by Lisa Ladew
The phone squawked and she looked at it, not picking it back up. She was forgetting something. What? It came to her like a brick on her foot. The doors were chained shut. No one was going to be able to get in to her. And West didn’t have time for her to sit here and wait for someone to figure it out. She stood, looking at the two bodies in the room. She didn’t want to leave West in here with the killer, but what choice did she have? She couldn’t move either man.
She should shoot the bastard again. Make sure he was really dead. Her right thumb caressed the safety on the gun she was still holding, as she considered it. But if she did that, she would go to prison for sure.
She walked to him, watching him closely for signs of life. If he was breathing, it was shallow. She drew close, the gun pointed right at his face. His hands were splayed out and she stepped on his fingers, hard, putting all her weight into it and bouncing a little. He didn’t respond. It had to be good enough.
She ran out the door as fast as she could, to the front, intending to break a window. She put the gun down on the desk, picked up a circular, steel garbage can, and heaved it at a window. It bounced off. She bit her lip and ran to the window, examining it. It was thick, and crisscrossed with chicken wire in the middle. She would have to shoot it. She ran back to her gun and grabbed it up, turning quickly to take her stance again, then thumbing off the safety.
Outside, sirens sounded close by, and she froze, then put the safety back on. It was a police car. She couldn’t shoot now. They would think she was shooting at them and shoot back. She would have to try to explain all this to a dispatcher. Her heart sunk at how long that could take … unless -
She ran to the chains on the door and examined them. A heavy padlock held them shut. And the key would be … of course!
She sprinted back to the room where the killer and the hero lay, praying they both were as she left them. They were. She thumbed the safety off one more time, pointing it at the killer. She stepped on his hand again and bent over, pressing the gun into his stomach, her finger curled on the trigger. If he moved at all, she would fire and try to explain it later. She watched him closely, the silence in the room pressing on her, and felt his pants pocket. The key was there, heavy and rigid, in the first one she tried. She dug her hand in and pulled it out, denying herself the emotions of revulsion and terror. She didn’t have time for them.
Key in hand, she ran back to the door, thumbing the gun’s safety on again. Her fingers did the work automatically.
Someone was pounding on the door. “Police!”
“The door is locked! I found the key! I’ll open it right now,” she yelled back.
She stuck the key in the lock and twisted it. The padlock popped open and she stared at it dumbly, not believing that it had been that easy. She pulled it free of the chain and tossed it to the ground, then pulled the heavy chain away from the door. Immediately the door opened and she found herself looking down the barrel of a police officer’s gun.
“Drop your weapon!” he shouted. Katerina froze, eyes wide. She had her gun in her hand. You never drop a gun. Ever. It could fire when it hit the ground. But did she have a choice? The officer yelled again and jerked his gun slightly upwards. Katerina dropped her gun and winced as it clattered to the ground.
“Turn around! Put your hands on the desk!”
Katerina did, but knew she had to explain herself quickly, or end up in the back of a squad car, unable to help West.
“I called you! There’s a paramedic back there who is going to die if you don’t let me help him. He was injected with something but the doctors won’t know what it is. He’s Officer Blaise …” Katerina cursed that she didn’t know Blaise’s last name. “You have a police officer named Blaise, I forget his last name, but he’s this guys best friend. He knows me.” She just kept talking, knowing she had to get through to the police officer, had to not be arrested and taken to the police station. If she was, West was dead for sure.
The officer held her tightly to the desk and frisked her, checking her up and down for weapons. He reached into her pocket and pulled out her keys and her license, then stepped back. Short-lived relief flooded through Katerina. She turned around and saw another police officer picking up her gun.
She pointed. “They are this way.” The sound of another siren drifted in the double doors. Katerina saw the ambulance enter the parking lot and her heart beat faster with hope. Could they do it? Could they get West to the hospital in time to save his life? She knew what he needed. She’d plucked it from the killer’s mind like picking a raspberry.
She stepped past the police officer tentatively, not sure if he would let her go or not. He did. The ambulance pulled up close to the double doors and one paramedic was out before the driver even had it in park.
“You need the gurney!” She yelled to him. “You’ve got to grab and go, he only has a few minutes to live and you don’t have the medication he needs on board the ambulance!”
The paramedic only looked at her for a moment and she froze in fear. Would he believe her? But then he moved, quickly, to the back of the ambulance and pulled out the gurney. His partner came around and took the other end, and they all followed Katerina into the heart of the morgue.
As they entered the room, Katerina could immediately tell that nothing had changed. She ran to West and dropped to her knees next to him, fitting her fingers into the groove on his neck. He still had a pulse. She picked up his arm and checked his watch. Nine minutes. Only nine minutes.
She looked up, expecting the paramedics to be right there, dropping the gurney down and preparing to pick him up already. But one of them was with the killer and the other looked indecisive. Fear and frustration spiked inside her.
“He’s the one who tried to kill us, please, you have to take this man now. Don’t you know him? It’s West. West Shepherd.”
Both paramedics heads jerked her way as she said his name. One of them spoke into his radio and Katerina understood that he was telling the second ambulance they had a gunshot victim and asking for their ETA. Thank God.
