My shift ended at seven, and this time of year, everything is pitch black by five-thirty.
The kind of dark that settles into parking garages like water into a basement, filling every corner, eating the light from the overhead fluorescents that are always half-burned-out because this is a hospital, not a shopping mall, and the maintenancebudget goes to things that keep people alive, not things that keep parking garages well-lit.
My car is in the far corner because I got here at six-fifty this morning and the close spots were already taken by the day shift.
My sneakers echo on the concrete and the sound bounces off the low ceiling and the walls, and it sounds louder than it should because the garage is almost empty.
I hear them before I see them.
Footsteps. Two sets.
Not the normal rhythm of people walking to their cars—deliberate, timed, closing the distance behind me with a pace that says they knowexactlywhere I'm going and they want to get there first.
I don't run.
I should, probably, but something freezes in my legs—not fear, not exactly.
Something older.
The instinct that says if you run, you're prey, and if you're prey, they chase.
I've worked in emergency medicine for years now.
I know what adrenaline does to the human body.
I know the physics of fight or flight. And right now, every nerve in my body is screaming flight, and my legs won't move.
I turn around.
Two men. Nothing polite or professional about either of them.
One is tall, shaved head, tattoos crawling up his neck.
The other is shorter, stockier, with a jaw like a cinder block and hands that look like they've broken things for a living.
"Leah Mercer," the tall one says. Not a question.
My blood goes cold. They know my name.
"We know who you are," he continues, stepping closer. "We know where you work. We know you've been spending a lot oftime at Colton Adkins' house, playing house with his little girls." He smiles. It doesn't reach his eyes. Nothing about this man reaches his eyes. "Tell your boyfriend the clock just ran out."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Sure you do." He steps closer. I step back.
My hip hits the side mirror of someone's sedan and I realize with a sick lurch that they've been herding me—walking me into the corner of the garage where there are no cameras, no exits, no one to hear.
The short one moves fast, faster than I expect.
He grabs my arm and spins me and my back slams against the side of a car hard enough to drive the air out of my lungs.
My coffee mug hits the concrete and shatters. My bag drops. The lanyard snaps and my badge skitters across the floor.
"Listen carefully," the tall one says. He's close now. Too close. I can smell cigarettes and cheap cologne and something metallic underneath. "We don't give a fuck about how big and bad this biker club is. Your boyfriend owes our employer two hundred thousand dollars, and he's been playing games instead of paying up. That stops now."
The short one pins me against the car with his forearm across my collarbone.
Not my throat—my collarbone.
