“Is this your mom?” John asked, directing his question only at him.
The man’s scowling face turned mutinous. “I told her she’s not safe here. I told her not…” The man blinked and shoved Wyatt hard into the gurney. The elderly woman jumped, confused and frightened.
John sidestepped, following the movements like he would an opponent in the ring. It had been years since he boxed, yet he knew that the training had never really left him.
“This is the safest emergency department in all of LA, I can promise you that. Every single person in this room wants nothing more than to help your mom. We’re not here to hurt you or her. We’re just here to help her the best that we can…” John reassured. “What I cannot guarantee is what will happen when the police arrive.”
The man’s jaw clenched, sweat beginning to bead on his temple.
“The safest way out of this is to drop the knife.”
He saw a flash of wild fear and paranoia in the man’s eyes, and the shrinking cage that seemed to be closing in on him.
Wyatt sensed it too, and released his breath, voice thick and laced with emotion… and fear. “John…”
The man with the tattoos twitched.
That’s all it took, slicing the surgical knife across Wyatt, who leaped backward to avoid the cut.
John’s heart stopped.
And everything moved all at once.
Reyes yelled and Mendez charged, along with Samuels, who appeared out of nowhere.
But John moved first.
He rammed his shoulder hard into the man’s torso and they went flying backward, slamming into the tile floor and skidding across it in a heap of limbs. Before the man could move, Samuels, Mendez, and Reyes dogpiled them. John managed to grab the man’s wrist and yank the bloodied knife out of his hand. The man reared, attempting to strike him. John saw all the other men pinning him down, and for a split second he thought about putting the knife to this man’s throat the way he had done to Wyatt’s.
He gripped the knife once before tossing it on the ground toward the nurses' station. Sawyer, another resident, saw it and stopped it with her shoe, shaking as she grabbed it off the floor, her eyes wide.
Police announced themselves then, and with their guns drawn, descended on the chaos.
John’s fists were shaking but he managed to hold the man down with a knee to his throat, the other men holding down his flaying limbs. John craned his neck and saw Steph putting pressure on Wyatt’s throat. Blood spilled out from beneath her hands, and she was yelling for help.
Wyatt’s gaze was locked with his as he sat in Steph’s arms on the floor taking slow, measured breaths to slow his heart rate and thus his pulse, slowing the blood loss.
John froze, staring in horror and fear as panic ripped through him.
Samuels was on his feet, grabbing John by the back of the neck, and together they raced to Wyatt. He wrapped his arm around Wyatt’s waist, Samuels on theother side, and hauled him onto an open gurney. A team of nurses descended on him, applying everything they needed to measure his pulse and heart rate.
Reyes appeared at John’s side, “Police got the bastard.”
John’s face remained composed, even though everything inside him was shaking.
“Lawson…” he murmured, voice cracking.
Wyatt’s eyes lowered slightly, and his hand fell away. If the blade had been a normal kitchen knife, it wouldn’t have done this much damage. A surgical blade could cut through tire rubber if enough pressure was applied.
“His heart rate is dropping.”
“It’s missed the internal jugular vein. It’s superficial at best, but bleeding like a son of a bitch,” Samuels cursed. “Is he bleeding somewhere else?”
John grabbed his arm, turning it over, and saw that the bed sheet was already soaked. He was losing blood from a main vein in his arm, and quickly.
“Tourniquet,” John ordered, and Samuels squeezed the device over Wyatt’s arm, the blood flow immediately stopping.
“We can glue this sucker back together,” Samuels said. “Shouldn’t be too bad of a scar.”
