Behind them, the hallway filled with chatter and commotion.
“I’ll push your right side,” he said. “Use your left hand on your left wheel. Move your ass, or I’ll cut my losses, shoot you, and drag your corpse outta here.”
“Jeez, somebody missed his Metamucil.”
Lucy began pushing. Each rotation of the wheel brought a groan.
“Sounds painful,” Donaldson said. “What other terrible injuries have you suffered, little girl?”
She didn’t respond. Their progress was slow, awkward.
“Hurry,” Lucy said. “I hear people coming.”
Donaldson glanced back. A group had formed at the far end of the corridor-a nurse, a few orderlies.
“So what exactly did you have to endure?” Lucy asked.
“Let’s just say I got screwed. There’s the elevator. Less talking, more moving.”
Steering proved difficult. One of Lucy’s outstretched feet banged into a hallway drinking fountain.
She cried out, “Fuck! Do you drive like that?”
“So you do have some feeling left,” Donaldson said, backing her chair up. The gun was pressed against her shoulder, but in order to push, he had to hold it sideways. “I was hoping you weren’t paralyzed.”
“I want you to know that I prayed you weren’t a vegetable. That would have broken my heart. There’s the elevator. Push me to the panel.”
Donaldson leaned to the right, maneuvering the wheelchair alongside the lift.
Behind them, someone shouted, “He’s over there!”
Lucy pressed the DOWN button.
“Come on,” she said. “Come on!”
Five seconds later, the doors spread apart and Donaldson manhandled her inside.
She pressed the “L.”
Footsteps pattered down the corridor, getting louder with each passing second.
“Hurry…hurry hurry,” she said.
The doors began to close just as a security guard came running into view, yelling at them to stop.
He didn’t make it in time, and the lift began its descent.
Donaldson exhaled hard, puffing out his cheeks. “So what’s the plan? I push you all the way to Missoula?”
They lowered past the third floor.
Then the second.
Lucy said, “How about we get to safety, and then we can see how this all plays out? You fucked me up pretty bad, you know.”
“Little girl, you don’t know the meaning of those words.” He winked. “Yet.”
The doors spread apart.
“Okay, I got a plan,” Donaldson said, “But you gotta uncuff me.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to depend upon the kindness of strangers and get us a vehicle.”
“You won’t hurt me, big bad D?”
“Not yet. Not until we get ourselves out of here.”
“Okay, I’ll uncuff you. But you have to get the key. I can’t reach it.”
Donaldson shook his head. “Always a fucking game with you.” He gave the chair a shove, bumping Lucy’s foot into the elevator door. She yelped, grabbing the attention of a nurse at the reception desk. Bringing up his gun hand-still handcuffed to Lucy’s-Donaldson placed the barrel against her head.
“You see this gun, Nurse Ratched?”
The nurse nodded, her mouth agape.
“Unless you want me to splatter this young girl’s brains all over your ER, you better give me those keys, pronto.”
The nurse stayed perfectly still.
“Now!” Donaldson barked.
She reached under her desk, rifling through her purse, dumping it out, eventually holding up a key ring.
“Toss them on her lap,” Donaldson said.
The keys arced through the air and landed on Lucy’s thighs with a jingle. Lucy scrunched up her face.
“Where you parked?” Donaldson asked.
“It’s…the black Honda. I parked in the employee’s lot on the side of the building.”
“Another fucking Honda?” Lucy scowled. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“Get over here and show us. Move your ass.”