Page 11

Delores

By the time I reach the end of the hall, my lungs are burning. Before this summer, I wouldn’t have been able to make this temple run, but hanging with prey was beneficial in a lot of ways. Not only did the Flamingoths and various shifters we mingled with from fashion row teach me about defensive weapons like the mace buried in my backpack, but we met at dawn every morning to run the huge park downtown together. My endurance is far better than it was when I believed I could rely on sharp teeth or fangs to save me if something threatened my safety after emergence.

I can hear the slavering idiots catching up as I stare at the reinforced steel door in front of me, and now they’re close enough for me to know they’re dingoes. I can only hope the infirmary will be secure—Apex is a dangerous place and the welcome packet said they have a full hospital and surgical suite on site—so I desperately dig in my pocket for my keycard, praying it will grant me access.

When I find it, I swipe quickly, my heart nearly pounding its way out of my chest as I leap inside and slam the door just in time. For a second, I tense, wondering if my pursuers will simply swipe their cards, but they must not have had them handy, as I hear them grumble and shuffle away.

I’m safe.

Pressing my back against the door in the darkness, I gulp in air in huge gasps as the voice on the phone echoes in the blessed silence.

“Dolly? Doll y! Did you make it? Dolly, talk to me ! Rufus, get your ass away from my closet and come with me! We have to find her!”

Cori is panicking on the line, and I know I need to respond, but my animal is flickering over my skin like a staticky old TV, resulting in a crazy sci-fi movie, half-shift. A slow roll of my head confirms that I have long ears flopping about, and I raise a shaky hand, running my palm over one as the smell of antiseptic and bleach invades my senses. I may not see well enough in the darkness to verify that my new friend steered me true, but the clues are mounting up—this definitely is the infirmary.

“Can we help you, miss?”

The sudden voice scares the hell out of me, and I drop my phone on the floor as I peer around for the source. My eyes refuse to adjust to the darkness—as I would expect, being a rabbit—and I give the air a delicate sniff instinctively. Scents I vaguely recognize fills my nostrils as completely as fresh cookies in a bakery, and I inhale again as my mind works to identify the shapeless blobs in the shadows. It takes a moment to calm myself enough to really focus, but I finally pinpoint who I’m trapped in here with: a skunk, an opossum, and a hedgehog. Another sniff tells me they may have roommates of the mongoose variety, but they aren’t here. The important part of this equation is that there are no preds in this room, so I breathe easier.

“Um, I… I… Cori sent me here because…”

I feel a small hand on mine, and I wince, but it doesn’t pull away. “Unlike most of the students here, that lovely girl is not a heartless monster. She sent you here because we will let no harm come to you.”

“Oh, Bettina, don’t be so dramatic! Miss Cori sent this girl to us because she’s clearly one of us and hasn’t the slightest idea what the hell she’s doing. She’ll be dog food by the end of next week,” grumbles the one that smells like a skunk.

“Hey!” I yank my hand back, bending to feel around for my phone by touch alone. The line is dead now, and I hope Cori knows I’m okay. “I didn’t ask you to teach me how to survive; I can do that on my own, thank you very much. I just need a place to hide until those jackals leave the building.”

I illuminate my DiePhone’s screen so I can turn on the flashlight. Shining the light toward the voices, I find three small females dressed in nurse uniforms looking at me curiously. The hedgehog must be Bettina because she’s glaring at the skunk, and the opossum is watching them both with an exasperated expression. Finally, Bettina looks at me with a smile, waving her hand dismissively at the other two.

“You are welcome to hide here, but given that you are attending a school full of preds who will want to re-enact this scene over and over until they get their desired result, you may want our help eventually, child.”

A snort follows her statement. “She’s going to need to get control of that nonsense going on with her animal, too. Can’t you get the bunny to settle, girl? Talk it down, or you’ll go into cardiac arrest. Rabbits have a resting heart rate of 140-180 BPM, and you’re off the charts. I can hear it. Skunks have excellent hearing, you know.”

“Argyle, please be more considerate,” the quiet opossum finally speaks. “This girl needs our help, and we all took the Hippocratic Oath. I will also mention she was at the puke party, and I do not recall any of us treating her. She must have some sort of natural immunity that we could use to further study that unknown toxin for the Council. Does that make her worthy of our attention?”

The skunk fluffs her tail and my eyes widen, hoping she will not rat me out—or worse, spray us—for irritating her. “Fine. I suppose I can trust your sense of smell to be accurate enough to remember who was at the prom, Clarice. But if you’re wrong, I’m going to let her handle the slavering meatheads on her own next time.”

I’m uncertain what I should do at this point. These ladies will not let the canines chasing me get in—I think—but I don’t know why they’re arguing about helping me. My whole body is still shaking, and I hate to admit it, but the one they call Argyle is probably right. If I were to guess, my heart was beating way over 180 BPM—it feels like it’s trying to escape via my throat. “Um, so… when it’s safe, I can just go...”

