by Melissa Yi
Out of the four of us, Manouchka was the only one who was entirely innocent. She just wanted to come to a hospital and have her baby. Instead, she’d had to barricade herself in the bathroom while her nurse was shot.
I licked my lips and said, my voice wavering only a little, “Manouchka.”
“Come on out, Casey,” said Bastard.
No sound, no movement from behind the door.
Bastard took another step toward the door. One more foot, and he’d break me and Tucker apart. I could practically feel Bastard’s breath on my neck while he said, “You make me make you get out of there, and I’ll make you pay for it.”
Goosebumps prickled on my arms. My ankle rash itched under my socks. “She might not understand English. She speaks French.”
Bastard pinned me with his eyes. He was still wearing the burqa, which made him look farcical yet threatening. I must have betrayed something in my face, because he glanced down at his own sleeves and said, “Is it this? You saw my outfit and thought I was some chick? I just bought it so I could get in to see you. It’s me. Ben!”
Bastard had a name. I shuddered. I actually liked the name Ben, although not so much the name Benjamin, and definitely not Benji.
“I can take it off,” said Bastard/Ben, starting to croon again, “but you’ve got to come out. I don’t want to play hide and seek with you. I’ve been waiting to see you. Now, come on.”
She sobbed on her next breath, and it was a sound of so much distress, even through the wood, that Bastard said, for the first time, “Casey?” with doubt eroding his voice.
“She’s just trying to have a baby. Can we let her go?”
My words hung in the air.
Bastard seemed to consider them, for once. Finally, he said, “I haven’t seen her face.”
I figured that it was like some people say about a funeral. If they can’t see their loved one’s face, they can’t believe he or she died. It seems unreal.
If he didn’t see Manouchka, he wouldn’t believe that it wasn’t Casey.
It was possible that Casey and Manouchka were the same person, but I was still very worried that if she wasn’t, Bastard would take us all out.
That might be the risk we had to take, though, since he didn’t seem willing to say, Oh, sure. No probs. I’ll just head out now.
I licked my lips. “We can still find the person you want.”
He said, “Her face.”
I said, “Can I tell her in French?”
He snorted. “Go on.”
“Il veut voir votre visage,” I said. Vouvoyer, they call it: the most formal way of addressing someone in French. It may not be necessary (young women will just tell me, Tu peux me tutoyer), but I wanted her to know that I had the utmost respect for her. And if that could rub off on Bastard, so much the better.
“S’il-vous-plaît,” I added, which sounded ridiculous, even to my ears. If you please. Show your face to a murderer, if it should tickle your fancy.
“Il va me tuer!” she whispered, her French rough with tears, and Bastard’s head jerked to the side, hearing it.
Bastard said, “Fuck.”
Tucker and I barely breathed.
Bastard walked around me, tried the locked door handle, and yelled, “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!”
He raised his gun and leveled it at the door.
CHAPTER 12
I screamed, “Get DOWN!” to Tucker, to Manouchka, to everyone, just as Tucker tackled me.
He knocked me sideways, so my hip and skull bashed against the tile floor while Bastard started shooting.
Tucker dropped his chest over my head, even though I wiggled and tried to throw him to one side. He clamped his hands over my ears and his legs around my waist.
In any other circumstance, I might enjoy this, but he was squashing my nose and mouth with his sternum, practically waterboarding me against his filthy hospital scrubs.
I wiggled my head from side to side, trying to shake off my Tucker earmuffs and nose crush while I tried to make out the unfamiliar sounds above us. Not gunshots, but angry, fast, repeated bangs that made the floor tremble.
Kicks? Was that possible? Was Bastard kicking the door instead of shooting?
A single, sharp crack.
Somehow, I recognized this noise. The wood had split.
Yes, he was kicking in the bathroom door.
Tucker’s body locked down on me like a robot exoskeleton.
I screamed Manouchka’s name from beneath Tucker’s body.
Crack.
The whole room roared, a tiny echo chamber of death.
The floor shook underneath me.
