“Put the body on ice. This is what that little bitch gets for being so damn careless.” He spits her way and I shift my weight to my stronger side, blood soaking through my jeans.
Large arms grab hold of me, dragging me down a long hallway and into a freezing room. Who I assume is the doctor Stacey was arguing with earlier is standing by a metal table, shifting his glasses on his face with shaking hands. “You said the other guy was the last one.”
“Well, I lied.” Robinson shoves a table holding a set of medical tools. “This will be the last one.”
The doctor’s face pales. “I can’t. Please.” His words are thick with emotion. “You’ll have to get someone else. We had a deal.”
“Yeah, that was before you stabbed one of my guys in the neck and tried to run. You broke that deal yourself. Now do what I ask, or I make a phone call you don’t want me to make.”
The doctor’s chest rises and falls heavily as he looks down at his feet and slips on gloves from his pocket. “Okay. Get him strapped to the table.” He sounds so detached. I guess you’d have to be in order to do something like this time and time again. It’s me or his family. I’d do the same, wouldn’t I? I can’t say either way. No one can until they’re in that position, so who am I to judge him for being selfish—for choosing his loved ones over others?
The three larger men force me onto the table, securing me before the doctor brings a syringe to my neck. “You know I can’t work with all these people in here,” he says, his hand going still. “And I’m going to have to stop the bleeding on that leg.”
Robinson sighs. “Fine.” He gestures for his friends with the large guns to leave the room. “I’m staying, though. I need to make sure you don’t try to pull another fast one on me.”
The nervous man nods, slipping the needle under my neck and pushing down on the syringe. The liquid gushes out between me and the table instead of being injected into me, and a pair of round blue eyes focus on mine as if telling me something his mouth can’t. I hear him loud and clear and blink my eyes, pretending to struggle to stay awake.
“He’ll be out soon. While we wait, I’ll look that leg over.” He moves down to where I was shot, cutting my pants. His face scrunches up. “Just a flesh wound. We should close it up to be on the safe side, though.” Grabbing a pair of tweezers, he removes the bullet, and I do my best to hold still, pressing my teeth together so hard I swear I hear them starting to crack.
The wound gets cleaned and stitched up while Robinson’s eyes never leave us. My clothes are torn off next and I can tell the doc is stalling. What he has planned I don’t know, but I hope it goes better than all my ideas did. One thing I don’t have to worry about is Stacey reaching Silas before I do and causing him more damage than she already has.
Silas. Damn. His wife is dead and it’s because of me. I didn’t want it to be that way but there was no other choice. It was her or me. After what she did to my husband and her own, she didn’t deserve to have her life spared. I felt bad anyway—not for her but for him—for all the lies she told, for him being nearly killed to punish me, and everything in between. I accused him. I made him feel guilty on top of everything else he was going through.
Silas didn’t deserve that. But I was running on emotions and didn’t know what to trust, not after being constantly lied to and led astray. I still don’t. Did he really find me by accident? My husband’s heart might have brought us together but I stayed because of him. With him I was given a break from the pain and grief. With him I had more to focus on than all the bad around me.
Keeping still, I fight the urge to wince as the doctor drapes a paper covering over my lap, the thin material brushing over my freshly stitched leg. Out of nowhere the restraint on my center loosens, allowing me to wiggle my wrists. As the doc cuts off more of my shirt, he leans forward, tugging up the covering to hide the strap and my body even more. As I slip my hand out, I realize he tucked a knife underneath my hips and I wrap my fingers around the handle, keeping my eyes shut.
“You’re taking too damn long,” Robinson yells. “What are you hoping to achieve by taking your time? It’s going to have to happen no matter how slow you go, Doc.”
“I told you. I don’t like to be rushed. It’s hard for me to work like this.”
“Too fucking bad. You’ll have to learn to. I’m not giving you a choice today.”
Vibration comes from my left side and the doc’s hands tense.
“What the fuck was that?”
“I . . . I don’t know,” the doctor answers, not convincing anyone with his shaky tone. “Must be coming from you.” More vibrations rattle the table.
“What are you hiding in those pockets of yours, doctor?”
“Nothing . . . I swear. I only want to do my job and go home.” The doctor pulls his hands away from me and I hear a clicking sound.
“Empty your fucking pockets. Now.” Robinson’s footsteps rush behind my head and a loud whimper echoes around the room. I open my eyes to Robinson pressing the gun to the doctor’s temple with his back to me, plucking a blinking phone from the large white coat.
“What’s this?” Robinson raises the phone, his attention fully on the scared man with frantic blue eyes in front of him. “Where the hell did you get a phone?”
Before he can get an answer, I break free from the straps, and as I sit up I drive the knife into the crooked cop’s neck, twisting it as I continue pressing my hand forward. The gun goes off and the doctor drops to the floor with a loud crashing sound. Looking back at me with wide eyes, the cop sways back and forth, loosening his grip around the gun. I pull out the knife and blood sprays from his neck, his balance suffering as he makes choking sounds.
I swipe the gun from his hand and he crumples to the ground, grabbing at his neck. He’s spasming on the floor, gurgling blood as his eyes roll into the back of his head. The doctor lifts his head and scrambles to his feet, searching for the phone. “I hope they heard it all. I called the cops but I don’t know if . . .”
His words are cut off at the sound of shots being fired, and sirens go off in the background. Kicking off the rest of the straps, I climb off the table and yank the jacket off the still body on the floor. The door is busted open and Detective Samuels standson the other side, eyes watering and full of emotion. “Ollie? Is that . . . is that really you?”
My gaze bounces between him and the doctor, his mouth gapes open in surprise.
“You’ve been here this whole fucking time? I’ve searched all over the damn world, only for you to be minutes away from me?”
Men in uniforms rush around him holding guns, and the detective tells them to hold their fire while he listens to me explain what happened.
