He might not be thanking me if he knew that I reported him to my school. But I’m no dummy, so I take the money.
Just as I’m stuffing the bills into my wallet, there is a loud banging on the door to the clinic. A hoarse voice on the other side of the door yells, “You in there, Kovak? Let me in!”
“Shit,” Kovak mutters under his breath.
I look at him, confused. “Should we let him in?”
“We definitely should not.”
The banging continues, growing louder by the second. Whoever is behind the door is not going away. “Let me in! You can’t cut me off that way!”
Quietly, Novak lifts up a potted plant in the corner of the room, revealing a key hidden beneath. He brings the key back to the desk and unlocks the bottom drawer. He pulls out the gun nestled within and lays it down on the table.
My heart is ratcheting in my chest. “You don’t need a gun. I’m here.”
“Trust me,” he says. “You won’t be able to handle him on your own.”
Just as he says the words, the lock on the door splinters as it bursts open. The man standing before us is almost as big as I am, reeking ofsweat, with his pupils so large that his eyes look black. His face is bright red, nearly purple.
And there’s a knife clutched in his right hand.
Kovak is right. I can’t take this guy on my own, not with a knife in his hand. But when Kovak raises the gun and points it at him, I am desperate to keep this from happening.
“You need to walk away, Hooper,” Kovak says.
But the man isn’t stopping. He barrels forward, his teeth bared. It’s clear that Kovak doesn’t want to shoot him, though, and that hesitation costs him. In a split second, the man, Hooper—unclear if that’s his first or last name—has crossed the room and twisted the gun out of Kovak’s hand. The gun falls to the floor as Hooper presses the blade of the knife against Kovak’s throat.
“I want everything you’ve got,” he snarls. “All the money and all the drugs.” He looks up at me with his black pupils. “Get it right now, or he dies.”
“The kid doesn’t know where all that stuff is,” Kovak manages. “I can get it for you if you let me go.”
“Stop stalling!” the man snaps at him. “I want itnow!”
Hooper presses the knife into Kovak’s neck, slicing through his skin so that a drop of blood trickles down his throat. This guy is not listening to reason. He is going to murder my boss right here and right now.
Unless I do something to stop him.
The gun that fell out of Kovak’s hand is still on the floor. Hooper is too high to even register that it’s there. I have to be quick because if he figures out what I’m doing, he will kill Kovak. But if I don’t grab that gun, he might kill us both.
I do it fast. I scrape the gun up off the floor and wrap my fingers around it, pointing the muzzle in Hooper’s direction. All I meant to do was threaten him so he’d let go of Kovak, but the second he sees the gun in my hand, he loses his shit. He pushes Kovak to the floor and turns his attention to me.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he growls at me. “You don’t even know how to use that thing!”
Well, he’s right about that. I’ve never shot a gun before. But it seems pretty self-explanatory.
Either way, I’m about to find out. Because this man is coming at me. And he is not stopping.
I pull the trigger on the gun. The shot that rings out is startlingly loud, and the kickback is strong enough that I almost feel like I’ve been shot. But the effect is instant. Hooper stopsmoving, his body goes limp, and he drops to the floor like a ragdoll.
I’ve never shot anyone before, but I was right—it wasn’t hard. On my very first try, I nailed Hooper right in the chest. He’s now lying on the floor, his eyes open but his body very still, and there is a pool of blood rapidly growing beneath him.
Oh Christ.
“He… he’s dead,” I choke out.
“No shit,” Kovak breathes.
I thought I was in trouble before, when I was simply working at a clinic where I suspected drugs were being sold. But now, things are much, much worse. I have murdered a man. I shot him, and now he’s dead at my feet.
