Mercy 6

Mendenhall pointed to Covey. “Can you get a cab in all this?”

“I have a car,” replied Covey. “Like normal people.”

* * *

Covey took the driver’s seat, Mendenhall shotgun, with Kae and his charge in the back. Seemingly unaware of the Kevlar, the woman held Kae’s hand as she stared out the window, eyes glassy, the colors of the emergency lights. Three ambulances had prodded their way into the crowd. Sirens echoed from a couple more beyond the high rises. All glass was orange, almost yellow on the highest buildings, darkening toward red in the vertical drop. Half the pedestrians moved toward the flashing lights; half hurried away, an absurd order forming.

“It’s like a giant viewing,” said Covey.

“It is a giant viewing. People always wonder why they go look.”

Mendenhall shoved her arm. “Start the car.” She shoved again, more to stimulate herself than to prompt Covey. She had slept three hours coming up on a full day. She was ragged, quivering, ready to run, ready to nap.

“It’s not kidnapping,” she said to no one in particular. “I’m taking her to the ER.” She pointed to the K-cuff. “You have something to cut that?”

He raised his arm, the woman’s lifting along with it. “You need special snips. A knife won’t do.”

“You have a knife?”

Kae shook his head, barely, gazed at Mendenhall. She stared back.

“You have a scalpel.”

He did not respond.

“Throw it out the window.” She nodded toward the bundle of cuffs protruding from his hoodie pocket. “Those, too.”

She glared at Covey. “And start the car.”

Mendenhall reached for the woman’s wrist and took her pulse.

She listed the three freeways Covey needed to return to Mercy General.

Mendenhall understood Covey’s trance. Three of the five bodies were on gurneys now. They were covered. The two others had been rolled and straightened into supine positions. The EMTs appeared lost above them, ears to cell phones. Mendenhall scanned the crowd for possible struck survivors, but it was an impossible task.

Too many seemed dazed, arms stiff and undirected, steps going sideways, then back, then forward, expressions of understanding — a state of mind that had to be symptomatic, perhaps delusional. The only ones who looked sane, who looked knowledgeable, were the two bodies on the ground looking grimly toward the sky.

“Between here and the ocean,” said Covey, “more have fallen.”

56

Exhaustion loomed. Mendenhall had slept three hours over the last thirty. Her life felt wasted, she wanted to nap in the car, she was confident she could get back into Mercy, and she knew none of these feelings made sense. She told Covey she didn’t have to drive so fast. She checked the woman — her patient. The Trapanal was working. She was watching the sunset over the thinnest part of the city, where they could almost see the ocean. She was holding hands with Kae.

Kae stared at Mendenhall, let the motion of the car lull his body. The lock of hair had returned, covering one eye, the tip grazing his cheekbone. He calculated something, something about her, how many of her features were worthwhile, how many moles he could find, how anything about her came together, eyes to skin, hair to lips.

Mendenhall nodded to the cuff holding Kae to the patient.

“Where did you get those?”

“Not on your floor.” He appeared at ease, shoulders folded to the corner of the seat and window, his cuffed arm turned up and relaxed as his hand received the patient’s grasp. Mendenhall imagined him gliding through the cafeteria, the kitchen, looking for anything to gain advantage. He would have moved behind the big security guys, no more than shadow and sliver. He had even thought to snitch a visitor sticker. The handwritten name read, “Karlo Singh.”

“And drugs?” she asked.

He fished around in his hoodie pockets, showed her a handful of very slim syringes, all capped and loaded. She fingered them, then lifted them from his palm. “Tell me you didn’t inject those… guys.”

He gave a sideways look.

She held up a blue one. “This would’ve been better if you’d injected yourself. Stronger, more energy, better decision-making, better fight.”

“I saw that,” he replied. “After the second guy.”

“Where is he?”

“Down a storm drain on one of those quiet streets you ran. I liked that neighborhood.”

“He’s cuffed? Under the lid of a storm drain? With high-dose adrenaline?”

Kae remained still.

Covey adjusted the rearview, angled it more toward him, glanced at Mendenhall. Mendenhall double-checked the freeway and direction. She trusted no one in this car, longed for the open betrayal of the bay.

She held up an orange syringe. “This?”

“That was the last one. He went horizontal. Fast. Back on that bar floor.” Kae made a sliding motion with his free hand.

Mendenhall recalled the height of the guy, estimated his weight from the breadth of his shoulders. “A full dose?”

“Half,” said Kae. “I put the rest in his wingman.”

“Why?”

“Because no way I could take them like that. The crowd would push us together. I need lots of space to take them, move around, like. I’m a boxer, not a fighter.”