Critical Condition

by CJ Lyons

  “What are you talking about?” She was afraid she already knew.

  “My men control Angels of Mercy. They’re holding everyone there hostage. One word from me and they’ll kill them all.” He raised the radio to his lips.

  Lydia jumped to her feet, took one step toward him—and away from Trey, freeing his line of fire to the second man, Smith. “No! Please, no. Don’t.”

  He lowered the radio, his smile sliding across his face like a knife’s edge. “You have three seconds. Tell me where the video is.”

  Lydia didn’t dare risk a glance at Trey. But somehow, despite the distance between them, she knew he was ready, knew he knew which way she would go. It was as if their bodies needed no words to guide them, just like when they made love. At least she hoped so, because she was risking more than only their two lives on her next move.

  “I don’t need three seconds,” she said, sidling a little more to the right. “I’ll give it to you right now.”

  Black relaxed the tiniest bit, seemed reassured to learn that Lydia had been lying to him, that she had what he wanted all along. As if in his world, a lie was more certain than the truth. Lydia was glad she’d never grown up in that world—for all her faults, everything Maria had done, even sacrificing her life, had been for the love of her daughter.

  Lydia hoped she could one day be a tenth the mother Maria had been.

  She reached toward the bookcase on the other side of the man, the one that held not only stacks of her books but also Trey’s shoot-’em-up videos and DVDs. Both men followed her motion, their guns tracking away from Trey for one critical moment.

  As Trey stood, bringing his right arm up from under the afghan, Lydia feinted, drawing Black’s attention. He pivoted to face her, but she charged, pushing his gun arm—he was a lefty, like her—up as they crashed into the mantel.

  A shot rang out, followed by another. Behind Lydia, Trey and Smith grappled, overturning the bookcase, and falling into the ground.

  She wanted to turn to look to see if Trey was okay, but couldn’t. Lydia kneed Black in his groin, putting nearly thirty years’ worth of fury and fear into the blow. He doubled over, his gun falling to the floor.

  She scrambled for his gun, retrieving it just as Trey separated himself from the second man and swung to aim at Black.

  “Drop the gun!” Trey shouted, sounding just like a Hollywood cop before he saw that she’d already taken care of business.

  “I got him, Trey.” She heaved in a breath, then backed up so she could cover both men. “Get the radios and check them for more weapons.”

  Trey didn’t even look in Lydia’s direction but stayed focused as he retrieved the guns and radios, placing them out of reach on the end table. Smith was crumpled on the floor, blood streaming from a bullet wound in his leg, right around his kneecap. Another bullet had shattered a planter beside him.

  “Nice shooting,” she told Trey.

  “Said I didn’t like guns. Never said I couldn’t shoot them.” He went into the kitchen and returned with the first-aid kit, making quick work of binding the man’s wound.

  “My climbing rope and knives are in the hall closet.” Lydia kept guard over the men while Trey went back out to the hall to retrieve them.

  Once his pain subsided, her father sat up, staring at her. “You’re just like your mother,” he said. “An untrustworthy bitch.”

  Laughter bubbled out of Lydia as the irony of the situation became too much to bear. “No. It seems I’m just like you.”

  Black glared at her, even as Trey returned carrying the rope, knives, and two sturdy dining room chairs. He hauled the men into the chairs and quickly secured them.

  “They’re not going anywhere.” Trey handed her Sandy’s gun, which she returned to her holster. Lydia took her knife—her favorite, a Ken Onion—and examined it in the firelight.

  “Shouldn’t we get to Angels?” Trey asked, a hint of anxiety that only Lydia would be able to detect in his voice.

  She ignored him. She held the blunt edge of the knife to her father’s jugular and pressed hard enough to collapse the vein. “Do you know that I killed a man?” She didn’t wait for his answer. “You need to know that. You need to understand that I want to kill you—that I could kill you.”

  She slid the knife a centimeter away, allowing him room to swallow and breathe. His eyes had a new light in them, something she felt ashamed for inspiring. Fear. She was more like him than Maria. The knowledge scared her, but she didn’t relent. She couldn’t—he threatened everything she had fought for. “Do you understand that?”

