The computer wasn’t currently her friend, and Cassidy decided it was best not to randomly start punching in codes that could potentially lock it up altogether. In the distance, she could still hear the alarm that was doing its job and wished she could somehow communicate with it through telepathy.

Brandon’s footsteps were discernible to her ear by now, and she heard him slow down as he approached the desk. “Jamie and Cadence are giving her the blood transfusion now,” he said, standing back a good two feet from the glass partition, his hands in his pockets. “They still don’t know if it’s going to work, but Cadence seemed to...