"That's it!" Steve yelled. "I have had enough of people telling me to stop making things harder on myself! I will make things as hard on myself as I want to!"

Chase was not listening to this man ramble like the other 4 at the moment. He was busy staring intently at the center of his palm where Steve had fired a bullet, and blood was oozing out from the spot.

"I guess if I really think about," he thought. "I saved my life putting my hands in the air when I was scared when he fired that bullet."

He pushed his thoughts aside and thought about his current medical predicament instead.

"The blood needs to clot so it can stop bleeding, or else I'll bleed to death," he thought.

He pulled the sleeve of his lab coat and the gaping wound to catch the blood and assist in the clotting process then he grabbed onto the sleeve and held it there.

Knowing he had this situation as under control as he possibly could've had with the materials he had, he listened to the last of Steve's rant.

"You people aren't going to get out of here very easily unless that guy on the phone can keep his ass out of my business." With that said and done, Steve stomped back into the room where the phone was located, smashed his fist into the wall and put the telephone back on the receiver, and then stood up against the wall and cussed out loud, saying quite a few 4-letter words.

While Steve was still in the other room, House looked over at Chase, who was looking a little more pale than usual, obviously from the sudden loss of blood.

"You all right, Wombat?" House asked.

Chase nodded, swallowing slowly and glanced down at his now red-stained sleeve on his lab coat.

"Yeah," he said. "It's still bleeding, but it should stop soon."

House nodded. "Do you still have the bullet in you?" he asked.

Chase thought, then looked down at his hand and felt around his palm, when he felt the spot: a large 2 cm long mass just to the right of the wound. "Yes," he said. "But the shot was extremely crooked. It's stuck under the skin."

"Do you think you can get it out; it needs to come out before it gets an infection."

Chase sighed and winced at the sudden pain in his hand. "I'll work on it when Steve's not around, but it needs to stop bleeding first because I can't even see anything on my entire palm because of all the blood."

Nurse Emily glanced over. "Here," she said: her first time speaking ever since this started. "One of the patients I was taking lunch to claims that napkins were made by the Devil, so I went ahead and put them back in my pocket." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a white napkin. She put the napkin on Chase's palm and squeezed his hand into a fist. "Hold it that way, but put your hand back in your lab coat so Steve doesn't see it."

Right after Chase tucked his hand back into his lab coat sleeve, Steve walked back out into the area in which they were still stranded.

"Did you miss me?" Steve asked. There was a silence in the room. "Good answer: that was a rhetorical question. So, Blondie how's your hand?"

Chase looked up. "It should be alright in due time. Why the hell do you want to know?"

Steve smirked. "It's a criminal thing – you wouldn't understand." He walked over and looked at Chase closely. "Well, it's definitely bleeding a lot. You look like a little white boy!" This made Steve laugh hysterically and then walk away and sit in his chair.

--

"We all know that if he hurt someone that we are going to have to get in there and do something, right?" Matt asked the group of people. "We can't just sit around and let someone suffer."

Frank Perry nodded. "I was next to the door," he explained. "I heard the shot and the girl scream but I couldn't get enough visual to see if he hit anyone."

Emily sighed. "We can't just run in and shoot him, Matt," she said. "Especially if we don't know for sure whether or not anyone's been hurt. And even if someone was hurt, remember that there are two doctors and two nurses in there with them."

"So then what are we supposed to do?" Matt asked, obviously becoming stressed out with the situation.

Cheryl stood up from her seat and looked toward Dr. Cuddy. "Would you happen to have a map of the hospital with you?" she asked, hopeful that she would say yes.

Dr. Cuddy thought for a second then put her hands in her lab coat pockets. After a few seconds of rummaging, she pulled out two pieces of paper from her right hand pocket.

She unfolded one. "Nope – that's not it," she said out loud. "That's just a cafeteria menu."

She thrust the paper back into her pocket.

"I was showing a visitor around the hospital this morning," she explained while unfolding the second paper. "But I can't remember if I gave him the map or if I kept it."

When the paper was fully unfolded, Cuddy smiled big and handed the paper over to Cheryl, revealing the map of the hospital.

The map was of great importance to the current case now that they knew that they had a way of locating the ways that they could possibly enter.

Emily took out a red marker and put the map on the table they had set up, and then sat down, waiting for a discussion to take place.

"Alright," Matt said, thinking at the same time. "We know that they are just inside the building, not far from the nurse's desk." He pointed to an open area around the desk, which Emily circled. "This must be it, and the only phone near it is right here," he said pointing at the telephone symbol in a room nearby, and Emily circled that also. "That must be where he has to run to in order to answer the phone." He turned to Frank. "Have you tried to look in when I call, because if this map is correct, you should have perfect visibility of Steve when he's going to answer the phone."

Frank shook his head. "I haven't looked at that time. I just kind of glanced over there every so often to see if they had possibly moved into my line of sight. But I haven't seen anything."

Matt nodded, and Emily drew a line on the map, linking the two circles together.

"I think before we do anything drastic," Emily suggested. "We should try to strike a deal." She paused, waiting for an interruption. When there was none, she continued. "We should ask for someone to come out safely, preferably the person who was injured, if any were."

"But what are we going to offer in return?" Cheryl asked, speaking for the rest of the group who were all wondering the same thing.

Everyone sat silently. "Well," he said. "All he wants is to get out with his daughter in tow without getting arrested," Emily said.

"We can't give him exactly what he wants just yet," Matt explained. "We have to do this piece by piece. I'll call him and I'll figure something out. But that something will not be to get out as a free man. Because no matter what, he put people in danger, he threatened these people with their lives, and it's possible that he has already shot, or even killed someone. Being a free man is not something he will have to look forward to."

He took a deep breath and picked up the phone. "I know what I'm going to say," he said while opening his phone. "Get ready for some action."

--

Love you guys, and I love you more when you review! Sorry for hurting Chase! I know: why can't I be nice and just hurt one of the nurses? right? Well, because it's more melodramatic when it's a character we love and care about. And I think shooting House already would've been overkill… Next chapter up as soon as I finish it!


The Queen of Blank