Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Standing at the counter Lottie made notations on the computer from the patient chart trying not to think about throwing in the towel.
She reminded herself this was what she wanted.
It was why she went to school for nursing.
Why she was taking online classes to further her education.
Setting aside the file, she grabbed the next chart and glanced at the name.
Crap. It was one of their regulars who liked to grab her ass.
If the old coot tried it today, she would hit him over the head with the folder.
Sometimes it was like being a contortionist trying to keep the wrinkled aged hands of old men off of her. She didn’t know where Razor had gotten himself off too, but he needed to get back asap. She couldn’t take care of all these patients alone. “Gretchen, where is Dr. Clermont?”
“He stepped out back to take a call.”
“Thanks.”
A roar of thunder brought her attention towards the front windows.
She knew that sound. Looking from her spot in the doorway she watched as two motorcycles pulled up and parked on the sidewalk.
Definitely not friends of Razor’s. The front door came open with two men carrying a third who was bleeding.
“We need a doctor fast.”
“Bring him back and follow me.” Lottie held the door open for the men as she shouted to the receptionist to get the doctor asap. Rushing down the hall she shoved open the door leading to an exam room and had the two men lay their friend on the table.
“Gunshot or knife wound?” she asked. They saw both on the regular with gangs fighting over which corners were theirs to peddle dope.
“Knife to the side.”
“Are you a fucking doctor?”
Lottie unzipped the wounded man’s jacket and lifted his shirt to inspect the wound. “No. The doctor’s coming.”
“He needs a doctor, bitch.”
“Instead of you yelling at me and calling me names, why don’t you help get his jacket off of him,” Lottie snapped back at the man. Twice today she’d been called names. It wasn’t sitting any better this time as it had the first.
Once the man’s jacket was off, she grabbed a pair of scissors and cut the man’s shirt up the middle, then ripped it the rest of the way up. Applying pressure to the wound where the blood was already coagulating. That was a good sign. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-five,” the wounded guy groaned.
“Looks like the blade missed your kidney and the bleeding is slowing down. Which is a good sign.”
Moving around the two men watching their buddy, Lottie kept an eye on the door. Surely Gretchen went to find the doctor. “I’ll be right back.”
When Lottie tried to leave one of the men grabbed her arm stopping her. The rush of adrenaline and panic began to claw at her. “Let go of me. Now!”
“Where are you fucking going?”
“To get the damn doctor.”
His hand went to a gun at his side and she lost her temper. “Are you stupid enough to pull a gun in here? We have more cameras in this place than you can even count, you dumb prick. Now, I said let the fuck go of my arm!”
The guy dropped her arm as he leaned into her. “You’re a hot head. Get the doctor before I lose my temper.”
Lottie waved her hand in front of her face trying to remove his foul breath from her air space. “Asshole,” she mumbled stepping into the hallway.
She remained calm as she quickly walked up to the receptionist area.
“I need you to get these folks out of here while I hit the silent alarm.” Gretchen’s eyes went wide and she shooed her along.
“Do it quietly.” Lottie reminded the girl as she hit the alarm button under the counter.
When she saw the last patient exit followed by the receptionist, Lottie grabbed the two-shot derringer from her purse and pocketed the small pistol.
As she made her way back to the room, the wounded man was swearing.
Stopping outside the room she expected to see Razor in with the three men, but he wasn’t there.
This was not going to be good. Backtracking she hustled to the back of the clinic and shoved the door open where she literally ran into Razor’s arms. “We have a situation in room five.”
“What kind of situation?”
“Three bikers. Not your kind of biker, sport bikes. One has a knife wound to the side. They’re riled up.”
“Let’s go. I want you to go up front…” Lottie cut him off.
“I already had Gretchen clear the waiting room and all other patient rooms. I told her to leave. And I hit the silent alarm.”
“Alright. It’s you and me, Lottie. If I tell you to do something that doesn’t make sense you don’t question me. You just leave the room and get out of here.”
“Okay, but nothing will happen. Let’s just get this guy taken care of and send them on their way.” Lottie started walking towards the patient’s room with Razor. “If we don’t have them out of here when the cops get here…”
Razor was the one stopping her this time. Nothing was going to happen that he couldn’t handle. He just needed her to do whatever he told her to do. “You stay out here and let the cops in when they arrive.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be fine.” Looking at the closed-door Razor had to make a plan fast. “I’ll leave the door open where you can hear what’s going on.”
She didn’t like it, but she’d promised she’d do whatever he told her to do.
Backstepping, Lottie headed for the front desk to listen for the cops as he went in.
. Razor was arguing with one of the bikers, so Lottie darted into the storage room.
The gun only had two shots. What if she needed another weapon? Something quieter. Something sharp.
Using her keys she struggled to unlock the stainless-steel cabinet. Going through the drawers, she found a pair of scissors and a scalpel. Taking both items, she put them in her empty front pocket, then slipped back out.
Just before she got to the reception area, there was more arguing from the room where Razor was trying to defuse the situation.
Moving quickly, she attempted to get through the door that divided the waiting room from the back.
A crashing sound had her moving faster. Realizing she couldn’t reach it, Lottie changed direction and darted behind the receptionist desk.
Tucking herself underneath the desk she pushed to the very back of it.
“Patch him up, doc!”
“He needs a hospital, not a clinic,” Razor snapped at the guy with the gun.
“Bring the doctor out here. That little bitch won’t let us kill him.” The same guy who called her a bitch was yelling.
Lottie wiped her face trying to think what she should do. Razor told the guy he instructed her to leave; he was the only one that remained at the clinic. A pair of converse came into view at the desk, so she quietly pulled the scalpel from her pocket.
