The guy is silent for too long. I can almost see the cogs ticking around in his brain, but I have no idea what the fuck is going on inside his mind, he’s clearly very dangerous. So, I stay where I am, hoping that he will see how pointless it would be to kill me, it wouldn’t solve anything.
“Problem is, idiot…” The blade presses in harder. “Boss wants you all dead. Sends a message, doesn’t it? Stops anyone else from trying to fuck with us like Stix, so you don’t get away. Even if you didn’t know anything, one more word and I’ll kill you.”
“Please don’t do this.” I’m not above begging for my life, even if it’s pointless. “Please. It doesn’t have to be this way. No one even knows me, no one knew me in the city, I’m a nobody …”
“Boss knows you though, doesn’t he? And he wants you dead. I don’t have a choice.”
Now it’s time to act. I shove him as hard as I can, relief flooding me as he staggers backwards. The shock gives me a minute to kick the knife out of his hand. I can’t run, I don’t know if I will be faster than this guy, but I can keep myself from getting stabbed.
“Just leave me alone,” I beg the guy as he pulls himself back up off the ground. “Tell your boss you killed me. I don’t care. I’m going to get as far away from here as possible anyway, and I won’t come back so no one will ever know. I never wanted this life, and I won’t ever be a part of it again, just let me go.”
“So, you think you’re better than me now?” Oh shit, I didn’t see this going that way. “You think I’m just gonna let you fuck off to be a lawyer or whatever? No way.”
The knife might be out of his hands, but a gun quickly replaces it. Now the fear really kicks in. I need to do something. A knife attack is something that I might be able to survive, a gunshot, not so much. This man looks like he’s shot a man or two, so there is not much of a chance of me being missed.
“No, stop,” I cry out with my hands in front of my face… not that they’ll protect me.
“No more fucking around.” he growls. “I got to prove my loyalty to the boss. Other assholes like you might have a chance to do other shit, but I don’t.”
He’s desperate, and desperate people can do desperate things. I need to think smart now or this hotel parking lot will be where I die. There’s a knife on the ground. I don’t want to use that, but I don’t want to die either, so if I move quick enough then I might be able to get out of here alive.
I just need to wait until the right moment and dive for it. I move slowly, with my eyes fixed on him the whole time so I can see what he’s doing. I’m not sure, but I think I see hesitation in him.
Maybe I was wrong before, maybe this will be his first time shooting someone and he isn’t sure that he wants to. In which case, I might win.
Then three things happen all at once. I make my move, I dive for the knife. There is a bang so loud that I feel my eardrums pop under the pressure of the sound. And finally, the world goes black around me.
Chapter 17 – Chloe
I’m only at the hospital to meet Alex when she finishes work because I can’t be at home crying and heart broken. I’m not even working, but of course I would snap in to action if there was an emergency. This really isn’t a clock in and out operation here, if I’m off for the day and still here and something happens…I jump back in. I’m not just here for the paycheck, I’m here to save lives. As I am waiting for Alex to get off, a shooting victim arrives and there isn’t enough people to help everyone here right now, so I scrub in.
We don’t get a lot of crime victims here, especially not shootings, so this is a little bit of a culture shock. There is a ton of blood. The only thing I can tell for sure is that the victim is a male. I get into nurse mode, because this guy is in bad shape. With the amount of blood lost, we’ve got to work fast, or this guy isn’t going to make it.
***
We work for hours and I’m exhausted. We did everything we could and despite our hard work, we lost him. He lost too much blood. This is the worst part of my job. Losing a patient. It really never gets easier.