Use your magic, Savy.
She’d mentioned she’d given me a magic inhibitor. Maybe it hadn’t kicked in yet.
I closed my eyes and focused, searching for that feeling of cold water trickling over my skin—but it was like it had never been there.
Deep fatigue overwhelmed me, but I fought it back as my panic rose. I had to get out of here. My mounting desperation strained against my chest, and it felt like my heart was going to rip free. I arched my back and pulled against my bindings with all my strength.
“Please,” I begged in a whisper.
Searing pain exploded through my arms, like my very flesh was being torn from my body. I gasped, too shocked to even scream, and felt something ripping. Was it my skin or the straps? I tried to look down, but the blood rushed to my head, and darkness swirled at the corner of my eyes.
For a second, I saw my arm as it ripped free. Something was wrong with it…
But then darkness took me.
When I came to, my head was throbbing. The buzzing of the overhead fluorescents didn’t help matters. My body ached everywhere, and my cheek was pressed against something cold and hard.
Get up, Savy.
I was so tired, but I forced my eyes open. My fingers ached. I was on the floor, my arms and legs no longer bound.
Confusion washed over me. I cl
imbed onto my hands and knees, wincing at the soreness in my muscles and joints. It felt like I’d been run over by a train.
The IV stand was on the floor, and drops of blood—my blood—were splattered everywhere. The needle was still stuck in my arm, but the tube looked like it had been ripped out and was lying on the floor, still connected to the partially full blood bag.
What had happened?
I used the bed to pull myself to my feet. My legs were weak, probably from blood loss. The bindings that had secured my wrists and ankles to the bed were shredded.
For a second, a vision of my hands tearing through the straps swum in my eyes, and then dizziness overcame me, and I swayed. None of this made sense. But I had to get out of there. Escape.
I listed right and stumbled. Well, this was going to be interesting.
The door was unlocked. I cracked it and listened outside, but all was quiet. Thank goodness I hadn’t made too much noise.
I opened the door and slipped into a long, concrete hall that was lined with half a dozen closed doors. The place was dirty and looked derelict, and a few of the overhead lights flickered. There was no indication of which way led out, so I went with my gut and headed left.
The floor was cold and clammy, and I really wished I had my boots. God knows what was lying around to step on. At least the muscles in my legs had warmed up and were beginning to work again. I sneaked to the end of the hall and paused. Voices carried around the corner, coming my way.
Panic streaked through me. I lunged toward the nearest door, unlocked the deadbolt, and slipped inside. The room was almost identical to the one I’d been in, except there were two monitors hooked up to wires that connected to a large bed that had been adjusted upright.
“Who’s there?” a woman asked, fear evident in her voice.
I rounded the bed and froze. It was like looking in a mirror—a red-haired girl in her twenties, strapped to the bed with tubes and wires stuck into her arms. Madison Lee, the girl I’d seen on TV. She was gaunt with sunken cheeks, like she’d been drained dry.
This could have been me. A wave of emotions slammed into my chest. Relief that I wasn’t alone, and rage. These people were fucking monsters.
She strained against her straps in fear as I approached.
“It’s okay. I’m Savannah. I’m going to get you out of here,” I whispered as I undid the heavy straps binding her ankles and wrists.
The woman’s body slammed into my chest, and her arms wrapped around me. “Thank you,” she sobbed. “What day is it?”
I shook my head and began unhooking the wires that attached to her chest. “I’m not sure. You were taken a week before I was captured. I saw you on the news.”
“It’s only been a week?” She pulled out the IV in her arm. “It felt like longer. They’ve done awful things to me. And those creatures…”