“My job,” Izzy said.
“No.”
She looked up at him. “I’ll do whatever you want. But let me help these people before it’s too late.”
The shooter glanced down at her. “First, you round up everyone else, and get them all into one place. The front area. With the couch.”
The waiting room. Izzy winced as the shooter dragged her down the hall. They stopped in front of a bathroom. “Open it,” he demanded, and when Izzy hesitated his fingers bit deeper into her flesh. “Open it!”
Please be empty,she thought.
With a shaking hand, she pushed open the door, and revealed a squat toilet, a pristine sink. No one.
“Come on,” the shooter said. He pulled her from the bathroom to the changing room—empty, the recovery room—empty, and the consultation room, where the sonograms were done. There, another woman was sprawled on the floor—the social worker at the Center. Izzy didn’t have to get any closer to know she was dead.
Fighting the urge to throw up, she let herself be pulled down the hall. The shooter paused at the one door they hadn’t opened yet. Izzy turned the knob, but it was locked. She looked at him, and he cocked the hammer and shot the doorknob clean off the door. Even with her hands belatedly covering them, Izzy felt her ears ringing. When she stepped inside, she saw a pale woman cowering in the corner of the lab, her mouth rounded in a scream.
Sound came back in fits and starts. She could hear herself trying to calm the woman down. “I’m Izzy,” she said.
“Joy.” Her gaze darted to the shooter.
Izzy tried to redirect the woman’s attention. “Are you hurt?”
“I just had…I had…” She swallowed. “I was in the recovery room.”
“He wants us to go to the waiting room, but I need help carrying the doctor, who’s been wounded. You feel strong enough to help me, Joy?”
Joy nodded, and they backtracked. Izzy was well aware of the gun pointed at her. “Make it fast,” the shooter said.
In the procedure room Joy froze, staring at the dead nurse. Dammit. Izzy had forgotten to warn her.
“Oh my God.Oh my God oh my God oh my—” She turned away from the body and gasped. “Dr. Ward?”
He was conscious now, but clearly in pain. “Miz Joy,” he managed.
“This is not a goddamn ice cream social,” the shooter yelled. His anger lit a fuse in Izzy. She scrambled around the room, opening drawers and grabbing as much gauze and tape as she could and shoving it into her scrubs top, which ballooned out with the items where it was tucked into the waistband of her pants.
She got to her knees and looped the doctor’s arm around her neck, then caught Joy’s eye to get her assistance. Joy looped the doctor’s other arm around her neck. Together they got him upright and began to drag him down the hall, his leg leaving a trail of blood.
As they approached the waiting room, Dr. Ward looked past the reception desk and saw the body of the clinic owner. “Vonita,” he moaned, just as the shooter grabbed Izzy by her braid. Tears sprang to her eyes and she lost her grip on Dr. Ward, so that Joy had to bear the bulk of his weight. They tumbled to the floor, the doctor landing on his bad leg. His makeshift tourniquet popped free of its knot, and blood began to run freely.
Izzy immediately knelt to fix the tourniquet, but the shooter wouldn’t let her. “You’re not finished,” he said. “I wantallof them where I can see them.”
“Joy,” Izzy cried out, “tie that tubing!” As she spoke, she crawled to Bex, the lady who’d been shot near the reception desk. The young woman she had ordered to apply pressure to the wound was still there, pressing down on the injury to slow the flow of blood.
Izzy looked up at the gunman. “I can’t move her.”
“I’m not the one who cares if she dies.”
Gritting her teeth, Izzy dragged Bex, apologizing for causing her pain. The young woman watched her struggle for a moment. When Izzy stared at her in disbelief, she scrambled to help.
They positioned Bex beside the doctor on the waiting room floor. “Okay, start again with the pressure,” Izzy told the woman. She was young, but it was clear that she was wearing a blond wig, and not a particularly good one.Chemo?Izzy wondered, and on the heels of that came a wash of empathy.
She immediately turned her attention to the doctor again. Joy had wrapped the tubing around his leg and was holding it in place with her hand. Izzy ripped off the bloody pants leg of his scrubs and began to twist it into a rope.
“You’re. Not. Finished,” the shooter growled. “Check the rest of the rooms!”
Izzy’s hands stilled as the pistol nudged her between the shoulder blades.
