Page 158 of Girl Between
“Yes, but that can’t be. That building is abandoned.”
“That’s why he chose it. Levi Monroe is holding you hostage here so that your father will help him.”
“Help him with what?”
Dana didn’t want to alarm the girl more than she had to. “There’s no time to explain it right now, but I’m going to help you.”
She looked down at her abdomen. Her wound had already bled through the fresh bandages. Dana needed to keep moving before she lost too much blood to find her way out of this nightmare.
“Amelia, I’m injured. I need to go get help. As soon as I do, I’ll send someone back for you, okay?”
“O-Okay,” the girl answered, her voice beginning to fill with panic.
“Amelia, I need you to stay calm and listen to what I’m saying. Can you do that?”
The girl nodded.
“This is very important. If your father or Monroe come back here, you need to act normal. I was never here. We never spoke. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
Dana squeezed the girl’s frail hand. She didn’t want to give her false hope or make promises she couldn’t keep. She would do everything in her power to help the girl, but from the blood slicking her side, Dana knew her own odds of survival were getting worse by the minute.
In the end, all she could offer was hope. “Hold tight, Amelia.”
Slipping silently out of Amelia’s room, Dana moved down the hall. Her pace was considerably faster now that she was dressed. But the pain in her side was growing. She had no choice but to ignore it, as well as the warm sensation of blood now coating her leg and trickling into her shoe.
Praying she wasn’t leaving a blood trail for Monroe to follow, Dana moved quickly through the building. A set of exposed service stairs revealed how he was getting to the upper floors. Running alongside the skeletal stairwell was an old construction lift. It looked as treacherous as it sounded. From what she could see, the primitive system worked on counterweights and pulleys.
Dana wasn’t sure if this was the only lift system in operation, but it was currently her only option out of this nightmare and it rested two floors below her.
Quietly, she moved down one flight of stairs. Drawn by a strange green glow, she ventured onto the floor, staying in the shadows until the hall opened up to a massive space. Windows exposed views of the city below on three sides, and in the very center of the room were rows upon rows of hospital beds. Each one of them full.
Dana clamped a hand over her mouth to silence her gasp.
She hadn’t been prepared for the horrific sight.
How many women does Monroe have here?
Dana crept closer, her heart in her throat as she realized not all the women in the beds were still breathing. She looked into the milky white eyes of the lifeless woman closest to her, trying not to imagine the torture she’d endured.
Dana moved to the next bed. She still felt for a pulse even though she knew there wouldn’t be one. The next lifeless body she approached was still warm. It seemed Monroe was covering his tracks. If that was the case, all the information she’d gathered about him would be useless.
Killers were never more lethal than when they were pushed to their final stage.
Dana kept moving. Bed after bed, until she found the source of the green light. The beds furthest from the stairwell still held the living. She counted eleven women, hooked up to IVs and the green glow of monitors. Mercifully, none of them were conscious, but they still had pulses, even if they were weak.
Praying they’d gone to a place in their minds where they were safe from this hospital of horrors, Dana refocused, even more determined to find a way out so she could bring back the help these women desperately needed.
A clatter behind her had Dana turning. Suddenly the lights in the room burst to life. She stepped back, temporarily blinded after growing used to the dark. Disoriented, she spun around again, stifling a scream when Monroe’s menacing face appeared in front of hers.
141
Jake pacedthe sidewalk as Creed barked orders over the radio.
The scene on the street was a spectacle of police, FBI, SWAT, EMS, and fire. If the blackout hadn’t warned Monroe they were coming, this surely would.
The grid search had flushed out two targets. A warehouse on Iberville and the Plaza Tower on Howard and Loyola. Creed had sent this same circus to each location, not wanting to gamble on Jake’s hunch, though he’d voiced his opinion multiple times that this was the only viable target.
