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“See you tomorrow,” he says, then turns back to his x-rays.
I turn off the lights in the exam rooms, tuck the boxes under my arm and head to the back door.
There’s only one streetlight by the dumpster, making it darker at the back of the building. A line of trees separates the clinic from the CVS parking lot behind it. There’s a street on my right and an alley on my left. There’s no open line of sight back here when the sun goes down. There are also a lot of addicts who hang out in the alley and dig through the dumpster after hours, hoping to find anything to give them a fix. Which is why Dr. Chase makes us park in the front. And why my heart throbs with a sense of foreboding when I spot a small Nissan truck parked back here. It’s several feet away, close to the exit by the street. The lights are off and the windows are too dark for me to see if there’s anyone inside.
Silence falls around me. There’s only the sound of my hurried footsteps on the asphalt and the occasional flash of headlights through the trees when someone pulls into the pharmacy.
I hurl the cardboard over my head, plotting how I’m going to get around the building to my car without going in the alley or near that truck. As I bring my arms back down, I feel the sharp edge of a pocketknife against my ribs. My body freezes with a sharp inhale. My muscles tense, hard as stone, as my pulse races. Hands as rough as sandpaper—masculine hands—skim up my throat, tipping my chin upwards. His fingers smell like tar and nicotine.
I’m careful not to say anything, worried that it might end up being the wrong thing. There’s something about the emotions that radiate off his body—a raw desperation in his movements that has me holding my breath. My mind spins in circles, almost laughing at the idea that I might just die at the end of a sharp blade. Wouldn’t that be poetic?
I blink back tears. The knife eases up my side, bringing my shirt up with it.
I’m about to be raped and stabbed and left alone, and there is nothing I can do about it.
He moves his hand from my throat and knots it in my hair, slamming me against the dumpster so hard I immediately taste the coppery evidence of a busted lip. The air around me rings in my ears, echoing the heavythudof my head hitting the metal. My temples throb so hard I have to squeeze my eyes closed.
“Hey there, Nurse Blondie,” his gravelly voice growls in my ear. “You’re just the lady I been waitin’ to see.”
I’m trapped. Held captive by fear and nerves and his body pressed against mine. But that isn’t the worst part.
I know that voice.
“See, I’m all out of pills,” he continues, and I swear I hear him hiss. “I got a lot of people willin’ to pay me a lot of money for those pills.”
The more he talks, the more I recognize his voice, the raspy timbre, as if he’s speaking over broken glass. We treated a man who was in a car accident a few months ago. Dr. Chase gave him some pain medicine. Since then, he’s been back three times with various injuries. I’d recognize that voice paired with the pungent scent of cigarette smoke anywhere. It has to be him. I always assumed it was all in his head. I had no idea he was pushing the pills.
He forces the tip of the knife into my side just enough to break the skin, and tiny droplets of blood trickle down my bare flesh.
I feel helpless, stripped of all my power, like all the fight had been ripped away from me without choice or reason. “And you need me to help you.” It’s an observation, not a question.
“You think you can do that?”
I suck in a harsh breath as he smashes my face against the cold metal. My eyes glass from the pain.
Falsifying prescriptions—especially for a Schedule II narcotic—is a seven-year sentence. Am I really supposed to believe this will be the last time this guy will show up like this? I plan on moving forward. I plan on working beside a physician someday. Maybe having my own practice. Do I sacrifice four years of college and my future career just because I’m a chicken shit?
I’m not helpless.
I can fight.
I do have a choice.
And my decision is no. I’m not helping this asshole. I’m going inside, telling Dr. Chase, then calling the police.
But I can’t let him know that yet.
I nod, and he takes his hand off my head.
“Good girl.”
Unlike when Callisto says it, his affirmation makes my stomach churn. When I turn around, he licks his lips, slow and filthy. He’s tall and thin, dressed in jeans and a solid black t-shirt with something printed on the front, but my head hurts too bad to make out what it says. His dark hair curls up at his nape and is tousled in the front. At one time, he was probably handsome. Right now, he’s menacing.
He runs his hand over the short stubble on his chin. “Damn, you’re a pretty one. Too bad my girlfriend’s in the car. We could really have some fun,” he sneers, and the acid churning in my stomach crawls up my throat.
“You’ll have to wait out here. The clinic is closed,” I tell him, trying to hide the tremble in my voice. I don’t even entertain his last statement.
He grins like the devil and waves his knife back and forth, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “That’s not goin’ to work, baby. See, I can’t have you goin’ inside and callin’ the cops now, can I?”
