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“I’m not following you,” I said impatiently. “What are you talking about?”
“Come on, Cass. You’re supposed to be smart, right? Disgust him, embarrass him, gross him out. He’ll shoo you away. It’s an automatic reflex for him. Wait. I have an idea.” She opened another drawer of vials, and rummaged until she found whatever she was looking for, a small, squat glass jar. She pulled a gelatin capsule from a bag, inserted a few grains of yellowish powder into it, closed it and handed it to me. “That’s your get-out-of-jail-free card.”
I looked at it in blank incomprehension. “What is this?”
“You’re allergic to shellfish, right? I read that in your file.”
Whoa. I had not told anyone about that. “Uh, yeah, actually, I am. And?”
“This is a histamine, mimicking the shellfish. It’ll make you break out in hives and swell up like a balloon. It works very fast. You can’t work the party if you look like shit. That totally horrifies him. He’ll send you to your room and call for one of the other girls to be the Halliwell Whore. It’s the one brief moment when he might not be paying attention to you.”
I stared down at the capsule. Fuckingyikes.“How sick will I be?”
She shrugged. “I doubt you’ll die. The important thing is that you look terrible.” She rummaged again, and handed me a small epinephrine autoinjector. “Stick yourself with this if you start to choke. Try and do it before your throat closes up. Or you’ll pass out.”
“Gee,” I said faintly. “Thanks. Great. That’s, ah... a brilliant plan.”
“Your sister’s in one of his bogus clinics? It’s really just a prison, you know.”
It made me sick to think of it. “I took her to the Cascade Clinic about two months ago, right before I came here,” I said. “In his goddamn helicopter.”
“She won’t have much time,” she warned. “He’ll come down on her like a hammer the minute he figures out what happened, so you have to get her out fast. That’s a very tall order. You’re a three-hour drive from the Cascade Clinic, at least.”
My belly clenched. “One thing at a time,” I muttered. This was my one chance to save my sister. I couldn’t stall out now just because it was hard.
I stared down at the pill, my stomach clenching. “Are you sure that I?—”
“I’m not fucking sure of anything, Cass. Look me in the eye. Do I look like someone who knows anything for sure? Don’t be a baby. You’re probably going to die. Probably both of us will. But if you live, maybe you’ll save your sister. Maybe. There’s a slim chance. Take it if you want it. If not, then get the hell away from me, because you’re wasting my time and putting me in a bad spot for nothing.”
“I’m taking it,” I said rapidly. “I’m in.”
Jana grabbed a white plastic bag for the stuff she’d given me, and tossed a bunch of tampons and pads on top of them. “There’s your flimsy excuse for being in the infirmary,” she said. “I have to get back to my punishment shift before this place wakes up. Go switch out that canister, or you’ll miss your chance. You better hurry.”
“I have to walk you back to the blind spot outside the Bridge with Invisibility Cloak,” I told her. “Or it’ll look weird on the monitors.”
Running would have looked suspicious, but walking at a normal pace almost killed me. We reached the spot where I could finally leave her, and she grabbed my arm. “Hey,” she whispered.
“What is it?”
“I know I’m going to die for this.” She sounded slightly puzzled. “But it feels kind of good. So, uh… thanks for that.”
“You’re welcome. You can’t even imagine how much. And I hope you don’t die. Later, Jana.”
“One more thing.” Her fingers tightened on my arm. “That shock collar. You have to deactivate it, or Halliwell will just cut Masters’ throat remotely. Or fry him with electricity. You’ll also have to think about any possible GPS tag of the car you steal. Think ahead, Cass. Lots of moving parts, here.”
I winced. Still more impossible tasks. “Fuck me.”
“Don’t whine,” Jana said. “You’re supposed to be way smarter and more outside-the-fucking-box than all the rest of us clapped-out boneheads, right? So pick up the pace, cupcake. Impress me.”
That got me going. I gave in to the impulse to sprint for the stairway down to Level Eight. Halliwell’s passcard got me into the stairwell. I hurtled down four stairs at a time and let myself in. The long smear of blood from Shane’s collar wound was drying now, dark and ugly against the light floor tiles.
I ran down to the last cell. Shane lay just as we had left him, sprawled on the floor. Unconscious, maybe dead. I had no idea how to get that glass wall open, nor would I have dared to open it if knew. I needed to have the upper hand before I tried to bargain with Shane Masters. Even Halliwell was extremely careful with this guy.
They kept a throne-like wooden chair down here so Halliwell could sit in state and observe while they worked on the prisoner. I dragged it over to the glass wall, situating it under the mechanism that held the red canister, climbed up and unscrewed the one mounted in the mechanism. I replaced it with the doctored one, climbed down, dragged the chair back to where it had been. Then I hit the mic.
“Shane?” I called. “Shane, are you awake?”
He didn’t move. I leaned against the glass, biting my lip. “I’m so sorry,” I said shakily, hoping he could hear my voice on some level of his consciousness. “I am so sorry that he did that to you. I did not set you up for that, I swear to God.”
