Down the hall, the bathroom door squealed open as I grabbed the doorknob in front of me and twisted with both hands. The lock snapped, and the door swung open almost silently. I pulled Robyn inside by both arms, then glanced around. The room Julie Cass had shared with a girl from Montana was empty now, and her closet door stood open. I hauled Robyn inside and propped her against the back wall, then tucked her legs inside, knees bent. As I was backing out of the closet, I noticed something sticking out from under her thigh. Her cell had fallen out of her pocket!

I grabbed her phone and stood, and the room blurred across my vision as I closed the closet door. I leaned with one hand against the wall until my focus steadied, and I knew that hiding Robyn had been the right thing to do. But if I hid with her, Darren would find us, eventually. The only way to stop him from finding and killing Robyn would be to lead him away from her.

And call for backup.

If I called Jace, I’d have to tell him about Robyn. If I didn’t, she and I would almost certainly wind up stuffed and mounted wherever Officer Darren kept his grisly keepsakes, now that his lake house had been discovered. But would calling him do me any good?

Lucas had no doubt reported me missing, and Jace was probably already on his way to Lexington. He wouldn’t know I was on campus, but he might be close enough to show up soon.

Though maybe only soon enough to stop Darren from carting off our corpses.

From down the hall came the familiar squeal of my bathroom door, followed by sudden silence. “Robyn!” Darren roared, and I cringed. “How the hell…”

I sank into a squat behind one of the beds, my arm resting on the bare mattress, and ran one finger over the cell screen to wake it up. Fortunately, the phone wasn’t locked. Even more fortunately, Jace’s was one of only two numbers I had memorized other than my own, because every Pride member was required to know the Alpha’s number.

I dialed, and while the phone rang, I listened to Darren’s footsteps as he stomped into the hall. When they got noticeably softer, I realized he’d headed for the stairs. Please go downstairs… Please go downstairs…

“Hello?” Jace said into my ear, and I exhaled with relief. “Abby?” He’d recognized me based on nothing more than the sound of my breath.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But I need help,” I whispered.

“You’re at your dorm?”

“Not in my room, but on the third floor.” Had he figured it out, or did he just think I’d come for my stuff? “Darren’s here. I can’t explain everything now, but Robyn’s unconscious. She doesn’t have any head wounds, so I think he gave her—”

“Robyn!” Darren roared again, and I squeezed my eyes closed. His voice was louder. He hadn’t taken the stairs.

“I’m hiding, but he’s getting closer, Jace, and she’s helpless. I can’t carry her anymore, so I’m going to draw him away from her, but if you could—”

“Don’t move. We’re already on the way,” he said into the phone, then something scratched against the receiver and his voice was muffled. “Faster, Teo, she’s—”

“You don’t want to hide from me, pussycat!” Darren shouted. Wood splintered and something thunked against a wall.

“He’s kicking in doors. I have to go. But—”

“Abby, do not use yourself as bait. Just stay put, and we’ll—”

“Jace, I’m so sorry. I know I screwed everything up. In case I never get another chance to say it…I love you too.”

“No!” he shouted into the phone, and the first tear ran down my face. “Wait and tell me in person.”

“I have to go.”

“Abby!” he yelled. “Do not hang up the phone. That’s an order!”

“I don’t work for you anymore. I love you, Jace.”

“Ab—”

I hung up the phone, but I could still hear his voice in my head, until Darren grunted from down the hall and kicked in another door.

Trembling, I stood and shoved Robyn’s phone into my back pocket. Darren was a cop. He had a gun and some kind of drug. That’s what I’d smelled in my dorm room. That’s what was in the black bag. My human corpse would do him no good, so he would probably shoot to wound, until he could try to make me shift.

Shifters are strong and fast, but we can’t outrun bullets. Yet I had to try.

I crossed the room and pressed my ear against the door, listening as Darren kicked his way into another room. He was at least three doors down. Five, if he was hitting the rooms across the hall as well. When I heard the soft squeal of another door being opened, I realized he was checking the closets. Which meant he was no longer in the hall.

I quietly opened Julie Cass’s door and glanced into the hall. Four rooms were open, and by my best guess, Darren was in the closest of them. I sucked in a deep breath and closed the door softly behind me, then headed toward the stairwell in the opposite direction. I ran as hard as I could, gripping the slick floor with my toes, my legs pushing me faster than any human could have run, my arms pumping at my sides for balance.

The hall swam around me and my vision began to darken, but I kept running, blinking tears from my eyes, wiping sweat from my forehead.

Hinges squealed, and boots clomped into the hall behind me. “Hey!” Darren shouted. “Abby!” His footsteps stopped and that scared me worse than being chased, because that meant he was aiming.

The stairwell was fifteen feet away. Then ten. I heard an odd click, like plastic being broken, then a metallic scraping sound. Five feet from the stairwell, I heard a soft thwup, and pain bit into my left thigh. Three steps after that, I grabbed the doorknob and twisted. I pulled the dart from my leg as the stairwell door swung closed behind me, then I was running again, up the steps instead of down, because I was less likely to fall that way.

Heart racing, I gripped the rail. Two steps later, I stumbled and bruised my shin on a metal-edged tread.

“You may as well give up, pussycat!” Darren called through the door as his boots stomped closer. “You’ve only got minutes at that dosage. Maybe less, since you’re a tiny thing.”

I ran faster, my pulse racing, my head spinning, and by some miracle I reached the fourth-floor landing before he burst into the stairwell below me. But I couldn’t climb any longer without passing out.