They’re much more interested in Garrick when they learn that he witnessed the shooting and has video footage of it. Garrick told me this would happen.
He talks with them for a long time while I wait. Then he sits in the chairs. He does things on his phone. He goes for food and comes back with burgers—one for him and one for me.
“I won’t eat,” I say. “Not until Ann eats.”
He brings his food back to the seats and does more things on his phone.
After another hour, Nurse Chris comes up and tells me I can visit Ann.
I follow him in, impatient for him to walk faster, to show me where she is. It’s not so easy to smell her with all of the smells coming off every surface and object, but as we near, I catch her scent. He tells me Ann’s okay, and that she needs rest now. I can barely hear it.
I burst in and fly to her side. They’ve put a tube into her arm. Her eyes are halfway open. She looks fragile. I take her hand.
“Kiro,” she mouths.
I put my finger to her lips. “They say you’ll be okay. You need rest.”
“You have to get out of here,” she whispers. “Everyone in the world is after you.”
I put my finger to her lips again, like a kiss. “I gave a fake name.”
“Kiro.” Her eyes drift closed. “That won’t work for long.”
I talk to her a little bit, even as she sleeps. I tell her things about the waiting room, the helicopter ride. I tell her how Murray has spoken to her family.
And then the door bangs open, and Garrick stalks in holding his phone, looking upset. He’s followed by Nurse Chris.
“You need to leave, sir,” Chris says. Chris is big and burly enough to throw Garrick out.
“Just a minute,” Garrick says. The look he fixes me with says everything.Trouble.
I stand.
He gets right into my face and speaks in low tones. “I’m still on a loop from when I was embedded. Lazarus and some others got out. He’s injured—I don’t know how bad. But they’re in the air.”
“They got away?”
“They scared the wolves off. Smoke bomb, I think. I don’t know all their lingo, but it sounds like a smoke bomb. They’re in the air.”
Smoke. Fire. That would throw the animals into chaos.
Nurse Chris informs us that he’s getting security.
“So the wolves got out?”
“It sounds like they did, which is kind of a miracle, considering they attackedarmed men.”
“Men with guns freeze in the face of animal rage,” I say vacantly. “When they know the animal will stop at nothing.”
“Lazarus knows you’re here. He’s coming, or at least he’s sending people. Count on it. He wants you dead.”
“Go back,” Ann grates out. “Get out while you still can, Kiro.”
I turn to her. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not. It’s you he wants. Go back to your pack.”
I take her hand. Does she understand nothing? “You’re my pack,” I tell her.