Page 118 of The Tracker's Revenge

Jake grabbed my shoulder. “Toni, we’ll find her. Please calm down.”

“Let’s go now. Now!”

Both Jake and Eric looked helplessly at me.

“NOW!”

A couple of male nurses rushed into the room.

“We’ve got a shifter,” one of them said. “Call a code violet on a Skew.”

The other nurse pulled out a device from his belt and punched a few numbers. An alarm sounded over the PA system followed by a female voice sayingCode Violet, Skew status. Trained personnel are called to the 5th floor.

“Toni, calm down,” Jake pleaded, glancing down at my clawed hands.

I shook my head and turned to the nurses blocking my path. “Get out of my way! I have to find her.”

A third nurse showed up, holding something in his hand. A syringe filled with a white liquid. He walked between the other two and gave me an amused smile. He was short and stocky.

If he thought he would be able to stop me from finding my friend, he was—

There was a pin prick in my arm, then pressure. I rubbed my arm and glanced back at the nurse, his syringe was empty.

His amused smile grew, revealing a pointed fang. He was a fucking vampire and had stuck me before I had any time to blink.

My thoughts grew hazy, and I swayed on my feet. Jake caught me, picked me up, and deposited me back on the bed.

“We can’t abandon her,” I slurred. “We have to go back and get her.”

Jake pulled the sheets over me. “I know.”

“She’s my best friend. She... she might be scared.”

Jake nodded. Eric turned away, and I could’ve sworn his eyes had wavered.

“She needs us.”

My eyelids closed heavily and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t open them again, and I drifted away into a restless nightmare.

* * *

THE SILENCE WAS LIKEan anvil on my chest.

I stood just inside the agency’s door, staring at Rosalina’s empty desk, a knot clogging my throat. My eyes burned with the need to cry, but my tears were spent. My knees wobbled, and I collapsed on the couch and stared blankly at the floor. This past week had been an endless nightmare, relentlessly clawing at my sanity, threatening to undo me. As time ticked by, I felt the last of my control slipping away, my hope drowning in a sea of futility.

I was a damn tracker and couldn’t find my best friend.

As soon as I’d awakened after the hospital staff sedated me, I walked out of there, intent on using my skills to find her. Jake and Eric had protested at first, saying I needed to rest, but they soon relented. They knew me well and understood there was no way I would wait another second to track my best friend.

“I paid a good tracker to try to find her,” Jake had said as he drove from the hospital to my place. “They had no luck.”

“I’llfind her,” I said between clenched teeth.

“You’re the best,” Eric put in from the back seat. “I’m sure you will.”

Except I had failed. Miserably.

At first, I tried to track her the way I’d tracked Jake. I used a jacket she’d left at my condo but got nothing from it. I didn’t let that discourage me, so next, I tried to track her in a trance. Except that didn’t work either. I used all my senses and was met by a whole lot of emptiness.