Dree spun herself, flipping herself over until she rolled out from under the SUV on the other side.
The van’s engine howled as the vehicle sped away.
Dree jumped to her feet. “Max! Are you okay?” She sobbed and shrieked nonsense as she ran around the van to find him.
Maxence was leaning on the front of the hood with both arms, panting. An abrasion reddened his temple, and his lip was swelling. The knuckles on his hands spread over the hood were raw.
She said, “We need to have that looked at.Youneed to have that looked at. We’re right here. There’s an ERright here.Come on.Let’s go.”
Maxence looked up.“Dammit.”
Dree followed his line of sight.
The van had turned around the end of the row of parked cars and was heading back toward them.
“Come on,” Maxence growled. “Let’s get inside before they get here.”
They sprinted across the rows of the parking lot between the parked cars and jumped through the entrance doors. Dree led the way as they ran right back to the nurses’ station.
Caridad was standing at the desk. “Jesus, Mary, Joseph! What happened to you?” She pulled her penlight out of her pocket and began flashing it in Dree’s eyes, checking for a concussion. “Hestia, call the policenow.”
“No!”Dree yelled. “Caridad, remember that policeman who came around asking about me? I think there’s a problem with the police.”
Caridad looked around them. “We’ll put you in a room until we can figure out how to get you somewhere safe.”
Emergency rooms had protocols for patients but back channels for staff.
Dree followed Caridad, gripping Maxence’s hand to make sure he was following. “Maxence is the one who needs to be evaluated for head trauma. He took at least one blow to the temple.”
Caridad found a room at the end of the hallway farthest away from the doors. “Stay in here. I’ll put this room on the board as closed for cleaning. What do you need, Dree?”
“Check Maxence for head trauma, first.”
They had Max sit down on the bed, and Caridad palpated his temple and then checked his pupillary response for a concussion. “He looks fine to me, but I’ll have the attending come in and do another concussion check. What else?”
“I had blood exposure in my mouth. Could you check and make sure I don’t have any lacerations?”
Dree opened wide, and Caridad flashed her penlight around Dree’s mouth. “I’ll get you some hydrogen peroxide to rinse with, and we can do anything else you want for the exposure. We have pharmaceutical samples if you want a prophylactic course. I don’t see any lacerations or cuts. You floss well. Your gums are in great shape.”
“Yeah, my mom made sure that we all flossed a couple of times a day because we didn’t have dental insurance growing up. It’s a habit.”
“If we can’t call the police, what are you guys going to do?”
Maxence already had his phone up to his ear. He said into it, “Flicka, I hate to be a bother a second time, but it seems I’m near your brother’s place, and we are once again in desperate need of security services.”
Caridad locked them in the hospital room.
Dree wanted to pace, but Maxence insisted that she stay behind him, with himself between her and the door. She ended up sitting on the bed and leaning against his back because she needed the comfort. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.”
“Do you know who they were?” she asked.
“No.” He paused. “I thought I heard them speaking Russian.”
The Sokolovs. “They followed us?”
“They were probably here and discovered that we’d arrived. I was too cavalier. I’m used to evading my security and having some time off.”
