Chapter 31
“Amaya, watch out!” I scream. Alex turns his head, and we stare at the man for a split second in stunned silence.
He has a set of keys in his hands that he’s swinging and catching. It’s nothing more than my imagination running wild.
“What’s that about?” Amaya asks me.
“I’m sorry, I’m just on edge,” I reply as I relax my shoulders, which I didn’t even realize were tense. The threats Amaya has received have shredded my nerves even though they are as cheesy and generic as a bad made-for-TV movie, which, yes, I do watch on the rare occasion I’m home alone.
The crowd is basically at a standstill as we wait for a green pedestrian light. I know this crowd consists of tourists because of their refusal to jaywalk. After Amaya, Alex, and I cross the street, we’ll part ways.
The crowd is filled with all sorts of different costumes, most of them from recent TV shows or movies.
Some of them are political. Some are old-school costumes, like the Mickey Mouse that is right behind us.
On further inspection, it’s “Magnus Mouse,” probably because the company didn’t have the licensing from Disney to be the real thing.
Only recently has Mickey Mouse entered the public domain.
It’s a full costume, with a head and body, like the characters that dress up in Times Square and stop to take pictures with people.
I look around, and again I think I see the woman from the intersection who is also the woman from Charlie’s house…
Is she following me? I try to strain my neck for a better look, but I’m interrupted by a very impatient Magnus Mouse, who tries to push past me.
His watch catches a little bit of light from a restaurant, and it temporarily blinds me. I look over at Amaya.
“Oh my god!” she gasps. With her flair for the dramatic, I think she is about to yell at Magnus Mouse for pushing past her so roughly. It’s our God-given right as New Yorkers to shake our fists in the air about these sorts of things and, for some, to accompany such fist-shaking with expletives.
Then I see dark red blood trickling down her shoulder. A Halloween trick? It takes another second to process what’s happened.
“Alex, Amaya’s been stabbed!” I scream as I catch Amaya in my arms when she stumbles.
“What?” Alex says, confirming that he’s heard correctly over the din of the crowd.
“Magnus Mouse stabbed her!” It’s a phrase that I never thought I’d say. I point to the quickly vanishing black-and-red-costumed figure.
“What?” Alex says, confused.
“The mouse!”
As soon as it hits him, Alex runs after Magnus Mouse, and I turn my attention to Amaya. This isn’t the first time Alex has willingly walked toward danger for me.
Her eyes are wide in shock.
“Give us room!” I say authoritatively as the crowd pushes back. “Call 911.”
One or two people already have their phones out, which I desperately hope means they are calling 911 and not just taking photos of the scene out of some lurid fascination to later post on TikTok.
This isn’t a tourist attraction; this is a real-life emergency.
True crime rule number eleven: Stay calm in high-stress situations.
This seems like an obvious rule, but it’s much easier in theory, because at the present moment, I just want to scream my head off and wait for an actual adult to come. Yet, here, I am the adult.
“You’re going to be okay,” I say instinctively, unsure entirely if she will be. I rip a segment off my jacket, which is easy given the cheap fabric, and stanch the bleeding from her shoulder. “I’m here with you.”
I try to think of everything my brother learned in those premed classes.
He talked about them all the time; it almost felt like I had sat through the lectures myself.
I lean Amaya against me to make sure the wound is elevated above the heart to slow the bleeding.
I apply more pressure, and Amaya gasps. I’m taken back to my panic attack outside the animal hospital and my feeble attempt at returning the kindness she showed me.
“Well, this isn’t how I hoped to spend my day!
” Amaya growls more than verbalizes, her animation making her sound a bit like herself.
She is lucid enough to joke around; this is a good sign.
In the distance, sirens are blaring, and I know EMTs will soon arrive and place her on a stretcher. She just needs to hold on until then.
“How are you?” I’m unsure what else to say to someone recently stabbed by a stranger.
I imagine that a shoulder isn’t a bad place to be stabbed, all things considered.
If she had been stabbed in the heart, like James in the back of my taxi, she’d bleed out in just a minute.
This probably isn’t the comfort she is looking for, so I stay silent.
“It fucking hurts,” Amaya says, a small grimace plastered on her face despite what must be excruciating pain.
I can’t believe she isn’t crying, though she looks as if she might at any second.
If I didn’t know her, I would have thought her a stoic person, but I can see through the tough veneer she puts up at her most vulnerable moments.
A practice she probably developed through her years as a public defender fighting judges, ADAs, and everyone else who thought the worst of her clients.
Inside, though, she is as sensitive as me.
Or almost as sensitive. I adjust her body to minimize the blood loss, while keeping a steady pressure on the wound and praying an ambulance will come soon.
“I want you to know…” I say, pausing, “that I promise to bring you both chicken curry and pizza from Lutrino’s so you don’t have to eat the hospital food every day.”
Amaya laughs a little, a tear escapes her eye. “It’s going to be soggy…you know that pizza doesn’t travel well,” she manages.
“Don’t leave me, all right?” Amaya asks as another reluctant tear slowly rolls down her cheek.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I respond.