"What are you looking for?" Cleo snatched up the bottle of pills she had come for.
"Amoxacilin… but I don't see it here. I asked for it over an hour ago."
Cleo gave him an unbelieving glance. He ignored it and muttered under his breath, "Never thought we'd run out of Amoxacilin…"
"Did you try supplies?"
"What?"
"Most of the time I need something and don't want to wait for it I go down to the supply room. We've got just about everything there."
"Really?"
"Mmmmhmmm," Cleo smiled knowingly. "I'd try down there if I were you."
"Me, too," Dave sighed and held up his hands in exasperation.
"Good luck," Cleo called over her shoulder as she and Dave parted in opposite directions.
"Great," Dave sighed as he switched on the light to the supply room and aisle after aisle became exposed. At least it seemed like it. He never really thought of the "supply room" as being that big, but now realized his mistake. He stepped down the two stairs onto the cool, pavement floor and began skimming the labels of medicines on the shelf. There didn't seem to be any order to them. He moved the next aisle down.
Suddenly the lights went out and he heard the door slam shut. After a small jump of surprise Dave froze, his ears and eyes straining in the darkness to detect whatever presence he felt was in the room with him. After a few seconds he could hear feet shuffling and backed up. He stopped when silence fell again. He breathed in and out slowly, not daring to make a sound. He felt the adrenaline welling up inside him pressing him to make a critical decision; fight or flee? He felt the blood that rushed past his ears with each beat of his heart and feared that the simple thump of his heart that had become so loud would give away his position.
Then suddenly he was struck on the back of the head with an object that shattered. The immediate jaw-clenching pain sent him to the floor as he felt kicks of ferocity chase the air out of his lungs. Fists began to rain down on him as he struggled to move. He kicked out instinctually, hitting the body of his assailant, giving himself a moment of peace as he heard his attacker stumble and fall. He coughed as he tried to breathe and held his pain-filled stomach with one hand while slowly pushing himself up with the other. He was vaguely aware of pain in his hand as the shattered glass on the floor sliced through his skin.
He could hear the other person moving as he realized he could not yet regain his feet without throwing up from pain. He began to slowly pull himself towards the golden-brimmed, rectangular shape of the door, which now seemed so far away. A heavy boot fell upon his shin, causing him to yelp in pain.
"You always were a pussy."
He recognized the disdain in the familiar voice and wanted to cry. He wished he could plead with his attacker to stop but he knew it would be useless. It hadn't ever worked in the past so why would in work now?
"What do you want?" Dave managed to gasp out to the looming shape of his father above him.
"To correct a mistake I made a long time ago," came the deep reply from the caverns of darkness. He felt a hand grab him roughly, pulling him to his feet before slamming him against the wall. Hitting his head again he lost all strength to fight back, and instead fought the spinning, dark world around him. He felt his body being thrown onto the glass-littered floor again, then a hard object connected with his side. It felt like his side had collapsed as he felt another blow to his back. One final kick after hearing a few satisfactory moans from his victim, Dave's father left in silence.
Dave couldn't move; he could hardly breath. After what seemed like an eternity the pain that was screaming at him from everywhere slowly began to fade and he surrendered to the shadows of unconsciousness.
"Has anyone seen Malucci?!" an exasperated Kerry called out to no one in particular, holding a chart in her upraised hand in an effort to draw attention. All she received were quick glances and submissive scurries in the opposite direction. Kerry sighed and turned to see John trying to sneak by with a cup of coffee.
"Carter, have you seen Malucci?"
John shook his head. "Not for a few hours; since he came in this morning."
"I saw him a little over an hour ago."
Kerry spun at Cleo's voice and somewhat rudely barked, "Where?"
"In the prescription closet…" Cleo was a bit taken aback by Kerry's sudden turn on her. Kerry turned away again as she hobbled up to the board and began to erase Malucci's name off of a patient's, muttering, "I swear, when I get my hands on him I'll…"
"He said he was going to the supply room," Cleo offered to Kerry's back.
"The supply room?" She looked at Cleo who shrugged, not wanting to say that she had suggested it for fear of Kerry's wrath.
