He scowled, his breath hitching as he reached for his chest.

“The drug you gave me earlier isn’t working.” I bent closer to him, looking at where he was touching, and as I did his eyes seemed to come into focus.

He swore.

“It wasn’t you.

It was someone else… I’m in so much frickin’ pain I can barely see.” Given my white overalls he obviously thought I was a doctor.

“That’s all right,” I said.

“I can help you.” He reached for a clipboard at the side of his bed and shoved it toward me.

“This is my medical file.

Read it before you start meddling.” He glared at me.

“This damn hospital.

They wouldn’t be able to figure out how to assign me just one doctor even if it was my last request.” I flipped to the first page of his file and my eyes fell on the first words written on the form at the top of the page.

“Tobias Cole.

Bronchial cancer.

Stage four.” That’s good enough.

I pretended to be studying the file for a few more minutes before taking a seat next to his bed.

I reached over and felt his pulse.

He squirmed away from me.

“Christ, you’re cold.” “Sorry,” I murmured, withdrawing my hand.

I swallowed hard, staring down at the man.

He looked up at me expectantly, tears forming at the corners of his eyes from the pain.

Jeramiah’s last words rang in my ears.

“The trick is to stop before you feel you’ve started.” What the hell does that even mean? Tobias was growing impatient.

I didn’t have much time to figure it out.

I just had to hope that his blood was disgusting enough to aid me in pulling this off.

He certainly smelt of death.

I grimaced.

“What?” Tobias croaked.

“Nothing.” I assumed a stoic expression and stood up, pushing him down flat on the bed.

“I will make the pain go away.

But first, I want you to close your eyes.

Can you do that?” He looked confused, but he didn’t argue.

He nodded and shut his eyes.

Drawing the curtains, I bent down and, covering his mouth with my hand to stifle his struggling, dug my fangs into his neck.

He was too weak to make much noise anyway.

And the noise he did make was hardly distinguishable from the other moans of pain echoing through the halls of this level of the hospital.

I felt the blood begin to rush into my mouth and breathed out through my nose in relief that it tasted as stale as it smelt.

Stop before you feel you’ve started.

Again, I found myself wondering what that meant.

Hell, I didn’t even know how to inject venom into someone.

I knew how to suck blood, but I’d never released venom.

I tried to recall the way my father’s fangs had looked when he’d turned me.

I spread my lips to give my fangs as much leeway into his flesh as possible.

And then it happened—a flow of ice-cold liquid shot from them and injected into the man’s bloodstream.

I jerked my head away from him.

It felt like I might have stopped too late.

Quite a bit of liquid had already entered his bloodstream.

I just had to hope that I hadn’t released too much.

He began convulsing on the bed.

Now that his transformation—or hopefully semi-transformation—was beginning, I had to figure a way to get him out of here and back to my submarine as soon as possible.

Wrapping him up tightly with the sheets so that his face was covered and his limbs restrained from convulsing too wildly, I picked him up in my arms and raced toward the exit of the ward.

There was no point trying to hide my speed anymore.

Someone was going to notice I was carrying a writhing patient away from his bed, so I might as well travel so fast they wouldn’t have a chance to even register what they’d seen until I was already well out of reach.

I whizzed through the halls, and Tobias’ struggling stopped.

My speed had likely knocked him breathless.

I crossed corridor after corridor, ignoring the shouts that were becoming louder and louder behind me.

As I reached the first storage room, an alarm began ringing throughout the hospital.

I sped across the room and entered the next.

I didn’t let up until I reached the double glass doors leading to the staircase leading up to the roof.

I sped up to the top, kicked open the door and ran out onto the roof.

A light drizzle had begun to spray the night air.

I rushed to the edge of the building and looked down.

I swore beneath my breath.

I hadn’t really considered how I’d get the two of us down alive.

Tobias was certainly in no position to be holding onto me.

And he was a tall man—not that much shorter than myself.

With him squirming like this, there was no way I’d be able to hold on to him while also getting us both safely to the ground.

I ran around the circumference of the roof and was relieved to spot what I’d hoped to see.

Another roof about fifteen feet away.

This was the more sensible option.

I could jump that without difficulty.

I stepped back away from the edge a few yards and, gripping Tobias more tightly, gathered speed and leapt through the air, landing on both feet with ease on the roof parallel to the hospital.

This building was lower, about two stories lower.

Still high, but at least I’d made some progress in getting down to a level from which I could just jump to the ground without risk of injury to either myself or, more importantly, Tobias.