  Black nodded.

  “Do you want me to kill you?”

  He seemed surprised she was giving him a choice. He glared at her—just as stubborn as she was—for a long moment before his face revealed his surrender. Lydia felt no joy or triumph. Just disgust.

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. Call your men off.”

  He shook his head, a sly smile playing across his lips. “I can’t. No one can.”

  Lydia and Trey exchanged glances. Trey jerked the chair violently, almost crashing it to the floor. “Call them off now!”

  “After my first man failed, I called in a more motivated crew. Highly skilled and relentless. They all have felony convictions, all have current felony warrants. They know the price for failure is the death penalty. Now that they have control of the hospital, they’d rather burn it down and kill everyone in it to cover their tracks than leave potential witnesses behind. Especially Harris—he’s with me on the video of your grandfather’s murder. He has nothing to lose—if we don’t walk away clean, he’s a dead man.”

  Lydia stared out the French doors at the black void in the skyline—the void where the lights of Angels normally shone. “We have to stop them.”

  “You can’t.” Her father laughed, amused that they were just as helpless and powerless as he was. “Nobody can. Those people are as good as dead already. But you can save yourselves. Let us go. You keep my secret and I’ll never tell anyone that you let a hospital full of people die in order to save your own lives.”

  THE GUARD KEPT PULLING THE TRIGGER ON HIS machine gun long after he ran out of bullets. Finally, he threw the gun to the ground in frustration.

  “Everyone just calm down,” Nora yelled, trying to engage the guard’s attention.

  Thank God his partner still slept, curled up with his own machine gun, oblivious. The wonders of a little Versed. She just wished this one had reacted the same way.

  “Just stay calm.” She looked the guard in the eye, nodding her head slowly as if they shared a common goal. “That man is a doctor. He’s here to help. He won’t hurt you. I’m going to go help him. See if he’s hurt.”

  As she spoke, her voice calm and level as if singing a lullaby to a colicky newborn, she backed down the aisle toward the stage, toward where Lucas lay, and where Mark Cohen and his stretcher still blocked the hole in the wall. The guard stayed where he was, a blank expression on his face. She was tempted to go back and take his partner’s weapons, but Lucas needed her.

  She’d just reached the stage when the auditorium door burst open. Harris and the South African ran inside, guns drawn, scanning the almost-empty auditorium.

  “What the hell?” Harris shouted, sounding like a petulant child whose toys had been taken from him. “Where is everyone?”

  Nora ignored him, checking Lucas’s wound—it didn’t look serious—and ensuring that Mark was okay. The ER department head was still sleeping from the hefty dose of morphine Melissa had given him. Nice that someone wouldn’t have nightmares about this, at least. She chided herself immediately, remembering the anguish Mark had felt when he lost Jim.

  She looked around the stage. Only one more patient remained on the floor behind the curtain, crutches beside him as he squirmed through the opening in the wall. Mr. Olsen from the zoo. The penguin man.

  There were more people hidden in the seating area. If they were smart, they’d keep their heads do
wn and stay quiet until Nora figured out a way to calm Harris down.

  She caught sight of the expression on Harris’s face as he kicked the sleeping guard, unable to stir him, and wished Seth were here. No, not here, she didn’t want Seth anywhere near—she just wished she had a chance to talk to him one last time. About something more important than the Nittany Lions. Wished she’d told him what he meant to her.

  Harris bent over and took the sleeping guard’s pistol. Then he shot him point-blank in the face. When the other guard, who was now waltzing with his machine gun, turned at the sound, Harris shot him as well.

  “Want me to collect the evidence?” the South African asked, drawing his knife.

  “No. Don’t bother.”

  The South African looked puzzled. “But Mr. Black said—”

  “Screw Mr. Black. Mr. Almighty Black isn’t answering his radio. Either Mr. Black has left town, leaving us to hold the bag, or he’s dead.”

