A/N: NEW CHAPTER! As you can see, it's another two-parter - it was either this or else go completely insane trying to cram everything into one. Hopefully, you'll still enjoy it. PEACE!
Thank you to AprilGilbert1996, Esha Napoleon, Shandy777, nikki1335, Animal Luvr 4 Life, and Girl on Fire for reviewing the last chapter! YOU ROCK!
Chapter 24: Drop The World: Part 1
"Life is a bullet/The bloodstains will prove it/It's tearing through you and me/Not caring 'bout you or me..."-Papa Roach, "Life Is A Bullet"
Mickie opened her eyes slowly, her vision swimming as she peered up at the textured surface of the ceiling tiles above her. She'd been having the strangest dream - in it, Dave had been surrounded by rats, grabbing the rodents one by one, puncturing their furry skin with his fangs and draining their blood before tossing them aside.
The vampire's presence was nothing new - images and memories of him had been interwoven with her dreams throughout the indeterminable period of time she had spent drifting in and out of consciousness. But there was something about this particular vision that made her pause - something which set it apart from all the other painkiller-induced hallucinations.
This dream...it had been so vivid, as though its location was an actual one and not some fantasy space comprised of scraps of her subconscious. The smell - like a mixture of shit and desperation - so potent that it climbed down her throat and made her eyes smart with tears. The coarseness of the rats' fur as Dave grabbed them; the writhing whips of their tails hitting his wrist as they struggled to free themselves.
And above it all...the keening wail of the vampire's grief - his misery as acute and poignant as her own...
Mickie's brown irises darted all around, taking in as much of her environment as she could without turning her head. She was back in that unfamiliar room - that space that was somehow both a sanctuary and a prison - surrounded by those equally alien machines. The pain was still there, but by now, she had become so used to the sensation that its presence seemed almost inconsequential. In a way...it was as though nothing had changed.
But that wasn't true, was it? No...the one thing differentiating this moment from the last time was the single stark fact that everything had changed.
The scarred brunette turned her head to the side, bracing herself against the inevitable presence of John, her mouth already sour from the involuntary rush of angry bile that surged up her throat. Instead, she was surprised - and more than a little relieved - to find that the room's only other occupant was a young Asian woman, her dark hair pulled back into a makeshift bun, sitting in very much the same spot Nattie had taken up the last time.
The other woman was studying a stack of papers clamped together on a clipboard, but at the small movement from the bed, she glanced up, her lips curving upward in a small smile. "Hey...welcome back to the world of the living."
Mickie's response was a low groan. The other woman's smile widened a touch. "I hear ya." She suddenly jumped a little, as though she had just remembered something. "Oh! Before I forget-" Setting her clipboard aside, she pressed a button on the side of the bed. Mickie heard the low hum of hydraulics, and felt her upper body shift as the head end of the bed rose slightly to a more inclined position.
The other woman rose to her feet, and the scarred brunette noticed for the first time that she had a plastic cup in one hand, filled about a third of the way with a strange yellowish liquid. "Here - drink this," she commanded, and before Mickie could protest or even inquire exactly what she was consuming, the Asian woman pressed the rim of the cup to her lips and poured the liquid down her throat.
The scarred brunette gagged and coughed, pressing one hand over her mouth as she struggled not to throw up. "Jesus! What the hell is that?"
"Methadone," the other woman replied calmly, as though this explained everything.
Mickie swallowed hard, her whole body shuddering with exertion as she endeavored to bring her violent coughing back under control. "Ugh! It tastes like piss!"
At this, the other woman's expression softened ever-so-slightly. "I know," she replied after a moment or two. "But it'll make your withdrawal less excruciating." To this, Mickie had nothing to say - there was...something...in the other woman's tone; something which seemed to suggest that her knowledge of the agony of drug withdrawal was based off of more than just clinical observation.
The other woman returned to her seat, picking up her clipboard once again. "My name is Gail, by the way." Her almond-shaped eyes flicked up to meet Mickie's. "I'm guessing, with all the...excitement...that occurred the last time you regained consciousness, no one's bothered to tell you where you are, so I will - you're in the basement of the LaBell Clinic."
