Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
Eliza
TAKING CHARGE
The heavy door clicks shut behind me, sealing Cooper inside the concrete box with his wounds and his stubborn pride. My hands shake as I grip the crumpled list, the ink already smearing from the dampness on my palms. Fifty dollars and a prayer that humanity hasn’t failed me yet.
The maintenance shed sits behind me like a tomb. Cooper’s breathing was too shallow when I left, his skin too pale. Blood soaked through those makeshift bandages faster than either of us wants to admit.
If this doesn’t work, he dies.
If I don’t move fast enough, he dies.
If the person I’m about to trust decides fifty dollars isn’t worth the effort, he dies.
The weight of his life presses against my chest like a physical thing as I navigate the narrow path between abandoned buildings.
Broken glass crunches under my shoes. The air smells of exhaust fumes and something sour, which could be garbage or something worse.
This isn’t the sanitized academic world where problems have solutions and research has answers.
This is real. Raw. Desperate.
And Cooper’s life depends on me not screwing it up.
The homeless camp spreads across a small lot wedged between two condemned buildings.
Tarps stretched between shopping carts create makeshift shelters.
A barrel fire burns in the center, sending acrid smoke into the gray morning sky.
The smell hits me first—unwashed bodies, burning plastic, the sharp tang of urine mixed with something chemical I can’t identify.
People cluster around the fire, hands extended toward the flames. Their clothes are layered, patched, and held together with safety pins and determination. Faces weathered by exposure and choices that led them here.
My stomach clenches with guilt. These people are surviving with nothing, and I’m about to ask one of them to risk what little they have on a stranger’s promise.
But Cooper’s blood is soaking through fabric bandages, and pride won’t keep him alive.
I approach the group slowly, hands visible, trying to project calm confidence I don’t feel. Academic conferences never prepared me for this kind of negotiation.
“Excuse me,” I say, my voice carrying farther than intended in the morning quiet. “I need help. Someone’s been hurt, and I can pay for medical supplies.”
The conversations stop. Six pairs of eyes turn toward me, assessing the threat level I possess and calculating whether they carry an advantage over me. I’m clean, well-dressed, despite yesterday’s chaos. It’s obvious I don’t belong here.
It’s even more obvious that I’m desperate.
“You a cop?” asks a woman with graying hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. Her coat is too big, held closed with duct tape, but her eyes are sharp, intelligent, and miss nothing.
“No.” I swallow hard. “My—my friend was shot. We can’t go to a hospital. I need someone to buy medical supplies.”
“Shot?” A younger man steps forward, maybe mid-thirties, with a scraggly beard and hands that shake slightly. “Why can’t you go to a hospital?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Complicated how?”
The questions come faster now, the group’s suspicion shifting toward curiosity. These people understand complicated. They live it every day.
“Bad people are looking for us,” I say finally. “Hospital means they find us. My friend dies either way—from the wounds or from them.”
The woman with the ponytail—clearly the group’s leader—studies my face with the intensity of someone who’s learned to read people for survival.
“What kind of supplies?” she asks.
I unfold the list and read it aloud. “Gauze pads, medical tape, antiseptic, ibuprofen, protein bars, water bottles.”
“That’s maybe twenty-five dollars at the corner store,” says a man wearing a military surplus jacket with faded patches. His voice carries the flat precision of someone who’s counted every penny for too long. “You said you could pay.”
“Fifty dollars.” I pull out the bills Cooper gave me, hold them where everyone can see. “Twenty-five for supplies. Twenty-five when they’re delivered.”
The money changes everything. Backs straighten. Eyes sharpen. Twenty-five dollars is a day’s worth of meals, maybe more.
“I’ll do it,” the young man with the beard says immediately.
“Like hell,” snaps someone else. “I was here first.”
“You can’t even walk to the corner without falling over,” the woman says, voice cutting through the argument. She turns to me. “I’ll go. But I want the money first.”
I extend the bills, and she takes them, counts twice. The paper disappears into her coat pocket.
“Ten minutes,” she says. “Corner store’s two blocks. I’ll be back.”
“What if you don’t come back?” The question slips out before I can stop it.
She laughs, sharp and bitter. “Honey, if I wanted to steal your money, I’d pick a target who wasn’t standing in the middle of my home asking for help.” Her expression softens slightly. “Your friend really shot?”
“Yes.”
“Bad?”
The image flashes through my mind—Cooper’s blood-soaked shirt, the way his hands shook when he thought I wasn’t looking, how his voice got rougher as he fought to stay conscious.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Name’s Janet.” She nods once. “Ten minutes.”
And she’s gone, walking with purposeful strides toward the street. I stand awkwardly beside the fire, trying not to stare at the people who’ve witnessed my transaction. The silence stretches until the military jacket man speaks.
“Your friend military?”
“Former.”
“Thought so. Only military folks think they can patch bullet holes with T-shirts and willpower.”
“Does that usually work?”
“Sometimes. Depends on the holes.”
The minutes crawl past. I check my watch obsessively—three minutes, five minutes, seven minutes. What if she doesn’t come back? What if the store doesn’t have what we need? What if Cooper’s bleeding out while I stand here burning precious time on faith and desperation?
