“You need to lay down at once, Ms. Davis!” he shouts, moving as quick as he can to stop me. The door locks shut, but I still hear him calling out for me.
“Code Orange. Code Orange,” is blared over the speakers.
I’m going to assume that’s for me. A runaway patient.
I’ve never felt so thrilled before. I also feel like puking, crying, and screaming in pain, but I have to pick and choose my battles. I press my back against another door, happy that I don’t have to use my arms.
The sun blinds me as I stumble out the door. The pavement is hot, and the heat doesn’t do much for my nausea. I search for a taxi, something that can take me out of here before I get caught. I lift my hand to block the bright light from my eyes and try to figure out my next move. There are a few cars parked in the entryway, empty.
No…
I couldn’t.
The bottom of my feet start to burn, and the sirens blaring ‘Code Orange’ aren’t going away anytime soon. Hissing, I run across the sizzling black pavement. I crouch low to the ground and hurry around the side of a silver Toyota Camry. A quick glance left and right, this is my chance since no one is coming.
I cross my fingers, reach for the door handle, and pull it open. My eyes cross from the wave of pain in my arm, and I slump against the seat. The air is thick, barely breathable, and sweat drips down my back, pooling at the waistband of my panties.
You deserve this.
The reminder has me flipping to my side and pressing my feet against the ground to push myself into an upright position.
“Damn it, it’s been too long since I’ve done this,” I mutter to myself, feeling the pressure of needing to get this done fast. I haven’t hotwired a car since I lived with my father. He lost his truck keys all the time. I had to learn how to drive somehow, and the only person I could depend on teaching me was me.
My bottom lip trembles as my hand rips the panel away underneath the steering wheel to the left. I can’t handle much more pain, or I’ll pass out. I blink the sweat away from my eyes to clear my vision and bend over, grabbing the two wires. I take the red wire and the green one, rip the ends off with my teeth, and press the copper together.
“Woah!” It sparks, and I flinch away, not wanting to get it in my eyes. I hate I have to use this old trick, but it’s my only option. The engine struggles to start the first few times I press the wires together. “Come on!” I yell at the damn thing. I rub the wires together, holding them against one another for a few seconds longer, and then the engine starts.
“Holy shit, I did it.” The gauges work, the car is on, the a/c is blowing. I glance to my right to see three security guards, and I bet they are all for me. “Not today, guys. I’m not in the mood for a foursome,” I say, slamming the car in drive and press my foot to the gas. I wish I could drive out of there like a bat out of hell, but I need to be nonchalant.
I flick the hospital off as I get onto the main road and grimace when I see blood seeping through my bandages.
Shit. Eric is going to kill me.
I wipe my forehead with my arm and keep two hands on the wheel, holding on tight since I feel like I’m about to pass out. I can’t. One, I’ll wreck. Two, I’ll get caught. Three, I’ll get charged with grand theft auto. Four, I’ll probably get thrown into a mental institution. Five, I’m pregnant, and I don’t know what happens to babies when their mother gives birth to them behind bars.
The sane part of me knows that what I’m doing is crazy, to risk my freedom to get out of the hospital to go help my friends.
If it means I’m insane for wanting to be there for the only people who have ever given one damn about me, then I guess I’m crazy.
“Hey! Hey, Patrick, look at me, look at me.” I turn Patrick’s head as he spurts blood from his mouth. He has a gunshot wound to the abdomen. Those are the worst to treat. He’s losing too much blood.
The place looks like a fucking graveyard. I feel like I’m surrounded by death. I press my hand against his wound, and thick streams of blood slip through my fingers. “You better listen to me—you better fucking live. Sunnie needs you. We all need you. Okay?”
“Will do my best, Doc.” Patrick coughs, sputtering a spray of blood between his lips.
I turn him over, checking for an exit wound, and breathe a sigh of relief when I see one. “Okay, that’s good. Through and through. I need to operate, now. Reaper!” I call out for someone who can help me. “Patrick, buddy, you’re going to be just fine. Okay?” This can’t be happening.
It’s karma. It’s because I thought about how I wished I was busier or had more extreme things happen, and then the entire clubhouse gets shot at, and now I’m not sure if Patrick is going to live. He’s losing too much blood.
“Where’s Sunnie?” he asks, trying to move away from me to find her. “I need Sunnie. Sunnie!” he calls for her, but I have no idea where she is. I don’t know if she has a bullet in her brain or not.
“Damn it, Patrick. Stop moving! You won’t ever see her again, if you don’t listen to me.”
“I’m dying, Doc. Don’t bullshit me.”
“You aren’t dying. When have I ever let one of you die? I’m not starting today.”
He lays a dirty hand on top of mine that’s plugging the hole in his stomach. “The last face I want to see isn’t your ugly mug; sorry, Doc.”
“What do you need?” Reaper finally comes to my side. He has blood smeared on his cheek, a bullet wound in his bicep, but he is one of the only ones who can help me.
“I need him downstairs in the operating room now.” I lean toward Reaper’s ear and whisper, “He doesn’t have long, Reaper. If I can’t find the bleeding, Patrick is as good as gone.”
Reaper lifts Patrick into his arms and carries him inside the front door that’s dented with dozens of bullets. The windows are broken, shattered shards scattered across the ground. There is glass everywhere. On the pool table, the couches, and there is one piece sticking out of a cut-slut’s neck. Jasmine. She’s sagged against the wall, eyes vacant. She’s dead.
There’s another cut-slut, Candy, Bullseye’s favorite, she’s dead too. A bullet caught her between the eyes, and she is laying face down, head turned to the side. Her face still has color which means her body is still warm. The blood is still flowing from the hole in her head, creating a puddle.
I don’t have time to check on anyone else right now. My focus is on Patrick.
“Patrick? Where is he!”
Fuck, Sunnie. She sounds hysterical.
She runs into the hallway, blood in her hair, and she cries when she sees Patrick in Reaper’s arms. She almost falls, thinking he’s dead, when the bastard decides to speak. “There’s my sunshine.”
She gasps and grabs ahold of his hand as we make our way toward the basement. “You’re alive. You have to live, okay? Please don’t die. I love you. We have forever, remember? We’ve been through too much; please, Patrick.”
“My soul is going to have to be taken from my body before I ever decide to leave you, Sunnie.”
She’s wailing, loud, ear-piercing cries that make it hard to think. I open the door, and jump down the stairs, and fly into the operating room. I get everything prepared. I don’t scrub in because there isn’t time. If I don’t get inside his abdomen within the next three minutes, I won’t be able to save him.