Bad Blood (Book 4 of The Warden series) (9 page)

Rather than stand there and look vacuous while he explained everything, she wandered out of the lab. No one noticed. The conversation taking place was about her, but it didn’t actually have to include her.

As naturally as life handed her opportunities to feel bad about herself, it was no surprise that her exit from the lab caused a collision with one of the nurses. A tray of vials flipped out of the woman’s hands and broke on the floor. The red blood it contained puddled at their feet.

“Oh, crap!” Cori hissed giving the nurse the expression one gives when they are not just sorry, but mortified to be the cause of such damage. “I’m so sorry!” She leaned down without thinking and prepared to pick up the mess.

“Oh, honey no!” The nurse grabbed her hands before she could touch anything. “Bare hands and sharp bloody objects don’t go well together. Let me go grab a spill kit. Don’t touch anything. I don’t want you to get hurt.” The nurse bounded off to fetch the kit while Cori stood crouched by the mess prepared to be the orange cone to avert passersby from stepping in the mess.

When she looked back down she saw the blood against the white floor, but the shattered shards of the glass vials were gone. A body was lying next to it.

“Belus!” She exclaimed upon seeing the face of the body.

16

Cori gasped falling back on her butt. She crab walked away from Belus’s unconscious form. Blood seeped on to the floor from his back. She could see a small hole dotted with red in his side.

A trail of bloody hand tracks followed her away from the body. She looked at her palms and saw the blood staining the creases in her hands and coagulating under her fingernails. One of her fingers looked disjointed, but she couldn’t feel any pain from it since her arm hurt so much. She was trembling, but it wasn’t from being cold.

The walls of the infirmary hall were gone. She couldn’t immediately place what part of the prison she was in, but the large and small empty cells suggested she was on the part-time level. A row of armed guards was pointing pistols and elemental weapons at her. They looked baffled as if the orders they had been given weren’t making any sense to them.

Movement on her left caught her eye. Efrat rose from his sprawled position on the floor and approached Belus’s body. He paid her no heed as he passed her by. Awaking her muddled mind she reached for her gun, but the holster was empty. She backpedaled further along the ground ignoring the pain in her arm so she could escape his attack.

“Don’t move!” Danato said on her right.

She whipped around and saw him pointing a gun…at
her
. Another row of guards were lined behind her waiting for an order, any order. “Danato!” She gasped relieved. “What’s going on? What’s happened to Belus?”

Danato’s eyes were hard with anger, but she saw him cringe as if he might cry. “Do it,” he ground out the words to Efrat, but kept the gun securely trained on her.

Cori looked back at Efrat as he knelt beside Belus, his hands hovered over him and charged with electricity. “No! Danato, what are you doing? Shoot the bastard!” She screamed, but Danato didn’t move his gun off her.

Cori gave up reasoning with Danato. He was obviously as stunned by the event as she was, and couldn’t think straight. She pushed herself back to her feet and ran at Efrat to tackle him.

Her attack was not throttled by bolts, but when she was close enough to push him away; he flipped her to her back using her own momentum. He pushed her to the floor and gripped her wrists firmly and painfully over her chest. He pressed all his weight on to her hands pushing them into her breasts. She struggled to bring her legs up so she could kick him, but he kept his body at her side, out of range.

“Corinthia!” He yelled at her.

She had been prepared for slurs and banter, but she had not expected to hear her birth name from his lips. As it usually did, the name froze her because she expected her mother to jump out and tell her to clean her room.

She met his eyes. A sea of beautiful blue—that had no business being on the face of a criminal—was conveying urgency and concern. “Let me save him!” He spoke the punctuated words as if she was deaf or dumb. It was probably for the best since, at that moment, she understood nothing.

Cori searched his face for the meaning of this statement. His eyes flickered over hers searching for the permission to release his grip. His face pleaded the request that she didn’t want to believe from his voice. “I need to defibrillate him, or his heart will stop completely and he will die,” he explained further, when she didn’t visibly concede. “I will save him.”

She knew she was lost down the rabbit hole, but why did the white rabbit look like the big bad wolf? She had so many questions:
How did she get here? Why was everyone here? How was Belus shot?

None of them mattered though. Belus was over the threshold of death, and the man that had put her into flat line nearly a year ago was offering to save him. “Why?” She voiced the only question that refused to be put off.

He released her wrists and backed away slowly like she might be a risk to him. He distanced himself from her body before he answered. “Because you asked me to.” Efrat turned and repositioned his hands over Belus. He pressed them to his chest like paddles and Belus’s body arched from the electricity.

“Cori?” Danato called her name.

When she looked up toward Danato’s voice, his eyes were filled with concern and his hands were free of the gun that had recently been pointed at her. The cages of the part-time level were gone.

17

The starch white walls and crisp clean glass windows of the infirmary hallway surrounded her again. Danato was peeking out of the computer lab. “Why are you crying?”

Cori touched her face and felt the wet tears. “Belus has been shot.”

His brow dove deep trying to discern the purpose of this deception. “No, he hasn’t. Belus come out here.”

Belus stepped out behind Danato into the hall. “What’s…” He started, but observed the mess on the floor. “Seriously kid, we can’t take you anywhere.”

“Oh, thank god!” Cori dove to Belus shrinking to her knees to give him an awkward midline hug. “I thought you were done for,” she mumbled against his torso. “I thought…” She didn’t finish just in case the words had the power to make it happen again.

