3. Sofia
3
SOFIA
F or the first time in months, my replacement for the night shift at the clinic came just an hour late compared to the usual two or more hours late. Pamela and I took turns leaving around Xavier’s habitual lateness, but because he was the clinic manager’s uncle, nepotism spared him from ever getting in trouble.
It was an hour that I wanted to spend at home, with Ramon, watching the fireworks from the small city square near our building. Se?ora Vasquez would take him with Juan, but I wanted so badly to be off and be present.
Even though Xavier was here, I couldn’t leave without one more thing to take care of.
And I did not want any part of it.
“Selena,” I begged, shaking my head at our manager. “Not tonight.”
No night would be a good night for me to run to the big hospital and pick up the medications they were duty-bound to share with our small clinic. I would avoid going to that monstrosity of a hospital until I died.
“Why, because it’s Alborada?” Selena guessed with a huff. “Too bad.”
“Why can’t he get it?” I pointed at Xavier who was still going over the patient charts as he checked in. “Why can’t he go get the meds before we leave?”
“Whoa.” Pamela held her hand up. “No. I don’t want to hang around until he’s back.” She opened her eyes wide at me. “Since he’s clocking in now , instead of even later.”
Xavier sneered at me. “And I’m not going out there. On Alborada? No way. It’s nuts out there. It was a pain in the ass driving here around all the partiers and people setting off firecrackers.”
I cringed, not because of the traffic but that I would be expected to set foot in the hospital at all. “But?—”
“Sofia, he always brings the meds on his way in when they call to say they’re ready for pickup.” Selena crossed her arms. “They just so happened to call too late for him to go that way.”
“What about Pamela?” I turned to look at her and found her scowling.
“I always do the daytime pickups when they are called.” She rolled her eyes.
“Yeah. Because you like doing them. You like going there and looking like you’re one of them.”
She smirked. “Yeah, before I found Enrique. Before I got married.” She grinned at Selena. “No need to scope out the hot doctors anymore now that I got my husband.”
“But—”
Pamela shook her head. “And it’s going to be the first time I’ll spend Alborada as a newlywed, with my husband.”
Argh! Stop talking about your husband! We get it! You’re married!
“Why are you acting like this is some huge, horrible problem?” Selena asked. “You used to work at that hospital. It’s not like you don’t know your way there.”
Unbeknownst to her, yes, going to that hospital was a huge, horrible problem for me. Already, the mere suggestion that I return there was giving me too much panic to endure. When I was young and just starting as a nurse, a student at that hospital, yes, it was my workplace. It was also where the Cartel kidnapped me before forcing me to work on their compound for a while.
Going there would unleash all the trauma I’d been trying to lock up and never revisit. I didn’t want to be triggered by going back there ever again.
“Just be a team player,” Selena scolded.
Pamela nodded, waving at us as she turned. “I’m out of here. See you tomorrow.”
“But—”
Xavier groaned. “Stop making this a bigger deal than it is. You go there, get the meds, bring them here, and then take your whiny ass home.”
I glared at him, now angry, not annoyed. “I?—”
“ Go , Sofia.” Selena shook her head and walked away for her office.
Gritting my teeth, I grabbed my purse and left. My fingers shook and trembled as I slotted my key into the ignition. My heart raced as I began the drive over there. Worst, though, were the utter panic and dread that sank in my stomach that was knotted and clenched.
“In and out.” I nodded after whispering to myself as I drove.
Numb in a form of PTSD, I didn’t jump or flinch at the booms of fireworks or the rat-a-tat-tat-tat of firecrackers on the streets. Short, rapid breaths puffed out of my mouth as I gripped the steering wheel and headed toward the place I planned to avoid forever.
If I told Selena, she wouldn’t have cared. None of them would. Sometimes, that was just how dog-eat-dog this world was.
“Just run in. Get the meds. And run out.” I exhaled a long, shaky breath at the memories of how I was taken.
“Just in and out.”
I recalled the screams. The panic—no, not panic. That was too mild of a term. The day the Cartel men came in and selected a handful of nurses to “recruit” was the day I learned terror. Bone-deep, soul-crushing terror .
“No. Not now.”
I couldn’t lock down into a paralysis from the memories.
“Just in and out. Then go home.” I had to shove back this fear and deal with it, do my damn job and go home. That was all that mattered, but as I parked at the hospital and turned off my car, I shook with nerves that I would have to be here at all.
“In and out,” I whispered over and over again, like a mantra as I walked inside. I wouldn’t linger. I wouldn’t stand around and be accessible to anyone from the Cartel there. And they were always there. Surgeons were bribed. High-up doctors and department heads, especially the ones who seldom practiced medicine and stood around instead, were paid by the Cartel— all the Cartels, because there were more than one besides the oldest one in operation here. Administrative staff were bought, too. Officials of all kinds. Corruption ran rife through the hospital, and that would never change. It couldn’t have changed since six years ago when I’d worked here and was taken.
All over the city, and further into the reaches of the outskirts. Hell, all the way to the jungle and beyond. The Cartel ruled, always. It was why I couldn’t stomach coming back here to work. It was why I had jittery nerves making me look like I was suffering from withdrawal as I walked inside.
The pharmacy was toward the west end of the building, and while it was slightly comforting that I knew where to go, I did all I could not to panic further on the way there.
Fisting my hands and scanning my surroundings, I headed for the pharmacy like a skittish animal of prey ready to be pounced on.
“You okay?” the pharmacist asked once I arrived at the right door to collect the medication.
“Yeah. Sure. I’m fine.” I nodded, but it was too hurried of a gesture, looking like a bobble that I couldn’t stop.
