(Chapter One)

~Victor Morgan’s POV~

"Here you are, Mr. Morgan," the receptionist says as she sides the room keycards across the counter to me. I catch her giving me this flirty smile as she keeps her hand on the cards a little longer than necessary. 

I just blankly stare at her, not in any mood to deal with this situation politely. She finally takes the hint and the smile vanishes as she takes her hand away.

"Thank you," I tell her as I quickly take the cards and walk back to the others waiting in the lobby. I hear the girl huffing in vexation behind me but I could care less.

This is going to be a long week.

"All set," I announce once I reach them.

"Thank fuck," Gabe declares as he pushes off the back of a couch he was leaning against with Luke, "I want to get all this shit unpacked before Trouble calls." The others mumble their agreement and quickly gather our belongings.

I steer them over to the elevators, having visited this hotel before, and everyone crams inside the first door that opens. Mr. B is the last one on and he gives us all a small head shake but I know he's just as impatient to talk with Sang as the rest of us.

I listen as the others talk and catch Doc mention that we should add LA to our list of places to visit this summer for our family vacation.

Or as Luke and Gabe like to call it, the amazing super-secret graduation gift of all time.

I mentally shake my head at their over-the-top need for embellishment and pull my phone out to add LA to our shared google document. Knowing those goofs, they'll talk about everything they would want to show her and forget to update the document so myself or Mr. B can work the new place into the schedule.

A small grunt has everyone's attention snapping to Mr. B as he quickly pulls his phone out of his pocket.

"Owen…" Doc begins only to freeze when Mr. B instantly answers the phone.

"What's wrong Miss Sorenson?" My heart drops knowing she just redlined him.

She never redlines us.

"I'm not really sure what's happening, " I hear her say, Mr. B having put her on speaker, "but the school is on lockdown."

Mr. Blackbourne instantly takes charge, knowing what kind of severe circumstances has to happen for the Principal to lockdown the school.

Like a shooter.

I nervously tap my fingers against my legs as I watch the very slow progression the elevator takes to get to our floor. The moment the ding fills the small box we're all rushing out the opening door. Thankfully, I got us the presidential suite so we're the only room on this floor and the door is just a few steps away from the elevator.

I hastily unlock the door while listening acutely to Mr. B talking to Sang, letting her know we were getting to work figuring out what's happening.

We all spill into a large, open common room with two large couches prominent in the middle of the room with a coffee table positioned in the middle. I don't pay attention to the additional items dotting around the room since I'm too hyper-focused on getting my laptop set up on the small table. 

Gabe drops down next to me on the couch, joining me anxiously waiting for the laptop to boot up.

"What do you think is happening?" He whispers to me, not wanting to pull focus from the few making phone calls.

"The only thing that keeps coming to mind is a shooter," I whisper back just as the screen finally flashes to the login page.

"Fuck, shit okay she can handle that," he mumbles as I get a search going to work through different news websites and police reports to find any information. "She'll be okay, right Vic?"

My fingers freeze over the keys from the whispered question. 

Will she?

"She'll be fine," I reply strongly, "Sang knows how to handle herself in these types of situations. After all North, Kota, and Nathan are her self-defense teachers."

"Fucking true," he chuckles out, "those assholes probably even thought her how to survive an avalanche." 

"What was that Miss Sorenson?" Everyone zeros in on Mr. B who's standing between the front door and couches.

"This boy," I hear her say then pausing for a moment before adding, "I think there might be something wrong with him."

Doc immediately switches to doctor mode as he takes the phone from Mr. B and asks her to elaborate on what she meant.

"He's just sitting there, unmoving. There's a girl trying to talk to him now but he's not even looking at her." Doc begins to pace as he directs her to go check if his eyes are dilated.

When she confirms they are, my heart begins to thump heavily inside my chest. A small ding pulls most of my attention back to the screen in front of me and I find that the search on a lockdown came back empty.

Not good.

I listen to Doc instruct Sang to check the boy's heart rate and my gut is telling me this might all be connected to that drug. So I launch another search for JH-14 when I hear Sang talking to someone on the other end of the phone.

"I don't know but my friend says his heart rate is almost twice what it should be. Did he take anything before coming to class?" We can't hear the person's response but Sang's deep sigh lets us know it must have been JH-14. "Look, I need to let the teachers know he needs to go to the hospital."

