by Kyanna Skye
“All right, fine.”
Here was a man that really cared about her, and could offer her anything she wanted, and she was punishing him. It wasn't right to give him grief, but any normal woman would wonder what was happening. Why was he forcing her to stay with him? Was there trouble with a rival gang, or maybe they were beings raided by the feds?
Those were things she should know about, but all he'd say was don't ask questions. It was enough to make her lose her mind. She should've been running out the door in fear for her life. Instead, she just lying on the couch with him moving his hand down her body.
His bandage had been redressed and cleaned. It stuck out the side of his arm. “Stop.”
“What?” He was suddenly serious and starting to get up.
“I just—why did you get shot, Tony?”
“Ah, screw this. Sleep in the guest room.”
Sometime, about halfway through the night, Tony crept back up to sleep with Lana. He walked in slowly, wearing nothing and holding a pillow. She let him slip into the sheets, and even let him put his arm around her waist, but the second his hand darted out to catch her breast she said, “Okay, tell me.” She sat up in the dark with her hands on her hips.
“Tell you what?”
She turned over and threw his arm off her. “You know exactly what. You’re coming back in here with your tail between your legs. Now you’re going to tell me why you got shot.”
“No.” He turned over to face the other direction and grabbed some of the blanket away from her.
“What do you mean, no?” She tried unsuccessfully to pull the blanket away from him. “You can’t just come back in here after pulling that.
“It’s my house. Besides, I was the one that chose to leave. You didn’t kick me out. So you don’t get to say when I come back.” He turned back over and rested his arm around her with his exposed body pressed against hers. All her anger seemed to wash away, leaving an infuriatingly sweet tenderness she couldn’t help but succumb to.
The next morning, when she woke, he was snoring softly, and mindlessly rubbing her nipple. She couldn’t help but giggle at the tickling feeling. She hopped up, butt-naked, and threw on a robe from the hook on the door, along with some slippers. Then she checked her phone.
She had to be at work in one hour and she needed a paycheck, so she wasn’t going to miss going this time. She bent down to kiss Tony before leaving, and he turned over with his legs open, smiling. His cock was sticking straight up, ready for her to wrap her lips around it.
That one, juicy moment would be enough to make her want to quit her job and stay there forever. She could do it, take him in every few hours that day and lounge about with a bowl of berries while they tested the limits of what their bodies were capable of.
“Come here.” He gently rested his hand on her.
She let her head drop for a moment, her thighs tingling. Even her mouth was wet. She could just have one taste and pull back when it was getting too late, but it was trap. He wouldn’t be satisfied with her mouth, and he had a way of moving. Once she touched her, he'd slip right in. He could have whatever he wanted, and he’d take it.
“I have to go to work today.”
“No. Stay home.” He sat up on his knees and rubbed his cock against her belly. “Let’s mess around.”
“If I do that, I’ll end up spending the entire day with you in bed, and lord knows I want to, but I have to work.”
“No.” He had a menacing grin. “You don’t have to work. Ever. Never. You could lay in bed every day of your life, eating truffles and drinking champagne.”
She stepped back and turned around. “I want to make one thing clear: you will not lavish me with gifts—no cars, no diamonds. I am an independent woman.” She turned back to him and met his eyes dead on. “I will develop an independent career, use my own money, and while I will enjoy some of the things your lifestyle has to offer, I will not throw myself into it.”
“You’re going to be rich, Lana. That comes with privilege—power. You can do things, make an impact on the world, and see things most men could only dream of seeing. I won't let you deny yourself that.”
“I will do things my own way. I won’t be utilizing your resources extensively.”
“Fine, but what about living here instead of in that nasty shack?”
“No, and I’m going to assert some control in this.” She stroked the head of his cock and walked away to get ready.
“Oh, come on!” She shut the bathroom door and made good time, glad that she would have the luxury of getting a ride from what might as well have been a race car driver.
She kissed him goodbye and ran headlong into a panic. Four men were screaming their lungs out with blood pouring out of some serious lacerations. The receptionist was trying to pick up the weight. The room was full of people, and most of them weren’t going to make it.
Lana rushed to check the patient closest to her. He had an arm wound, and it wasn’t bleeding too badly, so it was going to have to wait.
“That one!” The doctor pointed to a man across the room with a bullet on his shoulder. Blood was spraying everywhere. He stopped the bleeding while she removed the bullet, which had been lodged in the bone. Then she stitched him up and changed her gloves to rush to a man screaming, with blood pouring out of his chest. It was deep, near his heart. The man wasn’t going survive without intensive surgery. She watched as his body drained itself of his blood and his dark skin turned a tinge of purple.
When she pulled the sheet over the man's head, she noticed that his face had been tattooed with a mural of an Azteca blood God devouring its victims. Lana once heard that modern men who practiced one of the many Mesoa American religions believed that murder was something to be worshiped.
“They’re stupid, all of them, for getting into this.” She passed the doctor by to treat a gushing leg injury. The floor was slick with blood and tissue, a sign of the blood bath that had been going on all day, judging by the pale doctor’s black circles.
He dealt with the organ damage while the receptionist incinerated body after body.