I wouldn’t be able to breathe normally until I was out of here. Hyperventilating wouldn’t do me any good, but just being in these hallways triggered me too damn much.
“Sign here. And here.”
“Yep.” I barely looked at the electronic tablet I scribbled my name on. I was too busy scoping out the people around me, the cameras overhead.
“Okay,” the pharmacy tech said as she took the tablet back. Her brows were raised high at how I’d dragged the tip of the stylus all over the screen, making a very loopy and weird signature. “Careful out there,” she advised blandly.
You mean be careful in here .
“Sounds like it’s been a wild night in the ER with all the Alborada festivities.”
“Oh.” I swallowed, my throat and mouth so dry. “Right.”
With the two bags of medications packed up inside—antibiotics, mostly—I turned on my heel and practically sprinted out of there. Every step I slammed down in my escape was one fraction closer to escape, and I picked up the speed as I went.
Only once I was outside, under the open warm nighttime air again, did I sigh in relief.
No one had approached me. Nothing bad happened. I stuck to making it an in-on-out errand, and I was so thankful that it had worked.
I wasn’t sure when I would stop trembling in fear. As I shoved the bags into my backseat, then reached for the door handle to the driver’s door, I couldn’t cease the tremor that wracked my body.
It was an in and out job. And I was out.
“I did it,” I whispered, hoping to soothe myself with vocalized reassurances.
But really, that didn’t mean much. The Cartel had eyes and ears everywhere. I could be just as easily—or more easily—snatched off the street as I could be in the hospital. Their reach was far and mighty, and any assumption or hope of safety was an illusion I couldn’t fully buy into again.
With another rush of jerky clumsiness, I wrenched the door open and slid in. A stab of my finger on the locks calmed me, and I didn’t delay in starting the car for the return to the clinic. As I drove away, my heart rate slowed. I breathed steadier, and I blinked, willing the dizzying rise of my blood pressure to continue to fall.
A gaggle of partiers tossing out firecrackers forced me to reroute my way, and I furrowed my brow to see better and fully concentrate as I drove through a different side street near the hospital. I was familiar with all of the area, but I wasn’t as versed with driving down these roads.
It was likely why when I slowed for a turn and spotted a man lying in an alleyway, I did a double-take.
“Oh, shit.” I didn’t dare get out. Peering at the still man in the alley, I worried. I was still recovering from the panic. I was still on edge just being near the hospital, but beneath that, a concern about this stranger struck me. The Hippocratic Oath was no laughing matter. I needed to nurse. My nurturing skills came to me automatically, and the sight of a person in pain called to me.
“Shit.” I grimaced, stalling before driving on. Out here in this system of alleyways, shadows hung darker. Nooks and crannies hid deeper. Anyone could be out there, waiting to attack. That man on the ground could be a decoy. A lure.
But… he’s a doctor.
He had to be. The white doctor lab coat was a giveaway. And the lack of motion from his body suggested he had to be wounded or dead.
I peered around the alley, waiting for a jump scare.
Don’t, Sofia. Don’t. I had to temper this need to help and save and rescue. I couldn’t get into business that wasn’t mine when it could very well be dangerous for me. It didn’t make sense how I could swing from panic and fear to concern and caution, but that was how it worked.
It’s not my business.
And this close, it could most definitely be the Cartel’s business. They could have done this, depositing a man out here.
But a doctor?
I shook my head, too scared to get out. I had to do all I could to stay off the Cartel’s radar.
Someone else will come by and help him.
Right?
My phone buzzed with an incoming text message, and I jolted. Tearing my gaze from the man, I looked at the screen and saw the text.
Selena: What’s taking you so long? You’re supposed to drop those meds off as soon as you get them.
I sighed, knowing my manager wouldn’t have any doubts or tugs to see through the Hippocratic Oath being obeyed in my place.
Wincing as I stared out the window at the man, I drove away.
No. This isn’t right. This can’t be right. Every mile that I drove to bring me back to the clinic worsened my guilt for walking away. It ate at me, so harshly that when I dropped off the meds to Selena, I hurried back into my car to return and check on the man.
He was still there. I parked and slowly scanned the area again before I opened my door and stepped out. A small canister of pepper spray waited in my hand. It was expired, but it was better than nothing.
“Mister?” I called out carefully as I approached. “Are you all right?”
No reply.
I lowered toward him, seeing that he was out. Blood trickled from the back of his head, but as I pressed my hand to his back and felt him breathing, I realized he lived.
Again, I checked for anyone lingering around here.
No one stepped out from the shadows. No noises sounded to startle me.
Under the distant pops of firecrackers and the explosions of light in the sky, it was just me and this doctor.
If he weren’t a doctor, I would’ve clung to a little more common sense as I rolled him over and checked him over for wounds.
A doctor, just like a nurse—like me—would only be wanting to do better for the world. I could so easily guess that this doctor had been doing something brave, trying his best to help and save, when the Cartel hurt him.
That was how they operated. So much of the rampant crime around here was because of them, no doubt about it.
“Mister?” I asked softly again, just in case he’d snap out of this unconsciousness. “I’ll help you.”
I had to. No part of my soul would remain whole if I walked away from someone in need.
And it was my job to do. Only mine. If I turned around and took him into the hospital, I had no doubt that the Cartel would only insist on finishing the job this time.
I had no clue who this black-haired and tatted doctor was, but I felt a mutual understanding with him. I, too, had once been targeted and hurt by the Cartel, and it felt like Karma for me to have this chance to pay it back, to rescue another in the same dire situation of helplessness and pain from the Cartel’s mighty reach.
“I’ll help you,” I whispered as I began to drag him toward my car.