Page 16 of Let Us Prey

“Okay. I trust your experience, Raina. Thank you for helping me,” I murmur, watching her smile in that weirdly mischievous raccoon way before she scampers off.

“Well, well, well. Look who was stupid enough to show her skanky mug in my cafeteria,” the voice says loudly enough that every speck of sound gets sucked out of the room instantaneously. Hoots follow the declaration, then howls, and growls that echo off the walls as I look up at the face of my former friend.

“I don’t think your family donating money to have this place built means youownit,” I reply flatly, my fingers hovering over the call button on my phone under the table.

“But it does, little rabbit. We declare this cafeteria a ‘Loser-Free’ zone, so gather your crap and move on,” she snarls, her tiny piranha teeth showing as she loses control of her animal.

Typical. The Heathers had ‘zones’ at Shifter Secondary as well; they even had Pink’s parents launch an amended map in the school app to show where certain lower classes of pred shouldn’t go unless they had class. I never kicked anyone out of an area or stole a table, but I know the Heathers and Todd and the boys frequently sent people packing. Now that I’m on the receiving end, I can see just how arbitrary this brand of bullshit is.

All I want to do is eat in peace, you know?

“Girls, I think DD didn’t learn her lesson well enough after prom. Somehow, she got the idea that she still belongs with a higher class of animal than she does,” Gold grins toothily.

“We should show her what happens when the food gets uppity,” Pink chimes in, holding her phone up torecord.

I have to fight off an eye roll. They’re dangerous—simply because they’re predators and I’m not—but their 90s bullying schtick is tired. Not one of them has an original insult, and even though my heart is thumping with the possibility of more preds joining their attacks, I will not let them see how their antics affect me.

“C’mon, DD. Show us that fluffy little tail so we can start the chase,” Gold taunts, flipping her hair.

Silver leans in, whispering to Purple for a moment before she skips to her table and comes back with a large plate of steaming spaghetti and meatballs. My gaze narrows as I work out her obvious plan, and I push the button on the phone, leaving the line open as I covertly slip my arm through my bag. Pink straightens her ridiculous hipster glasses as she chats into the livestream, and I wait for Gold to turn her back to take the plate of pasta from her minion.

When she does, I leap to my feet and take off for the door, pushing through it like a freight train as I run towards the maze leading to the stairs. It was stupid of me not to map this out the first time, but there’s no time for that now. I hear a panicked voice from the open phone line, and I raise it to my ear as I race through the confusing halls. I can hear some sort of large preds behind me, but I don’t know if it’s Todd and his boys or some other schmucks the Heathers commandeered.

All I know is that I have to get out of here before they catch me.

“Dolly? Dolly? Is that you?!”

The voice echoing out of the line isn’t Fitz’s, and I realize I called Cori by mistake. My stomach knots, because not only do I not know if the cutesy polar bear is close enough to get here in time, she may not even be able to help me navigate this place at all.

“Cori! I called you… by mistake. But… I need… your help. Where… hide… in the Honeywell underground?” I gasp out, trying to talk while I run for my life.

Miraculously, she understands the situation immediately. “Keep running!” she shouts, encouragingly. “Last left before the stairs. Take two rights, head down another set of stairs, and keep going to the end of the hall. The infirmary will never let a bunch of assholes follow you in; trust me.”

With a sinking feeling in my gut, I realize I have to trust her. If I don’t, I’m pred-bait.

Here’s hoping my instincts about her and Rufus were good.

Running

Delores

By the timeI reach the end of the hall, my lungs are burning. Before this summer, I wouldn’t have been able to make this temple run, but hanging with prey was beneficial in a lot of ways. Not only did the Flamingoths and various shifters we mingled with from fashion row teach me about defensive weapons like the mace buried in my backpack, but we met at dawn every morning to run the huge park downtown together. My endurance is far better than it was when I believed I could rely on sharp teeth or fangs to save me if something threatened my safety after emergence.

I can hear the slavering idiots catching up as I stare at the reinforced steel door in front of me, and now they’re close enough for me to know they’re dingoes. I can only hope the infirmary will be secure—Apex is a dangerous place and the welcome packet said they have a full hospital and surgical suite on site—so I desperately dig in my pocket for my keycard, praying it will grant me access.

When I find it, I swipe quickly, my heart nearly pounding its way out of my chest as I leap inside and slam the door just in time. Fora second, I tense, wondering if my pursuers will simply swipetheircards, but they must not have had them handy, as I hear them grumble and shuffle away.

I’m safe.

Pressing my back against the door in the darkness, I gulp in air in huge gasps as the voice on the phone echoes in the blessed silence.

“Dolly?Dolly! Did you make it?Dolly, talk to me! Rufus, get your ass away from my closet and come with me! We have to find her!”

Cori is panicking on the line, and I know I need to respond, but my animal is flickering over my skin like a staticky old TV, resulting in a crazy sci-fi movie, half-shift. A slow roll of my head confirms that I have long ears flopping about, and I raise a shaky hand, running my palm over one as the smell of antiseptic and bleach invades my senses. I may not see well enough in the darkness to verify that my new friend steered me true, but the clues are mounting up—this definitely is the infirmary.

“Can we help you, miss?”

The sudden voice scares the hell out of me, and I drop my phone on the floor as I peer around for the source. My eyes refuse to adjust to the darkness—as I would expect, being a rabbit—and I give the air a delicate sniff instinctively. Scents I vaguely recognize fills my nostrils as completely as fresh cookies in a bakery, and I inhale again as my mind works to identify the shapeless blobs in the shadows. It takes a moment to calm myself enough to really focus, but I finally pinpoint who I’m trapped in here with: a skunk, an opossum, and a hedgehog. Another sniff tells me they may have roommates of the mongoose variety, but they aren’t here. The important part of this equation is that there are no preds in this room, so I breathe easier.

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