These Vicious Masks: A Swoon Novel(81)

My mind begged my body to move, but my numb limbs refused.

“Don’t worry, you should be feeling tired,” he said. “It’s entirely natural. Just dream of the good you will do.”

Dr. Beck circled me, his boots sweeping inches from my face. The sedative worked on my blood. My eyes closed, and it took everything within me to fight back. I seemed to lift the entire world with my eyelids.

I had to stay conscious. Keep them open. Otherwise, I would not wake up anywhere pleasant, and Rose might not wake up at all. I twisted my head upward. A prickle passed along my left arm. It had regained feeling. I strained to move my hand inch by inch across the dusty floor.

“Of course,” Dr. Beck softly muttered. He knelt down and reverently touched my cheek. “Remarkable. Your body can fight it off. We’ll just have to increase the dosage.” He rose and crossed the room toward his supply cabinet.

Rose. I had to take Rose home. I had to help Robert. Miss Grey. Sebastian. Mr. Kent. Everyone. Pushing my tingling fingers on the ground, I lifted myself up an inch, two, hearing Dr. Beck’s whistling in one ear, a distant crackle in the other, before falling to the floor again.

“Hel—” My mouth could barely call for help. Useless. The haze was too much. It muddled every thread I tried to grasp, shrouded everything around me.

Except for that damnable whistling.

My right arm returned, and I dragged it up next to my face in an effort to rise. With a desperate push, I managed to slide up onto my knees. My legs struggled to exert control.

Get up. I had to get up. I panted, coughed, strained. Dr. Beck examined his syringe against the light and missed the movement behind him as Robert climbed back to his feet. Clutching a glass bottle, he noiselessly crept behind the scientist, wound his arm back, and lunged with the weapon.

And Dr. Beck caught it with ease. He thrust the bottle straight into Robert’s teeth and knocked him back. I clambered up, crying out, pushing weight into my calves, my legs wobbling as I began to rise. Stand, stand, stand.

Somewhere in my clouded head, an answer struck me. Dr. Beck did not foresee even a minute into the future that he would need a higher dosage for me. And he had only reacted seconds before he was attacked. His foresight was severely limited. I had to tell Robert. But at that very moment, Dr. Beck struck him again with the bottle and then reached out across a counter to pick up a knife.

My mouth felt like a rusted door. “Ro’ert,” I barely moaned. No feeling in my tongue. My body refused to comply. Locking my knees, I stood fully erect, afraid to move lest I collapse again.

Robert backed away from Dr. Beck, throwing every jar and beaker he could find between them. Dr. Beck yelled at him, “Stop, you’ll—”

Chemicals exploded in flames all along the wooden floors and gas-lit walls. Robert continued throwing in his rage until he ran out of nearby ammunition and found his back against an empty shelf. His hand desperately searched for more, then gripped something tightly and swung at Dr. Beck’s forehead. Dr. Beck caught the fist yet again. With his other arm, he raised the knife. The blade sliced into Robert’s jacket, shirt, and stomach.

Dr. Beck jerked the blood-soaked knife out and plunged it back in without hesitation. At that very moment, Robert’s fist, still held by Dr. Beck, loosened above the scientist’s face. A glass bottle. Red liquid poured out, and as tangled with Robert as he was, even Dr. Beck only had time to partially avoid it. The substance splashed into his eyes, and he screamed, dropping Robert to the floor as the air filled with an acrid stench.

Robert, that brilliant fool. Step by step, I staggered toward him. Slowly, my vision cleared. The world returned, sharp and ablaze. Robert lay on the floor in front of me, bleeding. I dropped down and placed my hands over his wound, begging it to close. “Keep breathing. Just a few minutes.”

His short, labored breaths persevered. By the sink, Dr. Beck seethed and washed his eyes with a dirty towel.

Faster. Dammit, heal faster, Robert.

I pushed harder. I only had a minute at best for a severe wound that needed at least ten. Dr. Beck blinked his eyes furiously, reassessed his vision, and dabbed away the last of the chemical.

“Robert,” I whispered, praying he was still conscious. He groaned in response. “He is too fast for you. We have to overwhelm him at the same time—he can’t anticipate both of us. Just keep attacking.”

His eyes drifted upward and back. “No, Robert, stay awake,”I pleaded with him, along with my healing.

Dr. Beck, eyes red with irritation, stalked to the knife on the floor while Robert coughed and rose to his knee. I pulled him up and leaned his body over my shoulder.

“We both know how this is going to end, Miss Wyndham,” Dr. Beck said, blade in hand. “Just accept your role. It will be far more comfortable.”

Robert shoved me behind him and swung at Dr. Beck with great pains. Dr. Beck swiped at Robert with the knife after every dodged punch and sent him stumbling back with more shallow cuts.

Futilely, I searched along the massive tables for an available weapon. The gas jets couldn’t be moved. Scalpels, bottles, books. No, too small, too fragile, too weak. Hurry, dammit. No choice. This had to do.

I lifted a heavy microscope and gripped its neck tightly. There was no time to feel ridiculous.

A deep smack wrenched my attention back to the fight. Dr. Beck kicked Robert in his stomach, striking the stab wound and knocking him down hard. He slid toward the fireplace, a streak of blood marking his path, and stopped just short of the flames. Dr. Beck turned his attention to me, and any courage I had seconds ago vanished.