Chapter 6 Impressive Ii

• Saige's [POV]
• I try out a smile that feels a lot more genuine than the one I flashed her before. "Promise. If I get tired, I'll tell you. I'm not used to spending all this time lying down, so it's really hard for me."
• If she knew just how much time I spent on my back, and with how many of Rylan's pack, she wouldn't be smiling at me the way she is. She wouldn't be smiling at all. "Okay, five minutes. Rest is just as important as exercise."
• So as we go another lap around the floor, I pick out how many fire exits there are: Three. Figure out what floor I'm on Eight. How many nurses are gathered around the nurse's station: Six. I don't know how useful the last information will be when I make my escape. I can duck past six nurses without being seen. Probably. But more than that? I don't know.
• What is helpful to know is the nurse's station is several feet from my room and closest to the elevator.
• I don't spot any staff changing rooms, not that I was expecting to find any on this floor. Just patient rooms with a steady flow of people—other patients' families—ducking in and out.
• I'm going to have to go down the fire exit left of my room and somehow manage eight flights of stairs with no walker, bruised ribs, and muscle weakness. Difficult but not impossible. And I am motivated.
• Back in my room, I'm out of breath and in serious pain, but working desperately to hide it from Olivia because I plan on making another trip around my floor. If these laps have taught me anything, it's that I need to exercise in a major way. I'm trying not to think about my lack of money, food, or even having a place to stay, but that's a later problem. Dodging cops comes first.
• I've barely settled in bed when a voice further down the hall announces the approach of the lunch cart. My stomach rumbles happily. At least I don't have to think about food or a place to stay today. But tomorrow?
• Think about that later, Saige. Later.
• * * *
• The day is melting into the night when I slip out of bed. Over the last five hours, I've had plenty of time to weigh up my options. And to listen.
• Rylan might think I'm dead now, but there's no way I can stay in this city and hope never to bump into him or the rest of the pack. If history has taught me anything, it's I'm just not that lucky.
• The almost constant hum of conversation as people pass by my room has eased enough that now is quieter than it has been all day. But it won't be for long. Soon dinner will be served, which doesn't leave me long to get away before someone notices I'm missing.
• I could wait until tomorrow morning, but I can't imagine the hospital will be as quiet then as it is now. And cops work twelve-hour shifts too, so who knows how early they might stop by.
• Moving tenderly, I make my way over to my door, ready with an excuse if any of the nurses demand to know what I'm doing. If they ask, I'll just tell them my back hurts from all the sitting so I just wanted to stretch my legs. But only if they ask because otherwise, they'll wonder why I'm suddenly being chatty.
• At the doorway, I stop just inside and angle my head toward the fire exit on my left, then to the nurse's station and elevator on my right. Since most of the patients' families have gone home, the hallway is empty, or close to it. My eyes track a nurse pushing a patient in a wheelchair with a squeaky wheel toward the elevator.
• The nurses' station is nice and quiet. Just three nurses. One leans over the counter chatting and laughing, while two sit on the other side. Everyone looks nice and distracted by their conversation, which is good.
• Go now.
• Swallowing hard, I'm stepping out when the elevator ding makes me halt. I eye the distance between me and the fire exit. If I get caught in the middle of the hallway, there's no explaining that away when I'm so clearly heading for the stairs down, so I ease back into my room. Just enough so I can still see who's about to emerge, but not so much that whoever steps out of the elevator will see me.
• My heart pounds just a little harder as I wait for the doors to slide open. I don't know why, but suddenly my hands are so clammy I have to wipe them against the front of my pale blue hospital gown.
• It's just a nurse, Saige.
• I swallow again because there's no reason to think the worst, but that doesn't clear the dread crawling up my throat. Something is about to happen. Something bad.
• The elevator slides open and a dark-haired man clutching an enormous bouquet of red roses steps out.
• There's no surprise, no horror... no anything. Just acceptance that I knew this was coming. That it was only a matter of time it did.
• Nathan.
• Maybe something made Rylan suspicious after all, or maybe he was toying with me all along, just letting me think I had a chance to get away.
