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Her eyes were streaming. “Please. Don’t do this. Don’t.”
He patted her knee again, and his fingers slid up between her thighs. Big mistake to weep and plead. It excited him.
A picture flickered onto the large screen. An overhead view, of a slender, dark-haired, incredibly pale girl who lay still on the table. Her eyelashes were so dark, brushstrokes against her white, sunken cheeks.
Falling deeper—and deeper still. Becca closed her eyes, and wished she could will her heart to stop beating.
But it would not obey her. It just kept thumping, painfully, stubbornly, stupidly on.
CHAPTER32
The corridors were endless and they echoed. Doors opened onto empty rooms that weren’t even finished—no floors, walls, no wiring, just the smell of paint and plasterboard and cement dust.
They got lucky at the fourth stairwell. Nick strained with all his senses as he leaned down to listen, and heard the vibration of voices, like someone had opened the door to a room where people were talking and then promptly closed it again.
They crept noiselessly one flight down, peered out. No guards, no guns. No apparent obstacles. Nick darted down the corridor, tried all the doors. Empty. No sound, no movement.
The next floor down, he heard that muffled hum of voices again. He waved Seth and Aaro behind him, and edged along the wall. Ahead was one of those big automatic doors, with a huge metal wall button. Right before it was the room from which the voices were coming.
He burst in. Seth and Aaro came behind him. Gasps, shrieks, shouts, terrified babbling in several languages. People scrambled for cover as three cloaked apparitions exploded into the room, bristling with guns. They scurried under tables, crouched behind couches.
It was a doctor’s waiting room. Windowless, but luxurious and comfortable. Full of couches, walls painted in mellow tones of peach and beige, forgettable art, muted table lamps. There were even individual TVs, mounted on the end of each couch, with earphones provided. A large bookcase. A serve-yourself snack bar. A coffee maker.
One couple remained seated, squarely in the middle of one of the couches. Hands entwined. A tall, balding man with an anxious face, and a younger, ash blond woman, thin and pale. Expensively dressed.
“Henry?” whispered the woman. “What’s going on?”
The man stood up, frowning. “Who are you people? What are you doing here? This is a private clinic!”
“Where is Dr. Richard Mathes?” Nick demanded.
The woman’s eyes got huge with alarm. “Oh, God. Henry, no. I will not allow it.” Her voice rose. “This is not happening! We’re so close!”
“Where is Mathes?” Nick repeated, louder.
The woman leaped up and ran at him, shoving at his chest with her hands. “Get out of here!” she shrieked. “We’ve paid a fortune for that heart! You are not going to stop us! Get the hell out!Out!”
Nick pushed her back towards her husband. He had no time to deal with a hysterical woman.
Out in the corridor, he slapped the door button and the huge doors folded inward. The skinny blonde ran after them, shrieking. “No! You can’t! You can’t! You’ll bring your germs into the operating—no! Stop! You’ll kill her! You sons of bitches! She’s fragile!”
Nick sprinted on. The woman’s voice degenerated into a despairing wail. Another automatic door, punch, and on they ran. There were voices behind the door in this corridor.
He burst through. Into an operating theater. His heart thudded. Green, white, silver, glowing lights blazing down on a table, people in surgical scrubs bending over…oh, Christ, had they already—?
“Get away from her!” he bellowed. “Get the fuckback!”
The doctors scrambled away from the table with their hands in the air, eyes wide and fixed on the gun in his hand. He lunged over to the table, his heart thudding—
Not Sveti. It hit him in the chest like a pickaxe. Big, shadowy blue, white-lashed eyes looked up at him. So pale. Grayish skin, violet shadows around her eyes, every bone in her skull showing. An anesthesia mask over her mouth and nose. IVs and tubes and sensors everywhere. Not quite under. And not Sveti. This was the girl who was supposed to get Sveti’s heart.
She was dying before his eyes.
The sight of her knocked all the air out of his lungs. Her eyes locked with his, full of terrible knowledge. The look of one who had crossed an invisible line and was moving swiftly onward.
Like the look on his mother’s face when she had embraced death.
For her, he was the grim reaper, the killer of all hope, but she just gazed at him, trying to breathe. She hadn’t really expected a reprieve.
