LITMIR.BIZ

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turned to head back to the hospital, but the man moved quickly to stand in front of her, blocking her path. She stepped back, a strangled yelp dying in her throat.

      “There’s no time for that. He needs help now.”

      Jillian stared up at him, her mind racing. She could try to scream an alarm, but the hospital entrance was at least a hundred feet away and, with the doors closed, it was unlikely anyone would hear her. She glanced around, hoping against hope that someone was just arriving, late for their shift, but the parking lot was still and silent. There was no one around, no one to help her.

      “Please, you’re a doctor, right? Can’t you please help him?”

      She halted her slow retreat, the need to help warring with her desire to get away. Don’t be an idiot, she chided herself, knowing the right thing to do was to return to the hospital. There was no telling what kind of injuries his friend had sustained, and she couldn’t exactly treat him in a dimly lit parking lot. No, better to retrieve a wheelchair and bring it back to collect the injured man.

      But she couldn’t exactly do that with this man standing in front of her, blocking her path to the emergency room entrance.

      “I’m just going to get a wheelchair,” she said, speaking calmly as if trying to soothe an angry dog. “It’ll be easier to move your friend into the ER if we can put him in the chair, and I’ll be able to examine him better once we get him inside.”

      The man let out a huge sigh, his shoulders slumping further when he dropped his head. Jillian stepped to the side, intending to skirt around him. He muttered something that sounded strangely like, “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this,” but before she could process his words, he moved, his hand shooting out of the darkness to grip her arm with painful strength.

      This time she did yelp, but he hauled her up against his broad chest so quickly the breath whooshed out of her before she could gear up to scream. She kicked and clawed at him, but he grabbed her other hand and tugged both arms behind her back, braceleting her wrists with one hand and effectively restraining her. Desperate, frantic, she jerked her knee up, hoping to land a crippling blow between his legs. He swerved to the side, easily deflecting it, so she brought her foot down hard, aiming for his instep. Another miss.

      Just as she sucked in the air to scream, he flipped her around and clamped a hand over her mouth. He released her wrists to band his arm around her torso, locking her own arms by her hips and effectively rendering her helpless.

      He picked her up and hauled her between the rows of parked cars, pulling her into a dark corner of the lot. Part of her brain screamed at her to resist, to make noise, to do something! She kicked furiously, her legs windmilling in the cold air but missing him completely. Her foot made contact with a car and a sudden numbing pain shot up her leg. She blinked back tears and bit down on the hand clamped over her mouth. She was rewarded with a mouthful of leather, the taste so foul it made her gag.

      The man ignored her attempts to escape, maneuvering her easily through the lot, as though he did this kind of thing all the time. Maybe he did. He stopped next to a dark, four-door sedan and removed his hand from her mouth so he could open the back door. He quickly pushed her inside before she had a chance to scream, but took care to keep her from bumping her head against the frame.

      A considerate kidnapper.

      The burned-plastic smell that clung to his clothes was even stronger in the car. Habitual drug use had saturated the upholstery, and she dimly wondered if she would get high just from sitting on the fabric. He released her wrists and shut the door. She waited until he rounded the hood to scrabble at the handle—if she could get the door open, she could run. She had a head start; she could make it back to the ER.

      But the door wouldn’t open. She threw herself against it, hoping it was just stuck, but it remained stubbornly closed.

      She heard the driver’s door open and the man slid inside. “Gotta love child locks,” he said, eyeing her in the rearview mirror. She glared back, defiance and anger quickly replacing the numbness in her limbs as she began to thaw out.

      A soft moan next to her made her jump. She shrank against the door in a bid to get away. What she had thought was a shapeless pile of clothes was in fact a person. One who was in bad shape, if the pitiful sounds coming from the opposite side of the back seat were any indication.

      “That’s Tony,” the man said softly. “He’s been shot.”

      So the friend really did exist.

      “I don’t know what you want me to do about it,” she snapped. “If you really wanted to help him, you’d let me take him inside instead of kidnapping me like this.”

      The man shook his head as he started the car. “That’s not an option.”

      “How do you expect me to treat him when I don’t have any medical supplies?”

      He reached across the front passenger seat and lifted a paper bag, which he handed back to her. It was rather heavy, in a bulky, awkward way. Jillian glanced inside, surprised to find a large collection of vials, syringes and bandages. She lifted one out, straining to read the label as they drove. Ketamine.

      “Where did you get this?” She picked up another vial. Acepromazine. Controlled substances, both of them, and neither of them routinely used in human medicine. Veterinary medicine, on the other hand...

      “Does it matter?”

      She shrugged. “Not really, but I typically don’t work with these drugs.”

      “Keep digging.”

      She did, pulling out a vial of Buprenex. The amber glass shone warmly in the glow of the streetlamps, the liquid inside turbulent as they hit a deep pothole.

      “You can work with that.”

      She glanced up to find him staring at her in the rearview mirror. “Oh?” He sounded so sure of himself; she couldn’t resist poking him just a little. Who was this man and why did he think he knew what she needed to treat his friend?

      His eyes narrowed briefly before he returned his focus to the road. “You know that’s a morphine derivative. It’ll help calm him down so you can dig the bullet out.”

      How the hell did he know that? Did he have some kind of medical background? But if that was the case, why did he need her? She glanced over at his friend, who was leaning against the door, his body limp. The sound of his labored breathing let her know he hadn’t died, but neither was he unconscious, as evidenced by the faint moans he released every time they hit a rough patch of road.

      “Where were you shot?” She scanned his body, searching for blood, but it was too dark to see anything. No way was she going to touch him without gloves—she was a doctor, but she had her limits.

      The man didn’t respond, but his eyes flickered open in response to her question. He stared at her for a beat, then leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes again.

      “The chest,” the driver responded. “I think he punctured a lung.”

      Jillian clenched her jaw, frustration mounting. “If that’s the case, then we really need to get to a hospital. He’ll need a chest tube, scans and quite possibly surgery to remove the bullet.”

      “No.”

      “He could die!”

      The driver spared her a glance. “Make sure he doesn’t.”

      Jillian leaned back against the seat, her heart kicking into high gear. Great. Not only had she been kidnapped, but she was expected to treat a man with serious injuries, without the benefit of a hospital. It belatedly dawned on her that if this man died, her kidnapper would have no further use for her, and he didn’t seem the type to drop her off on the corner with a wave goodbye.

      Fear trailed a cold finger down her spine and she shivered, her stomach roiling. “Can we at least stop moving?” she asked, knowing she couldn’t do much for the injured man

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