Beautifully Designed

Chapter 19-Wires and Innuendos

Thump thump thump thump thump,

I thought it was the sound of thousands of feet chasing me. Or even my erratic heartbeat. Men following my hectic trail of utter confusion. At least I was only paranoid, and it wasn't really the case. Instead, it was the continuous pounding of my converse on the floor. The white halls were narrow and empty as I ran down every one. Every one. I turned left, right, right, left. It didn't matter if I saw a corner that looked like it could lead out of here. I was a mouse in a maze. The only difference is the cheese being an exit.

There were doors lined along the walls. All of them were a drab grey with a small window at the top. For the tall people to look in, of course. I stopped at a couple of them when I became breathless, just to see what they were doing. Some of them poked around inside animals. Inside them. Scalpals and scissors tightly clasped in the surgeon's hands. Others boiled mysterious chemicals in a chemistry set. Who knows what they were actually doing? Frankly, I didn't care. I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

I turned a sharp corner and froze on the spot. My breaths had been coming out ragged and drawn but they slowed in fear. It was a long corridor with glass revealing both sides of two different labs. How the heck was I going to cross this? If I went back, there was no telling where I had once been. At least this was different, because different meant a change of scenary, which could mean that I was getting close.

The scientists didn't pay me any mind as I took two steps forward. They continued bustling around their enviornment carrying God knows what in small vials or erlenmeyer flasks. I didn't care if these people were going to destroy the world at the moment. I had to get out.

My breath caught when a girl with a tight bun turned toward the glass. She was tall, blonde, and most certainly Melanie. She was dressed in light green scubs, different than the lab coats that all of the other scientists wore. Her eyes bugged to the size of Antarctica at the sight of me, probably from the frumpled clothes and disheveled hair. Melanie never left home with bedraggled hair. She shared a brief word with a lab assistant. I thought she was going to turn me in right then and there, but she held her finger at her side so discreetly that I stopped. Waited. 

Whoever she was speaking to just nodded. Melanie whisked around elegantly and strode to the back of the room that held a door. When she disappeared I stepped away from the glass, back to the corner I had turned so no one else would see me. I pushed my back against the wall, concentrating on slowing my manic heart. Oh goodness, was I ever going to get out of here? What was Melanie doing here?

"Spencer!" 

I jumped as a thin hand wrapped around my bicep tightly. It nearly made me scream but I held it in at the familiar sight of icy blue eyes. Melanie scared the bejesus out of me, jolting my nerves like an electric shock, as her eyes remained in their bulged state.

"What happened to your face?"

I brushed her question away with my hand. Face later. There was more important shit at stake. Like my dad. Or why she's here.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I breathed, rounding on her. Melanie had a good inch on me but I had more muscle. She wasn't as scary here as she was at school, surprisingly. Or maybe it was just because I had a scalpal pressed against my throat a little bit ago, so nothing was as scary as that.

"I could ask you the same question."

"I don't have time for this! Someone is going to hurt my dad, someone you work for!" I whisper shouted. Her brow cinched.

"This is just an internship for nursing, Spencer. I don't know what you're talking about." Melanie looked clearly confused. I felt the same.

This place allowed work study students to come here? With crazy doctors that wielded scalpals and spew threats like a horned lizzard that shoots blood from the corner of its eyes? Why would anyone want their child to become...that? But nursing. Melanie said an internship for nursing so this must be a hospital of some sort. Not a normal hospital, of course.