Chương 13
"Stay back!" he screamed, his voice cracking with terror as he scrambled backward through the mud on his hands and knees. "We are state-licensed medical transport! You just committed a federal felony, you crazy bitch!"
I ignored him entirely.
I stepped onto the rear bumper of the tilted van, wedged the flat chisel end of the pry-bar into the seam between the two rear cargo doors, and put my entire body weight into the lever.
The metal groaned. The cheap commercial lock cylinder sheared with a sharp, metallic snap, and both doors swung wide into the night.
The amber dome light was still burning inside.
Lainey was strapped to the gurney, her head secured in a foam head-block, her arms bound to her sides with thick canvas medical restraints. Her eyes were half-open, glazed and unfocused, her pupils dilated to the rim under the dim bulb. A clear plastic oxygen cannula was looped around her ears, and an IV line ran from a bag of saline hanging from the ceiling directly into the back of her left hand.
She didn't know where she was. She heard the noise, heard the metal tearing, and let out a weak, animal whimper that cut through my chest deeper than any knife Colt Lusk could have carried.
"Lainey," I said, dropping the pry-bar onto the floor of the van with a heavy clatter. "Lainey-bug, look at me."
I reached into my pocket, pulled out my folding pocketknife, and sliced through the canvas wrist straps with two quick strokes. Her hands fell limp against the mattress. I reached up and ripped the IV needle from the vein in her hand, pressing my thumb against the small bead of blood until it stopped.
"Mom?" she whispered, her tongue thick, her lips barely moving against the swelling on her jaw. "Mom... it's dark."
"I have you," I told her, unbuckling the main harness across her chest and legs. "We’re going home."
"She’s not going anywhere," a voice snarled from behind me.
I turned my head.
The driver had crawled out through the passenger door. He was standing at the base of the rear bumper, covered in black ditch muck, his right hand gripping a heavy, black polycarbonate stun gun that crackled with a vicious blue arc of high-voltage electricity.
"Step away from the patient, lady," the driver said, his jaw set in a tight, ugly line. "You touch her again and I’ll drop you into this ditch with fifty thousand volts."
I looked down at the stun gun. Then I looked at his eyes.
He had the stance of a mall cop who had taken an eight-hour certification course at a strip mall and thought the battery pack in his hand made him a deity.
"Son," I said, stepping slowly down from the van's bumper until my boots were sunk two inches into the soft mud. "You have about three seconds to turn that toy off and walk into those woods before I break your arm in three places."
"Screw you, old—"
He lunged, thrusting the twin metal prongs toward my neck.
I didn't block the weapon; you don't block an electric discharge. I stepped inside the thrust, letting the prongs pass over my left shoulder, the blue arc snapping loud enough to singe the collar of my jacket. My left hand caught the inside of his wrist, pulling his arm forward to extend the joint, while my right palm hammered down on his tricep tendon.
His arm locked straight. I twisted his wrist outward, breaking his grip on the handle. The stun gun splashed harmlessly into six inches of swamp water, its blue light dying with a dull sizzle.
Before he could pull back, I drove the heel of my boot into the side of his right knee.
The joint buckled with a sharp, sickening pop. He screamed, collapsing into the mud, clutching his shredded ligaments with both hands.
May you like
"I told you," I said, not looking down at him.
I climbed back into the van, gathered Lainey into my arms, and lifted her off the gurney. She was light—too light for a girl who had spent the last four years laughing, studying, and helping me lift rough-cut oak slabs in the shop. Her head fell back against my shoulder, her breath coming in slow, shallow puffs that smelled faintly of hospital saline and copper.