Eight minutes. Nine.
At precisely ten minutes, Janet returns carrying a plastic bag. Relief floods through me so intensely that my knees go weak.
“Got everything on your list,” she says, handing me the bag. “Plus some extra gauze. Figured you might need it.”
I peek inside—white packages of sterile gauze, medical tape, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, ibuprofen, energy bars, water bottles. Everything Cooper needs.
“Thank you,” I breathe. “Thank you so much.”
“Hope your friend makes it.” She turns to walk away, then pauses. “Next time someone tells you people like us can’t be trusted, you remember this.”
“I will.”
The bag clutches against my chest as I hurry back toward the maintenance shed. The medical supplies inside shift and rustle with each step, a promise of hope wrapped in sterile plastic packaging.
Cooper has to be okay. He has to be.
The shed’s door opens to the metallic smell of blood. Cooper sits slumped against the concrete wall, head tilted back, eyes closed. For one terrible moment, I think I’m too late.
Then his chest rises and falls, shallow but steady.
“Cooper?” I whisper.
His eyes open slowly, pupils dilated and unfocused. “You came back.”
“Of course I came back.” I drop to my knees beside him, setting the bag where he can see it. “Now let me take care of you.”
“Eliza—”
“No.” The word comes out sharper than intended, carrying all the fear and desperation of the last hour. “You took care of me. Now I take care of you.”
For once, he doesn’t argue.
I start with the antiseptic, the sharp chemical smell cutting through the concrete mustiness. “This is going to hurt.”
“Do it.”
The makeshift bandages peel away to reveal wounds that look worse than I remembered. The shoulder entry and exit points are ragged and angry red around the edges. Blood seeps from torn muscle, but it’s not the bright arterial spray that would mean we’re out of time.
Yet.
“My father always said gunshot wounds were like bad poetry,” I murmur, soaking gauze with hydrogen peroxide. “They look dramatic, but most of the damage is internal and hard to see.”
“Your father treated gunshot wounds?”
I press the antiseptic-soaked gauze against the entry wound. Cooper’s jaw clenches, but he doesn’t make a sound. “He said the ones who talked through the pain did better than the ones who suffered in silence.”
“Good thing you never shut up.”
Despite everything, I almost smile. “Very funny.”
The peroxide foams white against the torn tissue, bubbling as it cleans debris from the wound. Cooper’s breathing stays controlled, but his hands curl into fists against the concrete floor.
“Tell me about the person,” he says through gritted teeth. “The one who got the supplies.”
I move to the exit wound, larger and messier. “Her name is Janet. She counted the money twice, told me if she wanted to steal fifty dollars, she’d pick a better target.”
“Smart woman.”
“She reminded me of my graduate adviser. Same look in her eyes—like she’d seen everything and wasn’t impressed by most of it.” The antiseptic burns through the wound, and Cooper’s breath hisses between his teeth. “Sorry. Almost done with this part.”
“Keep talking.”
“She said to remember this the next time someone tells me people like her can’t be trusted.” Clean gauze replaces the blood-soaked fabric Cooper had pressed against the wound. “I think she was making a point about assumptions.”
“What kind of assumptions?”
“That homeless means hopeless. That desperation equals dishonesty. That people who have nothing are more likely to take what little you have.” I tape the gauze securely, covering both entry and exit wounds with sterile padding. “Academic prejudices, I guess.”
“Not academic. Human.” He pauses, studying my face. “Did you tell her that? About believing in humanity?”
“No, she had this look when she counted the money—like she was deciding whether I was worth the risk.” I adjust the tape, ensuring the bandage will stay in place.
“There was a moment where I thought she might just walk away with the fifty dollars. Not because she’s dishonest, but because why should she trust me?
I’m some random woman who shows up asking for help, offering money that could be fake or part of some scam. ”
“But she didn’t walk away.”
“She didn’t walk away. And when she came back, she brought extra gauze. Said she figured we might need it.” I move to examine the head wound, dabbing away dried blood with clean gauze. “That’s not doing a job for money. That’s caring about the outcome.”
The ribs require less work—a shallow graze that looks worse than it is. I clean it quickly, apply antiseptic that makes Cooper curse under his breath, then cover it with gauze and tape.
“How do you feel?” I ask, sitting back on my heels.
“Like I got shot.”
“But alive?”
“Alive.”
I hand him two ibuprofen and a water bottle. “For the pain and inflammation.”
He swallows the pills without question, drains half the bottle. Color starts returning to his cheeks, and his breathing deepens.
“Thank you,” he says quietly.
“Thank that woman. She’s the one who took the risk.”
“Thank you for trusting her.”
The words hit harder than expected. Trust isn’t something that comes easily to either of us—him because of his training, me because of academic competition and professional betrayals. But today I trusted a stranger with Cooper’s life, and she proved worthy of that trust.
“I had to,” I say. “The alternative was watching you bleed out.”
“Still. You did good.”
The praise warms me more than it should. Cooper doesn’t give compliments lightly, and hearing approval in his voice makes something tight in my chest finally loosen.