Broken Blood Read Online Free PDF Page B

I asked, planting my feet.
    His expression tightened—but not before his eyes flicked up to the mounted camera in the corner. “You’ll come willingly or I’ll force you. Choice is yours.”
    It was a standoff.
    In the end, my curiosity won out and I blinked, muttering under my breath. Without bothering to ask, Mr. Lexington turned and led the way.
    The rubble across the hall had been mostly cleared away. There was still a giant depression in the wall where someone had attempted a hole and hadn’t quite gotten it right, but it baffled me. Why would someone set an explosion from the inside? Wouldn’t it make more sense to break in rather than break out?
    Unless this was done by someone else Gordon was holding...
    I followed Mr. Lexington, watchful of the twists and turns we took back to the clinic. I strained to expand my senses as we walked, searching for some sign of my friends. Of another cell or evidence of more prisoners, but there was nothing.
    No extraneous sounds on the first hall. All of the doors we passed were closed and the rooms on the other side were dark. Nothing was labeled. We passed no one. With the nondescript décor and plain white-tiled floor, we could’ve been in any generic office building under the sun. Nothing clued me in as to where I was being kept. If Steppe hadn’t told me we were underneath the main floor of CHAS headquarters in DC, I would never have known.
    Up ahead, Mr. Lexington stopped at the door with frosted glass and waved his ID badge over the card reader. The light changed from red to green with a beep and the doors slid wide. Inside, I eyed the shiny metal cages once again. Like the last time I’d been here, they were empty, but this time, I spotted clear traces of past occupants. Swatches of fur in various colors littered the floors. One had a large blood stain near the cage door. I shivered and turned away before I could see anything more.
    I caught the scent of wolf as I passed. My nose wrinkled and I shut my eyes, hoping I wouldn’t recognize anyone specific from my lost pack. Mr. Lexington snickered when he caught me watching the empty cages.
    “That one put up a serious fight,” he said. “But in the end, she was cured.”
    I hated the way he said the word. Like it was a rebirth and death all at once. “Screw you,” I said and he laughed.
    Like before, empty cots lined the opposite wall with curtains separating the spaces. I focused on how empty they were, how devoid of victims, until I’d left the cages behind. Near the center of the room, I spotted an open door that led into an office carved out of the atrium of the space. Inside, a desk strewn with files and loose papers sat against the wall. Random tools littered the desk and the counter behind it. A pair of reading glasses winked back at me from the reflection of the desk lamp. There was a strange familiarity to the scent lingering but I shoved it away. All of my recognition brought pain.
    At the end of the rows of cots, in the back of the room, monitors beeped out a soft rhythm where they sat hooked to Olivia. Mr. Lexington herded me over to her bedside and I scooted as close as I could bear until he stopped shoving at me. Her skin was paler than my last visit, almost translucent underneath the glaring lights. The beeping of the machines was a steady thing, but slow. Too slow. Her chest barely rose and fell with each breath.
    I tried to remember all of the life, the evil and bitterness, with which she’d hunted me all those months ago. But there wasn’t a trace of it left on her. And the beeping of her vitals reminded me instead of another person I’d stood and watched as they fought for life instead of death. Someone else I was responsible for bringing down.
    Alex.
    Technically, he was also responsible for bringing me down, I thought—and then kicked the idea away. I couldn’t go there just now. Not after everything. I needed to be strong; I could mourn his betrayal when I was free. I needed to be tough.