Page 24 of Kissing Danger

Stepping out of his corner, Nathan placed a hand on my shoulder. “I doubt she was the target. Whoever poisoned the fabric was likely just trying to hurt as many people as possible in order to sabotage the company.”

Acid burned the back of my throat and my teeth ached with excess emotion as I slapped his hand away.

“I don’t care if she wasn’t the target. She’s the one who was hurt. If she’d picked up that fabric first, instead of that other designer, she’d be... she’d be...”

I couldn’t say it, but that didn’t stop the image from flashing behind my eyes anyway.

Kiki lying on a morgue table instead of a hospital bed, her face gray and lifeless.

It was only a stroke of luck that I was listening to a beeping heart monitor right now, instead of a flatline.

As if triggered by my thoughts, Kiki’s heart monitor started wailing an alarm. I jumped in panic, afraid that my imagination had been brought to life and she was dying right in front of my eyes.

Only seconds after the heart monitor started wailing, a nurse bustled into the room.

“What’s the... Oh. I see.”

All the worry slid off her face, and she calmly walked over to the side of the bed and started messing with the various tubes and wires.

“Sir. You’re going to need to let go. You’ve pulled the heart monitor off.”

Looking down at my hands, I realized it was true. I’d been subconsciously holding onto Kiki’s hand. When I got upset, I’d held tighter, accidentally dislodging the heart monitor that had been clipped to her finger.

I jumped off the bed and nearly crashed into the nurse in the process. “Sorry. I didn’t mean... Fuck. I’m sorry.”

Kiki had almost died, and here I was only hurting her more. Logically, in the back of my mind, I knew that removing the heart monitor hadn’t actually done any harm. The nurse clipped it back on, and the wailing monitor fell silent. Yet, I couldn’t silence the whisper in my brain that blamed me for her condition. For that moment, when the heart monitor stopped, it felt like her heart had stopped as well, and I’d been the one to stop it.

My feet pounded against the linoleum floor as I ran from the room. Nathan called my name, but I didn’t even slow down. I ran until I reached the end of the hallway. My momentum sent me bouncing off the wall. I stumbled but remained upright and kept running in a different direction.

There was no telling how long or far I ran. Every hospital I’d ever seen was a twisted labyrinth of white walls and misleading signs. This one was no different. I could have been on the other side of the compound, or I could have been only a few rooms down from where I started. There was no way to know.

I passed an open door to an empty room, and making a quick decision, I slipped inside and slammed the door behind me.

It was dark, and after the bright lights of the hospital hallway, my eyes needed a moment to adjust. Once I was able to see, I found myself in what appeared to be a break room. It was empty at the moment, but there was an old moth-eaten couch on one side, and a table with a few chairs on the other. A refrigerator hummed away in one corner, while a sink holding a stack of drying coffee mugs on its adjoining small counter sat on the opposite wall.

I stood, unmoving in the dim atmosphere, my breath coming in short little pants. Even after my heart rate calmed down aftermy sudden sprint, I couldn’t seem to get my breathing under control.

The door behind me opened. I hadn’t known Nathan for that long, but his footsteps were easily recognizable from the way he made almost no sound when he moved.

“Deke. Are you all right?”

I didn’t answer. My breathing came even more erratically, and something bitter settled like a ball in my stomach, pushing up on my breastbone until it felt like my heart would be smashed against my ribs.

“Fuck!”

I grabbed one of the chairs from the table and threw it against the wall. With a resounding crash, one of the legs broke off and it left a deep hole in the drywall.

Picking up the now three-legged chair, I smashed it several more times against the floor. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

Someone came into the room, demanding to know what was going on, but Nathan quickly intercepted them. I never heard what he said, but a moment later, he convinced them to leave, then he closed and locked the door so we were alone.

“Deke,” he started to say, but I cut him off.

Grabbing his lapel, I pulled him forward, so our faces were only inches apart.

“Who are you?”

Nathan held both hands out to his side, almost like he was surrendering. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

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