The Pulse by Shoshanna Evers Page A

many places on her body she’d need to avoid accidentally cutting if she didn’t want to bleed to death—like the carotid artery on her neck, for instance.
    Touching her neck self-consciously, Emily quickly surveyed her body. Radial arteries of the wrists, she’d have to protect those. Femoral arteries in her groin, those should be easier to protect, depending on how she went through the window.
    But there was a very real risk she’d cut herself terribly from all the glass.
    The image of herself somersaulting through the glass and landing at the feet of the guard, holding her hands out to him, unable to breathe as she choked to death on her own blood, stopped her cold.
    What if she broke a hole in the glass first by throwing an object other than herself through it?
    That might be smarter. It would, unfortunately, alert the guard that something was up, and when she the stepped through the hole in the glass she would most likely find herself staring down the barrel of his rifle.
    But maybe she could bring a weapon—something heavy—and bash his head in.
    The thought of injuring someone else, when she had spent her whole nursing career trying to save people’s lives, bothered her. But if she had to choose between that soldier—a man who probably helped himself to the girls on the Tracks every night—and herself, she’d choose herself without a second thought.
    She needed to find something to throw.
    The metal chair.
    She could throw that through the glass, and then step through, pick up the chair, and smash the guard over the head.
    Okay.
    Emily picked up the chair, feeling its heft, and gave a practice swing. The chair was heavy and she felt her shoulder protest. She needed to just go for it.
    The idea of swinging the chair through the window was much less scary than throwing herself against the door, so she didn’t need a countdown. Emily swung the chair with all her strength, whooping with joy when the painted glass window cracked, then shattered.
    Shards of glass rained to the floor.
    The guard outside yelled in surprise, and Emily went to step through the hole she’d made in the window. She had to be more careful than she’d originally anticipated because glass covered the floor, with huge stalagmite-looking glass shards poking up from the bottom of the window.
    Her hesitation ruined everything.
    The guard opened the door, stepped in, and pushed her onto the ground with a shove so hard it took her breath away. At least he hadn’t punched her in the face.
    Maybe chivalry wasn’t dead after all.
    “What the fuck did you do?” he screamed.
    Emily didn’t answer. Her blood pounded in her ears so loudly she thought she might faint from fear.
    He had handcuffs, large metal ones that looked scary and uncomfortable. He didn’t bother threatening her or reading Miranda rights or anything like that—there were no Miranda rights under martial law—he just picked her up by the wrists and slapped the cuffs on her.
    He didn’t take the time to turn her around, so her hands were cuffed in front. Not that she was going to complain. If he intended to keep her cuffed, she’d be much better off with her hands in the front. Especially since her shoulder throbbed already.
    With Emily secured, the guard stepped outside and brought back in the metal chair, shaking his head. “Colonel Lanche is going to be so pissed off.”
    “Sorry,” Emily said, finally finding her voice. “But I had to. They’re going to kill me. Please, please let me go.”
    “I’m going to be in deep shit for this,” the guard said, pointing at the shattered window. “If I let you go, I don’t even want to know what they’d do.” He looked around the room. “I can’t risk you doing anything like this again.”
    Setting the metal chair down in the back of the room, he gestured for her to sit.
    She almost protested that the chair was still covered in glass shards, but the look of pure anger and fear in the guard’s eyes made her bite her