Stung - By Bethany Wiggins Page 0,88

from my face. I relaxed into the warmth, content to be enveloped. My eyes closed, my mouth eased open, and I sank deeper into the warm fabric.

“Where is she?” a woman’s voice asked, barely making it to my cotton-filled brain. I tried to open my eyes, to see who’d spoken the words. Because I knew that voice.

“She’s in the linens. But we have to get her out now! There’s already a copter circling the building. He knows she’s awake.”

“Then Gary has to get her outside the wall tonight. He won’t be missed. As long as he’s back before sunrise, no one will suspect we had anything to do with her disappearance, and as long as she’s sedated, she won’t wake until we’re with her,” the woman said.

“Outside the wall? But—”

“She’ll be sedated. She’ll be fine. And you know Soneschen’s got too many eyes in the city. She’ll be dead before dawn if we keep her nearby. The other side of the wall is the safest place,” the woman insisted. Hands sifted through the warm linens covering me and circled around my neck. They fiddled with something and slid a chain away from my skin.

A lone pair of footsteps echoed on the floor. “Gary! Take her. Quickly,” the woman said. “To my old home from before.” The towels surrounding me started to move, being wheeled away.

Footsteps pounded on the ground. “Doctor Grayson! You’re to be taken in for questioning in the disappearance of lab specimen fourteen,” someone bellowed.

And then I floated.

“I know you,” I say. The man smiles, a gesture that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“You remember me, then?” He crouches in front of me and visually scans my body.

I nod and look at the name embroidered on his starched white coat—Dr. Grayson. “You moved me out of a bed and put me in some laundry.”

“That’s right.” He glances over his shoulder, at the door he just came in through. “We need to get you out of here immediately,” he says, looking at me again, pressing warm fingers against the pulse in my neck. “Can you stand?”

“Wait. My brother. He …”

“That’s Jonah?” Doctor Grayson asks, looking at the blood-covered body beside me.

“Yes. He’s still alive. Can you help him?”

The doctor crouches beside Jonah and presses fingers to his neck. His blue eyes meet mine and he pulls a tiny clip from the pocket of his white jacket, lifts it to his mouth. “We have an unconscious Level Ten in the pit. Get him medical help immediately. And take every precaution that he survives,” he says into the clip.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

The doctor’s eyes move to Bowen. “Are you Dreyden Bowen?” he asks.

Bowen nods, eyes instantly wary. “How do you know me?”

“I’m the one who had you promoted to guardian.”

“You? Why?” Bowen asks, his voice bitter. “Do you have a personal vendetta against me?”

Grayson smiles, and this time it touches his eyes. “No, no personal vendetta. I was … apprehended the night I had Fiona removed from the lab and wasn’t able to get to her. Your gate was the closest to her childhood home, so I thought she might find her way there. And if she did, I needed someone in place who would protect her, someone who knew her and would recognize her. Based on your psych analysis, you have a soft spot for helping women. So, while I was being held for questioning, I secretly signed the papers for you to be promoted to guardian, and an accomplice smuggled them to the gate.” He looks between Bowen and me, then holds out his hand to Bowen. Bowen, his face raw with surprise, puts his hand into the doctor’s and shakes it. “Nicely done. You’ve exceeded all my hopes.” They drop hands. “Now, we’ve got to get Fiona out of here.”

Bowen eases to his feet, slow and unsteady, and starts tipping sideways. His eyes glaze over and roll into his head, and his legs crumple. Doctor Grayson grabs at him, toppling onto the pool floor with Bowen cradled against his chest.

“Is he injured?” the doctor asks, looking at me.

I nod, suddenly clammy cold. “I accidentally shot him. I think it was yesterday morning. It went all the way through his back.” The words make my head spin, make me want to vomit. The pool wavers and I turn my head to the side, dry heaving.

The doctor pulls up Bowen’s shirt, exposing a semifilled hole in his back that is oozing pus and blood. He looks at me, and the color has