Unsung

Chapter Thirty

I gasped. The sound seemed to echo around us like we were in a cave. But we weren't. We were there, in the training center, and someone had just been seriously hurt.

Maybe even...

I couldn't think about something that awful and closed my eyes to shut it out. Then, I opened them again, because the images my mind was coming up with were so much worse than what we were probably dealing with.

I hoped that was the case, at least.

We couldn't see the body from where we were. Several towers and walls stood between us and where the person had fallen, so I had no idea what shape they were in. And it had all happened so fast, had been so utterly unexpected. I wasn't even sure if it had been a guy or a girl who'd fallen. Or how old they were.

Were they a teenager like me? One of our instructors? A college student? Not that it mattered. The person was screwed no matter their age.

I wasn't sure how long we stood there in the aftermath. Ten seconds. Thirty seconds. A minute. It was like time had ceased to exist in the way I knew it to. When someone finally started running in the direction of the accident, it seemed like too much time had passed to do anything—but also like it was far too soon to go heading into the fray.

Ris reacted first, his feet beginning to pound the floor as he moved frantically toward the fallen person. He jumped over walls and blocks and swung himself from bar to bar, and then took a few corners far faster than I'd ever seen him move before. He was already out of my view before I could wrap my head around what was happening.

Thankfully the others were quicker to respond than I was; McKayla was right on Ris' heels, followed by the others.

Finally, I moved too.

It seemed to take me an unreasonable amount of time to get to where the others were. I didn't have the skills they did. I didn't dare try to jump over the walls or move at lightning speed around the objects in my way. Instead, I jogged as quickly as I could while ensuring that I wouldn't fall and break something before I could get to the person who actually needed help. For me, this meant running around walls, dodging beams that were strewn across the floor and crawling across cushy mats that proved more difficult to maneuver than quicksand.

When I finally caught up, I was so out of breath that I couldn't talk. Not that I would've known what to say anyway.

Because there in front of me on the hard concrete floor, was a guy, broken and unconscious. He appeared to be in his early twenties maybe, in good shape like most of the people I saw walking around the institute, and had dark hair that spiked out from his head.

And continued onto the floor.

Only, I quickly realized, it wasn't his hair that was spread around his head. It was...blood.

It pooled underneath him, fanning out from his body like a cruel halo. One of his perfectly muscular legs was bent at an unnatural angle, thrown backward and to the side. His eyes were closed, and for a moment, I wanted to close mine, too. Make the whole scene go poof.

I fought back a wave of nausea, not sure if it was because of what I was seeing or the mad dash I'd just done to get there.

Possibly both.

Finally, someone broke the silence.

"Is he alive?" Sophia asked, her voice shaky.

"I don't know," Ris responded, looking freaked for the first time since I'd met him.

"Should we go get someone?" Garrick asked. "We should go get someone. No. We should call 911 and then go get someone."

"We need to get him to the trainers," McKayla said, but she didn't move either, just looked over at the rest of us as if she were waiting for our approval. She never got it.

"I knew something like this was going to happen," Austin said, running his hands through his hair before leaving them there, gripping at the strands and shaking his head. Then he cursed. "Someone's always getting hurt."

"Did anyone else see him fall? They had to hear him scream, right?" Ty said, his eyes wide. "Maybe they've already called an ambulance. Yeah, they musta, right? We just have to wait with him until they—"

"Pronounce me dead?" the guy on the ground said, opening his eyes.

We all screamed.

Ty jumped backward, pulling Austin in front of him and nearer to the dead guy who was now suddenly—alive again. Garrick threw his arms around me as if to shield me from what was happening. Sophia dropped to her knees and began to pray out loud, and McKayla—

McKayla moved toward the possible zombie like she was about to punch him out.

"Are you freaking kidding me?!" she shrieked at the guy. Only, she didn't say freaking. Apparently her vocabulary turned more colorful when she was stressed out.

"Everyone relax," the undead guy said.

McKayla advanced toward the guy again, forcing him to sit up and throw his hands in front of his body to defend himself.

"Relax? Relax!" McKayla screamed, lunging at him like she might just kill him. This time for real.

But before she could place her manicured fist in his face, someone grabbed her around the waist and hauled her back.

She fought against the person behind her, legs flailing at first and then turning into a move she'd likely learned in one of our Krav classes, and maneuvering herself out of his grasp.

When McKayla was once again on her own two feet, sheturned to glare at the person who'd stopped her from enacting her vengeanceand...abruptly stopped.