  “So, you want me to just kill them all now?” The South African made it sound as easy as deciding on cream or sugar for his coffee.

  “Yes.”

  The South African raised his machine gun.

  Nora glanced up wearily. She was so damn tired of guns pointed at her that she almost didn’t care. She was tired of being a pawn to these men. Something of no value.

  “You don’t want to do that,” she called out from her position on the stage.

  She stood up, making herself a target but also towering above them, forcing the men to look up at her. Finally, for the first time since Tillman had tried to usurp her power earlier today, she felt like a charge nurse.

  “Wait.” Harris gestured for the South African to lower his weapon. “Let’s hear what she has to say.”

  AMANDA LED HER NOT-SO-MERRY BAND THROUGH the dark cafeteria and out into the blackened hallways leading to the ER. Jerry trailed at the rear of the group, pushing the stragglers to move faster and ensuring that no one got left behind. It would have been a good system if she had any idea where in hell she was going.

  Her one thought was to get the others to someplace where they could wait safely and get back to Lucas. She kept seeing him fall, seeing the blood, over and over again and couldn’t turn the image off.

  They turned down the rear hallway of the ER, headed toward the intersection with the corridor containing the locker rooms, OR 13, and the OB-GYN room. The tunnels, that was their best bet, she decided. All she could hope was that Harris didn’t know about them or have enough men to cover them and she could use them to get to the research tower and the others.

  Then she could return for Lucas.

  GINA PARKED LAROSE BESIDE THE EXAM TABLE, banging her hip on the stirrups. The one thing the OB-GYN room didn’t have was TPA. The ER’s stash would be locked up in the computerized drug dispenser or down in the auditorium with Nora, but Gina knew where there was one unsecured source: the transport team’s medical bags. She set her Maglite on the counter so LaRose wouldn’t be left alone in the dark.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said. To her surprise, LaRose grabbed her arm with her good hand, tugging hard, bringing her daughter’s ear to her mouth.

  “Careful.” Gina could barely make out the word, it was so slurred. “Love. You.”

  Gina was glad for the darkness; it hid her furious blinking, fighting tears.

  “It’s going to be all right,” she whispered back, hugging LaRose—the first time she could remember embracing her mother in decades. What an idiot she’d been, playing along with her parents’ power games and warped reality instead of just loving them the way she wanted to.

  She slipped back out into the hall, down to the transport nurses’ office, and quickly retrieved the med bag. Her penlight finally died as she made her way back to LaRose, but she knew these halls well enough to navigate them in the darkness.

  As she was passing the door to the men’s locker room, the door opened and a hand grabbed her, jerking her off balance.

  Before she could scream, another hand clamped over her mouth and she was hauled inside.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “IT’S ME,” CAME AMANDA’S VOICE.

  Gina’s pounding pulse choked her words. Damn, she hadn’t thought she had any adrenaline left, but suddenly she was spilling over with it, gut twisting, fingers trembling, toes tingling.

  Two flashlights clicked on, revealing Amanda and Jerry.

  “Gina,” Jerry said, rushing to hug her. “You’re here.”

  He tasted of plaster, smelled of sweat, but he was warm and whole and there, really there, she wasn’t imagining it.

  Gina’s mind couldn’t comprehend the reality, and for a moment she froze until her brain could reboot. She buried her head in his neck, kissing and inhaling and absorbing the facts her senses told her were true.

  Jerry was here, alive. Joy surged through her, drowning out any doubts or fears. He was here, right here in her arms again.

  She could have stayed there kissing him until the next New Year’s. Finally, she remembered LaRose and reluctantly pushed him away—not too far, just far enough that she could breathe.

  “LaRose had a stroke.” Gina gave them the PowerPoint version of their odyssey. “I need to get her this TPA. She’s in the OB-GYN room.”

  “I can do that.” A woman’s voice came from the shadows between the rows of lockers. Melissa, one of the ER nurses, came forward.

  Gina handed her the transport bag. “Everything you need should be in there.”

  Amanda stood watch by the door, holding her gun at the ready like a James Bond girl. She cracked the door, checked the hall, then held it open far enough for Melissa to pass.

