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Kate
The cab drops us off in front of a wasteland by an overpass, and I stare at the wire fencing all the way around.
“You think this is it?” We got the cab guy to drive the whole area.
“There’s nothing else,” Janus says.
“It’s all fenced off.”
“We could go over the top,” Janus says. He eyes the barbed wire at the top of the fence. “We need some wire cutters.”
“Before we wreck their fence, let’s just check it out,” Jo says, rolling her eyes, and Janus grins, kissing her temple. “Mr. Impatient,” she mutters.
But looking at the unbroken line of this fence I’m thinking Janus might be right: Cutting a hole could be the only way in here.
We split up going separate ways along the road, and I hurry along, birds wheeling overhead looking for scraps. Eventually, I spot a dirt path on the other side of the fence, and lo and behold a section has been cut so it lifts easily. I shout and wave toward where Janus and Jo are headed in the opposite direction, and they both turn and start trotting down the sidewalk toward me. I head through the fence and across the dirt path on uneven ground.
It all seems so quiet in the early-morning air, two gulls swooping over the East River, sirens over the Manhattan skyscrapers a distant wail. The path weaves through piles of junk strewn across a grassy area, leading toward what looks like a derelict building. There’s a noise, and I stop. Janus and Jo are not far behind me now. I start forward, but then I hear it again.
“Hello?”
Then unmistakably, a groan. Up ahead. And as I go past a pile of oil drums, there’s a man on the ground and … my God, it looks like … oh my God, it’s him!
“Kate?” Janus’s voice drifts over from behind me.
“Over here!” I shout, going down on one knee to get a better look at Fabian. His face is grey, his lips turning blue.
“Call 911!” I shout. “Right now!”
I slide my hand to his neck, and his pulse is thready, weak, and I scan down his body, lifting his eyelids, and I’m surprised when his pupils look normal. What the fuck’s happened to him?
“Oh my God!” Janus says, sliding onto his knees beside me. Jo’s right behind him with her phone held to her head as she talks to the operator.
“What’s happened?”
“I don’t know, but he’s not in good shape.”
I lift my knee, and it’s then I notice the blood on the ground and on my pants.
“Oh shit.”
Janus and I roll him as best as we can, and I desperately wish I had some kit, anything. The blood’s soaking out through his clothes from his side. I pull open his coat and yank up his T-shirt. Then I see it: There’s a wound in his side, blood bubbling out of it.
“Oh my God,” Janus says, going white.
I strip off my hoodie. “Hold that to the wound.” I show Janus what to do, how to apply pressure.
“What’s happened?” Jo says, still holding with the operator.
“Looks like a knife wound,” I say. “How far out are they?”
Jo concentrates on the phone for a few seconds. “She says about five minutes. Do you want to talk to her? I take her phone and take the operator through the situation, listen to her talking to the ambulance crew as I examine the blood on the ground and try to work out how much he might have lost and how fast it’s leaking. “One minute out,” the operator says, and I suck in a deep breath. Thank God.
“Go back and direct them here,” I say to Jo, handing her the phone, and she’s off along the path, red hair flying. I put my hand back on his pulse, checking as Janus presses on the wound, face lined with worry.
“Who the hell did this? Fuck, this is my fault, I should have got him some security,” he says. “I knew this was a problem; it’s not like I can’t afford …”
“What about me? I left him last night when he was out of it.”