“What are you talking about?” He said. She could sense him trying to back pedal from her embrace, but she gripped tighter, refusing to let her relief be doused. She heard him sigh and his hand settled in on her head petting her hair down. “Okay, kid, what happened?”

She sat back pulling herself away. Danato lent her a hand and she pulled herself back to her feet. “I was waiting for the nurse to return, and I saw Belus on the floor shot.” She glanced furtively to Belus as if the words might hurt him. “I was somewhere else in the prison. You were there too, Danato. And…” She paused wondering if telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth was wise since her first admission had prompted a PET scan.

“And?” Danato prompted as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“And Efrat was there.”

“Again with Efrat,” Danato said. He glanced at Belus. “Your PET scan looked normal. Minor raise in the anxiety zone, but frankly given the morning that would be unavoidable.”

“These can’t be dreams if I’m wide awake while I have them,” she pointed out. “Am I hallucinating?” She didn’t like the sound of that any better than being assaulted by a dream feeder, but she wanted an answer before things got worse.

“That is the next most likely explanation,” Danato said.

“Great I’m back to being a schizo.”

The nurse returned to the scene of the accident and Danato nodded for them to leave. They made their way back to Danato’s office via elevator. From the elevator, Danato led the way, with Belus trailing. Cori wondered if they were doing it intentionally to keep her in their sights.

She kept glancing back at Belus trying to figure out why Efrat had said she asked him to save him. “Cori.” Belus rolled his eyes. “I’m fine. Stop checking me for bullet holes.”

She grimaced. “Sorry, I just…it was so real.”

“I’m fine,” He said again more reassuringly.

“As long as it stays that way, we don’t have a problem.” She smiled before continuing into the office.

“Gun!” She heard from in front and behind.

She deposited her gun and went inside.

Before she reached her chair, she heard a voice from behind say, “Watch your step.” She turned to see its source, and found Belus gone. The taupe walls of the office were replaced by fluorescent-lit crap.

“Efrat!” She yelped staring into his baby blues again.

18

Cori dove behind the endless piles of junk in the “prop room.” She didn’t bother stammering about her sudden change in location, or his appearance. Whatever was happening to her, regardless of its impossibility, was real enough to warrant self-defense.

She reached for her gun and happily found it in its holster this time. She ripped it free and pointed it at Efrat as he nonchalantly weaved through the junk after her.

“Stop right there!” She said resenting the fact that she sounded like a cop—a rookie one at that. “I’ll shoot.”

“No, you won’t.” He picked up a few trinkets that were of interest to him, but tossed them away as soon as their entertainment value failed.

“Yes, I will!” She enunciated poignantly. She wasn’t sure she wanted the blood of a human being on her hands, but if it was between him and her, she was certain it would be him.

Efrat looked her over re-evaluating her resolve. His eyes dimmed slightly from the assessment, but his smug sneer didn’t. “Don’t you want me to help Belus?”

Cori wanted to pull the trigger just for the cockiness he exuded in that statement. “Screw you! How do you know about that?”

He leaned forward a bit to reveal his secret. “You told me.”

“No, I didn’t!” She knitted her brow glancing at the room. “I haven’t even spoken with you since…” Cori wondered if he was having visions just like her. “How could I tell you what I don’t even know? I have no frickin’ clue what’s going on!”
“Not yet, but you will.” He stepped around the harp she was hiding behind, putting her in line with him.

“What does that mean?”

“You’re having a bit of a fucked up day, kitten.”

“No shit, what do you know about it, pup?” She took a step back as he advanced another step.

“Do you want the short version?” He asked.

“The less time your jaws are flapping the better.”

“You’re jumping through time.” Cori raised her gun from his heart to his face in response to the obvious lie. “I didn’t believe you either, but you seemed to know what you’re talking about.”

“It happens once in a while.”

“Sometimes, you start over and overlap your timeline. Other times you just blip out to a different part of the day. I can’t really say I get it either, but I’ll do my best to keep you apprised.”

“Why are you helping me?”

“I haven’t quite figured that out yet. It might have something to do with the gun you’ve had planted in my back all morning.”
Efrat took another step forward and she backed up another half step bumping into another pile of crap that had no business being on the premises of a prison that held supernatural beings. Something fell at her feet and she kicked it away.

“What…” Before she could continue, a waft of smoke drifted up from the floor. With it came the image of a man. He was not a corporeal being, but rather a ghostly one. She and Efrat stared at the bronze bald man with tattoos and piercings on his face and body. “…the hell.” She finished on the new thought.

“What is your command mistress?” The man’s bass voice asked

“What?” she asked glancing at Efrat in case he had an explanation for this sudden interruption.

“Genie?” He shrugged.

“What are your three wishes?” The genie asked bowing slightly to her.

Cori growled. “Are you freaking kidding me? Do you see the gun?” She pointed with her other hand. “I’m kind of busy right now.”

The genie looked between her and Efrat discerning the scene he had come upon. “You don’t want three wishes?”

“No!” Both she and Efrat said.

“But they always want three wishes.”

“I don’t have time for wishes. Go away.”

“But no one has ever said, no!” The genie’s face started to turn red.

Cori repositioned her gun to point at the lamp near her foot. “I wonder if that lamp is bulletproof.”

The genie looked down at the lamp and twitched his upper lip ring. “This isn’t over.”

“It is for now. Get back to me on a day I’m not traveling through time, enveloped by transmorphs, or being electrocuted by this asshole.” She stabbed her gun in reference to Efrat.