Stung - By Bethany Wiggins Page 0,90

wrist, twisting. The doctor gasps and falls to his knees, his arm at an unnatural angle. “If I move your arm an inch, your shoulder will dislocate.” The governor’s muscles bulge beneath his spotless white shirt, the seams barely holding the cloth together.

“You’re not going to be able to hide this forever,” Grayson says through gritted teeth.

The governor laughs. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with. I can hide anything. Without the girl, there’s no proof. It will look like you fabricated this whole thing in an attempt to usurp me.” He kicks the doctor in the stomach. “Bowen, get the bodies out of here, starting with the girl,” the governor says, holding the panting doctor firmly in place.

“But the girl is still alive,” Duncan says.

“Just do it,” the governor orders. Veins are bulging beneath his skin, and a sheen of sweat has glossed his wrinkled forehead.

“Yes, sir.” Duncan Bowen steps up to me. He bends down to grab me when something clicks. Duncan freezes and his startled eyes flicker past me. I follow his gaze to Dreyden, to the handgun in his quivering hand—aimed at his brother’s chest.

“You touch her, Duncan, I shoot,” Dreyden warns, his voice a hoarse whisper.

Duncan looks between me and his younger brother. “You’ve got to be kidding me! You’d shoot me? Over a beast?” he asks.

“You left Mom and me to fend for ourselves outside the wall. I should shoot you for that. But I won’t,” Dreyden says, voice weak. “But if you move a single inch closer to Fiona, I swear I’ll kill you so fast you won’t even feel it.”

Slowly, eyes wide, Duncan stands and backs away from me. He hasn’t taken two steps when Grayson crashes to the pool floor and the governor leaps toward me.

“Shoot him!” Grayson shrieks. Time seems to slow down. I watch the governor arcing through the air toward me, teeth bared, see Dreyden move his gun a fraction, hear him pull the trigger. The governor’s eyes grow wide as he skids to a stop on the ground beside me. His brows knit, and he looks from me to the blood spreading over the chest of his white button-up shirt.

As if responding to the gunshot, men in brown storm into the arena and circle the pool, guns pointing in, aimed at Duncan Bowen and the governor. Mickelmoore strides to the side of the pool and looks in. “Tommy, Rory, restrain those two,” he says.

Tommy jumps down into the pool with two pairs of electromagnetic cuffs in his hands and chuckles. “Hello, Governor Soneschen! Never thought I’d see the day I put a pair of these on you. If only my mother could see it. But you threw her out of the wall and got her killed on her fifty-fifth birthday.”

He slaps the cuffs onto the governor, over his shirt. Rory jumps in next and cuffs Duncan.

Too woozy to keep watching, I roll onto my side and face Dreyden. He turns his head and we stare into each other’s eyes. Inching his way to my side, he carefully lifts my head with cold, clammy hands, onto the crook of his shoulder. I tilt my chin up and press my warm lips to his cold mouth. I kiss him like I am the blood transfusion he needs to stay alive. Because, really, I sort of am.

My lips fall away and I nestle closer to him, my head cradled in the soft spot just below his shoulder where I can hear the gentle thump-thump of his heart.

“Sleep,” Dreyden whispers. And I do.

Chapter 37

I wake to pain. Everything hurts, even my eyebrows. My tongue is thick, my eyes grainy. I try to spread my arms, but only one arm works—the other is strapped to my chest.

I open my eyes, but heavy darkness fills my vision and I panic, thinking of tunnels where children eat worms and sleep on stale sewage. I wait for Arrin’s knife—no, Arris’s knife—to find its way to my neck.

A light flashes on, illuminating a square of glass that frames a woman, like I am seeing her on television. My mind tries to understand her appearance, until I realize she is watching me from the other side of a window. She leaves the lit window. A moment later, a door opens, shining a rectangle of light across me, and she enters the room.

She’s dressed in white, wearing a nurse’s white cap, white shoes, and white nylons beneath a white skirt. With her back illuminated by the open