Isela yanked her arm back, ripping the needle out. It clattered against the linoleum, rolling to a stop near Huston's heavy combat boots. She stared at the puncture wound, a tiny bead of blood welling up.
She stood straight, her chin lifted, defying them to speak. She waited.
One second. Two seconds. Three.
"See?" she panted, adrenaline making her voice shrill. "It's clean. It's just Cefazolin. I'm not-"
Then, the hammer dropped.
It didn't start with pain. It started with sound. A rushing noise in her ears, like a jet engine starting up inside her skull. The room tilted violently to the left.
Then came the heat.
It wasn't a fever. It was an incinerator. It started in her chest and exploded outward, racing down her arteries like liquid fire.
Isela gasped, clutching at her throat. Her heart gave a massive, lurching thud against her ribs, then another, faster, harder. It was beating so fast it felt like a vibration rather than a rhythm.
"Well," Huston's voice sounded distorted, like he was speaking underwater. He grinned, a slow, predatory stretching of lips. "Looks like Doctor Church just executed herself."
It wasn't an antibiotic. It wasn't even a simple poison.
It was a stimulant. A massive, lethal dose of something designed to mimic a cardiac event.
Isela stumbled back, her hip hitting the metal windowsill. The pain was distant, irrelevant compared to the lava in her veins.
"Get the restraints," she heard Huston say. "She's going to be fun for the next hour before her heart explodes."
Fear, chemical and absolute, flooded her system. The drug was amplifying everything. Every nerve ending was screaming.
She saw the surgical tray on the floor. A scalpel had slid out of its sterile packaging.
Isela dropped to her knees. Not to beg, but to grab the blade.
A guard reached for her.
She slashed upward.
She didn't aim to kill. She aimed for space. The blade sliced through the fabric of the guard's uniform, drawing a thin line of red across his forearm. He yelled and jumped back.
The gap was there.
Isela launched herself through it.
She hit the door with her shoulder, bursting into the hallway.
The world was warping. The straight lines of the corridor were bending, breathing. The lights overhead were too bright, leaving trailing streaks of neon in her vision like comets.
Run. Her brain screamed the command. Run or die.
She sprinted.
Her legs felt light, too light, disconnected from the ground. She was moving faster than she ever had in her life, the stimulant overriding her fatigue, overriding her muscles' limits.
"Stop her!" Huston roared from behind.
Isela didn't look back. She turned a corner, her shoulder slamming into the wall, bouncing off. She needed to get up. Up was where the passengers were. Up was where there were witnesses. Cameras.
She reached the elevator bank. She jammed the button, but her finger slipped. She couldn't focus. The numbers on the display were dancing.
The stairs.
She threw her weight against the heavy fire door of the stairwell. It swung open, and she stumbled into the concrete echo chamber.
She started to climb.
One flight. Two flights.
Her heart was going to burst. She could feel it battering against her sternum, a trapped bird desperate to escape. Her breath came in ragged, scorching gasps. The air in the stairwell felt thick, like syrup.
Behind her, the heavy door slammed open again. Heavy boots clanged on the metal steps.
"Coming for you, Doctor!" Huston's voice echoed, bouncing off the walls, sounding like it was coming from everywhere at once.
Isela scrambled up the steps on her hands and knees. Her vision was tunneling. Red spots danced in the periphery, growing larger, consuming the light.
Level 8. Level 9.
The Penthouse Deck. The Collier Deck.
She reached the top landing. Her hand fumbled with the handle. It was locked? No, just heavy. She put her entire body weight into it and fell through.
Silence.
The noise of the ship-the engines, the ventilation, the ocean-vanished.
She was on a carpet so thick her knees sank into it. The air here was cool, conditioned to a perfect crispness. It smelled of cedar and rain.
Isela tried to stand, but her legs were jelly. The drug had burned through her reserves. The heat in her body was unbearable. She clawed at the collar of her scrub top, ripping a button.
She needed help. She needed ice.
She crawled forward. The hallway stretched out like an infinite tunnel, lined with dark mahogany doors that looked like coffins standing on end.
"Help," she croaked. The sound was a pathetic wheeze.
Footsteps behind her. The door she had just come through hissed open.
"There you are," Huston panted. "Nowhere left to run, bitch. This is a restricted deck. No cameras here."
Isela dragged herself another foot.
Ahead of her, at the very end of the hall, double doors opened.
Light spilled out. Golden, warm light.
A silhouette appeared in the doorway. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Still.
The figure didn't move to help. He just stood there, holding a glass of amber liquid, watching the scene unfolding in his hallway with the detachment of a god watching insects fight.
Isela reached out a trembling hand toward the shadow.
"Please," she whispered.
The darkness overtook her vision. The red spots merged into black. The last thing she felt was the plush carpet against her cheek, and the last thing she smelled, cutting through the haze of the drug and her own fear, was a sharp, chilling scent.
Orchids. Frozen orchids.
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