The Henhouse

Here

"So..." Jonah spoke, "the serum didn't work?"

"No. I mean, he never took it."

"Then what was-?"

Justin held up the empty tranquilizer like a trophy.

"Then where did...?"

Justin turned. His smile fell when he saw a thin line of red streaming through the tile. Stomach turning, he kept his eyes off the leftward wall where Dr. Dreschler had stood. He gestured to the counter where he'd ejected the serum from the fat syringe. The puddle had already started expanding, dripping down the cabinets underneath the tabletops.

Jonah stepped toward it, peering down.

"Do you think it would've... you know. Worked?"

Justin shrugged, looking at the notebook. He noticed black-penned, swirly cursive – Dr. Dreschler's – and his throat swelled.

He only could shrug.

"We should leave," Gabe said. His voice was curt. "Who knows who else is coming. Let's go."

He rounded his arm around the others, right hand falling hard on Justin, and guided them out the door.

No questions, Justin realized. Nothing.

His fingers started drumming on his leg in quick triplets.

Compared to the lab, the hallways seemed dim. The greys and whites all blended together in an incomprehensible mass, and Justin could only stumble along with the others, hoping they were headed the right way.

"Northwest stairwell isn't far," Gabe explained, voice blunt. "We'll be there soon."

"We should move through the Research Wing," Artie offered. "Avoid the central passageways. There will be less risk of being...."

Artie slowed to a stop at a fork in the corridor.

"Here," he declared, pointing left. "This would be-"

Gabe either didn't hear him or didn't care. He kept forward, now at breakneck speed, relentless. Jonah, Dany and Ella raced after him as Ivy and Peter stumbled to a stop by Artie.

Justin slowed his steps, torn.

"You know that I am right," Artie warned him.

"Yeah," he sighed. "I know."

He looked ahead. He could just see Ella disappearing around a corner.

Then he bolted, sprinting, to catch up with Gabe's party.

Ignoring the stitch in his side, he hurtled around the corner before skittering to a halt behind Dany. The four were huddling by a corner, peering rightward down a hallway. Waiting.

Then a pack of guards flew past, heading leftward. Some of them tripped over themselves in their haste – clumbsily reloading weapons, pulling on black ski masks. None of them noticed the stragglers huddled along the adjoining corridor.

"The hell...?" Jonah breathed when they'd passed.

"Come on," Gabe snapped. The others followed as he turned after the guards. Justin's mind whirred.

Think, he ordered himself, think....

"Wait-!" he called out. Gabe slowed, turned back.