Chapter 12 #2
I shrug. "I'm curious. And I've studied the history of battlefield medicine extensively. I've actually considered a P-H-D in it. It'd be pretty cool to have a P-H-D."
"And the tampon is part of that?"
I shrug. "To a degree." I assess Enzo—weak, sluggish, pale. "We need to get him to a doctor, ASAP. I think he's bleeding internally."
"Mia figlia," Enzo grumbles, eyes rolling around, confused and scared and in pain.
"Fuck." Killian shrugs into a vest, straps it down, and shoulders the backpack. "C'mon. We'll take their car." He crouches in front of Enzo. "Hey, bud. Can you stand?"
Enzo nods floppily. "I will try."
“Okay. C'mon. Let's get you up." He grabs Enzo's hands, stands on his feet, and then heaves backward and upright, levering Enzo's huge bulk to his feet before shrugging under the larger, older man's shoulder and staggering under his weight. "Jesus, Enzo. You're a big boy."
"Too…much…ahhh cazzo cazzo cazzo—merda, it hurts. Too much of the good food, hey?”
"No kidding," Killian jokes. "Maybe try a salad or two, huh?"
"You are calling me fat?" Enzo grumbles, pretending to be insulted. "Now we are enemies. You insult my shape, you stupid, loud American boy."
"Oh, is that right? Well maybe I'll just toss you down the stairs, huh? Save myself the effort of dragging your tubby butt down three flights of steps."
"Tubby? What is this tubby?"
Killian slaps a hand against his own belly. "Tubby."
Enzo looks down at his belly, pale and hairy and red-smeared and, yes, a little bulgy. "Oh. Sì. I am this tubby."
Killian growls in irritation as he helps Enzo to the door and pauses at the top of the steps. "You're supposed to get mad, you big agreeable oaf."
Enzo just laughs, and then groans. "I know what you are trying to do."
I take the backpack from Killian and hike it onto my own shoulders, over the vest I donned while Killian was getting Enzo to his feet and across the flat; I threw the feminine products into the bag as well, because I doubt that's the last time I'll need them.
I squeeze under and past Killian and down a couple steps, walking backward to provide extra support for Enzo as he and Killian shuffle laboriously and slowly down the steps, Enzo grimacing and gasping.
We reach the idling SUV—a typical European compact—and we help Enzo to lie down in the back seat.
He grabs Killian's hand. "Wait. Wait."
Killian braces in the opening. "What's up? You're bleeding out, man. We gotta get you to a hospital."
"The hospital will be watched. Those—" he juts a chin at the block of flats, "are just the first. Always there are more." He winces, shifts on the bench. "She follows in the other car. You leave me at the door and go to her. Capisci?"
Killian frowns, but nods. "Yeah, we got it."
The older man reaches for Killian. "Mobile. Per favore."
Killian hands him the burner, and Enzo slowly uses one thumb on the T9 keyboard to type out a long string of something; he hands it to Killian, and I look over his shoulder.
An address and a phone number.
"Mia suocera, her home and her phone number. Find…please find mia figlia. Make her to be safe. Please. Per favore."
"We’ve got you, buddy," Killian answers. "Just stay awake, yeah? Now. How the fuck do I get to the hospital?"
Enzo snarls as he levers himself higher on the rear bench of the Dacia SUV, so he can see out the window, one hand pressed to his belly. "I will guide you."
"I'll follow you," I say. "The second you park it at the ER doors, I’ll be waiting."
"Got it. Stay on my ass."
I wink at him. "Don't gotta ask me twice."
Enzo snorts. "You save that for later, hey? I am dying here."
"You're not dying," I tell him, pointing at him. "You've got a daughter to live for." I close the door and head for the other vehicle, and seconds later we're squealing out of the parking lot and hauling ass across town.
Killian drives like an asshole, swerving around slow-moving morning traffic, leaning on his horn as he follows Enzo's directions.
The hospital pops up as we round a corner, a white-and-tan structure that's all right angles, except for a round section with a covered portico.
I follow their progress along a narrow, car-clogged lane around the hospital to the emergency room.
Killian cuts off a slow-moving ambulance trundling lazily toward the ER entrance and squeals to a stop parallel with the doors.
I jerk around his back end and brake next to him, kicking my foot hard into the brake pedal as I lean across the console to shove open the passenger door; Killian's door flies open and he leaps from the seat of his car to the passenger seat of mine while barely touching the ground in between.
No sooner has his ass contacted the seat than I'm gunning the accelerator and peeling away.
"Shit!" Killian snaps, lunging out and slamming the door closed an instant before the door would've hit an idling ambulance.