“They’re dumb, but it’s a part of who they are. Who are we to judge them?” The doctor stitched up an arm wound and moved a dying patient to the incinerator so the patient could watch and wait for his corpse to be burned.
“Why is this happening?” Lana struggled to contain the bleeding of a man with a stomach wound. He would need surgery, but there might not be enough time. The doctor was already trying to stitch up a foot-long knife wound that slashed into a man’s arms.
“I need blood type O!” he screamed. Lana rushed into the locker and found five containers.
“We’ve got five left. Will he survive without it?”
“We’ll have to take the chance.”
“No!” The man, a bear capable of crushing the doctor’s skull, threw himself off the bed blindly. Then he shot up and slammed the doctor to the wall by the neck. The doctor’s face was turning blue. It was the patient or the doctor, but only one survivor would emerge.
“Back off! I’m bringing it!” She grabbed a bag, a hook, and walked over to the patient. “Now sit down or you ain’t getting nothing!” She pointed toward the bed and he pulled back obediently and sat back down on the bed.
“This is a waste. You people are killing your own selves.”
She jabbed the needle in his arm and he grabbed her, “Lady, I got two felonies. They won’t even take me at McDonalds. You think I wanna do this?” He scoffed. “Now get out of my face, you stuck-up, white bitch.”
She gladly moved on and stitched up one man after the next. She lost count, but if she had to estimate, nearly fifty men died that afternoon and they just kept coming in. At some point, the clinic had to turn them away, and let them either bleed to death or find some other way to get care. It got to where Lana couldn’t look out the window, because the men were lined up outside, bleeding, caring for their friends as best they could. They were desperate to survive while t
hey waited for their place in the clinic.
It was the most horrific thing that Lana had ever seen, men dying and wailing everywhere while the people bled out all over the pavement. Every time somebody died, Lana had to take them to the incinerator. She had to be the last person to see the men intact.
“You ever wonder what they were like?” the doctor asked while he grabbed a gurney to rush them into the OR.
“Every time, but with these guys, I already know.”
“You don’t know nothing about me or anyone else here, you dumb bitch.” I turned around to see a man with scraggly, white hair and wrinkled skin covered in tattoos. “You think I got a choice? Went down for possession of coke 20 years ago. Haven’t been able to get a job or a decent place since.”
He had a knife wound the size of her arm, but he was staring directly at her, barely reacting to the pain.
“Well get it fixed.” She began moving the tissue back into place, careful to hold back the bleeding while she did.
“You’re going to need an operation. Otherwise you’re going to bleed out. But....”
She didn't have to tell him that they would never get to him in time.
He struggled to sit up and pointed towards the medical cabinet. “Grab a stool and pull down the box on the top and bring it to me.”
“I’ve got things to do.”
“You’ll give a dying man his last wish,” he declared with authority.
She looked around. People were going to die no matter what. At least helping this man in his last hour would do some good. She used the stool to reach on top of the medical cabinet and pulled down a box covered in fine, black velvet with a golden carving of a snake eating its own tail.
She carefully brought it to the old man, who pulled out a sack of weed and what looked like an ancient, clay pipe. “Who are you?” she asked, mesmerized.
“Jean Lorrentz, retired head of the Lorrentz crime family.”
“Am I in danger?”
“Not yet. You’re Tony’s girl. He’s not involved in business, but I’d be careful. You don't wanna get seen. You should cover your face.”
The man broke up the weed like he’d been doing it every day of his life, then he loaded the pipe and took a puff without even coughing. “It’s been 25 years since I had a good bowl. Told myself it’d be the last thing I ever did. I knew I’d die here, so I figured I’d have a nurse hide some for me, along with this.” He pulled out a syringe filled with amber-colored liquid.
“Now, mind you I was part of the team that started this clinic.” He motioned for a tourniquet and she handed him one. “I get to go how I choose.”
Lana knew that assisted suicide happened all the time. It was a medical secret. There were some wounds so terrible they last for months, even years, eating away at the patient’s stamina. So it’s common practice for a nurse to give a little too much morphine. Doctors fake the death certificate and everything goes the way it’s supposed to. Every hospital in the world does it, because people need it.
But watching this man artfully string the tourniquet around his arm gave Lana a queasy feeling. He was going to overdose on heroin in front of her. When he stuck that needle in his vein, she cringed. This wasn’t assisted suicide. This was a man killing himself right in front of her. She’d never seen anyone just casually accept death, much less bring it on themselves. So far her experience with death had been completely confined to people who were going involuntarily, but this was different—sinister. No man should ever violate his natural survival instincts.
Even worse was the soft smile that came over him when the shot hit his veins and his head fell over while he drifted in an amber cloud of medicated bliss. No man could possibly have a more peaceful death. That’s why he did it.
“Stick him back in the OR.” The doctor came up behind her. “The family will want the body.”
“And they’ll be here to pick him up.” The thought of men from a rival gang coming to the clinic stopped her dead.
“It’s a neutral place and has been treated as such for more than a decade. Now hurry up. There’s a female patient and she needs buckshot removed.”