Mickie, meanwhile, had finally reined in her coughing and sagged back against the pillow, her strength physically spent from the uncontrollable spasms. Gail went on, glancing down at her clipboard for reference. "You've been here...wow, almost a week at this point." Another solemn glance in the scarred brunette's direction. "Your friend Cena brought you in here with a gunshot wound-"
To this, Mickie abruptly averted her gaze, turning her face toward the opposite wall. "He's not my friend," Her voice was flat, bitter. "He's the one that shot me."
A long tense silence followed her statement. Eventually, Gail cleared her throat awkwardly and studied her chart once more. "We've been keeping you pretty heavily sedated - but otherwise, your vitals look good. I checked your sutures before you woke up; you're healing nicely, quicker than...we expected."
Gail was quick, but Mickie nevertheless caught the slight hesitation in her voice; the brief pause as she caught herself, instead of uttering what she was actually thinking:
Quicker...than normal...
Gail cleared her throat again, more forcefully this time. "Anyway, we-"
"Is he still here?" Mickie's voice, though soft, still cut across her tentative statement like the honed edge of a knife.
The Asian woman frowned. "Who? Cena?" She shook her head. "Not anymore; Daniel - Dr. Bryan, I mean - threw him out; said his presence was 'detrimental to your health'." At this, Mickie's shoulders began to shake, followed by a hoarse choking sound that Gail gradually realized was laughter. "What's so funny?"
"N-nothing," the scarred brunette replied, her words almost like gasping hiccups in the midst of her laughter. "It's just that...I didn't think it was possible for someone to throw John out of anywhere." To this, Gail's features relaxed, an amused smile touching her lips.
After a minute or so, Mickie's laughter faded away into silence, and she turned her head, focusing on the physician's assistant. "Gail?" The Asian woman stared at her expectantly. Mickie bit her lip, taking a deep breath as she selected her next words. "It really happened...didn't it? And not just getting shot, but...everything afterward?"
Gail slowly nodded. "Yeah..."
The scarred brunette swallowed hard. "So I really am..." Another deep breath; one which sounded almost like a sob. "...pregnant?" This time, the Asian woman said nothing; merely nodded again.
For a long agonizing second, Mickie stared at her wordlessly, disbelief and realization fighting for supremacy on her ruined features. Then, suddenly, her face crumpled and the scarred brunette began to cry, tears rolling down her cheeks.
Gail's countenance instantly creased with concern and the physician assistant rose to her feet, crossing the short distance between them. "Mickie..." Reaching out, she gently took hold of one of Mickie's hands. "It's going to be all right-"
"No, it isn't!" Sobbing, the scarred brunette yanked her hand free, gesturing at herself. "Look at me! I'm a walking train wreck - a junkie...whatever...who whores herself out to a scumbag!"
Mickie shook her head vehemently, barely able to talk through her tears. "How can I care for a child, how can I be a mother...when I can barely even keep myself alive..." Her words abruptly dissolved into meaningless syllables, and the brunette covered her face with both hands as she wept.
Gail was silent for a long time, and even though she couldn't see her, Mickie was sure that empty words of comfort or some lecture about the joys of motherhood was destined to follow. But instead, the physician's assistant finally remarked: "Mickie...can I show you something?"
Just hearing her voice - quavering with barely contained emotion - was enough to break through Mickie's miserable outburst, and the scarred brunette reluctantly pulled her hands back from her face, swiping at her tearstained cheeks with the heel of her palm.
Gail met her gaze steadily. Without speaking, she rolled up the sleeves of her white doctor's coat, taking a deep breath before extending her bare forearms toward the brunette. As soon as she did, Mickie felt a stunned gasp escape her throat. Even though they had long since healed over, the track mark scars marring Gail's skin were nearly identical to hers.
Her brown irises slid up to meet Gail's. "You?" was all she was able to get out.
The Asian woman nodded, the faint shine of tears glimmering at the edges of her almond-shaped eyes. "Me."