“No, no,” tuts Bettina. “If Miss Cori sent you, she would want us to help prepare you for when this happens again. She must be very fond of you to ask us to share secrets only prey animals know on this campus.”

Blinking, I watch Clarice toddle over to the wall and flick on the fluorescent lights. She gestures to what looks like an intake table with chairs around it. “Come here. Bring up your Apex app so we can help you drop pins in the places you should avoid, and also mark where we prey have escape routes.”

“Apex app? There isn’t an app. All my paperwork is on... well, paper,” I frown, walking over and dropping my bag. I pull out the welcome folder, spreading all of my documents on the table for them to see.

“Oh, no. Oh, dear,” gasps Bettina. “You have powerful enemies, Miss. These are old welcome kits. I haven’t seen a student with a folder of printed materials in more than a decade. Didn’t you notice no one else was carrying this?”

Come to think of it, I did, but I was so busy being distracted by the hot professors, a trashed room, and a wild hunt from the cafeteria that I never analyzed it. I didn’t assume it was because I was being set up to fail from the moment I stepped into the office, but it tracks. The lengths my bullies—or possibly my parents—will go to endanger me just got infinitely more terrifying.

“I did, but it’s been... a rough first few days,” I whisper. “Is that how they knew I was in the dining hall?”

Argyle snorts. “Students can only see people who have accepted friend requests. Your enemies have staff on their side if they are locating you without having to put effort in.”

Horror dawns on me. “I can’t block staff members, right? So even if I download this thing and block the people I need to, their staff connections can find me.”

Clarice nods, patting my hand. “Yes. But there are very few staff members who have access to the prey areas, and we shielded them from tracking to protect us from hungry predators—either students or staff making... an error in judgment. So if we teach you how to hide and safely get from place to place, it may protect you a fraction more.”

“I don’t like it. What if she tells her predator classmates? What if she puts us all in danger?” Argyle asks, flicking her tail in agitation.

“I promise I won’t!” I insist. “I worked all summer with prey at the House of Growlvinchy, and would never put prey in danger,” I turn the flashlight off on my phone and open the lock screen, bringing up pictures of me with my friends over the past few months. “See? Flamingoes and pangolins and peacocks and chinchillas and...”

“Okay, okay!” grumbles the skunk before turning to the others. “But if she betrays us, I’m going on record as a protest vote.”

A loud bang at the door makes us all jump, and I dip my chin as I look at the similarly skittish nurses. We all sit in silence, waiting to see who it is as we collectively hold our breath.

“Open up, nightingales! Cori and I are here to pick up our bunny,” calls a familiar voice.

“It’s okay, Bettina. Rufus and I are here with—” Cori’s voice fades as she whispers something I can’t hear, then she starts again. “We’re here with Raina. She found us when we stopped to check the dining hall for your bag ‘cause we weren’t sure if you had it. She has food for you.”

My stomach rumbles and the nurses at the table narrow their eyes at me. I hope whatever Raina has for me isn’t heavy on the meat because it might cost me some of the goodwill I’ve been granted. “That is very nice of her,” I call back. “I’ve barely eaten anything all day.”

“Well, I don’t know how you earned special treatment, but I want to learn your tricks, boo. Spaghetti and moleballs were not on the menu today, but you seem to have a large, fresh container of the best dish this joint serves being delivered,” Rufus grumbles. “So open this door before I steal it, girl.”

I look at the nurses, and they nod, so I walk over and open the door. “You saved me, Cori,” I croak. “I don’t even know those dingoes, but they were… definitely… going...” Before I can stop it, my shoulders are shaking, tears flooding my eyes as I cry into my palms.

“Oh, sweetie,” Cori says. She put her hand on my shoulder, gently pushing me back inside so we can close the door. “It’s okay. My friends and I are going to help you stay safe. You seem like good people, sis, and those are limited in this hellhole.”

“Amen,” Rufus says, leaning in to sniff. “Now break open that food and share while we get you squared away. If we’re lucky, we’ll be done in time to catch The Real Housewolves of New York. I cannot wait to see if Rowena and Fenti are going to have a battle royale over Barnabas. He’s a total d-o-g, but he’s got an ass that just won’t quit.”

I look around the table, immediately grateful for the support system that seems to have adopted me, even if it’s difficult for me to accept it. For now, I can take their help and use it to stay alive, but at some point, I’ll have to distance myself from them again. I can’t have anyone else getting hurt because of me when the fur really starts flying, but until then, I can enjoy the brief respite from my loneliness.

When I finally get in a position to take my vengeance, though, that will all change. The ‘Fuck ‘Em Up, Sis’ list tucked inside my shoe is a constant reminder of what I came here to do, and every time something bad happens; I feel it like a telltale heart. It may take me the entire time I’m stuck in this deathtrap masquerading as a school, but I will teach those who crossed me who the real predator is—even if it damn near kills me.

That’s a promise I intend to keep.