“But he’ll wait…right?”
“What we’re paying this asshole, he better.”
The progress down the corridor was slow, and after ten feet, slower, Donaldson panting, and Lucy feeling drips of cold sweat raining down off the end of his prosthetic chin implant onto her hairless skull.
“You gonna make it, D?”
“Go to hell.”
The clock over the nurses’ station read 7:15 P.M., and Donaldson nodded to the young nurse writing in her charts, wrapping up the tail end of second shift.
“Evening,” he rasped.
She ignored him.
Donaldson pushed the wheelchair down the hallway and into the rec room. As usual, it was mostly full after dinner. Various formerly dangerous psychopaths with various physical health problems huddled under an old TV that never played anything stronger than PG-rated comedies. A few glanced at Lucy as she rolled in. One, a paraplegic named Briggs, who’d killed his caregiver for making him green beans instead of his preferred creamed corn, flicked out his tongue at Lucy like a serpent. She would have loved to have finished the job God had begun and fully paralyzed the prick, but there were more pressing things on her mind at the moment.
They passed the empty table with the painted-on checkerboard. The checkers were still absent, having been confiscated by the staff a month prior, following a fatal bludgeoning over a disputed move. Why couldn’t habitually violent and insane criminals just play nice?
They headed toward the door at the back of the room, Lucy watching the large, mean orderly named Gary out of the corner of her eye. He wasn’t paying attention to them, engrossed instead in an issue of US Weekly.
Donaldson wheezed heavily as they approached the door. Felt like cold, salty drizzle pattering on the top of Lucy’s bald head, and though it disgusted her, she didn’t say anything. In truth, she felt sorry for him.
Which was odd. Lucy hadn’t thought she was capable of pity.
She leaned forward, struggling to push in the door handle.
“How’s the coast, D?”
“All clear.”
As rehearsed, Lucy said loudly, “I really have to pee.”
“Seriously? You take forever.”
“Screw you then. I’ll do it myself.”
Donaldson grunted a “whatever” as he pushed the wheelchair into the bathroom.
Their angel, a dour-looking Cuban named Henry, stood waiting behind a laundry cart.
Henry quickly shoved a screwdriver in the door jamb to stop it from opening.
“What took you so long?” he said.
Lucy flashed a smile—one that had once been inviting, but was now monstrous. “We came as fast as we could.”
“Yeah, well, the price just went up.”
“What are you talking about?” Donaldson rasped. “We paid you everything we have.”
“I’m not talking about money.”
Lucy glanced back at Donaldson.
“I know you guys have been hoarding meds. I’ll take your Vicodin.”
Lucy felt a sudden rush of panic. “Henry, no.”
“I got no sympathy for you, bitch. How many poor bastards did you torture to death? The both of you are scum. Only reason I’m helping in the first place is to take care of my mother.”
Lucy knew Henry was full of shit. Ward gossip spoke of his chronic gambling problem, owing big money to a Chicago hood named Dovolanni. That’s how they’d known to approach him.
“Just give him the Vicodin,” Donaldson rasped.
Reaching beneath her flimsy gown, Lucy fingered one of the toilet-paper wrapped bundles, squeezing it to determine the type of pill inside. Roundish…that meant Ativan. She tried the next bundle, felt the long pill, and produced the Vicodin.
Henry tore open the toilet paper, dumping vikes into his palm.
“Daaaaaamn. You two been busy.”
“You said we’ll have some civilian clothes,” Donaldson said.
“Yeah, man. In the hamper, under all the sheets.”
The Vicodin disappeared into the pocket of Henry’s scrubs, and he pulled out a pair of rubber gloves. He squeezed into them and started pulling linen out of the hamper, stacking it on the floor.
The stench of urine wafted up at Lucy.
“Those are soiled sheets?”
“Pissed in them myself,” Henry said. “We get stopped, no one’s going to search through pissy linen.”
Lucy had never wanted to kill someone so badly before in her entire life, and that was saying something. Also, it was the first time she’d been glad for the incineration of her nasal cavity. She could still smell, just not as potently. Donaldson’s nose, on the other hand, was fully intact. It was the only thing on him that was fully intact.
The orderly pulled out the last of the linen, and then a pair of bib overalls which he handed to Donaldson, and a hideous flower-print dress for Lucy.
“Hurry up,” Henry said.
Lucy struggled onto her feet and took the dress from Henry. She staggered over toward the sink, experiencing a moment’s hesitation at the prospect of stripping in front of these two. Just as she tugged her head through the neck hole of the gown, she glanced back at Henry, half-expecting him to be leering at her from across the room. But he wasn’t even watching. He had turned away completely, and not out of any sense of respect. She knew it was disgust. He was repulsed by her body.
