My assailant flew off so fast I lay there another moment, frozen in surprise. Then I scrambled up, whipping the pillow to the floor and taking deep, shuddering breaths.

I looked around. Empty. My room was empty. I was alone.

Had I been imagining things? A weird waking dream from the drugs? I—

A figure leaped from the side, a blur in my peripheral vision. Hands grabbed for me. I rolled to the side, clear off the bed, landing on my feet.

I spun to my attacker, and I saw blond hair tangled around a thin face. Nicole.

She was crouched on the bed, her eyes so wide and wild they sent a chill through me. Not just crazy. Inhuman. She snarled and gnashed her teeth. Then she leaped.

I swung out of the way easily. She plowed into the wall with a thump that I swore I felt, but she only recovered and came at me again. Again I dodged. Again she missed, this time stumbling and hitting the floor, then she bounced back and charged.

I hit her this time. Part of me didn’t want to. She wasn’t a threat now—lumbering as blind and awkward as a newborn rhinoceros. And one look at her face told me that any trace of the Nicole I’d known was gone. She’d completely snapped, and as much as I hated her for what she’d done to Serena, when I looked at her now, I saw madness, not evil.

But I had to stop her. So I hit her. Hard. My fist plowed into her chest. As she stumbled back, a follow-up kick knocked her to the floor. The fact that I was able to do it so easily told me I wasn’t exactly fighting a worthy opponent.

When Nicole went down, I pinned her. That was harder. She might not know how to throw a punch, but whatever madness infected her was pumping adrenaline through her veins. She’d been strong enough to almost suffocate me. Now she was strong enough to fight like a wild animal, writhing and bucking and hissing and biting.

As I struggled to hold her down—and stay away from her teeth and nails—I felt the first licks of rage. Again, it confused me at first. I wasn’t truly angry, so why was my skin heating, the burn of rage building?

Then the rationalization came. Thoughts, images, whispers, swirling around me.

She killed Serena. Murdered your best friend. Tried to drown you twice. Almost suffocated you now. Of course you should be furious.

And how had this even happened? Wasn’t she supposed to be locked up? Wasn’t I supposed to be locked in?

And where the hell was Kenjii? My dog was gone. That couldn’t be a coincidence. Someone set this up. Someone here was trying to kill me.

They’d sworn to protect me. They hadn’t. They didn’t want to. It was up to me. Protect myself.

My hands started to pulse. The room tinged with red as my blood pounded in my ears.

Nicole was the enemy. To protect myself—to protect my friends—I had to eliminate the enemy. It was that simple.

My hands went to her throat. My nails had thickened to claws now and as my fingers wrapped around her throat the claws dug in. Droplets of blood popped up, bright red against her pale skin, the smell of it filling my nostrils, filling my head. Another smell, too. The stink of fear as I squeezed her neck.

She tried to fight harder. But she was already giving it everything she had and as my body started to shift, adrenaline pumped through me, too, and I held her easily. I kept squeezing. Blood dribbled down her neck. Her eyes bugged. She clawed at my hands, and I felt her nails dig in, but I just kept squeezing.

You’re dying, I thought. Strangling. Fighting for air that isn’t there. How does it feel? Are you thinking of Serena? Wondering if this was what she felt when you drowned her? What I felt when you put the pillow over my face? Do you regret it?

Nicole’s hands stopped clawing mine. Her eyes closed. Her body went limp. Still I kept squeezing.

She’s unconscious. You can stop. She’s not a threat now.

No, as long as she’s alive she’s a threat.

You’re killing her, Maya!

Good. It’s the same thing she tried to do to me. She deserves to die. I want her—

My fingers froze. I stared down at Nicole, lying beneath me, face turning blue, and I leaped off her so fast I stumbled back onto the bed. I furiously rubbed my face, the thick pads of my hands rasping against my skin.

This isn’t me. I’m not a killer.

Of course you are. You’re a cougar. A wild animal. A predator. That’s what they created. That’s what you are.

No, I’m not.

I looked down at Nicole and squeezed my hands into fists. As I did, I felt the rage subside, the shift reverse, like a tide ebbing, slow but steady.

I looked around. My bedroom door was ajar. I walked over, cracked it open, looked and listened. The hall was silent.

I could escape.

Escape where? The house is secured.

But Nicole had gotten out of her so-called secured room and into mine. We’d fought and no one had come running. No one even seemed to notice.

Nicole didn’t just wander into your room on her own. You know that. Someone let her in and took Kenjii and probably drugged Nicole to make her flip out like that.

Which meant that the “trap” had already sprung. I’d outwitted it and now the way was clear—or clear enough.

Was I sure of that? Of course not. But the alternative was to sit on my bed and wait for someone to come and find out I’d nearly killed Nicole.

I had to take a chance.

TWENTY-EIGHT

I SLIPPED INTO THE hall. I looked both ways and listened. I even inhaled, although I wasn’t sure how much good that would do. There was nothing. A still and silent house.

I didn’t do more than glance at the stairs. Yes, that was the way out, but I wasn’t running off and leaving everyone else. Rafe said his door was the third down from mine. I crept to it and tried the handle. It was locked, of course.

When I twisted the knob, I heard a thump inside. Then the scratch of nails against the wood floor.

“Kenjii?” I whispered.

An answering scramble as she ran to the door. She leaped up, nails raking down it as she whimpered.

A sleepy grunt from inside. Then, “Kenjii? How’d you get in here, girl?”

“Rafe?”

A pause. His light footfalls hurrying to the door.

“Maya?” he whispered through it.

“Something’s wrong,” I said. “The security system seems to be down.” I tried his door. Still locked. “Try it from your side.”

He did. The knob turned but it didn’t budge. He yanked at it. Still nothing.