The lobby is dark except for the security lights casting a soft blue glow across the waiting area.The chairs I carefully selected, comfortable enough for long waits but not so comfortable that people linger unnecessarily, throw elongated shadows across the polished floor.I reach for my jacket hanging by the reception desk, already tasting the dinner Zach promised to cook tonight.Something Italian, he’d said this morning, pressing a kiss to my temple before I left for work.
A sudden movement outside the front windows catches my attention.A flash of motion where there should be only empty sidewalk.I pause, jacket half on, squinting through the darkness.Shadows shift against the glass.Human shapes moving quickly, hunched and furtive.Three figures, maybe four, their features obscured by hoodies pulled low.
My pulse quickens, adrenaline beginning to course through my veins.I reach for my phone, thinking of Zach, of the panic button app he insisted I install after what happened at the hospital.
Before I can unlock the screen, there’s a shout from outside, angry and slurred with alcohol.
“Devil-loving faggot!”
The window explodes inward with a deafening crash, glass shards spraying across the lobby like deadly confetti, glittering in the security lights.Something large and heavy tears through the air directly toward me.A brick, my brain registers with clinical detachment, even as my body tries to jerk away.
Too slow.Too late.
Searing pain explodes across the side of my head, white-hot and blinding.The impact knocks me sideways, my body crumpling against the reception desk.My shoulder hits the edge with bruising force before I slide to the floor, legs suddenly unable to support my weight.
Warm wetness immediately floods down my face and neck, soaking into the collar of my shirt.The metallic tang of blood fills my nostrils, copper and salt on my tongue where I’ve bitten the inside of my cheek.My vision swims, darkening at the edges as I struggle to stay conscious.
The alarm begins wailing, the security system Zach insisted on installing activating automatically when the window shattered.The sound pierces through the ringing in my ears, high and urgent.Help will come.Zach will come.I just need to stay awake.
I press my hand to the side of my head, feeling torn flesh and the alarming slickness of blood pouring between my fingers.Scalp wound, I think hazily.They always bleed heavily.May not be as bad as it feels.
But the pain is blinding, nauseating.Colored spots dance across my vision as I try to focus, to assess my own injury with the detachment I’d use for a patient.Possible concussion.Definite laceration.Need pressure to stop bleeding.
I try to push myself up, but my limbs won’t cooperate, my body suddenly impossibly heavy.The floor seems to tilt beneath me, the room spinning in lazy, sickening circles.More shouting outside, angry voices, the sound of running feet, a car engine revving.
“Cowards,” I try to say, but my tongue feels thick and unwieldy in my mouth.The word comes out slurred, barely recognizable.
My phone lies a few feet away, screen cracked from the fall but still glowing.Zach’s message still visible.Dinner’s getting cold, Doc.
I reach for it, fingers trembling, leaving smears of blood across the polished floor.Just need to call Zach.Need to tell him… what?That I’m hurt?That someone attacked the clinic?That I should have listened when he said not to work alone at night?
My fingertips brush the edge of the phone just as the darkness at the edges of my vision begins to close in.The alarm continues its relentless wailing, but it sounds farther away now, as if I’m hearing it from underwater.
Stay awake, I command myself.Just stay awake until help comes.
But the darkness is so tempting, promising relief from the throbbing agony in my head.I think of Zach, of his face when he finds me here, of the rage that will consume him, of what he might do to whoever did this.
“No,” I mumble, the word thick and indistinct.“Don’t… don’t hurt them…”
The lobby door bursts open with enough force to slam against the wall.Heavy boots cross the glass-strewn floor in rapid strides.Through the haze of pain and encroaching unconsciousness, I catch a glimpse of leather, of tattoos, of familiar hands reaching for me.
“X?Jesus Christ, Xavier!”
Zach’s voice, tight with panic.His hands on my face, gentle despite their urgency.I try to focus on him, but his features blur and shift, refusing to come into clarity.
“Stay with me,” he’s saying, his voice seeming to come from very far away.“Xavier, look at me.Stay with me, baby.”
I want to tell him I’m trying, that I’m fighting the darkness with everything I have.Want to tell him I love him, that he can’t go after whoever did this, that violence will only bring more violence.But the words won’t form, my tongue leaden in my mouth.
The last thing I register before consciousness slips away entirely is Zach’s voice, not speaking to me now, but barking orders into his phone, cold fury underlying the panic.
“Grey, get everyone to the clinic.Now.Someone’s attacked Xavier.And when I find out who, they’re fucking dead.”
The darkness swallows me whole, but voices penetrate through.Urgent, angry, frightened.I drift in and out, catching fragments like radio stations between frequencies.
“…need to get him to a hospital…”
“…going to fucking kill whoever…”
