“Close the door,” Lucy said. “It’s embarrassing. Kind of a girl problem. I don’t want the boys to see.”
The nurse shut the door, stood staring down at Lucy.
“What is it?”
“Look,” Lucy said.
She had tears in her eyes.
Happy tears.
She pointed at her crotch.
The nurse knelt down, and when she leaned in for a closer look, Lucy thrust the heel of her hand up into Denise’s nose.
Denise dropped onto her butt, and Lucy pitched forward and grabbed the woman’s hair. She slid the needle into the nurse’s throat, just far enough to draw a bead of blood.
“Now listen carefully, Denise,” Lucy said. The burst of exhilaration had momentarily dulled her pain. “I will run this needle straight through your neck if you make so much as a whisper. Got it? Nod, bitch!”
The nurse nodded.
“You want to live through this?”
More frantic nodding.
“Okay, here’s what you’re going to do. What floor are we on?”
“Four.”
“Is there a basement in this hospital?”
“Yes.”
“What’s down there?”
“Um…”
Lucy pushed the needle in a tad farther. This was the best she’d felt all day. What she lived for.
“I’m thinking…the lab…radiology…the blood bank.”
“There you go. Tell the orderly I’m bleeding and send him down to the basement for several units of blood.”
“Okay.”
“I swear to God if you fuck this up I’m going to use your neck for a pin cushion.”
“Now?”
“What?”
“You want me to tell Benjamin now?”
“No, let’s wait another twenty minutes. Yes, now!”
The nurse cleared her throat as Lucy edged her toward the door.
“Benjamin?” she said.
“Everything okay, Denise?”
“Lucy’s having some heavy blood loss. I want you to head down to the blood bank and bring up three units of AB.”
“Should I page Dr. Lanz?”
“I’ll take care of that. Go now.”
Lucy heard the orderly padding away.
“You did well, Denise. You did really well.”
Lucy tightened her grip and jammed the needle twenty times into the nurse’s throat, numerous lines of blood branching and intersecting and running over her fingers as the nurse gurgled and fought to throw her off.
Outside the door, Lucy heard the deputy say, “Denise?”
Lucy dragged her back into the shower and her thirty-third puncture hit home because Lucy felt something swelling in the side of the nurse’s neck.
When the bulge reached the size of a golf ball Lucy gave it a prick and it exploded in a burst of bright red arterial spray that splattered across the shower tile.
Lucy felt the woman’s legs give out and she eased her down onto the floor of the shower.
The deputy knocked on the door.
“Denise, what’s going on?”
The physical exertion had brought on a wave of agony, and Lucy wanted to scream it was so fierce. Instead, she tugged Denise out of the shower and draped her across the toilet.
Lucy returned to the shower stall, pulled the curtain and backed up against the tile, her heart rocketing along, a smile spreading across her face.
So good to be alive.
In the space between the curtain and the wall, she saw the doorknob begin to turn.
The door swung open.
The deputy said, “Oh, shit.”