Page 132 of Beautiful Prey

I was so alone. Locked in a car, strangers all around me. Emery was out there, and I couldn’t help him. I couldn’t do anything and there was no more time.

I smacked my hand on the glass till it hurt. I kicked at it and at the cage barrier that kept me in the back seat. Nothing. Eyes were on me, dozens of them. People talking, running from one vehicle to the next, talking on their radios and their phones. But no one came to open the door.

I didn’t know how long I sat there but it felt like forever. I cried until I couldn’t anymore, knowing it was too late but still desperate to get out. I lay curled on the seat, shaking from fury, from trauma, and from the awful cold.

The car door opened, and I raised my head to see a male officer holding an umbrella over a woman in a dark coat.

“Hi, Eve, how are you feeling?” she asked.

Like I wanted to die. I didn’t say it out loud, just stared at her.

“I’ll just need to do a quick examination, is that okay?” She took out a pen light and some small device. “Can you sit up for me?”

I did slowly. I let her examine me, using her light to check me. She asked me questions and I kept my answers short. She checked my blood pressure and heart rate, then smiled as if nothing was wrong. Like I wasn’t having a mental breakdown right in front of her.

“You’ve been through a lot. But you're safe now, okay?” she said softly. I hated that. “We're going to get you out of here.”

“No,” I cut in. “Just let me out. I need to get to the river. I need to—”

“We need to get you to a hospital so we can do better examinations. Some tests and—”

“He’s drowning!” I shouted.

“I know you're upset.”

Oh, fuck this. I shoved her out of the way and tried to get past her. As if on cue, a group of cops were surrounding me and shoving me back into the car. I fought them. I might have even bitten one. And the next thing I knew, someone was shouting at another to restrain me. I was pushed down into the seat and felt them handcuffing me.

They left me again and I just laid there listening to the rain on the car roof. Thinking of Emery.

Emery.

A burly officer with a thick beard entered into the driver's side followed by his partner into the passenger. They started to pull away, and I sat up, watching the marina grow smaller. Watching the river disappear.

Cars followed behind. The ambulance Liam was in, however, didn’t. It turned down a different road going the opposite way.

A lump lodged in my throat. “Where are you taking me?” I asked.

“The hospital,” the driver said.

“No, you're going the wrong way. The ambulance went the other way.”

“You’re going somewhere different,” he replied.

I tensed. “Where?”

“A hospital for unique…circumstances.”

For one crazy moment, I thought he was going to say St. Agnes. A small, hysterical laugh already started rushing from my lips.

The driver gave me a concerned look in the mirror. “They call it Severfalls.”

Severfalls. I knew that name.

We drove inland, into thickly forested areas. We entered a drive that weaved up a small hill and he parked in front of abuilding that was old like St. Agnes, only less pretty somehow. But from the back, I could see a more modern addition attached. Like the Martel building down in the city.

But it wasn’t so much the building that caught my attention as it was the people standing in front of it.

One I recognized as Uncle Wes’s partner, Mr. Foley. The other was Tyler Kennedy, the man I had met at the banquet.

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