They brought the gurney over and put West on it quickly. Katerina started explaining to them exactly what had happened.
“So what’s the counteragent for this paralytic?” one of the paramedics asked.
“It’s call 4-AP, it’s for multiple sclerosis.”
“Dose?” the paramedic asked.
Katerina shook her head. The killer hadn’t known, so she didn’t either.
“Okay, we’ll get on the line with the hospital and make sure they have some ready for us.”
Katerina said a silent prayer. It was the best she could hope for.
***
Katerina followed the paramedics into the hospital, the sight of West limp and unconscious on the gurney breaking her heart. She didn’t know how much time he had left, but it couldn’t be more than a minute or two.
In the emergency room, there was already a room waiting for him. A nurse showed them right in and blocked Katerina from entering. She didn’t have the strength to argue. She had started to feel black and fuzzy around the edges. Her vision was blurring, and her own thoughts were being crowded out by memories that didn’t belong to her.
She watched from the doorway as a frenzy of activity materialized around West. The paramedics listed West’s vital signs and announced to the room everything Katerina had told them. As the nurses swapped hospital equipment for ambulance equipment, they reported their own findings. The doctor didn’t even appear to be listening – he was shining a light into West’s eyes and then listening to his heart and lungs with a stethoscope. Katerina should have been able to understand everything everyone was saying, but the blurriness in her brain was crowding out any comprehension. She looked around for a chair but didn’t see one. She held onto the door instead and watched the crowd in the room. The frenzy of activity ratcheted up, and Katerina shook her head, trying to clear it so she could understand why.
A look at West’s heart monitor stopped he
r breath in her throat. It was a flat line. Asystole. Dead. Katerina screamed inside her own head. She would have screamed out loud if she had been able to draw a breath.
“Get the 4-AP on board!” the doctor bellowed. “Let’s try 5 mg per kilogram.”
Katerina bit her tongue as she watched the nurse perform a lightning quick calculation. The syringe flashed, and the medication flooded into the IV tubing.
Katerina watched in utter disbelief as a nurse climbed onto a stool and began CPR on West. He couldn’t die. He was the hero in this misadventure, and the hero wasn’t supposed to die. He had saved her. But she hadn’t been able to save him.
The doctor waved the nurse off after only a few compressions and everybody held their breath and stared at the monitor. The doctor shook his head and motioned to the nurse to start again.
The nurse found her landmarks and positioned her weight over West’s chest. Beep. A single beat crossed the monitor. Then two more marched past, and then a normal sinus rhythm appeared. The medical personnel in the room erupted in triumphant yells.
Not one of them noticed when the woman who had been standing in the doorway fell face-first onto the floor.
Chapter 25
West blinked, trying to assign some context to who he was and what was going on. His hands flew to his legs as he remembered being stabbed. He shot straight up in his bed, a name on his lips. “Katerina!”
He looked around the room wildly, trying to figure out where he was. A hospital room. A hospital bed. But that didn’t make any sense. He pushed himself forward and wrestled with the safety arm on the bed, dropping it and trying to swing his legs over the edge. Blinding pain lanced through each leg. He gritted his teeth and kept moving. Cords and wires entangled him. He ripped them off and a beeping sounded through the room.
In the corner, something moved. West raised his hands, ready to fight.
But it was Blaise, still in uniform, pulling himself out of sleep. Blaise stood and approached him, a joyful smile on his face. “West, man, you’re okay.”
Before West could answer, the door to the room bounced open and a concerned looking nurse in green scrubs hurried in. When she saw West was awake, relief crossed her face.
“Mr. Shepherd, just lay back, I need to fix your wires.”
West ignored her. “Katerina,” he croaked, his throat dry and sore. “Where is she?”
Blaise’s smile evaporated. “She’s here. She’s…”
West grabbed his shoulders weakly. “She’s what? What happened? How did we get away?”
“She shot him,” Blaise said.
West shook his head in disbelief and horror of what Katerina must have gone through. “Dead?”
“No, not dead. But bad. He’s here too.”
“I want to see Katerina,” West whispered. “Why isn’t she here?”
The nurse pushed herself between Blaise and West. “Mr. Shepherd, I really must insist that you sit down.” West dropped lightly to the bed and let her replace his heart monitor wires.
He searched Blaise’s face. Something was wrong. Blaise wasn’t telling him something. “Blaise tell me, is Katerina okay?”
Blaise sighed. “The doctors aren’t sure. She’s in some sort of a coma.”
West shot to his feet and ripped his wires off again. “Where?”
Blaise pushed him back down. “It’s not like that, West, calm down. She hasn’t been injured. She’s just… “
West’s mind swam. He didn’t know what had happened but he bet she had touched him again. He pushed the nurse’s hands away this time as she tried to put his wires back on. “She needs me. I can help her. Take me to her.”
The nurse protested. “Mr. Shepherd, you can’t leave this room. If you calm down I will talk to your doctor about maybe-”
West stood up quickly and willed his legs to hold him. “The fuck I can’t,” he muttered. “Blaise, take me to her now,” he demanded, “or I’ll find her myself.”