• But with Nathan here, Rylan's hunter and the best nose in the pack, my life is over. Even if it was another shifter, it would still be over.
• You're mine, Saige and every shifter in this city knows it. They answer to me. Try to escape again, and whoever finds you will hold you until I come and get you. And if you're unlucky, they'll have the sort of fun that will make you beg to come back.
• Rylan's whisper before he handcuffed me to his wall for 'safe-keeping' still lingers in my head. If I live to be a hundred years old, I'll never forget it.
• I didn't believe him at first. But then I remembered the way people treated him like he was God's gift. It was always the best for Rylan. The answer to whatever he wanted was never no, but when do you need it? Yes, of course, then it will be there. Yes. Yes. Yes.
• I work to steady my rapid breaths as my eyes never leave the attractive dark-haired man with a piercing blue stare. When his nostrils flare, I throw myself back into my room for a second before his gaze swings my way.
• Panic eats away at my ability to control my breath. They pant out of me. Ragged and overly loud.
• I can't breathe. Why can't I breathe?
• Sweat breaks out on my forehead as I strain to hear the thunderous pounding of my heart in my head.
• "I'm looking for my girlfriend, Saige Leo. They said downstairs that..." I stop listening because now I know what's happening. This isn't luck or accident. Rylan knows I'm alive. He knows I'm here.
• It's over. I never had a chance at all.
• A flash of white and I jerk my head to the left. My gaze locks on Dr. Trevor, who must have been with another patient in a room opposite and three doors down. His eyes are on me and from his furrowed brow, he must have been watching me all this time.
• He saw my reaction to Nathan. There's no way he couldn't have. Our stare extends.
• Now what?
• As if he heard me, he blinks. His frown melts away as if it never was, and a cool but distant doctor mask slips into place. He doesn't look at me as he steps into the hallway, and gives no sign at all that he knows I'm there. Just strides past my room and toward the nurses' station.
• I turn to the window. If Nathan is here, it means there must be others. It means escape is impossible. If I'd just run from Rylan, maybe things would go back to the way they were. Rylan would chain me beside his bed and every day, another piece of me would die until there was nothing left but an empty shell.
• If I lived another month, I'd be surprised.
• But I ran, and I caused a car crash that killed Felix. There's no way Rylan will let that slide, not without serious punishment. His wolf won't let him kill me, and he won't let someone else do it, either.
• I don't have a choice.
• I never have.
• If the floor before was cold, I don't feel it beneath my bare feet as I cross over to the window and the view of tall buildings in the darkening distance. I can't see the ground from this angle, but it wouldn't matter if I could. It wouldn't be enough to stop me. A bark of laughter makes me jerk my head back to the doorway, my heart in my throat. Empty. But it won't stay that way for long.
• I grab the window latch and yank it, trying to force it open, but it won't budge. Shit. Why won't you open? Soon the nurse will tell Nathan I'm here, or he'll pick up my scent beneath all these hospital scents and then he'll take me back.
• Felix is dead now, but the others are still alive. A flash of memory hits. The pack is chasing me through the forest, their pursuit silent, but I know they're there. They might be in their wolf shape, but I can feel their excitement at this game of prey with a girl so terrified she makes their hunts more interesting than chasing after a deer or a rabbit.
• A rabbit's heart will sometimes give out because it's so terrified, Nathan would murmur while he stroked my bare back on the nights that sex made him more talkative than usual. I'd lie on my front, staring at the wall as I tried not to listen.
• A deer, he would continue, can be a little more exciting if they're smart. Not all are. But a human... I'd swallow my shudder as he pressed a kiss against my shoulder. Hunting a human with their self-survival instincts kicking in to surprise you... I'd feel his excitement grow, and when he'd slide into me again, I'd almost be relieved because it would mean he'd stop talking.
• I can't let that happen. Not again. Not ever again.
• The wood doesn't budge, and that's when it hits me that maybe it won't. Maybe it has a safety lock and I can't—
• A hand grips my shoulder, hauling me back against a lean male chest. A scream pours up my throat, but Nathan doesn't let it escape. His other hand claps hard over my mouth, trapping the sound.