Chapter Six - The Great Escape

"Security!" Carter shouted, his voice cracking with desperation. "SECURITY! Get me out of here!"

Dallas’s eyes flashed red; that inhuman, predatory gleam he saw last time that made Carter’s blood run cold with fear.

A low growl rumbled from deep in his chest, the sound reverberating through the sterile hospital room like thunder. Carter swallowed, shrinking back away from him and his temper.

"Be. Quiet." He commanded, his voice barely human, all gravel and barely restrained fury as he approached Carter.

"Can I please get someone from the psych ward to round these people up?" Carter yelled, scrambling away from the door, his hospital gown flapping around his legs. "They’re nuts! All of you are completely—"

Dallas moved faster than Carter could track, crossing the room incredibly fast, faster than humanly possible.

One massive hand clamped over Carter’s mouth, muffling his screams as the other arm wrapped around his waist and pulled him back against that wall of muscle.

"Have you lost your mind?" Dallas demanded. "Enough of this. You’re coming with me!"

Carter thrashed around wildly, his hands clawing at Dallas’s arm. His muffled screams grew more even frantic as panic clawed through his chest.

"He’ll kill me!" Carter managed to shout when he yanked his head to the side, gasping for air. "He’s crazy and he’ll kill me! Let go!"

"Don’t test me. I might actually go ahead and kill you now if you’re going to be such an inconvenience," Dallas growled against his ear, his breath hot on Carter’s neck. "I am trying to give you a good life and here you are, struggling like a feral animal. What is wrong with you?"

Dallas’s voice was full of smug cruelty, as if Carter’s terror meant absolutely nothing to him, or his own autonomy was just another obstacle to be overcome.

It sent a fresh wave of adrenaline coursing through his veins, and so with a desperate surge of strength that he didn’t know he possessed, Carter jabbed his elbow backwards into Dallas’s ribs and shoved with everything he had.

Dallas staggered back half a step, more from surprise than actual force, but that was all Carter needed.

His eyes locked on the window.

They were on the second floor; it was really high up, but not impossibly high. And if the choice was between jumping and staying in this room with a delusional meathead who claimed to have gotten him pregnant…

Then there was only one decision to make.

"Mr. Whitfield, wait…" the doctor started.

But Carter didn’t wait.

Instead, he climbed onto the window ledge, his bare feet sliding and slipping on the smooth surface, his heart hammering so hard he could hear it in his ears.

For one split second, he looked back at Dallas, whose expression had faded from irritation to alarm, then looked back outside the window to freedom.

"Don’t do it," Dallas said. And for the first time, there was no smirk and no arrogance in his gaze, only the sharp edge of genuine concern as he tried to talk Carter down from the ledge. "Carter, don’t you dare—"

Carter jumped.

Wind rushed past his ears far longer than he’d expected as he braced himself for impact, and then…

"Ahh!" Pain exploded through his left ankle as he hit the ground, the joint twisting sickeningly under him.

He collapsed onto the grass with a strangled cry, clutching his leg tightly as white-hot agony shot up to his knee. "My ankle!"

Behind him, he heard the doctor and nurse gasp in shock, their voices high and panicked. He could hear them faintly from the high up window. "We can’t let him get far, our research—"

The nurse was already fumbling with her phone, no doubt calling security.

Carter didn’t wait to hear them. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he forced himself to his feet and ran.

His ankle screamed in protest with every step he took, sending jolts of pain radiating through his leg, but fear was a hell of a motivator.

He limped as fast as he could across the hospital lawn, his hospital gown billowing behind him like some ridiculous cape.

He’d barely made it maybe twenty yards before he heard it; the heavy thud of something huge hitting the ground behind him.

Carter risked a glance back and his blood turned cold as ice.

Dallas had jumped from the same window, landed in a perfect crouch like some kind of superhuman predator, and was now striding toward him with terrifying purpose, looking absolutely pissed.