Mickie slowly shook her head, still a little too shaken to fully grasp what she had seen. "How?"
To this, the physician's assistant looked away, focusing on a point, a memory, that only she could see. "I came from a wealthy family; went to med school because it was what was expected of me - I got into drugs because I was bored, I was stupid, I was too spoiled and self-absorbed to know any better,"
Gail coughed, pressing her fist to her mouth, pausing for a long moment before going on. "Anyway, it didn't take very long for a poor little rich girl like me, with no idea how to take care of myself, to hit rock bottom...or to find myself with people I'd rather not mention, in places I'd like to forget."
The Asian woman abruptly looked away, but Mickie still saw the tear fall; hesitating at the line of Gail's jaw before dropping to the floor. "I ended up here one night, as Daniel was closing up the clinic, strung out of my mind-" Gail ducked her head, blinking rapidly as she gulped in a breath. "He could have just made me a sandwich and given me a lecture, and that would have been that, but instead - he took me in, gave me a place to stay, got me clean-"
The physician's assistant smiled, as good recollections began to replace the bad. "After all the H was out of my system and we began to talk, really talk - that's when he realized that I was much more knowledgable that your average junkie, and that with some training and supervision, maybe I could be useful. So he asked me to stay...and I stayed." Gail crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself. "And since then...I've never been happier."
She carefully sat on the edge of her bed; her voice, when she spoke again, was both thoughtful and halting: "I know...that you think...that no one will ever understand what you're going through. And maybe you're right - maybe I don't."
Gail hesitated, her almond-shaped eyes boring into Mickie's. "But I do know what it's like to live with demons...demons that you feel you'll never be able to shake." Reaching over, she took hold of Mickie's hand once again; the brunette stiffened, but did not pull away.
The physician's assistant gnawed on her lower lip, choosing her next words carefully: "Sometimes...things happen...and they're horrible and senseless and they tear us apart. And the only way...I've ever been able to come to terms with them...is by thinking that maybe life subjects us to the worst kind of hell because that's the only way...to mold us into the person we're ultimately supposed to be."
Gail's mouth curved upward in a rueful half-smile. "I'm not trying to feed you a line about God or anything like that - but at the same time, I have to believe that there's something bigger than all of us, ya know?" She nudged back a stray tendril of hair with one finger. "There has to be a reason for all of this - why you didn't die years ago, why you didn't die a week ago, why you're pregnant and you shouldn't be, why you're human and you shouldn't-"
The Asian woman broke off suddenly, shaking her head almost helplessly. "I mean...it can't be all justrandom coincidence...right?"
Gail gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, and in spite of herself, Mickie found herself returning the grip. "In a world like this, like the one you and I've experienced, where the bottom can drop out at any second...sometimes, you just have to believe that there's going to be someone to catch you this time."
Randy leaned back against the headrest of the car seat, his hands lightly gripping the steering wheel, his piercing blue eyes closed. The neighborhood he was parked in wasn't one of the greatest - most people would have driven through without stopping or avoided it altogether - but the Viper's Pit owner could have cared less. There was nothing in or on the vehicle worth stealing, and even if someone had still been stupid enough to attempt to do so, he would have had to deal with the car's occupant.
Besides...Randy had always enjoyed observing this particular region of the city. Out here, where resources were limited, people fought tooth and nail, sometimes to the death, to survive. Out here, it was animal nature at its most pure - simple, basic, unfettered by pesky things like moral ambiguity.
In a way...it was where he truly belonged.
The Viper's Pit owner sat there, motionless, the rapid twitch of his eyeballs beneath his closed lids his only movement as he thought...and thought...and thought. He knew who Doctor Daniel Bryan was, of course; the clinic's close proximity to his bar guaranteed that. Every so often, he would have to deal with some bright-eyed volunteer who popped into the Viper Pit with fliers for a blood drive, or a food drive, or some other humanitarian bullshit.
Overall, Randy's view of the good doctor was one of disdain and disinterest: Bryan was a goody-two-shoes, a Boy Scout...but he was also harmless - like an annoying gnat that will eventually go away if you swat it enough times.
