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I nodded.
She backed away to the door, keeping me covered with the shotgun, then glanced through it to where Colton lay in the back of the pickup. “Big fella, ain’t he? He Russian too?”
“No. He’s American. Army. He got this stuff on him because he was saving me and—” Suddenly, tears were prickling hotly at the corners of my eyes. Stupid, weak girl! I’d made it years without crying at all and now I was like a child’s crying doll, just squeeze me and tears sprung to my eyes. This is what happens when you let yourself care about someone. “Please, he’s going to die and he’s a good man and I—” I wanted to say it but I’d spent so long thinking that I’d never say those words again, that I had no right to ever say them, that they stuck in my throat. “I—”
My face must have said what my voice couldn’t because the woman sighed. “Aw, hell,” she muttered, and laid the shotgun on the reception counter. “Alright, grab that flashlight.” She pointed to one mounted on the wall. While I grabbed it, she disappeared into the treatment room. She returned holding a large syringe and led the way outside.
I shone the flashlight on Colton and my stomach lurched. His muscles had gone rock solid, his arms and legs twisted into agonizing, unnatural shapes. He’d gone deathly pale and his chest was barely moving.
“Where’s this nerve agent shit?” asked the woman, holding back. “On his clothes? His face? We don’t want to get it on us.”
“His hand.” I told her. “He fell down and put his hand in it.”
She climbed up into the back of the pick-up, giving Colton’s hand a wide berth. Then she ripped his shirt open. “Alright, big guy, here we go.”
Holding the syringe in both hands, she slammed it down into his heart. There was no response for a second. Then his body gradually began to soften, like a guitar string being slowly loosened.
“Let’s get him to the emergency room,” said the woman.
I shook my head. “The police are looking for him. For both of us.”
The woman frowned at me. “Your guy needs a hospital! I’m a vet, not a specialist on chemical fucking weapons. I had to guess the dosage on the atropine and God knows what other treatment he needs!”
“I know what he needs,” I said quickly. “Oxygen. Blood thinners.” The woman started shaking her head. “Please, I can pay!”
She opened her mouth and I could tell she was going to say no. Then she saw my face crumple and she huffed and scowled and finally pushed me back inside the vet’s. She began collecting things from the treatment room and stuffing them into a bag. “I’m only doing this,” she snapped, “because you’ve got the same fucking puppy dog look I had when I met my first husband. You know how to start an IV?”
I nodded quickly, speechless.
“Make sure you clean that shit off him real well before you do anything else. And if anyone asks, you broke in and stole this stuff.” She pushed the bag into my arms. “Now go!”
I stared at her, overcome. I’d faked this so many times, turned on the tears to manipulate someone into helping me. I wasn’t used to this weird, parallel world where you showed actual vulnerability and, sometimes, people recognized it and were kind to you. “Thank you,” I croaked. I dropped a thousand dollars on the counter, then ran.
I drove to the next town, found a motel and paid cash for a room. Again, I was glad of the rain and the dark as I heaved Colton out of the back of the truck and onto the bed.
The first thing I did was put on the latex gloves the vet had put in the bag and scrub Colton’s hands to make sure I’d got rid of every trace of the nerve agent. Then I hooked up the little oxygen tank she’d provided and strapped a nose tube to his face so that he could breathe more easily. I did some quick internet searching to figure out the dosage of blood thinner and then got an IV going, zip-tying the bag to the air conditioning grill so it was up high.
After that, there was nothing to do but wait. We’d gotten the atropine into him fast but he wasn’t out of the woods: a clot could form in his heart or lungs at any time. And he hadn’t yet regained consciousness so I had no idea if there was damage to his brain. It all came down to how big a dose of the nerve agent he’d absorbed through his hand and I had no way of knowing. He groaned in his sleep and I put a hand on his forehead. “Bud' sil'nym, moy plyushevyy mishka.” Be strong, my teddy bear. Be strong.
