His left arm hung useless at his side, and his right hand pressed against his ribs where fresh blood had soaked through layers of fabric. He still wore the hospital scrubs he'd stolen underneath.
"Help," he said. The word came out as barely more than a whisper.
I stared. He should have been unconscious—or worse. Nobody took a second wound that deep, fled a hospital, and made it three stories up without collapsing on the stairs. Sheer will or something darker had carried him this far.
Three floors. No elevator. I didn't even hear the stairwell door. Seattle prided itself on inclusion, but stairs were still the great gatekeeper. Elevator shafts didn't fit the budget—or the bones—of old warehouse lofts like this one.
How the hell is he still on his feet?
His eyes met mine—those same dark eyes that had tracked my movements in the ambulance, but now they were glassy with pain and exhaustion. He wasn't trying to figure me out anymore. He was pleading for assistance.
Blood dripped from his fingers onto the hallway's worn carpet. Each drop landed with an audible sound.
"Fuck." The word escaped before I could stop it.
His knees buckled. I lunged forward, catching him before he hit the floor, one hand sliding into an armpit and the other steadying his waist. He was heavier than he looked, all lean muscle and sharp angles.
"How did you—" I started, then stopped. Questions could wait. "Come on."
I pulled him inside, kicking the door shut behind us. The deadbolt sliding home echoed through my apartment like a gunshot. I heard my brother Michael's voice in my head—clear, stern, unrelenting. He'd say, "You're letting a potential fugitiveinto your home—a criminal." And still, I locked the door behind him.
The stranger sagged against my kitchen counter, one hand braced on the laminate surface while the other stayed pressed to his ribs. Blood seeped between his fingers, dark and thick. His breathing came in shallow huffs, like each inhale threatened to be the last.
Calling 911 would make sense. I could grab my phone and report a fugitive GSW patient who'd fled Harborview and turned up bleeding on my doorstep. The system would handle it with protocols designed to handle dangerous unknowns.
Hospital escapee. Gunshot victim. Possible renegade. It wasn't my problem to solve.
My phone sat on the counter three feet away, screen dark and waiting.
"Don't." The man's voice was raspy. "Please."
He didn't look at me with the flat, predatory stare I'd learned to recognize when called in to treat gang-inflicted bullet wounds. There was none of the cold calculation of someone who hurt people for money or pleasure or the sick thrill of power.
I saw fear.
"You fled a hospital," I said. "You're bleeding all over my kitchen. I'm supposed to—"
"I know… what you're supposed to do."
The words came slowly, like dragging them through mud. "But I'm…"—he swallowed hard—"I'm asking. Don't."
The honest simplicity of his request nearly floored me. No lies. No manipulation. No desperate story designed to earn my sympathy. Just a direct appeal from someone who had nowhere else to turn.
I started to reach for my phone and then stopped.
"Why did you come here? How do you even know where I live?"
He winced. "From the ambulance. McCabe. I—Seattle Fire, it said—on your jacket."
His gaze dropped to the blood pooling between us. His breath caught.
"Your name… You weren't… you're not nothing. I needed…"
He trailed off, eyelids fluttering.
"You needed what?"
"Someone who wouldn't… wouldn't ask questions."
