Page 103 of Villainous Intent

I needed to find an exit. Or a weapon. Or maybe just a dark corner to hide in until my blood stopped boiling and my legs stopped shaking.

I crept away from the labs because I definitely didn’t want to be found around them.

Heavy, rhythmic footsteps echoed from the intersection ahead. There had to be quite a few henchmen for the sound to even reach me.

Shit.

I scrambled backward, looking for an alcove, a shadow, anything. There was nothing but seamless walls. I dropped into a crouch near a panel that looked slightly different from the rest, making myself as small as possible.

The panel beside me hissed and I clamped a hand over my mouth to stifle my gasp, jerking back as the wall slid open. Light spilled out, blindingly bright compared to the dim corridor, catching me like a deer in headlights.

A man stepped out and stopped mid-stride, looking down at me with mild surprise.

I tensed, my muscles coiling to spring, though I had no idea where I’d go. But then I recognized the face. Brown hair, calm demeanor, a tablet tucked under one arm. Number Twelve. The medic who had fixed up my forehead after I’d headbutted Cipher.

“Ms. Bishop,” he said. His voice was level, devoid of the aggression I expected upon being found wandering.

I remained awkwardly crouching. “Hi.”

He tilted his head. “Why are you sneaking outside the Medical Bay?”

“I heard footsteps. I ducked.”

Twelve looked up and down the hallway.

I relaxed, just a fraction. He wasn’t reaching for a weapon or calling for backup. He looked more like a doctor dealing with a confused patient than a guard catching an escapee. And he had been gentle with my head and nice to me, even when I was bleeding all over his boss’s floor.

“I’m looking for a bathroom,” I muttered, straightening up but keeping my back to the wall. It was a sound excuse because it was the truth. “I don’t know where anything is in this maze.”

Twelve’s expression softened slightly and he stepped back, motioning for me to enter. “Second door on the left, past the surgical unit. There are fresh towels in the cabinet.”

I ducked past him into the room and hurried to the door he’d indicated, desperate for a moment of privacy.

When I poked my head out five minutes later, face splashed with cold water and feeling slightly less like a feral animal, Twelve was sitting at a desk, typing rapidly.

He didn’t look up. “You know you don’t have to sneak around, right?”

I froze in the doorway. “What?”

“The Labyrinth has automated security systems, Ms. Bishop. Biometric scanners, motion sensors, pressure plates. If Cipher didn’t want you wandering around, the doors wouldn’t open for you. You’d be locked in a corridor segment before you took two steps.”

That son of a bitch. I wasn’t escaping or being clever. I was a rat in a maze, and the scientist had left the cage door open just to see where I’d run. He was probably watching me right now, leaning back in a lab somewhere, laughing at me tiptoeing around his fortress.

My face heated, humiliation warring with a sharp, spike of anger. He was playing with me. Even when he wasn’t in the room, he was pulling the strings.

“Where is it?” I demanded, stepping fully into the room.

Twelve blinked. “Where is what?”

“The camera. The nearest security camera.”

Twelve pointed a pen toward the upper corner of the room, near a ventilation grate. A tiny, almost invisible lens glinted in the shadows.

I marched over to the center of the room, stared directly into the lens, and raised my middle finger.

“Fuck you, Cipher,” I said, putting every ounce of my frustration into the gesture.

Behind me, Twelve snorted, quickly covering it with a cough. He capped his pen with a quiet click and looked me over.