I started fighting to get out from underneath Tucker, struggling to breathe, thinking, He’s trying to protect me, but he might kill me.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t BREATHE.
Still, Tucker weighed me down, refusing to move.
And I realized, Maybe he’s dead. Maybe Bastard pumped him full of lead, and this is just a death grip.
BANG.
I screamed, trying to sit up.
Wood shattered under the bludgeoning of Bastard’s boots.
Meanwhile, the logical part of me thought, Get down, you idiot. Tucker is trying to save your life, but I couldn’t relax until I registered Tucker’s heart hammering against my chest and gloated, He’s still alive, he’s still alive, even if he’s just in hypotensive tachycardia, he’s ALIVE—
Tucker twisted above me, relieving the pressure on my nose.
I sucked stale air into my lungs and squinted at the man-shaped shadow looming above us.
The gun lowered toward my head again.
No. The hand stopped just short of jamming the metal back against my temple, but Tucker’s shape blotted out the gun’s exact location.
My muffled ears detected Bastard saying, “Get off of her, you stupid fuck.”
Tucker’s hands and feet sprang away from my body as abruptly as a triggered mousetrap.
He was leaving me.
Now I was the one grasping at Tucker. I tossed one leg over his shifting hips. I bear-hugged him, shaking my head from side to side.
Tucker’s brown eyes bore into mine. He didn’t blink.
But, out of the corner of my eyes, I detected Bastard’s gun hand, which was now aimed at Tucker.
My gut-based longing was not as important as Tucker’s immediate survival.
I forced myself to let him go. First my leg, which felt lop-sided anyway, and then my arms.
Tucker pressed his knees into the floor and now used both hands to push himself upright. Away from me.
He was healthy enough to get up. He was okay.
I realized that I must have been screaming, or crying, or something, because my face was wet and my throat ached. Or maybe that was Tucker’s tears or mucous from lying on me, I couldn’t tell anymore, but the ragged sound echoing in my ears was definitely breaking out of my own gullet.
I jumped to my feet, reeling a little at the change in position and the roaring in my ears.
Bastard slapped me across the face.
He hit me hard enough that for a second, I wondered if he’d dislocated my jaw. Pain blazed through my left cheek and neck.
I couldn’t think anything except pain.
Then, my eyes still blurred with tears, I forced myself to open and close my jaw a few millimetres. I didn’t think it was broken or displaced.
Just, ouch.
Tucker tried to lunge for me.
Bastard’s hand shot forward to squeeze Tucker’s throat, viper-fast, while his “free” hand leveled the gun at Tucker’s head. “Yeah. Try it, Blondie.”
Tucker’s eyes glittered. He locked in place, no longer reaching for me, but his chest bellowed with silent rage. He wanted to attack Bastard, but had to bite back on that instinct in order to maintain his brainstem and trachea.
His eyes shifted toward me, mutely asking if I was okay.
I nodded infinitesimally. My jaw already hurt less. Th
at was a win.
“I just wanted you to shut up. I didn’t shoot him, you stupid bitch,” Bastard said.
Did he shoot Manouchka and her unborn baby instead? Oh God, oh God.
Slowly, I raised my head and squared my unbroken jaw. I had to see what had happened to her and if I could help.
If the mother dies, you have four minutes to perform a crash C-section.
CHAPTER 13
I’d never done a perimortem C-section before, never even heard of another student witnessing one, but I’d assisted a few live Caesarian sections.
If anyone was going to cut open a dead woman’s belly, it would have to be me. Or Tucker. Or both.
I took two steps toward the broken bathroom door. Bastard had busted it in half.
The bottom part had propelled into the bathroom, perpendicular to the frame. The top half, I had to duck under, bracing myself against the sudden whiff of a coppery smell that might have been gunpowder, but could easily have been blood.
Please don’t be blood.
My prayers achieved one thing. Bastard didn’t stop me from entering the bathroom.
Maybe Manouchka was already dead, but I still had to know if I’d have a chance at saving her or her baby.
