Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 57143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Augustine slipped forward, all of his martial arts training condensed into this short, fluid movement.
Woodward saw him and stabbed with his right arm, trying to skewer him through the stomach. Augustine twisted out of the way. Pain sliced his abdomen on the left side— Woodward’s blade grazing him. He’d known he wouldn’t be able to avoid the stab completely, but it didn’t matter. He had moved into position.
Augustine hugged Woodward, chest to chest, locked his left hand around the top of Woodward’s head, grasped the man’s chin with his right, and twisted up.
His neck snapped with a dry crunch.
Augustine let go and stepped back.
Woodward’s body teetered. The brilliant blue magic animating it vanished like a snuffed-out candle. For a moment the form held before the body fell apart, scattering onto the floor like a bucket of loose LEGO pieces.
Behind him twin thuds announced the deaths of the metal panthers.
Augustine drew in a ragged breath. The magic drain hit him like a runaway semi. His legs folded, and then he was looking up at the ceiling.
Something clanged. He craned his neck just in time to see the massive metal door thud into place, sealing the exit.
[ 8 ]
Diana sliced through Augustine’s shirt. It came apart, and she pulled it all the way open. A narrow horizontal slash gaped across his abdomen. Woodward’s knife had cut through the muscles of his stomach. She could see the angry bulge of intestines soaked in blood.
Panic whipped her. She took off, limping toward a small room in the corner, partitioned off from the rest of the Menagerie by temporary office walls and a flimsy door.
She knew she was bleeding, but she didn’t care.
She rammed the door with her shoulder. It burst open, revealing a small room with a refrigerator, food dishes in the sink, a stack of white towels. She grabbed one of the latter. Her nose caught a hint of bleach. Clean. She shoved the towel under the faucet, wet it, and raced back.
He was exactly where she’d left him. She dropped next to him and plastered the wet towel over the wound.
“Diana…” he said.
“Your stomach is lacerated,” she told him. “If we don’t keep it wet, your intestines will dry out.”
Red spread through the towel, and she almost cried.
“You’re bleeding,” he said.
She tapped the towel in place, trying to push it tighter against the wound without hurting him.
“You have a deep stab wound on your thigh. You need a tourniquet or you’ll bleed out.”
She ignored him.
“Diana!”
“Not yet!” She couldn’t walk with a tourniquet.
Diana took off again, making a frantic circle around the Menagerie. A few minutes later she landed next to him again, this time with a canvas sack, a pair of scissors, and an oversized metal spoon. Augustine was right. The wound was deep, and the stream of blood was too fast. It would soak though a makeshift bandage. She had to cut off the flow.
He watched her cut the sack into five-inch strips and fold them into one thick, long bandage. She stripped her pants off. The deep hole in her leg gaped like a red mouth. Blood ran down her skin.
She looped the improvised dressing above the wound and tied it into a half knot in a flash of pain. The spoon was next; she placed it on top of the knot and tied the strips again.
“Let me.” He pushed himself half-upright.
“I’m fine.”
He gripped the spoon and rotated it, winding it like a clock. Pain squeezed her leg. Diana cried out.
Another turn. Another. The flow of blood stopped. Augustine looped the tails of the dressing over the spoon, tied it in place, and collapsed.
She lay flat on her back. The adrenaline had worn off, and she had nothing left. Kitty, who’d been trailing behind her during her frantic search, padded over, sniffed at her blood, and flopped on the floor between them.
“Any way out?” Augustine asked.
Diana wanted to lie to him but couldn’t. “No. There is no way to open the door, and there is no cell service.”
“That’s to be expected.” His voice was quiet. “We’re in a bunker with four-foot-thick concrete walls.”
Woodward’s death must’ve triggered some sort of failsafe, because the steel door blocking their exit had no lock. She couldn’t find any mechanism to open it. It was just a wall of metal sealing them in. There were no windows, no exits. Nothing in the Menagerie could breach the reinforced concrete walls. She’d hoped for a landline in the little room where she found the towels, but there had been none.
They were truly trapped.
If they didn’t get to a hospital in the next hour or two, Augustine would die. She didn’t know if his intestines were perforated. Even if they weren’t, they would dry out. He could go into sepsis, and he was still bleeding.
If she didn’t get medical treatment soon, she would lose her leg, and then she would die.