But then, every so often, he would hear stories - stories that made him pause, made him question the completeness of his summation of Bryan's character. Stories like how the clinic operated at night, how its clients used a basement entrance instead of the one at the front...and how said clients were a far cry from the usual group of junkies, whores, and bums.
How had one particularly unreliable source put it? "They looked like killers...trained killers."
Randy had more or less dismissed the rumors as BS - Bryan was far too milquetoast to do something as ballsy as patching up Hunters in his off hours - but now, for the first time, he found himself wondering if maybe, just maybe...the rumors were true.
And if that was the case...then what better place to bring a wounded halfling?
Randy opened his eyes, turning his head to stare out the window at the crudely painted sign hanging next to the brownstone building's front door:
LABELL CLINIC
ALL WELCOME
The Viper's Pit owner's lip curled in disgust. Knowing Bryan, he had probably let some meth-head make the sign. But that was unimportant; only two things mattered right now.
The first was finding Mickie.
The second...was making her pay.
Throwing open the driver's side door, Randy swung his long legs out into the street. Slamming the door shut behind him, he strode slowly, purposefully, toward the clinic.
"Hey...you awake?"
Mickie opened her eyes at the soft rap on the door, followed by the cheerful cadence of Bryan's voice. The brunette rolled over onto her back, biting back a yawn, watching silently as the doctor and Nattie entered the room, carefully wheeling a strange apparatus between them. She had been sleeping; in fact, she had been sleeping a lot lately - although whether that was due to the pregnancy or the hellish week she had just gone through, Mickie wasn't sure.
She had thought, after all the pain she had already endured, that she could certainly tolerate the agony of heroin withdrawal - how wrong she had been. There was no one word that could properly sum up the nightmarish torment of that detoxification period. The nausea, the sweating, the pain that racked her body, the way each second seemed to slow to an hour...
Her memories of that time were still a fragmented hallucinatory haze, but she could remember lying on the floor in a fetal position; being freezing cold one moment, and then boiling hot the next. She even had a vague recollection of screaming until she was hoarse, yelling that someone needed to give her a hit, someone needed to give her a hit right now before she fucking killed everybody-
But gradually, impossibly, it had passed - the pain, the vomiting, all of it. She had felt her body purging the drug, like a noxious miasma leaching from her skin - and as she had sat there in the tiled shower stall, weak, achy, and shivering despite the hot water beating down on her...she had also felt the strongest of Randy's chains grow brittle and shatter.
Mickie rubbed her eyes with her fists, her mouth twitching up into a sleepy half-smile. "What's up, Doc?" she croaked.
Even though it was an old joke - and a bad one - Bryan still grinned and chuckled as he had done every other time she had uttered it. "Still haven't lost your sense of humor, I see," As he spoke, Nattie sidled around him, going through the usual routine of checking Mickie's temperature and pulse. The doctor's grin sobered a touch. "I know that you've been through a lot these past two weeks - recovery, and then the detox process."
He paused. "Gail tells me...that you went to hell and back."
To this, the brunette said nothing; only nodded. Bryan turned slightly, indicating the strange machine, which looked like some kind of otherworldly computer. "So I thought that maybe...it would cheer you up a little...if we took a look at that baby of yours."
At the mention of the baby, Mickie felt something inside her clench up. Even after almost two weeks, she still hadn't fully come to terms with the fact that she was pregnant; that a new life, totally separate from and yet totally dependent on hers, was growing within her. In the midst of the unbelievable circus that her life had become, this child seemed almost like an afterthought; like an extraneous detail that had been tacked on at the last second.
It didn't seem real - sometimes, she didn't believe that it was real. And yet...there had been moments during the withdrawal process when she had grabbed her abdomen and felt, to her utter astonishment, a faint flicker of movement beneath her fingertips. Mickie still wasn't sure if it had actually occurred - her recollections during that time were still illusory and disjointed - but more than anything, she wanted to believe that it had...because the second she had felt that movement, it had filled her with the most extraordinary sense of peace.
Like the way she had felt the first time Dave touched her...or the first time he had told her that he loved her.
