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“Oh, thank fuck. Are you alright?” Aiden asked as he rushed to her side of the bed, kneeling.

What was he doing here? What was going on?

The professor placed a hand on Blaire’s shoulder. “Take it easy. You’ve lost quite a lot of blood and may be weak for quite a while, despite the transfusion.”

Blood? She wasn’t sure she heard the professor correctly, and then the rest of what she’d said dawned on her. Blaire panicked and tried to sit up again, but Aiden put a hand out to stop her.

Blaire looked down at her aching arm and followed the IV line up to the drip stand holding a red-stained bag. Her head spun. She looked away and spotted Riley, Mera, and Kai also in the room, looking at her with concern. Where was Lukas? Was he okay? Nausea gripped her stomach.

“What… are you talking about?” she finally asked with a hoarse voice, her heart rate kicking up a notch as her voice wavered.

Lukas burst into the room with a bottle of orange juice and a bag of cookies in his hands. He rushed to Blaire’s bedside and dropped to his knees, setting everything down quickly onto the nightstand before he reached out to her with shaking hands, grasping hers. She had no idea what was going on. Why was he acting like this? Why was the room filled with people?

“Are you okay?” Lukas whispered as he stared at her, his forehead wrinkled in concern.

Heavy bags sat dark beneath his bloodshot eyes. He looked as if he had been crying. Something felt very wrong.

After looking around at everyone’s faces in confusion, she whispered, “What’s going on?”

Lukas, clearly not able to take anymore, got up and put his knee on the bed to climb in with her.

“W-w-what are you doing?” she stammered, flustered that not only was he getting in her bed again, reminding her of last night before his meeting, but he did it right in front of everyone. Blaire tried pulling away from him, but pain shot up her arm, so she stopped, having nowhere to go.

Before she protested, Aiden spoke up. “Just… let him, okay? He’s been a complete wreck ever since he found you near lifeless and covered in blood…” Aiden looked away, a pained look darkening his features as if it hurt him to even say the last part.

Still confused, but without the strength to fight it, Blaire sat up and allowed Lukas to crawl in behind her on the bed, putting his legs on each side of her body and pulling her back into his arms. She relaxed in his tight embrace as he lowered his face into her hair.

The professor explained what had happened the night before, and Blaire closed her eyes, trying to focus and grasp for any information in her memory.

She gasped.

“What? Did I hurt you?” Lukas tensed, his hold loosening as he looked at her with concern.

“No… I just remembered something. After you left last night, I went to bed, and I woke up later when I felt something pinch my arm.” She looked down at her bruised arm and then at the white gauze wrapped around her forearm. “Someone wearing a robe was drawing blood from my arm with a needle… when I jerked away, it hurt like hell, but before I could do anything, they put some kind of cloth over my face. I don’t remember anything after that.”

“Chloroform, most likely.” A woman stepped from the bathroom and walked over to the professor. “Whoever did this likely wanted her to remain unconscious and was prepared for a fight. I wouldn’t be surprised if they used a drugging agent to keep her unconscious. I doubt they would have been able to take her flesh in that manner without her alerting the entire floor, unless they drugged her.”

“What? Who are you?” Blaire tried to get to her senses, but her head felt foggy. Had someone really drugged her?

“I’m a nurse from the student health unit. You’ve had a good piece of your flesh removed from your arm and you’ve lost quite a bit of blood because they were sloppy.” She gestured toward the bandage on Blaire’s forearm. “There’s no way you’d have been able to stay quiet without a bit of help, and whoever did this likely didn’t have the ability to compel you. Though, compulsion wouldn’t have kept you quiet, only compliant to their wishes.”

The bruise covering a sizable portion of her arm, the bandage, and the tubing that remained attached to her backed the nurse’s words with concrete proof, but the incident was still surreal to imagine. The idea she couldn’t recall anything beyond the struggle with the hooded figure didn’t sit well with her, and it made her feel even more ill than she already felt. She wanted to vomit.

Lukas squeezed her tightly, as if giving her any slack would cause her to float away.

“Whoever did this is a dead man walking,” he whispered against her hair, and she shivered.

Aiden clenched his fists and nodded his agreement. “That goes without saying…”

The professor frowned and shook her head. “That is easier said than done.”

“What do you mean?” Riley asked as everyone looked at the professor with varying degrees of confusion, disbelief, and frustration.

Professor Velastra stood and moved the desk chair out of the way, not offering an answer as the nurse began the process of unhooking the tubing from Blaire’s arm and bandaging the small injection site before it had the chance to bleed. She packed away the used items in a bag marked for biohazardous materials.

Turning to Blaire, she said, “You are in the clear at this point. I have left materials in the bathroom to change your bandages. Please refrain from getting your stitches wet for the next forty-eight hours, but then you can clean them gently with soap and water twice a day.”

“Stitches?” Blaire’s voice rose as she sucked in a breath sharply.