It took me a second to compute the blue-gowned figure quivering at two o’clock, behind the toilet.
The figure was moving. It was covered in dust and shards of glass?—no, plastic, I thought, as my shoes crunched into the room—but it wasn’t obviously bleeding.
She wasn’t bleeding.
Manouchka was alive.
I stared at her, unbelieving. I guess I’d thought it was too much to wish for, that Bastard would shoot Stan and June, but then not execute any of the three of us remaining.
I did not understand Bastard. Was this his form of mercy? Was he such a bad shot?
Still, I was wordlessly grateful that he’d concentrated his fury and destruction on the transparent shower stall directly opposite the door, which was now a gaping hole of shattered plastic.
No bullet holes in the wall, though. So he must’ve been strong enough to kick down the door and then bash in the shower stall with his bare fists and his boots.
I didn’t want to think about what that meant, except that I didn’t have to do a perimortem C-section.
I glanced down at Manouchka’s huddled form and said, in French, “I’m here to help you.”
“She’s not Casey,” said Bastard, from behind Tucker, whose feet now hovered barely outside the ruined bathroom door, within arm’s reach. “I saw her in the toilet. She’s just some nigger.”
My breath hitched. I thought maybe Tucker’s did, too.
It wasn’t enough that Bastard had stolen a persecuted group’s religious costume, shot two innocent hospital workers, terrified a pregnant woman, smacked me around, and held a gun to Tucker’s head. Now he was tossing out racist slurs.
The only good part was (and you can tell that I’m a die-hard optimist. Oops. I will most likely die hard, thanks), forewarned is forearmed.
Bastard didn’t like black women.
So he wouldn’t like yellow women like me, either.
Maybe he liked white men, though. Maybe he wouldn’t pull the trigger on Tucker quite as easily. That put Tucker on the most-likely-to-survive list.
And, for what it was worth, Bastard hadn’t killed Manouchka. Yet.
Manouchka began rocking from side to side, as if the pain in her body would not allow her to stay still and silent any longer, even if it might cost her two lives.
“I could help her, if you’d let me,” I said over my shoulder, to Bastard. I wanted him to think he was in control, the Grand Poobah granting favours. That way, maybe I could manipulate him into doing what I wanted.
Bastard barked, “I need you to deliver my boy. Get out here.”
My body stiffened. Torn between competing needs. Should I capitalize on his request and ask him to move me and Tucker into another room, supposedly to deliver Casey’s baby?
We’d abandon Manouchka right when she needed us. But it would also drive the gunman away from her.
Medicine is all about risks and benefits. I bet Manouchka would rather deliver the baby herself on the cold bathroom floor if it got her free from this madman.
I opened my mouth to say okay.
The intercom crackled in the outer room. A woman’s voice cut in. “Are you all right in there?”
She didn’t sound like the clerk we’d had earlier. That one had an old woman’s warble. This one sounded much younger, and very calm for someone asking if any of us had survived.
Bastard said, “What the fuck?”
“It’s the intercom,” said Tucker. I saw his feet pivot as he probably pointed toward the grille and the red button in the wall at the head of the bed in the main room. “Press that if you want to talk.”
I glanced at Manouchka. She was definitely panting now. Her sides heaved.
I edged toward her. Her bum pointed toward the ruined wall, and I needed to get to what we call the business end. (The head is the “office end,” where the partner usually hangs out.)
Bastard said, “Are they fucking listening to us?”
“Only if you press the red button,” said Tucker. “It’s like a walkie-talkie. They can’t listen in unless you press the button.”
“Why are they talking, then?”
“Because they heard you breaking down the door,” said Tucker. “They want to make sure we’re alive. If they think we’re dead—”
He didn’t complete the thought, but I did. Would they storm in? Would Bastard panic and start shooting us, as well as the cavalry?
I took a few more small steps toward Manouchka, murmuring in French, “It’s okay,” even though it obviously wasn’t.
“Why should I talk to them? They didn’t help me find Casey,” said Bastard, not unlike a toddler. Boo hoo.
