Three Hearts Left Intact

Chapter 40: Ventilation

"KAILA OPEN THE DOOR!" She heard Lauren scream at her as the door began to open wider. Her breathing quickened and all her senses were on high alert. The rush of adrenaline gave her the energy she needed to prevent herself from collapsing on the floor right there.

Kaila listened to the loud pounding on the door. She felt herself on the verge of an attack, looking around the room for any last minute precaution she could place in front of the door, she noticed a shiny glow out of the corner of her eye.

Looking over towards the source, the biggest grin appeared on Kaila's face. She glanced back at the door seeing Lauren's arm trying to squeeze into the opening. Not wasting any more time, Kaila ran to the silver venting peaking out from behind a massive stack of bags of soil. Throwing the bags to the side, she was thrilled to see the venting already half way open.

Using her small demeanor to her advantage, Kaila managed to pry open the vent far enough to squeeze her bottom half inside. Before she closed the vent back up, she reached as far as her top half could go and replaced much of the bags in front of the vent leaving barely an inch between them for air flow.

With a loud bang, she could tell the door was nearly opened. She dropped her top half into the vent and propped the ventilation guard back in place before beginning to quietly crawl away. Luckily for her the vent was just large enough to fit her size.

In a matter of seconds she could hear a loud grunt as someone had entered the greenhouse. "Search the room, I want her found! Bring her to my office!" She heard Lauren instruct before aggressively loud smashing and banging of pots and shelves all moved in the room. Not wanting to see if anybody would find the vent, Kaila crawled away quickly. With the vent close enough to the ground she could hear all the voices from the halls.

After crawling on her knees for what felt like fifteen minutes she listened as a loud shriek came out from a nearby vent opening. The occasional ventilation guards provided her with just enough light to be able to see but left her cast in the shadows.

Following the sound of the shriek she was surprised to find herself behind Lauren's office walls. Staying clear of the vent she took a rest and laid down on her stomach before eavesdropping in.

From inside she could hear Mary's trembling voice and Lauren angrily yelling at her. "B-but I-I s-saw h-her g-go i-in...I-I h-had l-locked t-the d-door m-myself..." she listened to Mary stutter. Her entire being felt like it was melting into the cold metal of the vents. She nearly got lost in her head trying not to cry loudly before Lauren distracted her.

"She escaped somehow! You can consider our deal off! You are not leaving here like everybody else!" Lauren's anger sounded as if she were ready to throw fists.

'Mary sold me out?!' Kaila laid her head down gently onto the metal feeling betrayed. Within this cold and bland facility Mary was the only person who Kaila felt as if she could trust, or at the very least try to blend in with.

"Get out of my office! And get me that girl!" Lauren finished before the door slammed itself shut. Kaila quietly sobbed to herself being careful of the echo that it would produce. A loud bang and vibration sent her out of her tears. Without looking out Kaila could tell from the grunt Lauren made she had punched the wall.

She wanted to crawl away and get as far as possible from this room. But then she heard a phone go off and Lauren's horrid personality shifted. Too curious for her own good, Kaila stuck around.

"Hello..." Kaila nearly gasped in shock. She had never heard Lauren sound so terrified in her whole life. From her spot in the vent it was difficult to make out what the voice on the other end was saying, but by Lauren's responses she could grasp a decent picture of how their conversation went.

"No...no...uh, everything's under control. You don't have to send dad down here...You can see the lockdown from the mainframe in your office? Uh...don't worry about it, the lockdown is just a practice. You know you always said I would have to do this at least once a month to make sure all the faculty know how to respond to it. Which everyone is doing just great so far. The Hounds have been helpful in keeping the peace. You and dad don't have to stop by." Lauren spoke a hundred miles per hour.

A few more inaudible mumbles from the phone line before she spoke again. "No!" A long pause followed as Lauren cleared her shaky voice. "I mean no thanks. I don't need Luke coming here to check up on me. He's got enough on his plate like you guys and besides I've got this all under control. All the Hounds, doctors, nurses, um, patients...there all accounted for." Her voice cracked more than once throughout.

"Uh...Kaila...Yeah that's right. That's the Michael's girl I'm looking after." Peaking out from the vent guard Kaila could see Lauren was slouched down in her chair with her elbows leaning against her desk with all its contents thrown onto the floor.

"Oh...uh...she's um...she's doing alright." Lauren shot her head up allowing Kaila to see the redness of her face.

"Yeah...yeah mom. Alright I'll talk to you later, bye." Kaila could hear the call drop and Lauren groan loudly as her mood shifted from anxious to frustration in the blink of an eye. Without hesitation Lauren kicked the wall close to the vent guard.

The kick shocked Kaila, nearly causing her to scream. Using her hands to cover her mouth she muted herself as the wall bent inwards close to her head. The vibration was enough to scare Kaila, but the dent she could clearly see was an alarm that it was time to go.

Staying as far away from the light as possible, Kaila quietly crawled until she was no longer near Lauren's office. While she was unsure of where she was heading, or where she needed to get Kaila didn't stop. She continued crawling for hours. Taking various twists and turns as she didn't look back.
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Let me know what you think. Thanks Lexx signing off