Thomas Perry - Poison Flower

The two men didn't drive on. They both flung open their doors and ran toward her. The man who had handcuffed her took out his gun. As Jane dived toward the bed of ice plants beside the exit ramp she heard the shot and felt the brutal impact of the bullet, and then the explosion of pain.

JANE'S RIGHT LEG FELT AS though it were crushed and on fire, throbbing with each heartbeat. She must have lost consciousness for a moment, because she didn't remember being dragged back into the car. She was strapped tight by the seat belt with her hands still cuffed behind her. The pain was like fire that seemed to grow hotter and hotter. The leg was weak, and if the bumping of the car moved it, the pain shot inward from her thigh to her spine. Jane could manage only shallow, quivery breaths that rasped in and out. She tried to keep the breaths quiet, to hide her weakness from her enemies, but she couldn't control them. She knew she had been shot only a few minutes ago, but she couldn't imagine living much longer with this pain. She fought the impulse to close her eyes again. She had to remain aware of what was around her.

Since she had come to, the man beside her in the back seat had been talking to her in a hiss of hatred, his face close to her right ear. What was he saying "You bitch. You stupid bitch. You did this to yourself. We would have found out what we wanted and then let you go-dumped you someplace so it would take you time to get to a phone. But you couldn't live with that. Now you're going to be crippled, or lose your leg."

To give herself strength, Jane gathered her pain and anger, like two hands scraping crumbs together and compressing them. "I doubt it."

"Oh You're a doctor, too"

"No, but I can see I'm bleeding out."

He looked down at her right thigh, and his eyes followed the dark wetness that was soaking her black pants, and where the blood dripped to the floor he could see a pool forming. He said to the driver, "She's bleeding a lot."

The driver said, "Then do something. We've got to keep her alive."

"Do something What"

"Stop the bleeding," the driver said. "Use a tourniquet."

The man unbuckled his belt and pulled it off, then wrapped it around Jane's thigh just above the wound and tightened it.

"Ahh!" Jane shouted.

He cinched the belt tighter and held it there. Jane could tell he was happy that he was inflicting even more pain.

Jane leaned back in the car seat but kept her eyes open, searching for signs-a street, a city, a direction. There was a shopping mall, but she couldn't see its name. They were passing the delivery entrance, and the sign was facing the other way on another street.

She wasn't sure she should have mentioned the blood. She might soon wish she had bled to death before these two started doing things to make her give up James Shelby.

Her husband Carey's image appeared in her mind, but she blinked and glared at the sights flashing by-chain-link fences around parking lots, low gray or beige buildings with trucks parked at loading docks. She couldn't let her own feelings distract her. She had to be alert to the next chance to save herself, and not think about losing the world full of things she loved.

She was held upright by the seat belt, and she kept her eyes open, scanning the lines of cars in each direction, looking for a police car. That would be all it would take-a police car. She could attract the cop's attention, and this would be over. She watched for what seemed to be twenty minutes, but she knew it couldn't have been that long.

The police car never seemed to appear, and the pain of the gunshot wound was worse and worse. She felt sweat at her temples, the back of her neck, her sides. She kept fighting waves of dizzy nausea, then faintness. She couldn't lose consciousness now, or she might miss her chance to stop the two men before they got her out of sight somewhere.

The car slowed a bit, sped up, slowed, and she realized the driver was looking for an address. As he did, other cars began to pass him on the right-a chance. The seat belt, the handcuffs, and the man's hand holding the tourniquet tight would prevent her from moving anything but her head now. She shrieked as loudly as she could, her voice tearing the air, and threw her head against the side window of the car. She shouted, "Help! Call the police!"

A man driving the car beside her looked shocked. He slowed, then stared at her. Her captor put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her inward. He held up his badge and gave an authoritative wave to tell the gawker to move on. The man pulled over and turned right. She screamed, "No! They're not cops!"

The man holding the tourniquet tugged on it and the pain shot up her leg. "You really are stupid," he said. "There's no need to kill yourself. Leave something to us, for Christ's sake."

The driver was staring intently in his mirrors. "That guy's gone, right"

The other man looked out the rear window. "Yeah. It's safe to go in."

The car turned left and went between two one-story gray buildings that looked like small factories or warehouses into a parking lot. There were three more low buildings ranged around the lot. The car stopped beside the door of the second one. "Let's get her inside."

Jane's world was becoming a place with dark patches that would join at the periphery of her vision and then spread like a stain. The man swung open the car door, but she mostly heard it, because almost instantly the pain in her leg was sharp and deep, like a blade thrust into the muscle. She felt as though the knife's serrations were scraping the bone, and then the men had her arms over their shoulders, half carrying, half dragging her to a door, and then inside.

The inner space was huge, like a small high-tech factory with brushed concrete floors and acoustic tile ceilings. "Let's put her on the couch." The voice had a slight echo as though the place were entirely empty, but it wasn't. There were rooms of some sort built along the side-offices, maybe.

The two men, now just shadows, dragged her to a couch and then lowered her onto it. The pain always grew, never diminished. Every movement seemed to set off a spasm, bending her body over like a hook. The two shadows stayed there, two blots in the middle of her burning red pain. One of the shadows said, "If you want to scream now, go ahead. That's why we brought you here. But while you're doing it, start thinking about something. You're going to talk. Everybody does."

2.

Jane woke up and saw that a new man was beside her, wearing a surgical mask, headgear, and gloves, using a pair of curved bandage scissors to cut along the outer seam of her pants. A doctor. He pulled back the flap of fabric and examined her wound for a few seconds, then began to talk to the man standing above her behind the couch. His mask muffled his voice.

"You had to shoot her" He was angry. "This is going to make everything harder for you than you can even imagine. She could die." He had a foreign accent, but with the mask she couldn't place it. His skin was light brown, and his eyes were dark.

"Then make sure she doesn't die."

"Easy to say after the bullet has been fired."

"There was no choice."

"She'll need daily care to control the bleeding, prevent infection, and get the wound to heal properly. She must have antibiotics, painkillers and sedatives, IV feeding."

"You'll be well paid for everything you do, and for once you won't have to testify in court that your patient got hurt in a car accident."

"Very funny. I'll need to bring my nurse to assist me."

"Is she worth all this trouble" The second man was standing somewhere beyond Jane's head, where she couldn't see him.

"What do you mean"

"Is she even going to live"

The doctor's voice became contemptuous. "The bullet passed through her leg and exited the other side, which is why there are two holes. She didn't die of shock, or of blood loss, and the femur wasn't broken, all of which I attribute to luck. The care she gets will determine whether she lives or not. You could take her to a hospital and her chances would be very good."