A Spark of Light(82)

In the reflection of the screen, Wren’s face was set, determined. Olive watched her thumbs fly. “I can do better than that,” she said.

—


IZZY HEARD WHAT SOUNDED LIKE books dropping, and then a cry for help. She opened the bathroom door and saw a woman bleeding on the floor of the waiting room.

She was conscious, and clearly in pain. “What happened?”

“Shot,” the woman ground out.

Izzy pressed down on her chest. “What’s your name, ma’am? I’m Izzy.” The bullet had gone in the right side, which was good, because it most likely meant her heart was not affected.

“Bex,” the woman gasped. “Need to get … Wren …”

“Let’s take care of you first.” Izzy reached onto a side table, scrabbling by feel for a box of tissues, and wadded them up to press into the wound.

Within seconds, they were soaked through. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and she stood up. From this angle she could see a second victim—Vonita, the clinic owner. Izzy started toward her and then saw the open, vacant eyes, the blood pooled beneath her head. There was nothing she could do.

Izzy ran into the bathroom and pulled the little decorative shelf from the wall. She smashed it into the paper towel holder so that it cracked open, and the wad of towels fell like an accordion around her feet. Gathering them, she rushed back to Bex, using these to soak up the blood.

With every subsequent gunshot she heard, Izzy’s limbs became more liquid. It was only by doing something rote—taking care of a patient—that Izzy was able to keep herself from falling apart. She needed to get out of here, and it needed to be now. But Bex was a large woman, and Izzy couldn’t lift her alone. She could save herself, but that would mean leaving Bex behind.

Or she could help Bex—stabilize her wound with bandages. But if she went to get those, she was risking her own life and Bex’s, because someone had to stay and apply pressure to the wound.

What she needed, really, was someone to help.

—


JUST AS JANINE TURNED the corner and saw the mecca of the Center’s front door, she saw a dead woman. The clinic owner. She gasped, scrambling away from the body, and when another hand gripped her she screamed like a banshee. She opened her eyes and saw a woman with a frizzy red braid and blood streaking her scrubs. “Listen to me,” she said. “I’m a nurse and I need your help. This woman needs your help.” She nodded toward another lady lying with a pool of blood staining the floor beneath her right shoulder.

Janine could barely force out the words. “B-but … there’s a s-shooter …”

“I know. I also know that she could bleed out. I need to get supplies to help her. Please, just press down where my hand is. I promise it will only take a minute, and then you can go.”

Janine looked at the door; the nurse followed her gaze.

“You could save your own life,” the nurse said, “or you could save hers, too.”

If the only lives Janine cared about were those of the unborn, that would make her a hypocrite. She got to her knees beside the nurse, who positioned her hands against the wound.

“I’m Izzy. What’s your name?”

“Janine.”

“This is Bex,” she said. “Press hard.” Just like that, she was gone, leaving Janine with her hands pushing hard on the chest of a stranger.

Bex was staring up at her. “Am I hurting you?” Janine asked.

The woman shook her head. “You … should go.” She jerked her chin up toward the door.

Janine realized that this woman was giving her a literal out, a way to rescue herself. If she left now, she’d survive. She just might not be able to live with herself.

She settled more firmly, covering one of her hands with the other, the way Izzy had shown her. Blood welled between her fingers. “Bex?” Janine asked, smiling as if she weren’t terrified. “Do you pray?”

—


GEORGE WAS GASPING FOR AIR, as if he’d run a four-minute mile. He leaned against the wall, hands shaking. This had to be done, and he knew God would forgive him. It was right there in Isaiah 43:25: I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sisn no more.

But there was a difference between the righteous anger that had accompanied him on his long drive and the actual feeling of the pistol recoiling in his hand when he shot. And even though he knew it was ridiculous, the recoil seemed harder when his bullet struck flesh versus when it only struck plaster.

When he looked down, his jeans were spattered with blood.

Well, he wasn’t the one who’d spilled it first.

There was no way anyone could claim that he didn’t have a moral high ground. He couldn’t undo what had been done to Lil. But he could have retribution. He could teach them the lesson he had not been able to teach her: life is something only God should give and take.

George looked down again at the pistol in his hand.

He had forgotten what it was like to watch someone die. In Bosnia, that rapist who struck his head on the curb had grabbed at George’s arm and stared into his eyes as if there were a cord stretched between them, and as long as he didn’t blink, he would be able to stay in this world.

It had been the same when he opened fire at the clinic and struck the receptionist—he had seen her eyes the moment they went dark, like a candle at the end of its wick. The second woman he shot, well, that was an accident. He hadn’t even noticed her when he walked inside. He had only looked at the front desk and what was beyond it. But when she started yelling, he had to shut her up. He had to. His body had just taken over.