenty paces until they reached the place where all of this had begun. It was the only place Sparkman could hope to fix what they had done—what the Doctor had done.

The gurney jerked to the right and then left. Sparkman’s strawberry blond braid slapped her cheek and her fingers cramped as she took the first turn and the gurney careened into the wall.

Aubrey Masters was waking up. Again.

Sparkman grunted as she regained control and guided the gurney away from the wall and the small dent and gray streak that would, no doubt, be fixed by the end of the day. Instinctively, Sparkman glanced over her shoulder. No one would come running. The Doctor would make sure of that.

Sparkman’s nostrils flared as she blew out a breath. Only three hundred paces.

She stared down at the little girl she’d been tasked to kidnap from the Long Term Care Unit. He had told her that it wasn’t kidnapping. It was taking back what was rightfully his.

Aubrey’s delicate features twisted and she let out a pained whine as she pulled against the plastic binding her wrists and ankles. Sparkman’s heart surged up her throat. She had seen a lot in her years as a Key Corp military officer. Humans, the depth and breadth of their capacity for cruelty, no longer amazed her. But Patient Ninety-Two was different. Aubrey was innocent. An eight-year-old girl. A child. How could the Doctor do this?

Aubrey’s whine grew piercing, a clarion call that rattled Sparkman’s bones. The Lieutenant Commander squeezed the metal bars until her hands ached and took inventory of the container of prefilled syringes she’d brought down with her. She’d started with five. There was only one left.

Aubrey’s high-pitched squeal ended as suddenly as it had begun. Then, nothing. No jerking movements so powerful they sent the gurney careening and Sparkman struggling to keep up. Instead, Aubrey Masters went silent, motionless. Her expression placid and serene.

Sparkman’s braid slid down her shoulder as she, too, relaxed. She flipped it back behind her and maneuvered the