Nightshifted (41 page)
I froggered through the rubberneckers on either side of the highway, then hit the edge of the hospital grounds, my feet pounding against cement. We de-iced the sidewalks as a courtesy to our patient population, who frequently had to crutch, walker, or wheelchair themselves in. The frozen dead lawn was too treacherous and slick to run on.
I ran past the office complexes that kept our bureaucracy running, between twenty rows of cars in an employee parking lot, around the edge of our loading docks, and made a beeline for the main hospital doors.
Running through the hospital as a nurse in scrubs is easy—people get the hell out of your way; they assume you’ve got someplace important to be. Running into the lobby in civilian gear covered in blood, however—
“What’s going on?” our officer guard held his hand up, and looked behind me for pursuit.
“Emer-gen-cy—” I gasped. I yanked my badge out of my back pocket and dangled it for inspection, as I brushed past him. “Gotta go—”
“Not so fast—”
“Gotta go!” I yelled, and ducked down the next hallway, running for the stairs.
I wasn’t in shape at the best of times, and working at Y4 didn’t pay enough for me to have a gym membership—and ever since I’d started working there, getting to the gym had been less a priority than staying alive. But I raced as fast as I could, my knees and chest screaming—because I’d left Charles out there with a werewolf, in the middle of who knew how many gathering civilians, himself a prior victim of a werewolf attack.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
In addition to being a writer, Cassie Alexander is an active registered nurse in California.
Nightshifted
is her debut novel. Visit her on the Web at
www.cassiealexander.com
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
NIGHTSHIFTED
Copyright © 2012 by Erin Cashier.
Excerpt from
Moonshifted
copyright © 2012 by Erin Cashier.
All rights reserved.
For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
eISBN: 9781250016195
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / June 2012
St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.