Blaise’s eyes challenged him for a moment, and then he relented. “I’ll take you, but only if you get in a wheelchair.”
West nodded. The nurse exclaimed in disbelief and rushed out of the room, presumably to call a doctor or security. West didn’t care. He knew Blaise would get him to Katerina.
Blaise rushed out of the room and returned quickly with a wheelchair. He transferred West’s IV bag and motioned for him to sit down. When West did, bolts of pain shot up both legs into his hips. He gritted his teeth together and refused to make a noise.
Blaise pushed him out of the room, down the hallway, and to an elevator. West looked around the hospital where the corridors were dark and silent. “What time is it?”
“It’s 4:15 a.m.”
“What day?” West asked, terrified he was going to find out he’d lost a week or two of his life.
“Sunday.”
So he’d only lost a day. “What happened to me?”
“Phillips injected you with saxitoxin. Both legs. Huge needles. Katerina told the doctors what would counteract it though. She saved your life,” Blaise said simply.
“Phillips? That’s his name?”
“Yeah, Frank Phillips. He was the assistant medical examiner, if you can believe that.”
West believed it. He’d found out the hard way.
In the elevator, Blaise pushed the button for the sixth floor.
“So what happened?” West asked. “How was Katerina able to hold this guy off long enough to shoot him?”
“No one knows. Katerina passed out before anyone was able to ask her.”
West’s mind spun. She had to have touched him. It was the only thing that made sense. And was he right about his ability to help her? He said a silent prayer up to whoever was listening. Angels, God, spirits, ghosts. Someone had to help him. He couldn’t stand the thought of losing her.
The elevator doors dinged open and Blaise pushed him out into the corridor. Three doors down, he stopped. “This is her room.” He knocked on the door lightly and then pushed it open. West couldn’t see inside. Blaise pushed the door open farther with his back and pulled West in.
Blaise turned him around and the first thing West saw was Jordan, blinking sleepily in a chair. His eyes flew to the bed in the center of the room. Katerina lay on her back, her hair flowing around her face. She looked white, and drawn. Even in her sleep, or her unconsciousness, her eyebrows were drawn tight over her eyes giving her face a pained and pinched look.
West felt a physical agony in his chest at the sight of Katerina incapacitated. He stepped out of the wheelchair, wincing at the ache in his legs, but not stopping. Mindful of his IV, he approached the bed and took Katerina’s hand.
No change in her face.
West enveloped her hand in both of his and rubbed gently. He dropped his face close to Katerina’s and started whispering in her ear.
“You did so good, baby. You did it. You got him. He’ll never hurt anyone again. And you saved my life. Now come back to me. You can do it. I know you can do it. You’re so strong, Katerina. You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met. And you’re beautiful.”
West felt his throat clench and tears form in his eyes. He was supposed to tell her that and he had forgotten. And what if it was too late now? I swear to God, he thought, if she makes it out of this okay, I’ll tell her she’s beautiful every day for the rest of her life.
West pulled back slightly and looked at her face. Had it smoothed out some? Or was that just wishful thinking? A wisp of something white near her ear caught his eye, and he brushed her hair back from it. A surprised noise strangled in his throat.
“What happened to her hair?” he cried out.
A large patch of her beautiful auburn hair had turned completely white behind both ears.
“It was like that when I got here yesterday,” Jordan said quietly from her chair.
West touched it lightly, like he couldn’t believe it. What turned a person’s hair white in an instant?
Katerina shivered and her
eyelids fluttered. She muttered something. West bent close but couldn’t make it out.
“What Katerina? Say it again.”
She didn’t say anything, but lay as still as before.
Jordan approached the bed. “That’s the first time she’s even moved,” she whispered.
Encouraged, West pulled strands of her hair through his fingers lightly. He ran a thumb over each of her eyebrows. He lightly grazed his fingertips up and down her arms. Then he reached across her body and pulled her other arm to him. He held both her hands and whispered in her ear again, a steady stream of reassuring words.
He stopped long enough to look up at Blaise. “I want to see her chart. See if you can talk any of the nurses into giving it to you.”
Blaise nodded and disappeared and West tried to make himself comfortable, half leaning over Katerina’s bed. He wasn’t leaving her side until she was okay.
Katerina muttered again and West squeezed her hands in surprise. He put his ear close to her lips and waited. This time he heard her. “Stay with me.”
West smiled. “I’m not going anywhere, beautiful, not ever.”
***
Katerina sat up in her hospital bed and smiled at West. He was in his own bed, next to hers. He had managed to convince the doctors to let them share a room for the last two days that they had both been in here for tests. A nurse was taking his last set of vital signs in preparation for releasing him. In fact, they both were being released today.
Katerina knew she shouldn’t have had to be in here for two days, but her situation was strange and the doctors were perplexed. Even though she had been slightly awake and even talking a little bit, the doctors said her brain waves were still those of a person in a coma. They didn’t know what to make of it, but slowly, over the last two days things had gotten better. The more time she spent with West, the better she felt, and the less tainted memories she seemed to have from Frank Phillips still rolling around in her brain.
