harder.
“I don’t—Ouch! There’s no need for violence. No one named Santini works here.”
“You know who I mean, damn you. Where’s the little girl?”
“Oh, you mean—” He grunted. “There’s no little girl here.”
I grabbed a fistful of brown hair, yanked his head back, and slammed his face into the floor. “Are you sure?”
He groaned and tried to turn his head to look at me. Blood streamed from his broken nose. His glasses were crooked, and one lens had cracked, making it look like he had two eyes in one socket. “There’s no little girl here,” he repeated. “This is a research facility.”
He was stalling—not good. It probably meant reinforcements were on the way. I smashed his face against the floor again, then climbed off his back. He half rolled onto his side and squinted up at me in surprise.
“Okay, Daniel,” I said. “Shoot him.”
It was impossible to say who looked more shocked—Daniel or the guy on the floor. I knew that Daniel would never shoot anyone in cold blood, but it took him a second to realize that I
Daniel took two steps so his feet were planted in front of the guy’s face. Mr. Lab Coat, wheezing in fear, curled into a fetal position and covered his head with his arms. His cracked lens glinted between them. Daniel aimed the gun and clicked off the safety. The sound of that click echoed off the walls.
“No, don’t!” Lab Coat’s voice came out in a high-pitched, half-strangled whine. “Don’t! I’ll take you to her.”
I pulled the norm up onto his feet. He shook so hard his knees buckled, and I caught him before he hit the ground a second time. “Which way?” I asked. I’d twisted his arm behind his back again.
Daniel pressed the pistol against the guy’s head, behind his right ear. He’d put the safety back on, but Lab Coat didn’t know that.
He motioned with his chin toward the elevator. “Third floor.”
“We’ll take the stairs.” I dragged him to the stairwell.
Daniel went ahead of us. “It’s clear,” he called down.
By the time I’d hauled Lab Coat up two flights of stairs, he’d recovered somewhat. When we emerged on the third floor, he led us quickly down a long corridor—or as quickly as he could, given the grip I had on him. The walls were gleaming white; so was the tile floor. The place smelled like a cross between a hospital and a zoo, strong antiseptic over musky animal odors. Every few feet there was a door with a small, square window about five feet above the ground. Wires crisscrossed the reinforced glass. I glanced inside one; the narrow room held a cot but was otherwise empty. In the next one, a wolf, mangy and thin, huddled in a corner, its back toward the door.
Next to each door were a magnetic card reader and a metal frame that held a printed card. SUBJECT 1375B, read one card. SUBJECT 1722A, read another.
We stopped in front of a door about midway down the corridor. The card here read SUBJECT 3564C. I looked through the tiny window and saw Maria, sitting on the cot and hugging herself tightly. She looked so small, so terrified and alone. I grabbed Dr. Lab Coat and pressed his face against the window until the glass cracked. I put my lips to his ear. “That, you asshole, is a little girl.”
I picked him up with both hands and threw him, as hard as I could, down the hall. He grunted when he hit the wall and again when he hit the floor.
Maria had looked up at the movement at the window. When she saw me, her eyes went wide, and she jumped off the cot. I smiled at her, reaching for the doorknob. It was locked. And Lab Coat was crumpled in a heap against the far wall, out cold.
I pointed to the card reader by the door, turning to Daniel. “See if that jerk has an ID card. Something with a magnetic strip.” I put my fingers against the glass and said, “We’re coming, sweetheart. We’ll get you out of here.”
Daniel searched the guy’s pockets, shaking his head. He pulled open the lab coat and said, “Bingo!” Handing me a plastic card with a photo on one side and a strip on the other, he said, “It was clipped to his shirt pocket.”
I swiped the card, holding my breath. The lock made a telltale click, the knob turned, and the door flew open. Maria rocketed out and flung her arms around me. She didn’t say a word, just pressed her face against me. I held her tight and showered her hair with kisses.
“Come on, kiddo,” I said. “We’re taking you home.”
“We?” Maria looked around. Daniel smiled and said hi; she stared at him, her eyes wary, like he was a stranger who’d offered her candy.
“This is Daniel,” I said. “He’s a police officer.”
Maria tensed. “A police officer already came. She said I had to stay here.”
“Not Daniel.” I gave him a half-smile. “He’s okay.”
The heap in the lab coat groaned. “Sounds like our cue to leave,” I said. Holding Maria’s hand, I started back down the hallway. Gray, furry faces with wide, rolling eyes peered out of some of the windows as we passed all those locked doors. As we neared the stairwell, shouts and hard-stomping footsteps erupted ahead of us. They were coming up the stairs.
We turned and ran the other way down the hall, toward a green-lit exit sign at the far end. A howl came from one of the cells we passed, giving me an idea. I stopped and swiped the ID card that had opened Maria’s door. The lock clicked, and I pushed the door open. I did that at every door we passed. Growls and yelps filled the air behind us. A moment later, a voice yelled, “Stop!” then “Holy shit!”
As we neared the exit door, I glanced back. Wolves, half-men, and a few unidentifiable creatures looking like something out of a nightmare, charged the other end of the hall. A rifle went off, taking a chunk out of the ceiling. A human screamed. I pushed Maria into the stairwell, ducking in behind her.
BEFORE WE MADE IT TO THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRS, AN alarm went off with a skull-splitting clamor. Strobe lights flashed at each landing. Maria covered her ears as we ran down the last few steps. At the bottom were two doors: one leading to the first-floor hallway and the other, marked EXIT, opening to the outside. At the exit door, Daniel put a hand up, telling us to wait. As he eased the door open a crack, I hugged Maria to me. I could feel the bumps of her spine under my hand as I stroked her back. She seemed so small and vulnerable; I didn’t want to let go of her. The alarm kept up its racket.
Daniel opened the door a bit wider, then closed it and turned to us. The alarm was too loud for speech, so he signaled what we should do: out the door and immediately to the right. I nodded. I gave Maria a reassuring squeeze, then took her hand. Daniel opened the door, and the three of us slipped out.
To the right of the door were some overgrown yew bushes. We plunged into these for cover. The bushes grew close to the side of the building, but there was a little room to get through. We pushed our way through cobwebs and dusty branches. Maria sneezed, then sneezed again.
When we made it to the corner of the building, we paused again. The next building, marked Five, was ten yards away. It was a rectangular brick building, three stories high, identical to the one we’d just left. But it was closer to the wall that surrounded the compound; the wall was only about five feet from the back of the building. If we could get inside, we could find something—a conference table or a ladder or a lab bench; something like that— to form a makeshift bridge between a second-story window and the wall.
The building wall that faced us, one of the short ends of the rectangle, had a metal door like the exit we’d just used. Next to it was a card reader. I still had Lab Coat’s ID card; that would get us in.
The alarm still blared, maybe a couple of decibels quieter out here, but still deafening. I put my mouth right up against Daniel’s ear; his curls brushed my lips as I spoke in a low voice, laying out my plan. He nodded. “I’ll go first and open the door,” I said. “You cover me.” He nodded again.
Maria still clutched my hand. I bent down, brushed her hair behind her ear, and said, “I’m going to run over to that building and open the door. From there, we’ll climb out of a window to get over the wall, okay?” She shook her head, looking panicked, and squeezed my hand.
“Don’t go,” she mouthed.