Lana rushed from person to person, saving some, losing others, and the stream of men kept on coming and coming. She wore two masks so nobody could see her face. This time, she wasn’t taking the risk. This was a war with heavy losses on both sides, and that would mean more bloodshed. Things could get worse.
“How are we going to help all of these people? What if it gets worse?” Lana was at the washing station, sanitizing her hands before she went home.
“We can’t help all of them. This room is all we have. It’s gruesome every time it gets like this. Sometimes the Carters and Lorentz have to come to take their men and dispose of them for fear anyone seeing the bodies in the parking lot, and more than one man has been left die to help the others, even when he could’ve been saved. Now,” he turned to her, “can you handle this?”
“I’m involved with Tony Carter.”
“Should a mark be put on your head or you compromise the safety of this clinic in any way, you will be let go immediately. Is that understood?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Go.” He ushered her out.
Lana didn't care that the blisters on her heels from running around the hospital were grating against her shoes, or that her body was screaming.
No.
She had just spent the entire day watching people lined up to die and she was going to get some answers. She raced up the cliffs and nearly drove her car off the road trying to make it past a twist. Why were those people there? What was happening? She wasn't going to believe the former leader of a rival gang. The old man could've easily been lying about whether or not she was in danger.
Words she never wanted to hear passed through her mind. War. Massacre. Blood feud.
That's what this would turn into when things came to a head. People were going to be surrounding the clinic, their bloody hands streaming against the windows, bodies filling the incinerator to capacity, all because of some stupid plants.
The entire time, she'd be running around, trying to clean up the losses of some stupid war she wasn't even supposed to ask about. Well, this was psychotic. She was ready to turn right around get out of town if she didn't get some answers.
She didn't care that they were gangsters. That was nothing. What she cared about was whether or not something was going on that would put her in danger, and no matter what anyone told her, she didn't have anything concrete that ensured her safety.
Tony could fight. He could probably handle a weapon, but if an entire troop of those men came to his door, he would die, and she'd have to live without ever knowing what it meant to be with him—to go running around naked on an island or fly in a private jet. Most of all, she would never know the joy of waking up to him for the rest of her life.
She loved him. She couldn't say it out loud. It would be the ultimate form of submission. The second she told Tony she loved him, he would have complete control of her. He could get her to do anything with a look. She couldn't love this man because he was in danger, and if she lost him she knew that she wasn't going to be the same.
The wound would grow and eat at her until she festered. Life would become meaningless, and she would just roll through the motions until she couldn't any longer. She didn't want to wait to die, sitting in front of a TV like the patients at Sunset Boulevards. She wanted to really live and experience life.
The only way she was going to live was if she stayed with Tony. Otherwise, she'd be stuck grinding away for nothing. Or she could leave, forget the whole episode, and take the heartache before it became completely overwhelming. Maybe she could leave. There would be crying fits, and some depression, but nursing jobs were in demand enough for her to get a job fast.
What if she showed up there and there were men surrounding the house, ready to burst in and kill him? The patriarch of the Lorrentz family was shot. That meant that the higher ups, the men wh
o ran the gang, were probably being singled out and killed.
Men like that wouldn't stop at the head of the gangs. They would go for their family, their children, and most of all their sons—the heirs to their empires. Pure dread poured down and settled in her gut. They were going to go after Tony.
She didn't care about death, not if she were being truly honest with herself. Lana cared more about what happened to Tony, and if the heads of the gangs were being killed, then he was in danger. He couldn't just hide this kind of thing from her.
She would leave if she had to. She would do it. He couldn't keep her in the dark, leaving her worrying every second of every day that she'd wake up and find him cold and pale. They'd burn him in the incinerator like the rest of the bodies, or cover his body in paint and display it at an open casket.
Nobody who loves somebody the way she loved him should ever face that kind of loss. If he wouldn't tell her what was going on, she'd have to leave Tony, because every time she closed her eyes, she saw his, glazed over facing hers with pale, blue skin.
She squealed her tires, pulling into the gravel lot, and slammed on the gas right before she reached the front. He jumped out of the house before she could get out of her car. When he was on her with his arms wrapped around her shoulders, she knew that she could never leave the man.
She backed up, slapped him in the face, and screamed, “You're going to tell me why I just saw two dozen men die today.”
“No.” He turned back around and walked into the house.
“Oh, no you don't!” She grabbed his arm and he whipped around so fast she nearly fell over.
“This fight is over!” He seemed ten times larger.
“No.” She stood on the doorstep. “It's not.” That took courage with him so close to her. He was so hot she could feel it coming off him. “You have no idea what I've just been through. Death after death. We had to have somebody man the incinerator so they could constantly throw bodies in. I watched a man with his eye socket blown out screaming while we took care of the patients that needed us more than he did. He died from blood loss. We don't have any blood left at all and right now there are people swarming the clinic with theirs gut spilling out in the parking lot because they are so full they don't have enough beds for critical patients. I have never been more disturbed in my entire life.” She lifted her foot, and threw her shoe off, slamming him in the face with it. “And these shoes! Digging into my heels.” She stepped forward, barefoot, and stared the beast head on. He stepped back.