Christ, she wanted to kill him.
But at least he wouldn’t see the other pills, wrapped in toilet paper, which she’d set on the sink.
The dress swallowed her tiny, emaciated frame. She stuffed the packets of pills into the front pocket and limped back over to her partner.
“Need help, D?”
“Little bit.”
Lucy had more control of her three remaining fingers than Donaldson had of his four. As he stepped into the overalls, Lucy tried not to look at the small, plastic tube between his legs, but she couldn’t help herself. Another jolt of compassion. What the hell is wrong with me?
It took her forty-five seconds to get the shoulder straps on Donaldson’s overalls buttoned.
When she’d finished, Henry tapped the laundry cart—a huge canvas bag cloistered in a metal frame on wheels.
“Your carriage awaits.”
The orderly grabbed Lucy under her arms and lifted her over the side, dropping her onto a rope and something else—a broom handle, which had been snapped into two pieces.
Donaldson practically fell on top of her climbing in, and Lucy gummed her arm to stop herself from crying out in pain. Her partner had barely had a chance to settle in when the first piss-stinking linen fell on top of them.
She heard Donaldson gag.
“Is it bad, D?”
More linens rained down on them—soiled sheets and pillowcases.
“There’s goddamn diarrhea on this one.”
It was so awful, Lucy had to fight the urge to laugh.
She huddled next to Donaldson under the weight of thirty pounds of filthy linen as the wheels to the laundry cart squeaked underneath them.
She heard Henry say, “Wassup, my man?” to someone as they rolled along.
Her left leg was crushed under Donaldson’s, the pain brilliant near the site of one of her grafts. She could feel the salty sting of someone else’s urine pressing against the open wound.
But she couldn’t cry out. Couldn’t make a single, goddamn sound if she ever wanted to see the outside again.
The cart banged against what felt like a wall, jolting Donaldson against her.
She found his hand in the darkness.
Their claws embraced and squeezed through the pain.
After a moment, she heard the sound of elevator doors spreading apart.
They rolled several feet into the car, and as the door closed back, Lucy realized she wasn’t going to be able to stand this much longer. Aside from the pain of Donaldson’s weight on her and the burning in her skin graft, she was having trouble breathing in the confined sp
ace.
They ascended one floor and then rolled along again, Lucy beginning to panic, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, get these blankets off me! She was going to scream. Absolutely lose it. Screw the plan and getting out, she just needed oxygen.
The cart stopped.
Henry was pulling the linens off of them—she could feel the weight lessening, and then she saw a light in the ceiling.
Lucy wriggled herself away from Donaldson and clambered to her feet, taking deep, penetrating breaths.
They’d come to an empty patient room, and Lucy saw where Henry had once again jammed a screwdriver into the doorjamb as an added precaution.
The black iron bars that normally covered patient windows had been cut through with a blowtorch, which still lay on the floor underneath the window frame.
Would be so much fun to grab that torch and…
“Hurry up,” Henry said. “Let’s go.”
“Where’s the harness?” Lucy asked. “We paid extra so you could buy one.”
“Didn’t have time. Come on.”
She staggered over to him and he lowered what resembled a lasso over her head, cinching it snugly around her chest under her armpits.
Oh, sweet merciful Jesus, this was going to hurt.
“Up and over,” Henry said, patting the windowsill. Lucy climbed up, and as she squatted on the perch, Henry said, “Oh, yeah, almost forgot.”
He walked over to the laundry cart, reached in, and lifted one of the broken broom handle pieces.
“Bitch, if you so much as make a peep, I will simply let go of the rope, bolt out of the room, and get the hell out of dodge. You understand what I’m telling you?”
“Yes.”
“Open up.”
“Why?”
“Open your mouth.”
Lucy opened her mouth and Henry jammed the broom handle into the hinge of her jaw.
“When the pain comes and you want to scream, just bite down. And remember, if you do scream, I’ll drop your sorry ass.”
It was only twenty feet down, but it might as well have been two hundred. First time Lucy had been outside in years, and the night was cold, the wind wandering up her dress like the finger of a dirty old man. Henry faced her on the other side of the window. He stood braced against the wall with the rope wrapped around his waist, the line already taut.
She eased off the ledge, and as the rope dug into her armpits, she understood that she had not fully contemplated this moment. She’d known it was coming, known the pain would be horrendous, but still she had glossed over just how excruciating the next minute of her life was going to be.