"Please God, don’t let him catch me," Carter whispered, pushing himself faster despite the agony in his ankle. "Please, please, please—"

But Dallas was inhumanly fast. Each of his strides covered twice the distance of Carter’s limping run, and the gap between them was closing with horrifying speed.

Carter’s breath came in rough, ragged gasps. His vision blurred with tears of pain and panic as he struggled to get away from his pursuer.

This was it.

He was going to be caught, then he would be dragged back to that room to be locked away with that monster who thought he owned him because of some insane werewolf mate bond nonsense—

Just as he’d started to accept his fate, an ambulance suddenly screeched into the hospital entrance, sirens wailing.

The back doors flew open and paramedics swarmed out, shouting medical codes as they unloaded stretchers. "We need emergency services on the scene. Quickly! Find out if there are empty beds in the ICU, else we’ll have to get them transferred—"

Family members spilled out of cars behind them, their voices rising in frantic questions. "My daughter’s in there! Is she going to be okay?"

It looked like a multi-car accident with at least five or six patients, all of them in various states of injury, and the hospital entrance had erupted into chaos.

Carter felt a pang of pity for the victims, but he didn’t hesitate. He veered sharply toward the crowd and plunged into the mass of bodies.

"Excuse me, sorry, pardon me—" He weaved between a sobbing woman and a paramedic shouting about blood pressure, ducked under a stretcher being wheeled past, and squeezed between two family members arguing about insurance.

Behind him, he heard Dallas’s voice, sharp with frustration: "Move. Get out of my way."

But the crowd was too thick, and the chaos too distracting.

By the time Carter emerged on the other side, breathless and sweating and half-delirious with pain, he’d lost Dallas in the sea of people.

He didn’t stop running, if anything he went faster, dragging his leg behind him.

He finally made it to the main road, his hospital gown plastered to his skin with sweat and his ankle throbbing with every heartbeat.

Cars whizzed past him in both directions, left and right on the main road.

Carter stumbled to the curb and frantically pulled out his phone to call an Uber or some other taxi service, but his hands were shaking so badly that he could barely unlock the screen.

And even if he could… it would take at least five minutes for a car to arrive, and Dallas would find him long before then.

He looked around desperately. There was no Uber, no friends he could call on such short notice because most of them were still back in his old city, and the few who lived here wouldn’t make it in time.

Carter stepped into the road, waving his arms at the oncoming traffic.

"Stop! Please! I need help!"

Car after car swerved around him, drivers laying on their horns, shouting obscenities out their windows. "Get out of the way, crackhead!"

He must have looked insane, a wild-eyed man in a hospital gown, covered in grass stains and limping in the middle of traffic like some kind of escaped mental patient.

He wasn’t surprised that most drivers thought he was high on something.

"Please!" he shouted at a sedan speeding past. "Someone stop!"

Behind him he heard Dallas’s voice quickly approaching; faint but unmistakable, cutting through the traffic noise:

"Get back here, Carter. Listen to me, for God’s sake."

Carter spun around, his heart nearly stopping in shock.

Dallas stood about thirty yards away, shoving through the thinning crowd from the hospital entrance. Even from this distance, Carter could see the grim set of his jaw, the dangerous glint in his eyes.

"No, no, no…" Carter turned back to the road, waving more frantically. "PLEASE! Someone!"

Car after car flew past, not a single one even slowed down to look.

He was going to die here, either hit by traffic or dragged back to that psychopath’s den, and no one was going to—

A sleek black luxurious car slowed to a stop in front of him.

The passenger window rolled down, revealing a man Carter didn’t recognize; he was maybe in his mid-thirties, wearing an expensive suit with dark hair slicked back.

He had dark brown eyes that were sharp, looking Carter up and down behind designer sunglasses.

"You look like you need some help," the stranger said, his voice smooth and cultured.

He glanced past Carter to Dallas approaching at high speed in the distance, and several expressions flickered across his face,

Whether it was recognition or concern, Carter wasn’t certain. It was gone too quickly to tell.

He looked back at Carter and smiled,

"Get in."