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“Let’s check it out,” he agreed. “Quickly.”
I picked up my pace and moved down the hall until I reached the door from which the sound was coming. I pressed my hand up against it. “Is somebody in there?”
The pounding stopped. There was silence for a moment and then, “Oh, my God! Whoever you are, you have to get me out of here! I’m locked in!”
I tried the handle, which was a regular key lock rather than an electronic keypad, to find that she was absolutely right. I looked at Declan.
He nodded. “I got this.”
“Stay back from the door,” I told the woman through the barrier between us. “We’re going to break it open.”
I watched the injured but still dhampyr-strong Declan as he kicked the door hard. Normally, I knew he could do it in one shot, but today it took three solid hits before the door swung open.
A young woman with dark blond hair, dressed in a pink hospital gown, her face pale with fear, came to the doorway. She stared out at us with wide green eyes.
“Holy shit,” she said. “Declan? Is that really you?”
Declan regarded her with shock. “Jennifer? What the hell are you doing here?”
“It’s a long story.” She wrapped her arms around herself and squeezed, eyeing the hallway nervously. “Like a long, long,longstory. And not exactly a happy one.”
“Jennifer?” I repeated, frowning. “You’re not…you’re not Jackson’s sister, are you?”
Her gaze shot to mine. “You know Jackson?”
“Declan, what the hell is going on here?” I asked.
“I’m wondering the same thing myself. Jackson’s here, Jenny.”
She gasped. “Here in this building? What’s he doing here?”
“Currently?” Declan replied. “Attempting to escape with his life, which is what we’re going to do now. I need to get you and Jill out of here.”
I noticed the slight swell of her belly through the thin hospital gown and my eyes widened. “You’re pregnant.”
Her gaze shot to mine, and there was no happiness there, only fear. “I signed up for the program here. I needed the money. I was led to believe it was a surrogate program. I figured, I had a healthy womb, why not use it to help someone who wanted a baby, and I could pocket enough money to last me a couple of years? But it’s not like that at all.”
“No,” I agreed. “It’s really not.”
“Last night, another woman—Stacy...” She drew in a shaky breath. “I thought she was the same as me, but she wasn’t. She was pregnant by a vampire, she said. Her husband. She was so afraid of him that she hid herself away until the baby came. Dr. Reynolds said he’d help her. Even when she was dying right in front of me, he still said he could help her.” She shook her head, her expression pale and haunted. “There was so much blood. And…and the baby…it wasn’t a baby at all.” She met my eyes again. “Is that going to happen to me?”
I grabbed her clammy hand in mine and squeezed it. “No, it’s not. Because we’re getting the hell out of here.”
There had to be other resources to help Jennifer with a potential monster dhampyr pregnancy that didn’t include being trapped eighteen floors belowground. I didn’t know any off the top of my head, but surely Declan did.
First, we needed to get to the sunlight.
“Where’s Dr. Reynolds?” Jennifer asked.
“He’s dead,” Declan said bluntly.
She flinched. “Dead?”
I flashed back to what happened in the examining room and shuddered. “I’ll explain everything later, I promise.”
“We have to go,” Declan urged.
I grabbed Jennifer’s arm, relieved that she didn’t resist as I pulled her out of the room.
