“Stop moving. You won’t get another warning.”
His arm tightens, his chest moving against my back—steady and controlled. That voice isn’t what I expected. It’s not from the man I thought was here to finish me off. This guy speaks with a thick foreign accent.
“You’re going to walk us to the treatment room. If you speak, if you shout, if you try anything stupid, I will kill you. Do you understand?”
I nod or at least try to, but my throat’s locked, and my legs won’t stop shaking. I think I get one sound out before his grip tightens again, and he forces me forward.
He moves his hand from my mouth and then shoves me. I try to glance back, but the gun presses hard against the side of my head, pushing it forward again.
“W-we …” My voice shakes too much to finish, so I clear my throat. “We have drugs. I-if that’s what you’re after.” The words come out choppy, broken by fear. “Th-th-the drugs are locked up, but I can unlock it for you. It’s n-not a problem. We don’t keep anything strong, though. Nothing you’d really want.”
He makes a sound that’s something between annoyed and exasperated, making my stomach turn.
I lead him toward the treatment room. The hallway feels longer now, like every step stretches out too far. I open the doorto the room and hit the lights. He pushes me in fast. I stumble, almost hitting the metal table in the middle of the room.
When I glance down, there’s blood soaked into the front of my scrubs. Not mine. His.
I raise my hands slowly as I turn to face him, heart thudding so hard I can barely hear anything else. This has to be a nightmare.
He’s way taller than me, dressed in black cargo pants with a holster strapped tight around his thigh and knives clipped to his belt. He must be at least six-four. His shirt’s a black Henley, soaked through and clinging to his chest while one hand is pressed to his stomach, slick with blood. The other’s holding the gun, still aimed directly at me.
His face is half-covered by a black gaiter pulled up past his nose, but his eyes are visible. They’re the kind of deep brown that almost looks black in this light, calculating and locked on me. His hair’s dark too, short on the sides, a little longer and curled over his forehead.
“Get something to pull out a bullet.”
His voice is rougher now, heavier, that accent thicker. There’s sweat on his forehead, and he’s slumping harder against the doorway.
“B-bullet?” I swallow. “I can call an ambulance. You need a hospital … I can’t just pull out a bullet in here.”
“Either you get the bullet out, or I drag it out myself and shoot you for wasting my time.”
I walk toward the cabinets with hands still raised and pull the drawers open. We’ve got nothing in this room close to what he needs.
“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “You need surgery. This is a vet clinic. We treat animals, not humans. Wrong species.”
“And you’re a vet?”
“Yes.”
“Then fix me the way you’d fix them.”
I blink because I actually can’t believe this is happening right now—he wants me to dig a bullet out of him? In this room? With no backup, no nurse, no legal protection? I’m not a trauma doctor. If he dies, it’ll be on me somehow. If the last couple of months have taught me anything, it’s that people believe whatever the police write down. Doesn’t matter what actually happened.
I take a shaky breath and start pulling out whatever I can think of. Forceps, tweezers, saline, gloves, gauze, syringe, sponges. It all clatters into a metal tray as I grab and move without thinking.
When I turn around, I freeze. He’s sitting on the floor against the door with the gun still up and eyes on me. There’s so much blood.
I rush to him and drop to my knees. I reach for the gloves, trying to steady my hands as I pull them on, but they won’t stop shaking.
“Lie down, please. I can’t get to the wound with you slumped like that.”
His brown eyes find mine. He looks pale, drained. I didn’t think I’d care, but I do because I don’t want him to die here, not like this.
He hesitates, then pushes off the door and lowers to the floor with a groan. He drags the gaiter down and wipes his forehead.
I look away because seeing his full face makes this more real somehow. I push the soaked fabric up slowly while blood seeps from the wound fast. I press sponges to it, trying to get control.
“I need to stop the bleeding first, then I’ll feel around and try to find the bullet.”
