“Yeah, we wouldn’t want to spread the pain,” I chuckled.
“My fingerprints are all over the knife,” she worried. “Are you sure I won’t go to jail?”
I never got the chance to answer because a nurse came around the corner, took one look at my side, and then called for help.
“How did this happen?” she asked, helping me into a wheelchair. “You have a knife sticking out of you!”
“Accident,” I answered, hoping to drop it at that.
“Like, you accidentally turned a steak knife on yourself and it somehow ended up in your side?” She quirked an eyebrow at Bailey. “And where were you?”
“I—I was—He scared me!” she shouted, pointing her finger at me.
“So, you stabbed him?” The nurse shouted over her shoulder, “Security!”
“That’s not necessary,” I tried to intervene, but the woman just pushed me far away from Bailey, glaring at my woman like she was Satan. “She didn’t do anything!”
“She stabbed you!”
“Actually, she threw the knife at me. It wasn’t a stabbing.”
“That’s even worse!”
“No, it’s—” She swung the wheelchair around, then grabbed me by the bad arm and pulled me to a standing position.
I cried out as pain lashed through my body. “Woman?—”
“Security!” the nurse called to the jogging officer. “The woman in the lobby stabbed this man. Detain her!”
“She didn’t stab me,” I said again as the woman pushed me onto a bed. “You know, I’m injured here.”
“Sir,” the nurse said firmly. “Let me handle this.”
“If you detain her?—”
“Sir, if you don’t sit down, I’ll have them detain you also.”
“Lady, I have a knife sticking out of my side. Maybe you could focus on that instead of the?—”
Rushing toward the doorway, the nurse pointed into the waiting room. “That’s her! The woman with blood on her hands!”
I’d had enough of this shit, but the knife in my side was making it rather difficult to do much of anything. Gritting my teeth, I yanked the knife out and got to my feet, wondering if that was the best idea as I swayed on my feet.
“He’s got a knife!” the nurse shouted.
Looking up, I saw a security guard charge me and looked down at the knife in my hand.
“No, wait?—”
Two hundred fifty pounds of muscle tackled me to the ground. Pain eclipsed all other feeling in my body until I finally succumbed to the awaiting darkness.
“By any chance,did you think of not pulling out the knife?” Mav grinned at me. “You know, just leaving it in until the nurse decided it was time to remove it? Maybe a doctor?”
I tossed my water cup at him, wincing when the small movement sent shocks of pain through my body.
“Are you just here to annoy me?”
“Actually, I’m here because I finally calmed the staff down enough and vouched for your woman.”
