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The smell wafted through the corridor. How had I not noticed it until now? It was sickly sweet and slightly nauseating. My eyes watered and my nose started to run.
"That's not smoke." I grabbed the bottom of my shirt with one hand and pulled it off over my head. I pressed it against my mouth and hurried into Lila's room.
The fumes were thicker here. Not as thick as smoke, but thick enough to be visible. And to sting my skin and eyes. I wiped away tears and blinked several times to clear them.
"Shit."
Lila lay on her bed like she was asleep, hair fanned out across her pillow. Her long lashes lay against her cheeks. Her lips were parted slightly. Her skin was pale as death.
Something lay on the bed beside her, fumes winding their way toward the ceiling. It looked like a teddy bear.
What the fuck?
"Don't breathe it in," I told my twin. I coughed a couple of times into the cotton of my shirt. The fumes coated my lungs, making it harder to breathe.
"We need to get her out of here." I tied the arms of my shirt around the back of my head to keep it in place and scooped her up. I'd be no use to her if I inhaled too much of the stuff and passed out. If that happened, we'd all be screwed.
"What the fuck?" Parker stood staring at the teddy bear. "Wild guess, we need to get this out of here too." He threw the bed covers over the teddy bear to cut off the gas, gathered it up tight and carried it out of the room behind us.
"Be careful of that thing. I'm guessing it's some kind of nerve agent. We need to get her to the Academy hospital."
She was limp in my arms, barely breathing. If she died, whoever left that fucking teddy bear would regret the day they were born. Fuck it, when she made a complete recovery I'd still make sure they regretted the day they were born. No one messes with my queen and gets away with it.
"What do we do with this thing?" Parker was holding the covers firm around the teddy bear, his own shirt pressed against his face. He looked as angry as I was. Between us, we'd rip whoever did this to Lila, to shreds.
"We need to bring it with us," I said. "The sooner they know what it is, the sooner they can treat her." For the first time, I regretted studying cyber security. If I'd studied medicine or chemistry, I may have some idea of how to fix this. If she wasn't all right…
I pushed the thought away and trotted through the corridor. I couldn't let myself think that way. She'd be fine. She had to be. My heart would shatter irreparably if she wasn’t. The pieces left would be smaller than grains of sand. A Brantley with a broken heart was the definition of dangerous. I’d end worlds if she didn’t recover.
I turned around and pushed the hospital door open with my back.
"I need help!" I shouted. I didn't care who else was in here and what injuries they might have. Lila was my priority. The only priority. Everyone else could fucking wait.
A nurse immediately sprang to her feet and hurried out from behind the long wooden desk. "Bring her through." She waved towards a door to the side of the room and pressed a button on the wall. "The doctor won't be long."
"Bynot longyou better mean no more than a minute," I snarled. I'd grab a scalpel and make the doctor treat her right now if I had to. I didn't give a fuck if someone else was dying in another part of the hospital.
I carried Lila through into the examining room and gently laid her down on the narrow bed in the centre. She looked so small and vulnerable lying there. Like a doll at the mercy of a child with a pair of scissors, or one who liked to remove the heads from their toys to swap them around.
She would have hated seeing herself like this. If there was something she couldn't stand, it was being vulnerable. I hated it too, because it reminded me she was only human. Fragile.
I forced breaths in and out. I had to be calm. She didn’t need me losing my shit now. If anyone could fix her, it was the medical staff here.
Like everything else here at Brutham, the hospital was the best money could buy. Better than the average infirmary. Better, if I was honest, than any other hospitals. It was rarely very busy and, lucky for them, was well staffed.
I tore the shirt off my face and tossed it aside.
"What's happened?" The doctor on duty's name was Racquel. In her mid-thirties, I knew her from previous injuries and several fucks before I met Lila. When she hurried into the room, she was all business.
"Someone tried to poison her with some kind of gas from this." Parker held out the pile of covers.
Racquel nodded and stuck her face out the door. "Henry, come and take this. Figure out what was in it."
I didn't look up to see who Henry was. I didn't give a shit. All of my attention was on Lila and how shallow her breathing was. I leaned down and pressed my cheek to hers.
"You're going to be okay, babe. You're in the best hands here. They'll take care of you."
If I thought there was any better, I'd send a helicopter for them right now. But Brutham had the best doctors, all of them highly skilled and paid well to turn a blind eye to everything they saw here. If they ever wrote a book about their experiences, no one would believe it anyway. Not that they’d get to write it, because the Academy would never allow that.
