Killers - Blake Crouch [7]
“Now listen carefully, Denise,” Lucy said. The burst of exhilaration had momentarily dulled her pain. “I will run this needle straight through your neck if you make so much as a whisper. Got it? Nod, bitch!”
The nurse nodded.
“You want to live through this?”
More frantic nodding.
“Okay, here’s what you’re going to do. What floor are we on?”
“Four.”
“Is there a basement in this hospital?”
“Yes.”
“What’s down there?”
“Um…”
Lucy pushed the needle in a tad farther. This was the best she’d felt all day. What she lived for.
“I’m thinking…the lab…radiology…the blood bank.”
“There you go. Tell the orderly I’m bleeding and send him down to the basement for several units of blood.”
“Okay.”
“I swear to God if you fuck this up I’m going to use your neck for a pin cushion.”
“Now?”
“What?”
“You want me to tell Benjamin now?”
“No, let’s wait another twenty minutes. Yes, now!”
The nurse cleared her throat as Lucy edged her toward the door.
“Benjamin?” she said.
“Everything okay, Denise?”
“Lucy’s having some heavy blood loss. I want you to head down to the blood bank and bring up three units of AB.”
“Should I page Dr. Lanz?”
“I’ll take care of that. Go now.”
Lucy heard the orderly padding away.
“You did well, Denise. You did really well.”
Lucy tightened her grip and jammed the needle twenty times into the nurse’s throat, numerous lines of blood branching and intersecting and running over her fingers as the nurse gurgled and fought to throw her off.
Outside the door, Lucy heard the deputy say, “Denise?”
Lucy dragged her back into the shower and her thirty-third puncture hit home because Lucy felt something swelling in the side of the nurse’s neck.
When the bulge reached the size of a golf ball Lucy gave it a prick and it exploded in a burst of bright red arterial spray that splattered across the shower tile.
Lucy felt the woman’s legs give out and she eased her down onto the floor of the shower.
The deputy knocked on the door.
“Denise, what’s going on?”
The physical exertion had brought on a wave of agony, and Lucy wanted to scream it was so fierce. Instead, she tugged Denise out of the shower and draped her across the toilet.
Lucy returned to the shower stall, pulled the curtain and backed up against the tile, her heart rocketing along, a smile spreading across her face.
So good to be alive.
In the space between the curtain and the wall, she saw the doorknob begin to turn.
The door swung open.
The deputy said, “Oh, shit.”
He took a step toward the nurse, who was still twitching.
“Denise?”
Lucy came through the shower curtain like a wildcat and swung the needle at the deputy’s face.
It glanced off the bridge of his nose and slipped through the corner of his eye.
He howled.
Lucy kicked the door shut and unsheathed his baton and brought it down with a smashing blow to the back of his head.
His knees hit the tile and she struck him again, felt a scrumptious crack.
The deputy was moaning, trying to crawl into the corner between the toilet and the wall.
When he reached the impasse, he stared up at Lucy and whimpered, “Don’t hurt me! Please!”
Lucy wiped the tears from her eyes and beat him to death with his own baton.
At 2:29 a.m., Lucy rolled out of her room in the wheelchair.
The corridor was silent.
A little ways down, three nurses occupied the station, catching up on their charts. Apparently, no one had heard the commotion in the bathroom.
She turned left and rolled along, each turn of the wheel a new level of pain, but one thing kept her going.
Donaldson.
He had to be on this floor, in the ICU.
Probably had a guard outside of his room as well.
But now that she was wearing Nurse Denise’s scrubs and had a few goodies up her sleeve, she liked her chances of getting past the guard.
She’d taken the handcuffs (key stored safe and sound up her ass), scalpel, surgical scissors, and pepper spray (safe and sound elsewhere). Even though she never used them, the gun had been tempting. But she didn’t trust herself with it. Accidentally killing Donaldson and ruining their fun prematurely