“Maybe they could,” I said. I spoke more slowly and carefully than usual, instead of my usual rat-a-tat style. While Bastard mulled that over, I crouched over Manouchka and said, “Bonjour.”
What a foolish thing to say. It wasn’t a good day. But she still hadn’t answered me. And I couldn’t see her face. She was balled up, head down, into the tile. She must be freezing.
“That’s a good idea, Hope,” said Tucker, but I could still see his feet. He and Bastard hadn’t maneuvered their way over to the intercom to press the button and communicate with them to make it so, even though I’d invoked the magic Casey word.
The intercom crackled again. “Manouchka? Dr. Zee? Dr. Tucker?”
I wanted to yell, I’m here.
Instead, I told Manouchka, “It’s me. Dr. Sze. I’m here to help you with your baby.”
If anything, she curled into a tighter ball. For a second, I thought of a mimosa plant’s delicate leaves coiling up when touched.
I laid a careful hand on Manouchka’s back.
Her breath seized, but she didn’t scream. I didn’t know if that was a good sign or bad.
Bastard said, “I don’t like some chick blabbing at me. Maybe I should just take this out.”
His feet twisted to the right. Toward the intercom.
My free hand jerked into the air, as if to stop him. The intercom was one of our only links to the outside world. I couldn’t get my hands or eyes free to check my phone, plus the battery could die any second. If Bastard severed the intercom lifeline too, I might seriously lose it.
My phone.
Bastard wasn’t watching me. And I had to deliver Manouchka’s baby any second now. But in the meantime, I slid my phone out of my left breast pocket and stared at my messages.
Ryan: I love you.
Ryan: Just heard. OMW.
Ryan: ILY.
Dad: Hope, hang in there. We’re coming.
Mom: You’re on TV!
I had to smile. That sounded more like my little brother, Kevin. And my mom didn’t text me, so I assumed he’d grabbed her phone.
Ryan: I hear
the police have surrounded the building. I’m at Anderson Rd. ILY.
My hands were shaking. I only had a second, at most, but I sent the same message to all of them: ILY.
I love you.
It was 8:29 p.m. I was a bit hazy on the exact minute I’d first stepped into the case room to say hi to Manouchka, but I couldn’t have been kidnapped for more than an hour. Ryan said he was on the outskirts of Ottawa, but it was really a two hour drive in.
He’d said I’m at Anderson Rd. First person singular. He hadn’t waited for my family. They must be driving in separately.
Which, considering my mother, was a smart move. She was probably still packing me an extra blanket and making hot chocolate.
The last thing I needed was Ryan in a pile-up, trying to get to me.
At least it hadn’t been snowing this morning.
But what about my family? Were they really going to hold a vigil outside the building, in the freezing cold? What if the police cordoned off the whole block?
I thrust that thought from my mind and dropped my phone back in my pocket. I loved them. I couldn’t worry about them right now, or I’d lose it.
Before Bastard could shoot the intercom, Tucker asked one question. “Is that wise?”
Even in the midst of chaos, my mind clicked on to the word wise. If he’d said smart, Bastard might have taken offence. But wisdom? We don’t talk much about wisdom, except for the three wise men, once a year.
Then I saw Tucker’s body buck as Bastard jammed his foot between my man’s. “You telling me what to do? You think you’re running the show here?”
I jumped to my feet, ignoring the throb in my temples.
Don’t you dare hurt Tucker.
Bastard, shoot the intercom. Heck, shoot a hole in the wall big enough for us to break into the next room. But don’t you touch my man.
Before I could confront him, Tucker beat me to it.
“Never,” said Tucker. “You’ve got the gun. That means that you hold all the cards.”
I stopped two feet away from him. Tucker was standing very still, with his hands by his sides. I couldn’t see the gun, which meant it was above the waist, behind the half-door. Probably pointing at Tucker’s head, since that was Bastard’s M.O.
I could tell from Tucker’s body language that he wanted me to get the hell away. Even his words were a double message, reminding me not to play the hero.