Bryan, meanwhile, had pulled up a chair next to the bed, while Nattie wheeled the ultrasound machine within easy reach. Carefully pulling down the covers and tucking them around her legs, the doctor pulled up her hospital gown to expose her abdomen.
Even though she had already ascertained as much for herself, Mickie was still taken aback to see that her normal flat stomach now sloped upward in a slightly rounded curve. Bryan must have noticed it, too, because he paused - and although the brunette couldn't be sure, she thought she caught a flash of puzzlement flit across the doctor's expression.
It quickly passed, however, and Bryan resumed his usual genial demeanor, whistling a quick tune as he grabbed a pair of rubber gloves and a tube of gel. Mickie scrunched up her face as he applied the slick substance to her skin. The gel was warm, and felt weird, like something that was not quite liquid.
Picking up a small device that looked like a corded microphone, Bryan pressed it against her abdomen, moving it around in circular sweeping motions. Up on the screen, Mickie could see what looked like a pulsing wall of gray.
Bryan flashed her a wry smile. "It's been a while since I've done one of these, so forgive me if I'm a little rusty." Turning back toward the screen, he suddenly let out a low whistle. "Oh, wait - there we are! Beautiful!"
Mickie was about to ask just what the hell he was seeing that she wasn't when, all at once, like a shape emerging from a bank of fog, it swam into focus - the head, the curve of the body, the tiny hands curled up near the face. The brunette felt something inside her plummet, and her mouth dropped open, all the air leaving her lungs in a startled gasp.
Nattie quickly moved to her side, reaching over to grab her hand reassuringly. Mickie squeezed it in return, but kept her focus on the screen, unable to tear her gaze away from the image on the screen. A tear rolled down her cheek. "Is that..." Her voice sounded faraway and full of wonder. "...my baby?"
"Yeah, yeah, that's it," Bryan replied. He sounded distracted, as though he was only half-listening to her, his previously ebullient countenance sagged into a frown. "Interesting..."
Mickie, however, wasn't listening - she was too captivated by what she was seeing. Those tiny hands, legs as slender as sticks - she could even make out the face, the contoured curves of nose and lips. "It...it's perfect," she whispered, tears blurring her vision. "So perfect..."
Glancing at Bryan, she noticed that the doctor, strangely, did not seem to be sharing her joy - instead, he was staring at the screen with an ever-deepening frown, his expression clearly bewildered. Mickie felt her elation dim slightly. "Doc?" she asked slowly. "What's going on - is there...something wrong-"
The doctor looked back sharply, noting her concern. "What? Oh, no, no, no!" He quickly waved both hands to reassure her - however, in doing so, he pulled the device from her stomach and the screen went black. Bryan looked from it to the device in his hand to Mickie, obviously unsure of whether to resume the ultrasound or provide an explanation. "It's just...that..." The doctor hesitated.
"What?" Mickie struggled up to her elbows, ignoring Nattie's frantic attempts to push her back down. She narrowed her eyes, peering hard at Bryan. "If there's something going, I'm pretty sure that I have a right to know about it!"
The doctor looked at her without speaking for a second or two, before finally nodding. "You're right," He gestured toward the now-dark screen, stumbling slightly over his words. "We did an ultrasound two weeks, when you first came here - just to determine how far you were in your pregnancy."
Bryan leaned forward a little. "Now, neither Gail nor I is a gynecologist, but we both agreed that the fetus we saw on the screen was about ten weeks along, twelve at the most."
The doctor reached back, tapping the screen with his index figure. "What you saw a few seconds ago...was a fetus that has to be at least twenty weeks along."
Mickie felt a chill sweep over her body. She could hear a faint rushing sound in her ears, like blowing winds, followed by the frantic pounding of her own heartbeat. "What...what are you saying-"
Bryan sighed. "I'm saying that this baby is growing at double the normal rate...perhaps more."
A long silence followed his words. Mickie's lips were numb; her voice sounded as though it was coming from a great distance when she finally managed to speak: "How...is that possible?"