  Jerry’s light hit her, and Gina barely contained her laughter. Amanda’s blond hair was streaked with dirt and cobwebs, her pale skin was smeared with gray powder and black grime, her dress—Gina’s dress—was in tatters, and she was barefoot. “What the hell happened to my Manolo Blahniks?”

  Gina didn’t really care about the shoes, just wanted to see a smile—Amanda was always smiling—replace the look of desperate anger her friend now wore.

  “They got Lucas.” Amanda’s voice had no tears; instead it was resolute.

  Then the light caught her eyes. Gina was wrong. She didn’t look like a James Bond glamour girl. She looked like Rambo. Ready to kill to avenge the man she loved.

  “They’re in the auditorium, but I think there’s only two or three guards now.” Amanda quickly filled Gina in on their hostage rescue and how it ended.

  “So Jim’s dead?” A heavy blow hit Gina midchest at the thought. Now she knew who she had killed with her stupid attempt at bluffing Harris. It seemed like a lifetime ago, a murky distant memory, but she knew she’d never be able to totally forget or forgive herself.

  “We can’t just run,” she told them. “Harris rigged the backup generator to blow. If it goes, the entire hospital will go up in flames. We have to stop him.”

  “How? I have six bullets left. How many do you have?” Amanda nodded to the gun in Gina’s pocket. Gina had forgotten about the damn thing.

  “None. It’s empty.”

  “Not a big help.”

  “We need to split up. Take out Harris and his men. And get Harris away from his radio, the detonator.”

  “Sure, sounds easy—in theory,” Amanda said, sounding more like cynical Gina than Gina herself did. Since when did Gina become the optimistic one?

  “We take the fight to them.”

  “Best defense,” Jerry said, taking Gina’s hand and swinging it back and forth as if they were in the schoolyard planning a bout of capture the flag.

  “Exactly. If there’s only two or three of them left, they can’t cover both doors and the hole in the wall you guys created. Who has the greater firepower?”

  “The South African,” Amanda said. “He has both a machine gun and a pistol.”

  “So you two go in the main doors, one to each entrance. Amanda, you act as a decoy, get the South African’s attention. Jerry
can take him from behind.”

  “No,” Jerry said.

  “He’s right. He’s still pretty unsteady,” Amanda said.

  Gina knew that, but if he was too unsteady to threaten a man at a distance, how could she possibly let Jerry get close enough to be a decoy? He’d never move fast enough to get out of the line of fire.

  “I can do it.” Jerry grabbed her hand, squeezing. He knew what she was thinking. Just like he used to.

  A faint hope flickered to life in Gina’s heart, and she squeezed back. “You sure?”

  He nodded.

  “Amanda, you okay taking down the South African?”

  “No problem. But how do we keep Harris from detonating the generator?”

  “That’s my job. You threaten him, get him running. I’ll be waiting.”

  Jerry reached for Gina again. “No. Stay here. Stay safe.”

  Gina swallowed her laughter. They wouldn’t understand. But safety wasn’t an option. Not anymore. Not if she could take out Harris and finish this now.

  IT BECAME CLEAR VERY FAST THAT LYDIA’S FATHER—the thought of those two words together when face-to-face with this killer made her gag—wouldn’t tell them how to stop Harris from burning down Angels. If he even knew.

  Instead he insisted on playing mind games with them, alternating between threatening them with dire consequences and trying to bribe them, saying he had access to vast amounts of wealth and power. Lydia tuned him out, which only infuriated him more.

  “Do you have any idea who I am?” he demanded.

  “Yeah. You’re the guy who gets to sit in the dark with his buddy until the cops get here.”

  After making sure that he and the other shooter were securely restrained, Lydia and Trey ran back out to Bessie. Lydia tried to call Angels while Trey drove. No luck. She used the radio to call the emergency response center and learned that Janet Kwon had just requested a SWAT team to Angels, but they were still en route. She asked the operator to dispatch police to her address to pick up her father and Smith.