"Carter!" John froze in his tracks. She hadn't even looked towards him, how did she know he was trying to escape? "I want you to go to the supply room and see if you can find any trace of him." She turned back to Dr. Finch. "Cleo, I'm sorry," her voice was softer and much more compassionate. "I'm just in a bitchy mood right now and I'm taking it out on you which isn't fair."
"It's okay," Cleo smiled to show no harm done. "You should see my mother." Kerry laughed.
John sighed as he trotted down the stairs to the lower floor where the supply room was located. Why did he have to do these things? He couldn't help but wonder if Kerry would have sent him on such a menial task before he was on probation. He crossed the small, tiled space between the end of the stairs and the supply room door in four long strides before swinging it open. He let out an annoyed breath as he was greeted with darkness, then reached to flip on the light. "Malucci, you in here?!" He called, not expecting an answer as he quickly glanced about. Something glinting in the light caught his eye. It looked like a few pieces of glass on the floor a few aisles down.
He trudged down the two steps to find out what glass instrument or bottle had broken when he realized that there wasn't only glass on the floor. "Malucci!" he suddenly began to run, seeing his friend's body among the glass shards, clearly injured. As he got closer the loose ends of the situation rapidly tied together. "Shit!" He crouched down next to Dave, trying to assess the severity of his injuries. He gingerly touched the skin around a bleeding gash on his friend's head. It wasn't that deep, but being a head injury it had caused a small pool of blood to from around Dave's neck. Despite all of his years of medical training John doubted himself as to what to do. He wasn't used to on-the-scene traumas. He was taught to roll the victim on their side, supporting the head and back in case of spinal injury, to safeguard against vomiting. However if Dave had been down there since Cleo last saw him he doubted that choking on vomit was probable cause for moving him. "Dave, can you hear me?" he touched his shoulder. No response. Damn, John was cursing himself in his mind. He rose and quickly fumbled for his cell phone, hit memory and dialed the first ER number he had listed.
"Cook County General, how may I help you?" Randi answered.
"Randi? It's me, John Carter."
"Carter?" she'd just seen him, his shift couldn't have ended yet.
"Look, Randi, this is important. Malucci's hurt; I'm down in the supply room. Get a gourney down here right away and call in a surgeon!"
Randi was shocked into motion at the severity of his voice. As she listened she nodded rapidly, slammed down the phone and spotted Luka. "Yo, Luka! Malucci's hurt; John needs a gourney to the supply room ASAP!" Without questioning Luka jogged to Malik who was also processing what he'd just heard, if not slower than the doctor did. "C'mon!" Luka grabbed a side of the gourney Malik was standing by and together they headed for the elevator.
"MVA! BP's 220 over 50! Compact vs. big rig, this guy took the brunt of it!" Yelled the paramedic as Jing-Mei and Abby jogged alongside. Seeing them coming Mark jogged into the trauma room before them.
John had grabbed an oxygen mask from the shelf and held it over Malucci's nose and mouth. His eyes never left his friends face as he took his pulse. "Come on, Buddy." He wasn't going to loose another friend. Not like he lost Lucy. He heard a low moan as Dave moved his head slightly. John smiled, glad that his friend was regaining consciousness. Dave opened his eyes and slowly focused as well as he could on John's face above him. "C-Carter?"
"You betcha," John tried to sound comforting. Dave closed his eyes again, not used to the light or the pain it caused. The pain breathing caused. "You just hang in there buddy, help is on the way." Dave tried to nod but gritted his teeth and let out a hiss of pain when he did so. "It's okay. You took a nasty hit to the head, don't try to move just yet. Do you remember what happened?" John wanted to keep Dave talking. The longer he was awake, the better his chances.
"I don't… something happened," was Dave's muttered reply. Obviously, and under other circumstances John would have found Dave's response funny.
"Apparently someone jumped you…" John hoped he could instigate thought.
Just then Luka and Malik burst through the door. Dave reopened his eyes at the sudden sound.
"Over here!" John yelled, getting to his feet, careful of the oxygen canister.
Luka glanced over at him before turning his attention to helping Malik pull the gourney down the two stairs. John turned back to Dave. "You think you can get up?"
Dave slowly tried to push himself into a sitting position, but when John saw the pain he was in he quickly bent down to support him. With the help of the other three men Dave managed to climb onto the gourney. The pain the movement had caused left him fully awake and all he wanted was to fall into the peace of unconsciousness once more.