I cackle as he grabs the oh-shit bar with one hand and yanks his seatbelt across his frame with the other. "You good?"
"You know no one is currently, actively chasing us, right?"
"Oh no?" I ask, glancing in the rearview.
A hospital security vehicle is behind us, lights flashing. "Apparently the dump-and-dash is no less illegal here than the US. Although I'd argue Enzo was mentally competent enough to make his own healthcare decisions."
"Story?"
"Hold please." I wrench the wheel around and nail the accelerator; the car leans heavily as we carve around a ramp to a wide highway.
The hospital security vehicle declines to follow us onto the highway, although I'd wager our license plate number is currently being relayed across Sardinian police radio waves.
"Okay, we’re good for the moment," I say.
"It's illegal to leave someone at a hospital?" Killian asks.
"Under certain circumstances, yes. If the person you're dropping off is a legal adult, mentally competent, awake and aware, and able to speak for themselves, it's fine. But minors and the elderly, or someone too incapacitated to communicate for themselves, it's illegal."
"Oh. I didn't realize that."
"So what we just did…" Killian prompts.
"Eh, if it was my ER, no one would blink twice.
It happens more than you'd think. Enzo was conscious and able to speak, so I'd have tagged him as competent.
But most hospitals just don't like it when you do what we just did.
I don't know the laws here, obviously." I check our back trail, but see nothing amiss.
"We need to ditch this car and find the port.
Being trapped on an island with Pugli's men looking for us is somewhat less than ideal. "
“No shit." He taps at the infotainment screen, but of course, everything is in Italian. “Just when we really need a fucking translator. Um. Where do ferries dock? Ports?"
"Try, ahh…porto?"
He types the word into the search bar and reads the top result. "Porto di Isola Bianca?"
I shrug. "No clue, Killy. Let's go with it. We can always play stupid tourist and ask for directions."
"The bulletproof vests are sort of a giveaway," he points out. "And, um…how are we going to get through any kind of terminal security with our weapons, and without ID?"
I glance at the backpack now on the floor of the footwell between Killy's feet. “That there is a bag full of guns, huh?"
He snorts. "Yeah. Exactly."
"Shit."
"I think Enzo said the ferry ride was several hours long, too, so I don't think it's the kind of trip we can make by just stealing a little outboard punt or whatever."
"Any public transport is going to present the same issue, and so will trying to get across in a car ferry. We’ll still run the risk of the bag and car being searched, and oh yeah, we did technically steal this car, and oh yeah, we stole it from the eight dead men in Tomas's apartment.
And there's the matter of the three men at the other flat. "
"You think the local authorities have connected us to any of that?"
I can only shrug. "Doubtful? We weren't exactly guests of Sardinian law enforcement, after all."
"And we can't let that happen, either," Killian says. "Pugli has sources everywhere, in all sorts of official channels, apparently, seeing as he's Interpol.”
"Let’s get closer to the port and ditch the car first," I answer, after thinking. "Once we're on foot and sure we're not being followed, we can figure out how to get off this island."
The car's native sat-nav guides us, in Italian, through the bustle—relatively speaking—of downtown Olbia. Fortunately, I can follow the highlighted route on the screen easily enough even if I don't understand the verbal directions.
We slip easily into Olbian traffic and find the port, but instead of trying to find the ferry office, I cruise past it and reroute back into the narrow, bright, old-world streets of downtown Olbia.
"So now what?" Killy asks. "Dump the car somewhere?"
I nod. "That's my thinking. Park it somewhere with the keys in it and head out on foot."
"And then…what? Stow away?"
I roll my eyes. "For sure. Hide in the luggage compartment."
"What would our parents do in this situation?" Killy asks.
I sigh. "They'd call in. Or steal something. I don’t know.” I’m panting, suddenly, finding it hard to breathe past the steel bands around my chest. “I don't know!"
Killian rests a hand on mine. "Hey, breathe. We'll figure it out."
His instruction to breathe is my first indicator that I'm not, and I suck in a deep, slow, shaky breath, hold it, let it out through pursed lips.
"If this was the wilderness, I'd know exactly what to do.
I can lose tails. I can hot wire a car. I can hit a moving target at a hundred yards.
But how to cross hundreds of kilometers of ocean without an ID or passport, with a burner I suspect has a tracker in it, being hunted by this overblown GI Joe villain?
No clue, Killy. Dad's many, many hours of training didn't cover this precise scenario.
" I swallow hard. "Also, I killed two men.
I'm kinda struggling with that, to be honest."