Mindy Mejia - Leave No Trace

When he shot out of his parking spot and gunned out of sight, I waited, listening. Sooner or later he was going to have to turn to exit the parking lot. And sooner or later his tires – missing all their lug nuts – were going to come barreling off his baby.

The crash came seconds later, followed by an ear-splitting car alarm that jerked me into movement like the starting gun of a race. I sprinted to the emergency exit door and badged my way into an empty stairwell, ran down to the basement and opened the door I’d sealed with duct tape before my shift this morning to insure it wouldn’t latch. My tools – a hacksaw and can of spray paint – were exactly where I’d left them behind the fire extinguisher. I grabbed them and shoved the saw into my backpack, taking the stairs two at a time until I reached the emergency exit of the men’s isolation ward. I paused for a second, peering in the lead glass window, as the car alarm still shrieked in the night. No one was at the desk on the far side of the ward by the main entrance. I badged in just as the car alarm stopped. The quiet was deafening.

I breathed once, then pushed the door further open and slipped inside. It was impossible to tell from this angle if any patients were up and looking through their doors. Shaking the spray paint can and cringing at the noise, I aimed it at the corner of the ceiling directly above me, where a security camera was mounted to capture the entire corridor down to the main entrance. Hopefully the front desk security staff were still in the parking lot dealing with Jason’s accident and – with any luck – they’d think a black screen was a shorted-out wire before coming to investigate the camera. Once I had the lens covered, I duct taped the door latch, then crossed to the main desk to see which room Lucas was in. My fingers shook as I ran them over the check sheet, finally finding his name by room six. I had the lock pick ready as I sprinted to his door, attacking the knob and tripping myself up with the adrenaline rocketing through my body. Bump keys wouldn’t work on these doors. I had to pick through each individual weight and spring.

There was rustling and scraping in one of the rooms behind me, then a broken, singsongy voice started chanting words I couldn’t understand. It sounded like he had respiratory issues. A clavicular breathing pattern? I shook my head, forcing the voice out, and concentrated all my energy on the piece of metal separating me from Lucas. How much time did I have? Every second wasted was one second closer to failure.

I couldn’t hear anything inside Lucas’s room, or maybe I just couldn’t hear him over the combination of the singer and the pounding of my heart. More seconds ticked by. Sweat dripped down my temples under the mask and I started praying to the god of lock picking, to anyone who could help me break through this door. I was running out of time.

Finally, after what seemed like an hour, I popped the latch and turned the handle, pushing inside.

It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the dark. When they did, I saw a body strapped to the bed in full restraints, unconscious.

‘Lucas,’ I whispered, going to work on the handcuffs, which were a walk in the park compared to that freaking door. I had both his feet free before he even blinked his eyes open.

‘Lucas, can you hear me?’

It took him a moment to focus on me and when he did, the ripple of fear over his face broke my heart. I paused at his left wrist and tugged the ski mask up, squeezing his hand.

‘Had enough of this place yet?’

As soon as my face came into view, his entire body lifted and his breath caught. A strangled noise came out of his throat.

‘Maya,’ he breathed, looking at me like he was drowning and I was the only buoy in all of Lake Superior. I swallowed a wave of emotion and smiled before pulling the ski mask back down.

‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’

I opened the last of his handcuffs, which was more difficult now that he’d woken up because he started tugging against them. When I’d finally gotten them all, I unfastened the straps on the straitjacket and pulled it off him as he staggered to his feet and then fell back on the bed heavily. I boxed his head in my hands, tilting his face to the light streaming in from the corridor. His pupils were contracted and he couldn’t stop blinking.

‘Swallow this. Quickly.’ I handed him two NoDoz pills from my pocket and he ate them without question.

‘Can you walk?’

He made himself stand up again, slower this time, and inhaled slowly. ‘I’ll crawl if I need to.’

‘Okay, let’s go.’

I peeked out of the room. The patient with respiratory issues had stopped singing and there was no sign of any staff yet. Ducking into the corridor, we moved awkwardly to the emergency exit. Lucas braced one arm along the wall while I pulled him by the other. We made it through the door and down the stairwell with Lucas falling twice and me helping him back to his feet. At the bottom of the stairs I pulled Nurse Valerie’s badge out and swiped it against the electronic pad.

Nothing.

I tried it again and the light turned red.

‘Fuck.’ I threw my weight against the door once, but it was solid metal.

‘Plan B.’

‘What’s a planbee?’ Lucas asked as I dragged him back up the stairs. The respiratory patient was giggling when we got back to the isolation ward. Laughter echoed down the hall and met the distant sound of walking feet. I pulled the can of spray paint out and shoved it into Lucas’s hands.

‘Spray everything.’

‘What?’

‘We need another decoy.’ I ran to the giggling patient’s room and went to work on the lock. Now that I knew the model it was easier to spring the catch. As soon as I opened the door a bone-skinny white guy ran out and started making circles in the middle of the corridor, singing at the top of his lungs, his shoulders heaving up and down with the effort.

‘Hey!’ I grabbed the can out of Lucas’s shaking hands and tossed it to the guy. ‘We did this hall, but you have to get the rest. Can you paint the basement?’

I opened the emergency exit and he ran through it on pale, quivering legs, tottering down the stairs and spraying a trail of paint all over the walls and himself. There was no time for the stab of regret that lanced through me. Voices came from the other direction, getting closer.

‘Get into bed.’ I pulled Lucas into his room, shutting the door behind us.

‘No!’ He struggled against the straitjacket as I tried to cover him with it.

‘Shut up! Do it now.’ I forced him back to a lying position and was tucking the handcuffs up so they didn’t dangle off the sides, just as we heard the dull thud of the main ward door opening.

‘Oh, Jesus H Christ.’ A man’s voice came from the end of the corridor. Someone else replied, but I couldn’t hear what they said. I crouched against the wall next to the door, fighting the panic that swelled in my throat.

Lucas’s breathing had sped up, which meant the NoDoz was starting to kick in and counteract the sleeping pills, but other than the quick rise and fall of his chest, he lay motionless on the bed with his eyes closed.

The guards ran past us to the end of the corridor.

‘Spray paint? Are you fucking kidding me?’

‘Radio the desk. Check the rooms. Now.’

One of them called the central monitoring station while the other’s footsteps came closer and closer, pausing at each room. Stride. Pause. Stride.

I held my breath as the feet stopped outside Lucas’s room. A flashlight’s beam shone through the window and bounced off the bed; I could see the glare of the handcuffs clearly open, the straitjacket straps hanging loosely. As noiselessly as possible, I pulled a utility knife out of my jacket pocket, waiting for the shout, for the door to spring open.