Hazmats surrounded me, and they were snapping collars on the rest of the zombies.
Realization sent me backpedaling, but I ran into something solid. I turned, already swinging, and nailed a Hazmat in the chin. He stumbled to the side and would have given me a clear shot to my friends, but three other Hazmats took his place.
Before I realized what was happening, a collar was being snapped around my neck, sharp electrical pulses shooting through me. Suddenly I couldn’t move, could barely breathe. Panic filled me, joining the adrenaline rushing through me, and my body wasn’t sure how to react. Keep fighting, or shut down.
“What are you doing?” I heard Kat scream. “Let her go!”
She could see me? The collar, maybe...
Keep fighting. Definitely keep fighting. I tried to stand, but my legs refused to cooperate.
“You want me docile? Leave the girls out of this,” I tried to shout, but only gurgles escaped.
“Ethan?” Reeve gasped. “Help us!”
“You told me you wouldn’t hurt Reeve,” Ethan shouted.
Instant comprehension. He knew the Hazmats, because he was one of them.
He was the spy—no doubts about that now—and he had gotten some of his information from Reeve. When I’d lived with her, she’d known my schedule. The rest he must have gotten by watching me.
He’d covered his tracks very well. I still felt stupid. I should have known.
Someone crouched in front of me and removed the clear panel from his mask. He had to be in his fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair and thick lines around gunmetal-gray eyes.
He offered me a sad smile. “I hate that matters have come to this, Miss Bell, I really do, but my daughter is sick, and I suspect you’re going to be her cure.”
Chapter 25
Who Stole the Poisoned Tarts?
My spirit was dragged to my body, the collar removed by one Hazmat while several others forced the two halves of me to join. At the moment of connection, I jolted into motion, determined to fight these people with everything I had. Some of the Hazmats were not in spirit form, however, and one of them managed to slam a hard fist into my temple.
Dizzy...
Slowing...
Still I fought.
I heard a whoosh of air, felt a sharp stab of pain in my arm. I patted blindly at the spot and dislodged a small dart.
The dizziness spun out of control, helped along by...a drug? I swayed, bones liquefying, knees buckling. When I hit the ground, I was roughly hauled to my feet, my hands tied behind my back, and there was nothing I could do about it. A black hood was draped over my head, and I was stuffed into a vehicle, driven I don’t know how many miles. Time ceased to exist. There was only here, now. Darkness, rising panic. Where was Kat? Reeve?
I listened for movement—or whimpers—but heard only the wet slosh of tires, the zoom of passing cars and the soft hum of the radio.
Stay calm.
Easy to think, so difficult to do. Tremors racked me, and sweat beaded over my skin. The blood in my veins was somehow a dangerous mix of too hot and too cold.
After we parked, I was towed outside with the kind aid of two guards. We ascended a flight of steps and entered a pool of warmth. A heated building? I heard footsteps. A ding. We stopped, and the world around me jostled. We were in an...elevator?
Another ding. Again I was towed forward. We stopped several more times, and I imagined my surrounding went far beyond grim. A dungeon, like Mr. Ankh’s. A torture chamber, with wall after wall of deadly weapons once found in the Middle Ages.
We entered a room with a deluge of new sounds. Moans, groans, rattling metal.