Finch is still occupied with Darla. I tug at my blankets, trying to pull them off my legs, but the sheets are too tightly tucked. Garcia yanks them out and I try to swing one leg out of the bed first, but I have to collapse back for a moment, gasping at the unwelcome agony.
Darla catches sight of me over Finch’s shoulder. “Oh,no, Mr. D’Amato, sir, youreallycan’t—”
“What are youdoing?” Finch shrieks, running over and trying to push me back on the bed.
“Getting you out of here,” I tell him, trying to shove his hands aside. “We need to go.”
Garcia walks around Finch to my legs, lifts both my ankles, and walks around to swivel me so my legs swing over the side of the bed, ignoring both Finch’s protests and my nudity under the hospital gown as it hikes up. She reaches out and I grab her hand, let her pull me upright. It’s torturous and humiliating, but it works; I’m sitting up on the side of the bed, my toes just touching the cold linoleum floor. Finch is beside me, keeping me more upright than I care to admit.
“You can’t walk,” Garcia says dispassionately.
“Of course he fucking can’t!” Finch snaps, rearranging my hospital gown, and I know he’ll try to put me back in the bed.
“You,” I say, looking at the nurse. I fix her with the same stare I use on my Capos. “Go get a wheelchair.”
She flies from the room, and I can only hope she’ll actually return with what I want. Frank just about collides with her in the doorway, contorting his body so he doesn’t hit her. “Clear down there,” he says. “And I mean it’s quiet like the fuckin’ grave, Georgie. Staff gone, patients gone. Guards, too.” He gives me a significant look.
I know the guards would never have left of their own volition, would have run in here as soon as the alarm went off, and I think again of what Garcia said when she first came in. I look at her, raise an eyebrow. “Your people cleared them out?”
She gives a single, irritated nod. She’s nervous, but she’s not afraid. I can’t help but feel a grudging respect for her. Still, she’s fucked up today, and it’s a pleasure to be able to point it out. “Whoever this is, whoever’s coming for me,” I say, clearly and distinctly over the alarm, “they were just waiting for you clowns to clear myfriendsaway from the waiting area. They knew they’d never get past them, not head-on. You’ve killed me yourself, Garcia. I won’t get my day in court, andyou’llget your nice silk blouse soaked with your own blood, instead of that promotion you were hoping for.”
Her mouth scrunches up and she turns aside to talk into her radio. “Officer Kleiner, come in.” No response. “Peretsky. You there?”
“They ain’t answering,” Frank says, pointing out the obvious.
“Perhaps your men are already dead,” I tell her. “Or perhaps your comms are being disrupted. Either way, I’d say we have less than a minute to get out of here or we’re going to die, too.”
“You sure know a lot about it for someone who doesn’t have a clue who’s coming for him,” she snaps, but she’s already moving to check the hallway. “Fucking finally,” she sighs, as the alarm cuts down in volume. “Move it,” she shouts down the hall to someone, and a moment later the nurse arrives back, breathless and flustered, with a wheelchair.
Frank pushes Finch and Garcia aside and helps me himself. Even all torn up like he is, he’s still stronger than the two of them—and he’s had years of experience dragging my almost-lifeless body around.
“Just like the old days,” I say to him, and he chuckles, then hooks my arm around his neck, grabbing onto my hand. With his damaged arm, he hoists me clumsily by the waist. I get to my feet and we stagger towards the wheelchair.
I black out for a few seconds from the pain, but when my head stops spinning and the nausea abates, I’m in the chair, and the nurse is propping my bare feet up on the footrest.
“Frank,” I gasp out, trying to ignore the pain, and point. “Drawer.”
“He wants his gun,” Finch says, running over to the nightstand.
“Hell, no,” Garcia says at once, pulling out her own sidearm and taking aim at me. “Freeze!”
Everyone else in the room, including Darla, ignores her. Finch pulls out my Sig Sauer, checks that the mag is full, and hands it to me before taking his own, small-caliber gun out of the drawer as well.
“I’ll take that,” Frank says, and Finch hands it over gratefully. I’m grateful, too. My husband is a better shot these days, but he’s not trained for this kind of thing.
And then I realize that, of course, Frank will be shooting with his surviving left hand these days instead of his right. That thought doesn’t fill me with confidence.
Darla says nothing about our sudden weaponizing. “What now?” is all she asks.
Garcia is aiming her firearm at Frank now, as though she doesn’t think I’m much of a threat. She’s not wrong. I can barely keep the gun in my hand. At least Frank has a hold on his.
“Detective Garcia?” I ask. “Are you running this show, or not?”
She gives me a contemptuous, annoyed glare, but lowers her gun. “We hole up in some lockable room here in the ward,” she says shortly. “Can’t risk moving around the hospital. We don’t know where these people are—ifthey even exist.”
“No,” Finch says, and I’m so damn proud to hear him so cool, calm and collected. “They know the room number. They have to. And even if they don’t, there’s not that many private rooms. We stay here, we might as well all shoot each other right now.”
Darla gives a little squeak. Garcia looks at her and seems to be regretfully remembering her duty of public care. “Is there any other way out of here, through to the main hospital, apart from the entrance by the desk?” she asks.