* * *
“Let’s go see if that sexy nurse left,” the gun toting guy growled.
Razor did what he was told and stepped into the hall, praying that Lottie had been smart enough to hide. Just then he heard the tell-tale sound of the front door bell ringing and saw two cops file inside.
He shoved one of the guys into his friend, then rushed the gunman punching him in the throat as he shoved his gun hand away from him. Shoving him into the wall, Razor slammed the guy’s hand against the wall, until he dropped the gun.
Once the men were subdued, the cops took the gunman and his buddy into custody.
Razor told them about the injured guy lying in the hallway as he rushed to check on the guy.
He found him passed out from blood loss.
He needed more help than Razor could give him.
“We need an ambulance asap,” he shouted down the hallway as he started working on the guy.
In the back of his mind Razor wondered where Lottie had gotten herself off to.
After the EMTs and the cops left Razor started searching for her.
He knew she hadn’t left, because the bell on the door hadn’t sounded.
Being that he worked a lot of late hours with just a nurse, he was always tuned in to the front door bell along with the back door alarm.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Razor said in a creepy voice.
When Lottie didn’t come out of her hiding spot, he went room by room trying to find her. “Lottie,” he repeatedly whispered, going down the hall.
He hadn’t played hide and seek since childhood. He hoped he’d get a grownup prize if he found her.
Lottie covered her mouth with a hand trying to not laugh. This was ridiculous. Her boss was playing hide and seek with her. Ok, she thought, two could play this game.
When Razor’s voice moved further away from her spot, she eased out from under the desk. Staying low, she hustled around the desk and down the short hall where he’d just come from. Darting into a patient room, she left the door half open just as it had been.
She heard him walking back up the hallway saying her name.
It reminded her of the sounds from the movie Halloween.
“Lo, lo, lo…ttie, ttie, ttie.” The sound made her shiver.
Determined to win the game, she chose her time to move spots strategically.
She made a calculation mistake and stepped out of a room with Razor mere feet from her.
For a few steps she managed to mimic him walking towards the front.
Then her shoe got stuck on the floor and squeaked.
Razor froze briefly at the familiar sound of rubber soled shoes walking behind him.
For a while he’d let Lottie believe she was winning the game of cat and mouse.
But he’d found her twenty minutes earlier while she stood behind an open door.
He’d seen her through the crack between the door and the frame.Continuing towards the reception area he finally asked, “Are we done playing, Lottie?”
Laughing, Lottie told him, “Yes.” It felt good to laugh. She needed more of that in her life. “I need to put my weapons back.”
“Weapons?”
“Yep. Did you think I wouldn’t arm myself?” The last thing she would ever be was a victim. Especially after seeing what had been done to Sway. She’d sat with her best friend for almost a month in a safehouse. Lottie had helped clean and tend to Sway’s injuries.
Taking the scalpel and scissors from one pocket and the derringer from the other she held them out. “I’ll just put these away.”
“After you do that, Lottie, you can head home.”
“I’m not going home. We have patients who still need to be seen.”
“Lottie. No one’s waiting.”
“Razor. They’ll come back as soon as the police are gone. I’m not going home so deal with it.”
The woman was infuriating. So much for ending a crazy day with something fun. “Fine. Have it your way.”
“I always do.”
Razor watched Lottie as she tucked the scalpel and scissors away, his mind still whirling from the chaos.
The playful banter, a small reprieve from the tension, had him almost forgetting the intensity of what had just gone down.
But Lottie wasn’t done yet. She wasn’t leaving, and something about that made him both proud and irritated in equal measure.
“Lottie,” he said, his voice a mix of amusement and exhaustion. “You know you drive me crazy, right?” He leaned against the counter, crossing his arms as he watched her organize the instruments in the cabinet.
Lottie just smiled, the teasing glint in her eyes belying the calm she was trying to maintain. “Oh, I know. It’s one of my favorite things about working with you.”
Razor shook his head, a faint chuckle escaping his lips.
But his eyes softened as he watched her.
He knew the weight of the world was never far from her shoulders—especially after everything with Sway, and he understood why she wasn’t eager to leave.
He could see it in the way she carried herself, the quiet determination that had become her armor.
She wasn’t the kind of person to back down, not from anything, and definitely not from a job that still had lives to help.
“You’re a stubborn one,” Razor said, his tone gentle but firm.
Lottie shrugged, never looking up from the sanitizer cabinet as she slid the last tool into place. “Someone has to be. If I didn’t, we wouldn’t get anything done around here.”
She finally closed the cabinet with a soft click and turned to face him, her expression serious now. “You’re not going to change my mind, Razor. People need us.”
Razor sighed, a familiar pull in his chest. He wasn’t going to win this battle. Not today. And honestly, he didn’t really want to. Lottie’s resolve was something he respected, even if it tested his patience.
“Alright, fine. You win. Again,” he muttered, pushing himself off the counter. “But don’t go overdoing it. We both need some time to breathe after today.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll pace myself,” Lottie said, her smile returning. “We’ll just take it one patient at a time.”
“Yeah, one crazy patient at a time,” Razor muttered, but there was a hint of warmth in his voice as he moved toward the hallway. “Just don’t make me regret this.”
Lottie laughed softly, the sound light and easy, a welcome reprieve from the intensity that had built up in the clinic. “Regret? You wouldn’t dare.”
As Razor watched her turn to head back into the treatment area, he realized just how much he had come to rely on her—her strength, her wit, and her unwavering resolve. Even if she was a bit of a troublemaker, Lottie was exactly the kind of person he needed by his side.
“Alright,” he muttered to himself, heading back to the front desk. “Let’s see what happens next.”