But this could be the perfect opportunity to escape if I play my cards right. I need to get out with as minimal noise as possible, so I don’t alert the terror twins, which leaves me with two options. Hit this clown over the head and run or let him take me away and find a different way out. Regardless, I’m not staying here.
“Okay,” I whisper, wheezing in a breath through my tight lungs.
When he sees me visibly relax, he quickly follows suit, victory sparking in his icy pools. Grabbing my hand again, he urges me toward the door with a flickering red exit sign above.
I glance around, shivering from the cold, dankness of the room. Everything in here is gray and diluted, and the light fixtures whirring above are corroded with dust and bug carcasses. There isn’t anything here that gives this place… life.
Jesus, how does he operate in here? It looks like we’re in a morgue rather than a hospital room. I’d hate to die here, though it seems like many have.
It reeks of sterile death.
We pass by the table littered with instruments, several of them sharp. If I stab him in the jugular, he won’t be able to scream and will be dead within minutes. Then, I can make a run for it. I’ve no idea what the fuck I’m going to do once I get out of here, but there will hopefully be somewhere I can find help.
With one quick glance, I note that his focus is straight ahead, intent on his mission to take me for his own. I snatch the scalpel from the metal table, but he hears me coming and turns right as I go to plunge the knife into his neck, slicing his nape instead.
Blood spurts onto my face, and I turn away in an attempt to avoid getting any in my eyes.
He screams loudly, turning and backhanding me once more, sending me crashing into the unforgiving ground.
I land awkwardly on my tailbone, and I yelp from the impact. Agony shoots up my spine, taking my breath away, and he’s on me before I can think of what to do next, let alone breathe.
“You bitch!” he shouts, his hands circling around my neck and roughly banging my head into the concrete.
Stars explode in my eyes, preventing me from seeing anything for several seconds. It feels as if the back of my head has been cracked open, but the hands constricting my windpipe bring me out of the pit of agony.
Panic takes over, so intense it feels like poison in my veins. I claw at his hands, leaving bloody scratches in their wake, but they don’t deter him. Dr. Garrison’s face is contorted into pure rage, his pupils dilated until they’re nearly black, and his teeth bared, every single yellow, crooked tooth on display.
I thrash and fight, but his hold doesn’t lessen. And it’s then that my life flashes before my eyes like an old movie reel.
My mother, gracing me with one of her rare smiles when I say something ridiculous. My father, lounging on his chair and yelling at football players on the TV—the most excitement he’s ever shown in his entire life.
Daya, with her head tipped back and laughing loudly at something I said or did, displaying the tiny gap between her front teeth. Something she’s always hated, and I’ve always loved.
And then Zade. The fucking wrecking ball of a man who has brought out such a burning fire within me that I crumble like ash beneath him. Yet, he made me feel so strong. So brave.
He made me feel so damn loved and treasured.
Just like a diamond.
Although, Zade would never call me something as trivial and common as a diamond. He’d call me the rarest jewel on earth.
I should’ve told him that I…
Just as darkness overwhelms my vision, only a pinpoint of light remains, his hands loosen and something wet and warm floods over my face. Instinctively, I open my mouth, gasping desperately for oxygen as my lungs expand.
The taste of copper invades my tongue, and I suck in so deeply that my eyes bug from my head. It takes a few moments to process that only half of Dr. Garrison’s head is suspended over me, a mere second before his body topples onto mine.
A mixture of coughing and a gurgled scream fights for dominance over my throat. My eyes widen impossibly further as the mangled mess of the doctor’s head rests on my shoulder, the pool of crimson seeping into my gown. I nearly convulse from the coughing fit still seizing my throat, and the swirl of emotions of being trapped under a corpse with blood dripping in my mouth.
More of his brain matter is on me, than in his head. Or what’s left of it.
“Stop freaking out, you’re fine.” Rio appears above me, staring down at me with annoyance and a tinge of anger.
“Get used to the sight of dead bodies, princess. You’re going to see a lot of them where you’re going.”