"Shit," Gabe grumbles slightly under his breath, "stupid fucking school and their stupid fucking drugs." I turn to him and find him turning the pink stud in his left ear that Sang got him for Christmas. I place my hand on his knee, hoping to calm some of his panic, but a shout over the line causing my own heart to spike in fear.

“Pookie, what’s going on?” Doc asks, causing a few of the others to shout out questions until Mr. B quickly silences everyone with a simple raise of his hand.

“She said he moved,” Sang finally answers, her voice shaking slightly which creates this foreboding feeling to dominate the space around me. 

All of us are just frozen, our attention fully locked on Mr. B’s phone resting in Doc's hand as fear begins to clamp around my lungs. My heart barely takes two heavy beats when Sang’s gasp of fear spills through the phone.

What the heck is happening?

“Shit,” Sang hisses which set off Gabe’s panic as his questions if that came out of her mouth. I nervously begin tapping the melody of Vivaldi’s Winder against my leg as Doc tries to get Sang to tell us what’s going on.

“He was jerking around like he was having some kind of seizure before this red liquid started streaming out of his eyes, nose, and ears. It looks too light to be just blood.”

“That wasn’t on the reports of side effects for JH-14,” Doc says but looks over to Mr. B confused, “was it?” 

“No, just the extreme emotional distress and violent outbursts. Followed by a possible fever and volatile thoughts,” Mr. B confirms as he reaches up to adjust his tie, a sign he was getting just as nervous as the rest of us.

“Then this has to be something different.” Doc moves over to sit down on the couch on the other side of the coffee table from me and Gabe. I hear my computer ding when it finishes the new search I had going but I don’t look away from Doc as he voices his thoughts on what could cause what Sang described. “The drug could have been laced with something but what?”

“Think Dr. Green,” Mr. B speaks up causing our doctor to break away from his scattered stream of spoken thoughts, “what can cause a person’s heart rate to spike with dilated pupils and fluid to spill from their eyes, nose, and ears?” 

“Some kind of infection, either viral or bacterial,” Doc answers somberly, his hand holding the phone trembling. “I can think of a few viruses that’ll cause fluid leakage and a racing heart. Unfortunately, those are highly contagious and deadly.” 

Mr. B’s normal stoic mask hardens into this expression of cold terror when his thoughts conjure the names of the viruses Doc mentioned. For the first time, I despise that my knowledge is centered around technology and not anything medical. Not understanding what might be happening is making my stomach twist in knots. 

But maybe not knowing is better, I think when I see Doc so close to tears and Mr. B losing control of his emotions.

I watch Doc finally look back down at the phone, opening his mouth to tell Sang his thoughts but nothing comes out. Fear locking down his voice and has Mr. B stepping forward to take the phone.

“Miss Sorenson,” he calmly calls to her, not giving a hint to the emotions he is slowly gaining control over again. Her response is barely above a whisper over the phone, telling us how afraid she is right now, and Mr. B pushes her straight into a panic attack when he explains Doc’s thoughts to her.

“Contagious?” The word comes out like a choked cry as her breathing quickly transforms into gasping pants. “No no no, I touched him. Come off, please come off.”

“Miss Sorenson,” Mr. B calls out to her, using the powerful command that always captures her full attention, but she's too lost in her panic to hear him.

Kota rushes from behind me and invades Mr. B's personal space as he brings his face close to the phone.

"Sang can you hear me?" She doesn't answer, "come on 10 you have to focus on my voice sweetie." 

Nothing.

Come on Princess. 

"SANG," Kota desperately screams into the phone and there's a catch in her gasping breath telling us she heard him. He jumps into action and has her working through the calming exercise he created with her to help work through her fear of showering.

The room collectively exhales in relief when her breathing slows back to normal and she’s able to thank him for his help.

“Anytime, sweetie,” he tells her right as Doc steps up next to him in front of Mr. B.

“I’m sorry for scaring you, Pookie. Nothing will be transferred by touching. If he is contagious then it will be transferred only through fluid contact. That’s why you need to get people away from him. Especially now that he has fluid coming out of him.”

“Okay, I can…” There’s a long, uncomfortable pause before she continues again, “he’s not jerking around anymore.”

Her end of the line becomes eerily quiet.

None of us say a word as we wait for her to say something.

Unfortunately, it’s not Sang we hear come there the phone’s speaker.

But this animalistic growl that’s followed closely by a scream of pain.