Project Gemini (WATTYS 2016 WINNER!)

Chapter Thirteen - Power Outage. (Part 2 of 2).

JASPER'S SCREAMS WERE nothing more than a breathless moan now, his aura weak in the air. The lights flickered and waned in the corridor with the raging storm that shook the building. His aura tangled with hers, growing thinner by the minute. Her power was gone, suppressed, but they needed her. Needed her blood.

She swallowed dryly and ran her thumb over the spot the cannula had leached into her vein, digging her nail into the puncture hole as the surgical team discussed how to save him. The words washed over her as her ears rang. They were going to find her, find her and use her like cattle. The stench of the Thames hung heavy in the air as she stared at his aura, it crooned to her, tugging at her heart and towards the operating theater but her legs wouldn't move.

The risk of being caught was too high, much too high, and she couldn't sacrifice everything for him. Not when he was the reason she was in this mess to start with. She chewed on her nail and didn't move from the shadows, keeping an eye on the commotion in the operating theater from the ajar door instead.

Think think think!

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

The security team split into two, one half headed for the stairwell beside the helipad doors while the other half secured Jasper to the operating table, binding him down.

Tick-tock.

A nurse turned on the anaesthetic pumps.

Tick-tock.

Answers came first.

She made her move, using the filing cabinets to claw her way to standing. She yanked on the drawers. Desperation raked through her mind. Her footprints would lead them here, the bloody marks on the white tiles a red flag to anyone searching, and as drawer upon drawer produced nothing but dust and fragments of paper she knew she had minutes. Mere minutes, nothing more, until they realised she was loose and not the docile guest they expected her to be.

The storage room was crammed with rows of filing cabinets, each ordered alphabetically. A small desk with a computer on sat at the far end lit by a desk lamp, but no windows, no air vents, only a carbon dioxide input pipe in case of fire. The camera mounted in the far corner stayed powered down as she sifted through the drawers. The ones that hadn't been cleared at the end of the rows only held medical receipts of things like asthma inhalers, immunosuppressants, insulin, and not much else.

She bit back a swear as something banged from the operating theater. Where the hell were they?

They must've removed them, got rid of them and anything that could expose R.B.I.C the second they dumped her and Jasper in the building. She gritted her teeth as he groaned again, voices seeping from the room as thunder shook the floors. Small droplets of blood blotted against her sleeve as the stitches stretched, but she ignored it, listening out for the sound of approaching footsteps instead.

She reached for a drawer labelled J-L as she tried to block out the groans and cries from beyond the room, forcing it to the back of her mind as she got to work. The drawer slid open easily, gliding into her waiting hands as her heart jumped at the sight of all the files crammed within. Prisoner records. Names. Men and women. Reams of paper all shoved together. She pulled out one from the middle and flicked it open, sitting back onto her ankles as she looked at the photo staring back at her.

A woman, in her fifties, her eyes wild but brimmed with tears gazed at the camera. Her jaw was stiff as if she was forcing herself to be silent, suppressing everything inside, letting her eyes speak instead. Eyes that screamed up at her like an animal headed to slaughter. A thick black cross in marker pen stamped over her picture.

Her gaze slid to the detailed stapled to the top of the file on a red slip.

PATIENT 566336 - FEMALE.