Donaldson figured he’d bought himself five minutes, at most.
Enough time to find Lucy.
Together at Last
Lucy rounded the corner. Her eyes narrowed when she saw a portly figure limping up the hallway toward her.
Donaldson.
The bandages around his legs, and the front of his hospital gown, were all soaked through with blood. Another bandage, this one bloodless, covered almost the entire right side of his head.
But the real horrorshow was his left arm, the one she had handcuffed to the back of his car.
It had swollen to twice its normal size, bending in places it shouldn’t have, hanging from his shoulder like a gigantic blood sausage.
“Hello, little girl.” Donaldson smiled, his fat lips flapping over crimson holes where teeth used to be. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Lucy sat in a wheelchair, both legs extended and bandaged. Instead of a hospital gown, she wore blood-covered scrubs several sizes too large.
She smiled—top front teeth missing.
“Hi, Big D,” she said. “You aren’t looking so hot.”
“I can say the same for you. Nice wheels.”
Lucy stopped rolling. They were ten feet apart in the corridor.
“Look at that left arm,” she said. “You been working out?”
“My right one still works just fine.”
Donaldson limped forward, extending his good arm.
It ended in a gun.
“Why don’t you lift up those hands, let Uncle Donaldson give you a quick pat down.”
Lucy shook her head. “Nice piece, Gramps, but I don’t think I’m going to let you touch me right now.”
“And exactly how are you going to stop me?” He leered, giving his lips a quick lick. I think I’ll start by giving those pretty little legs a frisk. You got any feeling left in those?”
Donaldson continued to trudge forward.
Lucy backed up a few feet.
“Listen,” she said. “I don’t know what you’ve been up to, but any minute now this place is going to be crawling with Feds and sheriffs’ deputies. There was an…incident,” she framed the words with air quotes, “in my bathroom. So the question is…do we want to do this here and now, or do we want to help each other get the fuck out of dodge?”
The hospital intercom kicked on, some faceless drone calling codes. Code orange, code blue, code green, code silver…
Donaldson halted his approach, frowning. The bandage on his right calf had come loose, revealing another bloody, peeling bandage underneath.
“Shit. Can’t go back this way,” Donaldson tilted his head over his shoulder. “Had an incident myself back there.”
“That’s probably your code they just called out. Mine will be two blues. How about we try this way?” Lucy motioned down the corridor. “I thought I saw an elevator sign.”
“Stairs too good for you?”
“You’re a riot. Give me a push?”
“Turn around first.” Donaldson waved the 9mm. “For some reason, I got trust issues with you.”
Lucy awkwardly swung her wheelchair in a one-eighty and offered her back to Donaldson.
“Be gentle,” she said.
Donaldson loped forward. When he reached Lucy’s wheelchair, he stopped. “Tough to push one-handed.”
“Life’s a bitch and then you die. I’m so sorry my legs got broken when you handcuffed me to your cheap-ass car with no parking brake.”
Donaldson pressed the barrel to her head. “Then use your goddamn hands.”
“Easy. I’m just kidding. So sensitive.”
Her right arm came up rattlesnake-quick and the handcuff locked around Donaldson’s right wrist. The other cuff was already attached to her left.
“Hope you don’t mind,” she said. “I just want us to be together.”
Donaldson’s finger tightened on the trigger, and then abruptly relaxed. He blew out a stiff breath. “Just like old times, huh?”
Behind them, the hallway filled with chatter and commotion.
“I’ll push your right side,” he said. “Use your left hand on your left wheel. Move your ass, or I’ll cut my losses, shoot you, and drag your corpse outta here.”
“Jeez, somebody missed his Metamucil.”
Lucy began pushing. Each rotation of the wheel brought a groan.
“Sounds painful,” Donaldson said. “What other terrible injuries have you suffered, little girl?”
She didn’t respond. Their progress was slow, awkward.
“Hurry,” Lucy said. “I hear people coming.”
Donaldson glanced back. A group had formed at the far end of the corridor—a nurse, a few orderlies.
“So what exactly did you have to endure?” Lucy asked.
“Let’s just say I got screwed. There’s the elevator. Less talking, more moving.”
Steering proved difficult. One of Lucy’s outstretched feet banged into a hallway drinking fountain.
She cried out, “Fuck! Do you drive like that?”
“So you do have some feeling left,” Donaldson said, backing her chair up. The gun was pressed against her shoulder, but in order to push, he had to hold it sideways. “I was hoping you weren’t paralyzed.”
“I want you to know that I prayed you weren’t a vegetable. That would have broken my heart. There’s the elevator. Push me to the panel.”
Donaldson leaned to the right, maneuvering the wheelchair alongside the lift.
Behind them, someone shouted, “He’s over there!”
Lucy pressed the DOWN button.
“Come on,” she said. “Come on!”
Five seconds later, the doors spread apart and Donaldson manhandled her inside.
She pressed the “L.”
Footsteps pattered down the corridor, getting louder with each passing second.
“Hurry…hurry hurry,” she said.
The doors began to close just as a security guard came running into view, yelling at them to stop.
He didn’t make it in time, and the lift began its descent.
Donaldson exhaled hard, puffing out his cheeks. “So what’s the plan? I push you all the way to Missoula?”
They lowered past the third floor.
Then the second.
Lucy said, “How about we get to safety, and then we can see how this all plays out? You fucked me up pretty bad, you know.”
“Little girl, you don’t know the meaning of those words.” He winked. “Yet.”
The doors spread apart.
“Okay, I got a plan,” Donaldson said, “But you gotta uncuff me.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to depend upon the kindness of strangers and get us a vehicle.”
“You won’t hurt me, big bad D?”
“Not yet. Not until we get ourselves out of here.”
“Okay, I’ll uncuff you. But you have to get the key. I can’t reach it.”
Donaldson shook his head. “Always a fucking game with you.” He gave the chair a shove, bumping Lucy’s foot into the elevator door. She yelped, grabbing the attention of a nurse at the reception desk. Bringing up his gun hand—still handcuffed to Lucy’s—Donaldson placed the barrel against her head.
“You see this gun, Nurse Ratched?”
The nurse nodded, her mouth agape.
“Unless you want me to splatter this young girl’s brains all over your ER, you better give me those keys, pronto.”
The nurse stayed perfectly still.
“Now!” Donaldson barked.
She reached under her desk, rifling through her purse, dumping it out, eventually holding up a key ring.
“Toss them on her lap,” Donaldson said.
The keys arced through the air and landed on Lucy’s thighs with a jingle. Lucy scrunched up her face.
“Where you parked?” Donaldson asked.
“It’s…the black Honda. I parked in the employee’s lot on the side of the building.”
“Another fucking Honda?” Lucy scowled. “You have got to be kidding me.”