Page 24 of A Barista's Guide to Love & Larceny
“The hydroponics lab,” Max said. “Dr. Rodriguez is an expert arcanobotanist and develops all the plants used in the products up there.”
Oliver and Dani swapped a look of bridled excitement—but not bridled enough, because Max caught it, and his face flushed.
“I really shouldn’t be telling you any of this,” he said. “We’re not supposed to talk to reporters.”
“Max, this is a school paper,” Oliver said, laughing. “Not hard-hitting investigative journalism.”
“Still.” Max shook his head. “Anyway. Did you want to see the other lab? The circadian rhythm one?”
Dani was ready for this whole thing to be over, but she felt like they were circling something. “Sure,” she said, “if you don’t mi—”
The shriek of an alarm sliced through her sentence, and Dani’s notebook hit the floor. Red lights flashed from bulbs on the ceiling, in tandem with the noise. The researchers looked up from their work uncertainly.
“Shit,” Max said. “Not again.”
“Again?” Oliver said as Dani stooped to grab her notebook. “What do you mean,not again?”
Max shook his head. “I’ve got to get you out of here. Follow me, quick.” He herded them into the hall, where the alarm was still screeching and the floor lights had turned scarlet. The security guard was nowhere to be seen.
The trio hurried down the hall, frantic voices reaching them as they neared the lounge. Dani could hardly think with the alarm raging in her skull. “What’s going on?” she asked breathlessly.
Max didn’t get the chance to answer even if he’d wanted to—just as they stumbled into the lounge, a woman’s scream javelined from the hall to their right, higher pitched even than the wailing alarm.
“Someone call Dr. Rodriguez!” a man yelled.
“Come on,” Max said, steering them to the elevators.
“Is everyone okay?” Dani asked. She craned her neck trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on down the hall—the one thatled to the lab for the clinical trials—but all she could see were a few people clustered around a door at the far end.
“Maybe we should see if we can help?” Oliver asked.
“No, no, everything’s fine.” Max pressed the down button repeatedly. “They’re professionals, trained to handle any scenario…”
Another scream, followed by a deep pulse that throbbed in Dani’s eardrums. She watched as the people at the end of the hall exploded apart, two of them slamming against the wall and one tumbling to the floor.
“Hecate’s bones,” she said, clawing at Max’s shoulder. “Max, something’s wrong, I mean, seriously wro—”
A fourth figure stepped into the hallway, pausing for a moment to survey the people sprawled at their feet. Something in the slump of the figure’s posture felt unnatural, almost otherworldly. Dani’s hand slipped away from Max’s shoulder, and she moved toward the hallway, squinting.
“Dani?” Oliver said.
“Hey,” Max said. “Come back!”
Turning at the sound of their voices, the figure stepped over the people to drift down the hall. Now Dani could see it was a young woman, sporting pajamas and what looked to be long, tangled hair—then Dani blinked and realized it wasn’t hair at all, but electrodes attached to her forehead, torn from whatever they’d been plugged into. The woman was barefoot, her movements fluid, as if she were traveling through water.
“Are you okay?” Dani called. The woman didn’t answer. A shiver rolled down Dani’s back and into the soles of her feet. The red lights flashed again; she caught sight of the woman’s face and stumbled backward. She was staring straight at Dani, her pupils huge, but her gaze was hollow, like she was lookingthroughher, not seeing her at all—
Dani understood what was happening in the split second beforethe woman’s arm stretched out, power rippling around her palm, and sucked all the air from the lounge—then blasted it out. Dani went flying and slammed into Oliver, sending them both tumbling to the floor.
“Shit,” Max said. “Shit, shit,shit.”
Dani’s head was spinning. “She’s asleep,” she mumbled. “I think she’s dreaming.”
She disentangled herself from Oliver and rolled to face the woman, who was looming over them, lifting her arm a second time. Dani braced herself, but before the woman could conjure another spell, her eyes rolled back in her head, her knees went loose, and she crumpled to the floor, unconscious.
“Holy Amaterasu,” Oliver said, getting to their feet. They took a step toward the collapsed woman, then seemed to think better of it and turned to offer Dani a hand. “What should we do?” they asked Max.
“We should get the hell out of here,” Max said. As if on cue, the glissando of the elevator sang out. Oliver pulled Dani up as the doors slid open, revealing not an empty car, but Dr. Rodriguez flanked by two security guards. Gone was the hyper-polite businesswoman with PR at the top of her mind, replaced by a soldier heading to battle. She didn’t spare them a glance as she marched past, hands curled into tight fists; the Head of Research and the guards clustered around the unconscious woman, obscuring her from view.
