Gretchen McNeil - 3:59

Nick shifted, and she sat back on her heels, freeing him from the weight of her body. In the pitch darkness, she didn’t realize he was sitting up until his nose grazed her cheek.

Nick froze, and Josie heard him suck in a quick breath, then slowly he drew his cheek against her own. His skin was rough with stubble. It scratched her face, but Josie didn’t care. She inhaled deeply and caught the spicy traces of aftershave long since applied. She wanted to bury her face in his neck and take gulping breaths of him.

Fingers against her face. Just the tips, deliberately outlining her jaw, the contours of her face. Nick’s touch was soft, yet assertive. She could sense his want, his need to touch and feel her, but with a gentleness that Josie had never encountered in his predecessor. His fingertips traced down her cheeks to her chin, and his thumb swept lightly across her lips, causing a fluttering thrill deep within her.

Josie’s heart thundered in her chest. She reached a tentative hand forward and pressed it against Nick’s body. Through the thin cotton of his shirt, she could feel the strong, rapid beat of his heart. He was just as excited as she was.

Her touch gave Nick the green light. His hand snaked behind her neck and pulled her to him. The feel of his lips against hers was electric.

Josie pressed her mouth to Nick’s and kissed him greedily. She’d fantasized about this moment so many times, but it had never been like this. In her dreams, she was using him as a substitute for the boy who had broken her heart. But that pain and loss had passed, and now Josie found herself yearning for this Nick of his own merit. He was not her ex-boyfriend. He was different. He was better.

And she was in love with him.

Nick moaned softly into her mouth as he wrapped both of his arms around her. He rolled over, cradling her head in his hand so she wouldn’t clonk it on the tile floor, and slid his body on top of hers. She arched her back as she deepened their kiss. The darkness that had been a thing to be feared, a place where nightmares lived, had lost its menace. Josie couldn’t see the outline of Nick’s face and body, though they were just inches from her own. She couldn’t tell where his hands were, where he would touch her next.

Nick gently glided his hand up beneath her shirt, then kissed the soft part of her neck just below her ear. Josie trembled as he inched his hands upward toward her chest. So slowly it was almost torture. Her body ached for him in a way she’d never felt before. She wanted to feel his hands on every inch of her skin, to revel in the warmth of his body sliding against her own. Just as his hand swept over her breast, she reached her arms up over her head.

Her hand touched something in the darkness.

A shoe.

Josie pulled her lips away from his; the spell of Nick was broken in an instant.

“What’s wrong?” Nick panted.

Josie didn’t answer. She felt up the smooth, leather of the shoe to a sock. A sock clothing the hard bone of an ankle. A sock that was sticky and damp.

She yanked her hand away, realizing what it was, but the foot came with her, sliding several inches closer to where she lay on the floor. It was easy and light, as if it was no longer attached to a body.

“Oh my God!” Josie pushed herself up, cracking her forehead against Nick’s in the process. Nick grunted, fell back, and Josie scrambled after him, desperate to get away from the body on the floor.

“Are you okay?” Nick said, reaching for her in the darkness.

“It’s . . . it’s . . . ,” she started. Her brain felt paralyzed and all she wanted to do was wash the hand that had accidentally touched Mr. Byrne’s severed leg.

“Oh my God.”

Nick rocketed to his feet and fumbled around in the darkness, swearing under his breath as he bumped into tables and crunched on broken glass in his sneakers. After a few seconds, she saw the weak but steady beam of the flashlight a moment before Nick shined it in her face. “Are you okay?” he asked again.

Her face must have answered when her voice couldn’t. Nick sprinted to her side and lifted her to her feet. She felt his strong arm around her waist, and she let her body sag into it. But she couldn’t enjoy the sensation, not even for a moment. The beam of Nick’s flashlight traced a slow trail across the lab floor, sweeping back and forth, looking for the remains of Mr. Byrne. He spotted the shoe first, black and unmarred, as if its owner had just come from a shoeshine.

Knowing Mr. Byrne, he probably had.

As Nick traced the shoe up to the ankle and beyond, Josie saw what she’d feared: the leg was severed at the knee. Shreds of the dark dress slacks Mr. Byrne had been wearing still clung to the leg, gathered down by the blood-soaked ankle. But the rest of what had been his lower leg was little more than a skeleton. Thick puddles of blood spilled out in every direction, splattered across the floor by the frenzy of the attack. Bits of ripped and shredded flesh still clung to the bones, but for the most part, the Nox had picked it dry.

Josie couldn’t help but wonder how long he’d remained conscious during the attack. Judging by the horrific screams she’d heard above the clamor of his attackers, it was long enough.

His army. His allies. Only so far as he could control them. In the end, he was just another meal.

Nick turned Josie around and raised his flashlight beam to the wall. “We don’t need to see any more.”

7:06 A.M.

JOSIE FOLLOWED NICK AS THEY RACED DOWN the hall. He kept his gun, retrieved from beside the body of Mr. Byrne, poised, expecting to see a security guard at any moment. People would be arriving for work, which would hopefully provide a distraction of some kind as they tried to get their friends out of the building.

Nick barreled into the stairwell, Josie close behind him.

“She said there was a lab on the third floor and that’s where they’d be.”

Nick glanced back at her. “Who said that?”

Oh yeah, she’d forgotten to mention that part. “I brought Jo back with me.”

Nick screeched to a halt at the third-floor landing. “You trusted Jo Byrne.”

“Yeah.”

“After everything she did to you?”

It sounded like such a bad idea when he said it like that. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“Shit.” Nick checked the gun cartridge, then cocked the barrel. “How many times do I have to tell you, you can’t trust her?”

Just then, the door to the third floor flew open and Jo Byrne popped into the stairwell. “Can’t trust who?” she said with a huge smile.

Nick vaulted back, holding his gun out in front of him. “Where are they?” he barked. “Where are my friends?”

“It’s okay, Nicky.” A shadow slid into the stairwell and Josie recognized the raspy voice of Tony Fiorino. “It’s all good.”

Madison followed him. “Tony slipped out of the lab when Mr. Byrne brought Jo in.”

Tony laughed. “Easy when you’re a shadow.”

Zeke and Zeb were the next through the door. “He got the keys,” one of them said.

“From Dr. Cho,” said the other.

Jo smiled. “And here we are.”

Jackson slipped into the stairwell last. He carried a thin figure in his arms. She was wrapped in a blanket and her dark hair hung over her face.

Josie’s voice cracked. “Mom?”

“I’m okay,” her mom said weakly. “I’m going to be okay.”

Josie turned to Jo, grabbed her by the shoulders, and hugged her. “Thank you.”

3:50 P.M.

“Do you think your mom will agree to come back now?” Josie asked.

Jo laughed. “With Daddy gone? Yeah, she’ll be cool.”

Josie smiled.