I turn fast, but another man is already there, one gloved hand wrapped around a gun.
My brain refuses to make sense of it. Guns belong in police reports, trauma bays, and the locked little cabinet where security keeps things I try never to think about. They do not belong in the employee lot while I’m wearing cartoon daisy socks under my scrubs.
“I don’t have much cash,” I say.
My voice is thin. Careful.
Too polite.
The man in the hoodie takes one step closer. “Don’t need cash.”
The man with the gun catches my upper arm before I can run. His fingers dig into the soft skin above my elbow and lock there.
“Let go,” I snap.
He laughs quietly, like I’ve said something cute.
The man in the hoodie tips his head toward a dark SUV parked beyond the last pool of light. The engine is running.
“Walk.”
My heart starts hitting too fast.
“No.” I pull against the grip on my arm. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
The gun lifts.
The whole world narrows to the black mouth of it.
“We got a man bleeding out,” the man in the hoodie says. “You’re gonna help him.”
“He needs the ER.” My gaze jumps toward the hospital door. “I’m a nurse. I can help until a doctor gets to him, but he needs a hospital.”
“He needs quiet.”
That tells me enough.
Whatever happened, they want it hidden.
The man with the gun shoves me forward. My tote slides down my shoulder, and I clutch at it on instinct.
“My bag,” I say, because my phone is inside. My ID. My keys.
The man in the hoodie snatches it off my arm and tosses it into the SUV.
“Move.”
I think about screaming.
The gun presses close enough to make the thought die before it reaches my throat.
So I walk.
Surviving looks ugly sometimes. It looks like obedience. It looks like silence. It looks like climbing into the back of a dark SUV because someone has decided your life is useful for the next little while.
The man in the hoodie yanks open the rear passenger door.
“Get in.”
