“Just shut up and move.”
Michael punches Zeth in the back, so hard he slumps to his knees. A shriek rips out of my mouth—what the hell is he doing? Michael reaches into Zeth’s jacket and pulls the set of keys out, and then he helps Zeth to his feet. Zeth’s pale white and swaying on his feet, but he still looks like he wants to kill his friend.
Michael turns to me then. “Wait around the corner. Go! She’ll follow us to the cars. I’ll send someone for you. Just wait there! You’re gonna have to help him. He’s lost a lot of blood.” As if to prove his point, Zeth’s head rocks back and he almost slumps to the ground. Lacey and I grab him under each arm and do as we’re told. This isn’t going to work. This is not going to work. But I still power forward, stumbling under the vast weight that I’m desperately trying not to let fall on top of me. Thankfully Zeth’s able to stagger forward, otherwise we’d be screwed. Michael and Cade tear off, whooping and calling as they go. The building to our left cuts away and we turn, coming into a small courtyard where the generator blocks are kept. Lacey seems to know where she’s going. She urges us forward, leading me right behind one of the brick genny houses.
I have to blink three times before I’ll believe my eyes. “Cops!” I turn to Lacey, who looks mildly embarrassed. “Lacey, why are there two fucking cops fucking handcuffed to the doors of this fucking building?” I don’t think I’ve ever said fuck so much, but the situation seems to warrant it.
“They’re just unconscious. They’re not dead,” Lacey says, as if this makes it all better.
“Oh my god,” I breathe, and I mean it. Devine intervention is the only way I can see a positive outcome in all of this. I feel like dropping to my knees and praying that we get through this. Lacey and I lower Zeth to the floor. His eyes are open, but it doesn’t seem like he’s seeing us. I check his pulse and it’s slow and thready. He’s gonna die, and all because he wouldn’t just stay in his bed. All of this because he wouldn’t fucking listen. I slap him around the face, hard, and it’s only partially to stop him from falling into a coma. The other half is because he fucking deserves it.
Michael told us to wait here—that he would send somebody for us. Police sirens wail out in the front car lot, and there’s nothing else that we can do. Lacey and I sit there, and we wait.
******
A Widow Maker shows up twelve minutes later. It’s Carnie, one of the men I met at Julio’s; I have no idea how he managed to get here so fast, and I don’t ask questions. It’s a miracle that we haven’t already been discovered. Lucky that the unconscious cops haven’t woken up, either, although that’s more of a worrying point. They’ve been out for so long, I begin to worry they actually are dead, but a quick check of their pulses reveal they are very much still alive.
Just like us, Carnie’s absolutely drenched; he looks faintly amused at our situation, although his smile vanishes when he realizes it’s on him to lift Zeth. In the end, even he’s not strong enough to do it on his own. He takes Zeth’s arms, and Lace and I get a leg each. It’s so undignified that I’m almost glad the bastard’s finally passed out on us; he would never consciously tolerate such manhandling.
Carnie has an industrial van waiting at the rear of the hospital, the engine still running. Down one side, the paintwork reads Encore Dry Cleaning. He’s parked it right up against the bay doors, as though he’s waiting for a delivery of the hospital’s soiled linen. The hospital cleans its own sheets and scrubs, but it’s a reasonable disguise. We manage to haul Zeth into the back—the van is actually piled high with sacks of clean laundry—and then Lacey and I climb in right behind him. “Where the hell did you get this?” I ask Carnie, already suspecting the answer.
“I borrowed it,” he replies, and then he slams the doors closed. Everything falls into darkness. A moment later, the van lurches and we’re moving. In the dark, the engine and our breathing seem very loud. I suddenly realize how cold and wet and tired I am. Lacey fumbles around and finds my hand, squeezing it tight.
“Is he going to be okay?” she whispers.
I squeeze her hand back, and I tell her the truth. “I don’t know. I hope so.”
The man I called a back-alley doctor back at Zeth’s warehouse told me his practice was in a basement, but he lied; it’s actually above a tattoo shop in Greenwood. He looks less than happy to see us when we walk through his door, although his tight-lipped grimace isn’t one of surprise. He knew all too well that we were coming.