Kenyan Heat (Darkin World Book 1)

Chapter Eight

"Kojo!" Ife's eyes popped open. Instead of seeing the man who'd served as her shadow for the past several weeks, her wide gaze found no one. The scene of the werelion's death replayed in her mind as her blurry eyes tried to take in her unfamiliar surroundings.

Ife, having just finished her rounds, sat at her desk to look through lab results. Kojo suddenly appeared in her open doorway. She remembered thinking it was odd because he'd never come into the hospital before. Added to that, he was wearing a long raincoat. It wasn't something their hot-blooded race and the current warm, sunny day warranted.

"You should have listened," Kojo lamented. His eyes were glassy. "I'm sorry," was the only warning Ife received before her world was turned upside down. As the last syllable rung like a death knell in her office, he took out a device. The slim, cylindrical trigger pulled from his coat pocket was one she'd become familiar with during this long, damned war.

The raincoat hadn't yet stilled when Ife sprang into action. Knees shoving her chair back as she gripped the nearest edge of her desk, she knocked it over with one, firm push. Then, using it as a shield, she crouched behind it a nanosecond before the explosion filled her senses.

The noise was deafening, and Ife felt her ears pop. As the concussion from the blast shoved the desk against the wall with air-stealing force, she was swept along like a rag doll. Once she caught her breath, she was assaulted with the coppery smell of blood and bomb-making material. Charred flesh and burning man-made materials were soon added to the mix.

The building's sprinklers came on a half-second later. Struggling to raise herself a couple of inches to peer over the desk, Ife's stomach dipped at what she saw. Blown pipes made sure the room wasn't evenly covered with fire-suppressing water. There wasn't enough pressure for it to reach her end of the office.

Before panic could set in, Ife forced her sluggish mind to take stock. Flames licked greedily at the wall beside her. They hadn't reached her yet, but if firefighters didn't come and put them out within the next fifteen minutes, she'd be burned alive. She also smelled smoldering wood. Somewhere, her desk was aflame.

Letting herself fall back, Ife took stock of her current predicament. She was pinned at a weird angle on her side.  The desk sandwiched her against the wall, and she couldn't move. There was a nasty gash at the back of her head that made her feel woozy. The blast had thrown her cranium-first into the sheetrock. She wouldn't be surprised to find her skull had cracked upon impact.

With the hand not trapped beneath her body, Ife tried to shove the unwieldy desk away. It wouldn't budge. The couple of inches she could rise weren't enough to free her trapped arm. Her injuries weakened her, and the head injury was making it hard to think. She'd have to wait for help to come; for someone to rescue her.

Nate popped into Ife's mind then. Before he could play the role of savior, she lost consciousness. So, how had she ended up in this unfamiliar place?

Rapidly blinking, the haze finally lifted, and Ife's eyes focused. She found herself in a large, double-roomed tent, lying on a queen-sized bed. The interior was dark, lit by a single gas lantern turned down to its lowest setting. There were two average-sized, vinyl windows. Night had fallen, and so they offered no added illumination.

Ife spotted another flap toward the back on her left. It was drawn. Squinting her eyes, she saw in the dim recesses there was a three-piece bathroom. Her bladder woke up at that point. Ignoring it, she tried to figure out where she was before she'd use the toilet.

Gaze shifting toward the front "door," her ears pricked. Ife heard a sound. Was she being held captive? Had Zaire "saved" her after it was known she'd survived his attack?