"There's only one thing...that I can think of," Bryan leaned forward again, all joviality and joking pushed aside, his formerly carefree expression now filled with a grave earnestness. He took a deep cautious breath before adding:
"And that's...that the father of this baby...isn't human."
Gail sighed heavily, blowing air out impatiently between her lips. It wasn't even mid-afternoon, and already, she was exhausted. Since the clinic had opened at eight this morning, there had been a Code Blue, a grand mal seizure, three fights - one of them resulting in stitches - and an escaped pet rat...not to mention the customary spate of broken and sprained limbs, STDs, malnutrition, and bad attitudes.
The physician assistant, for not the first time that day, was sorely tempted to throw everyone out, flip the sign on the door from "OPEN" to "CLOSED" and say "Fuck it." But instead, she merely tucked some loose hair behind her ears, forcing a smile onto her face as she called out: "Next!"
The figure on the bench raised one manicured hand, and Gail instantly felt her false smile fade. "Really, Rosa - back again? What is it this time - gonorrhea?"
Rosa - a young woman with long black hair and overly thick makeup - shrugged insolently. Gail crossed her arms over her chest, tapping her foot impatiently. "Is it really too much to even suggest a condom to these guys?" Another flippant shrug. The Asian woman rolled her eyes, exasperated. "All right, just...go have a seat in Exam 2; I'll be there in a minute."
Rosa rose to her feet, sauntering to the assigned room with a sultriness that was as unnecessary and over-the-top as her makeup. Gail was about to follow her when she heard the faint jingle of a bell as someone stepped through the front door. The physician's assistant glanced over to see who it was, almost perfunctorily - and then abruptly froze, a feeling of absolute dread creeping across her skin as Randy stepped into the clinic.
The Viper's Pit owner let out a low whistle as he cast his gaze around the contours of the lobby. "My, this isn't half-bad; I remember when this place used to be a real shithole." His voice was low, almost pleasant - but Gail could still catch that faint hint of derision in his tone.
Randy's gaze swung toward her, those empty azure irises of his boring into hers, and it took everything Gail had not to scream. "Of course," the blue-eyed man remarked, moving toward her with the liquid ease of a snake. "I could say something similar about you, Gail." He was in front of her now, looming over her in that way that seemed to blot out the light, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "It's been a long time - I can't remember the last time you came to see me-"
"What do you want?" Gail was relieved to hear how strong her voice sounded, belying none of her inner terror and apprehension. She crossed her arms over her chest, glaring up at the Viper's Pit owner.
Randy adopted a look of mock hurt. "Ooh, so formal...so stern." He shook his head slowly. "You used to be a lot more fun...especially when you were desperate." Before Gail could think up a suitable retort to that, the blue-eyed man barreled on. "Anyway, I can see that you're busy, so I'll keep it brief."
He paused, and the Asian woman could see his features twitch slightly, as though he was struggling to keep some semblance of emotion on his face. "I'm looking for someone." Another pause. "A girl."
"So...what? You thought you'd come here?" Gail's almond-shaped eyes narrowed as she glowered up at the Viper's Pit owner. The trick was to look into his eyes without really looking into them - staring directly into those blue pits of emptiness was like tumbling into an abyss. "Just because you and I have a history - a history which I would love to forget - does not mean that I'm supposed to keep tabs for you-"
"Oh, you'd remember this girl," Randy interjected calmly. He cocked his head to the side, studying the Asian woman with detached fascination. "Long brown hair, big brown eyes - it's a shame someone had to go and mess up her face like that."
It took everything, every ounce of self-control, every drop of willpower for Gail not to flinch, not to react - even as, on the inside, she was screaming: Oh my God, MICKIE-
Randy was still talking: "-and then...there's the gunshot wound-"
"She's not here," The words were out of Gail's mouth before she could mull over whether or not to utter them. She tilted her chin up defiantly, meeting Randy's gaze. "We're not open at night - and even if there had been someone here, we're not equipped to handle GSWs; we would have sent her to the ER..."