Henry began to lower her.
Slowly.
Inch by inch.
Blood poured down her neck, and she realized she had already bitten into the broom handle with enough force to split her gums. Her claws clenched, sweat dripping down her face, burning her remaining eye.
Scream. I gotta scream. I can’t hold it in.
Her surgery of nine days ago had involved skin grafts on the undersides of her arms, and if the rope tore the skin, which it felt like it was doing, she would bleed out.
She whimpered in her throat, loud enough for Henry to hear, and almost hoped he would go ahead and make good on his promise.
Drop me. Let me die now. At least the pain will be over.
But then her toes were touching the ground, and she was lowered onto what was left of her ass, the edges of her vision narrowing into blackness as unconsciousness took her.
• • •
When she awoke, Donaldson was on the ground next to her, writhing and moaning.
“I need some pills,” he groaned.
“Where’s Henry?”
“Bringing his truck around. Gimme some damn pills.”
Lucy reached into the front pocket of her dress.
Oh shit.
“Donaldson, they’re gone.”
“Gone?” he screeched, crawling toward her. “You’re holding out on me, you skank, aren’t you? You want to keep them all for yourself.”
“They must’ve fallen out. Help me find them.”
Lucy heard the grumble of an approaching vehicle.
“You stupid idiot, I need my goddamn pills.”
“Help me look!” she whispered, her hands groping through cold blades of grass.
“I’ll kill you if you’ve lost them.”
There. Near the base of the building, she spotted something white—toilet paper.
Headlights coming. Henry, or maybe one of the guards patrolling the grounds.
“I found the patches,” Donaldson said. “But no pills. We gotta get the pills.”
A truck pulled up on the road behind them.
Henry said through the open window, “Time to go. Get in the back, under the tarp.”
“Just a second,” Lucy whispered, crawling toward the toilet paper.
“Or I could just leave.”
She reached the building, grabbed the bundle containing the pills—unsure if they were the Norco or the Ativan—and stuffed them down into the front pocket of her dress.
It took everything she had to stand.
Donaldson was already climbing into the truck bed.
She wiped the tears out of her eye and followed.
• • •
Lucy huddled under the tarp in the bed of the truck, gritting her remaining teeth together as it began to move. She felt every bump, every jolt, in every nerve of her body. It was worse than being lowered by the rope. She heard a keening sound above the roar of the motor, realized it was Donaldson, sobbing in pain.
They reached the guard post at the prison’s exit, and Lucy held her breath. It could all fall apart here if the guard checked under the tarp.
“Good evening, Henry.”
“Hey, Ron.”
“Got anything under the tarp back there?”
“Nope. Go check if you want.”
Lucy heard footsteps coming around to the tailgate.
Her bladder spasmed as the tarp lifted.
“Okay, man,” Ron said, looking right at her. “You can go.”
Henry’s bribe had obviously worked. The gate opened, and they drove off the prison grounds, to freedom. But it wasn’t over yet. Lucy knew that if Henry wanted to double-cross them, this was the time to do it. He was supposed to have bought them a car with the money Donaldson had transferred from his bank account. But he could have kept it all, and was now planning to just dump them along the road somewhere. Or, worse, kill them. Because if he dumped them, and they got caught, they could finger Henry as an accomplice in their escape.
If it had been Lucy, she’d kill them both.
The truck stopped, and she heard the driver’s-side door open.
This is it. The execution of a flawless plan, or a double murder.
In either case, she would be relieved.
The tarp lifted, and Henry scowled at them. “Ride’s over. Get out.”
Lucy painfully scooted across the truck bed, pushing herself onto her feet. They were in a wooded area. Looked like a forest preserve. The only other vehicle was a beat-to-shit Monte Carlo. Black, at least a decade old, missing hubcaps and a right fender.
“This is the car you bought me?”
In the moonlight, Lucy glimpsed tears glistening on the scar tissue of Donaldson’s face.
“This is it, man.”
“I gave you over fifty thousand dollars, you son of a bitch.”
Henry puffed out his chest. “It runs, and the title is clean. If this ain’t acceptable, I can take you back to the institution.”
“It’s fine,” Lucy said, grabbing D’s hand. “We’re fine, aren’t we, D?”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Donaldson asked.
“What?”
“You were supposed to get us a gun? And some cash?”
“Glove box,” Henry said. “Beretta. Serial numbers filed off. Even threw in a full magazine.”
“Does it ev
en shoot?”
“Guess you’ll find out, right? Keys are under the floor mat.”
“How about money?”
STIRRED Page 10
