Page 48 of Mud

I just hopped all the way to the waiting room in the medical wing, only to find it empty.

Cursing under my breath, I fell against one of the chairs mounted to the wall just to catch my breath and seriously considered calling out for someone. I really did.

But then, as soon as I’d breathed deeply and my heartbeat had somewhat calmed down, I heard the voices.

Fuck, the relief was like a magical spell falling on my leg, mending every little tissue. Like a glass of water down my parched throat. Any second now those people behind the large blue doors that led to the infirmary rooms and the operating halls were going to come out here and see me.

Any second…

Again, they didn’t, and I really didn’t feel like screaming my guts out right now, not in this place—who knew how many more agents were wounded in that woods and werereceiving medical care currently? No, I’d come all the way here. I was going to make it to those doors.

I did. My resolve was stronger the closer I got.

I pushed the first door open and nearly fell on my face on the white linoleum floor. Inside the corridor, the lights were mostly off, so at least I could blink properly. There were doors on either side of me, all closed except the first one on my left.

I’d been here before, plenty of times when I was wounded in missions. There were thirty rooms full of beds in this corridor, more than enough to heal a large number of agents at the same time. I was told that they used this wing to heal the surviving players of the Iris Roe, too, and the years in which the game was held were the busiest for this part of the Headquarters.

At the end of the corridor were the operating halls nobody ever really used because there wasn’t much magic couldn’t fix.

Warm orange light spilled in the hallway from the door on the left. At first, all I could gather was that there were more than two people in there, talking, but the closer I got while I held onto the wall for support, the more I realized that I knew exactly who was in that room.

I stopped walking when I was still four feet away.

“Something has corrupted our systems, all right,” Eric was saying. I had no doubt in my mind that it was him.

“Regardless—what matters now is that we cover the damage this has cost us.” And this was Lauren. Both team leaders I’d been briefed by on the catfairies just that morning.

“Over a hundred catfairies. Yousawthem all with yourown eyes.” This voice I didn’t know, which made me even more curious.

It shouldn’t have.

“Yes, sir, we did,” said none other than Abigail, my fellow agent I’d spoken to at today’s meeting. And she sounded like she was in pain.

Impossible to even try to resist my curiosity, but now when I moved closer to the door, I did so slowly. Soundlessly. Just like the IDD taught me.

“They were living in man-made houses. We had to set them on fire, but the pictures should be clear enough to make them out even through the illusion magic,” said Chip—another agent from Eric’s team.

“And how many catfairies got away?” That same man again.

My heart sank. Catfairies had gotten away?

Didn’t Philip tell me that all were dead?

“We’re not sure, but approximately thirty,” said Eric and my heart kept on slamming against my ribcage with a new urgency. The pain had intensified, though I’d become somewhat numb to it during the torture of getting here. Even so, I pushed myself to move closer because I had to see.

And then…

“What about Agent Michael and his team?”

Every inch of my body froze in place and my ears rang a second time. I closed my eyes and held my breath and prayed and prayed that I’d heard wrong, but I hadn’t.

That voice I’d know anywhere—it was the stuff my nightmares were made of. That voice I’d know if I came back here in another life, too.

You didn’t just forget the sound of someone like her, who spoke little but found creative ways to remind you thatyour existence is a nuisance and you’re a worthless piece of meat with very few words. And with her eyes, of course.

That was Madeline Rogan for you. My very own grandmother—and she was right there in that infirmary.

I was shaking as I forced myself to lean over just a bit, just to see her face. Just to see who else was in there. Just to make sure I understood that Madeline was really, truly here.

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