Her voice, previously so strong, trailed off uncertainly as she realized that Randy was staring at her with a sort of triumphant glee...and for the first time, Gail felt her impregnable facade falter. The Viper's Pit owner gradually spoke, each word dripping with barely contained relish: "I never said...that it happened at night - so, pray tell, how did you know?"
Gail's delicate features sagged, her eyes widening as she realized her gaff. Randy slowly shook his head, his expression becoming almost pitying. "Gail, Gail, Gail..." He clucked his tongue disapprovingly. "Sobriety's made you far too honest - you were a much better liar when you were on the junk." He leaned down until their faces were almost touching. "She's here...isn't she?"
Gail couldn't move, couldn't speak - for the first time, she understood how some animals could be so paralyzed with fear that they never even dodge away from the snake as it strikes. Randy's features suddenly darkened with rage, and he grabbed her arm, jerking her to him, his grip so powerful that the Asian woman was certain the bone would snap.
"Listen, you high-and-mighty bitch," the Viper's Pit owner growled. "That cunt is mine, and no one is going to keep me from finding her," His blue eyes narrowed to tiny slits. "Not you - and certainly not your do-gooder boyfriend-"
"Excuse me, sir," A meaty hand clamped down on his shoulder, and Randy looked up to find himself face-to-face with a big burly black man in blue scrubs, who looked like he could break solid steel over his knee. Gail felt her body go limp with relief, and she managed to extricate herself from Randy's grasp, nearly tripping over her own feet as she stumbled backward.
Without moving, the big man shifted his gaze toward the physician's assistant. "He bothering you, Gail?" His voice, though soft, was deep and resonant.
The Asian woman let her breath out in a low shaky exhale. "I'm fine, Mark," she finally replied. She jerked her chin toward Randy. "But get him out of here."
At the sound of her voice, the Viper's Pit owner glanced back in her direction. His blue eyes locked onto hers, and Gail once again felt the dangerous draw of that gaze, like the slow pull of an undertow. His lips barely moved as he spat out the words: "Tell me where she is-"
"You heard the lady, sir," Mark's voice was filled with a gentle forcefulness, implying that he really didn't want to hurt Randy, but he would do so if necessary. Gail saw the tendons in his massive hand shift as he gave the Viper's Pit owner's shoulder an emphatic squeeze. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
For a moment, Randy glared at the big man - and then, all of a sudden, the rage evaporated, leaving behind a blank emotionless mask. And somehow, that scared Gail even more than the anger...because it meant that there truly was nothing behind those azure irises, and that even his fury was nothing more than a reflexive response.
The blue-eyed man allowed himself to be led to the door, but just as he reached it, he turned back, pointing directly at Gail. "I'll be back. You know I will."
His mouth twitched, curving upward in a wolfish grin. "I'm a man of my word."
And with that, he was gone; pushing open the double doors and vanishing out into the sunny autumn afternoon.
For several long agonizing seconds, Gail couldn't breathe, couldn't think - she wasn't even aware that Mark was talking to her until she felt his hand lightly touch her shoulder. "-you sure you're all right?"
"Huh?" Gail looked up sharply, her vision clearing, some of her terror dissipating enough to allow icy rationalization to take its place. The physician's assistant straightened up, trying to compose herself enough to keep her voice from shaking. "Listen to me - I want you go to the patients that are still here, and tell that we're closing early - if they ask why, say that something came up. After that, I want you and Ezekiel to go around this entire place - check every door, every window; I don't want anyone getting in here." She stared hard at the big man. "Do you understand?"
Mark nodded seriously, his expression grave. "I understand."
"Good," Gail swallowed hard. "Now...while you're doing that...I'm gonna go find Daniel-" She turned to go, but as she did, Mark's voice stopped her.
"Gail?" The Asian woman looked back; the big man was staring at the floor, his lips moving as he carefully considered what he was going to say. His brown eye flicked up to meet hers. "It's bad...isn't it?"
Gail didn't answer; merely hugged herself as she hurried toward the hidden entrance to the basement. But as she yanked open the door and sprinted down the flight of steps, she thought to herself that Mark had guessed absolutely right - it was bad.
It was very bad.