The Naturalist (The Naturalist #1)(99)

I try to scoot myself upright but can barely move. I fall back on the side wall and try to catch my breath.

Jillian hovers over me, checking my bandages, then making sure the wounded cop is still okay.

She freezes and looks up as she leans over me.

I’m about to ask her, “What is it?” but then I hear the sound of heavy footsteps walking toward the back of the ambulance.

Through the shattered glass we can see the passing of a shadow.

A horrible screeching sound fills the air as Joe starts up some kind of mechanical device. The ambulance is filled with noise as he uses a metal saw to cut away at the doors.

Jillian spins around and sprawls out over my body to shield me.

“Check the cop for a gun,” I whisper through pained breaths.

She reaches around me and starts to feel for his holster.

“I can’t find . . .”

The words freeze in her mouth as the upper back door falls to the ground.

Past her shoulder, I see the mountain of man that’s Joe.

A huge hand reaches inside and grabs Jillian by the ankle.

“Theo!” she says as she’s yanked away.

I try to take her hands and hold on to her, but she’s out of my reach before I can even move.

She clings to the door frame, trying not to be taken. Joe is too strong. He pulls her free, then drags her away out of sight.

He took her.

He took her first.

He knows I’m in here, barely alive, unable to do anything.

This is how he makes me suffer.





CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO


VIGILANT

She’s gone.

I try to get up. The world begins to move around me, my legs give way, and I fall back down, landing on Bryant.

He makes a groaning sound.

He needs help. Hell, I need help.

I attempt to get on my hands and knees to crawl but find my arms aren’t strong enough to support me.

He took Jillian. And the worst part about it is she didn’t even scream. She knew I was too injured to do anything.

I’ve lost so much blood. I’m still leaking out.

I’m allowed to give up.

It’s okay to throw up my hands and say I did the best I could.

I can’t save her.

I couldn’t save Juniper.

I deserve to die.

When Joe comes for me, I won’t protest.

I can’t go on knowing I lay helpless as he carried Jillian away.

Can’t go on . . .

I realize that I truly have nothing to live for if I let him kill her.

My hand falls on a pile of vials.

Dextroamphetamine sulfate.

Speed.

I dealt with more than one speed freak as a paramedic. It took several cops to hold them down. Even then that wasn’t enough. Their brains didn’t know they weren’t supposed to keep going.

Weren’t supposed to keep going . . .

Ultimately, their bodies paid a price. Cardiac arrest or worse.

But what could be worse than this?

The blood bag hovering over my head gives me an idea. More accurately, it’s a suicide plan. But it might give me a few more minutes . . .

I find a syringe and inject the bag with the amphetamine.

I dig through the cabinets and find epinephrine, adrenaline, and add that, too.

I use way too much.

You wouldn’t use this much on a racehorse, not unless you hated the animal and wanted his heart to explode on the last lap.

But that’s exactly what I want.

My body is already forfeit.

I’m going to die one way or another tonight. It might as well be fighting.

I use a bandage wrap to strap the blood supply to my chest and move the needle to an artery on my thigh, inches from where I was shot.

I try to push into my skin, but I’m too weak. I feel like I’m slipping back into a dream.

“THEO!”

I don’t know if that was Jillian screaming or some voice in the back of my mind. Either way, it makes all the difference in the world. I find the artery, and the needle goes in . . .

I’m already beginning to feel tingly. Waves of electric ants start marching across my skin.

My breathing picks up. My heart starts beating faster.

HOLY SHIT.

I’M ON FIRE.

My head feels like one of those novelty-store plasma balls.

In a moment of clarity, I grab some syringes from the floor, fill them with different concoctions, then shove them into jacket pockets.

There’s a lot of my blood on the floor. I strap two more pints to my chest and tape a small pump to my side. They won’t kick in until my blood pressure drops even farther. For good measure I inject them both with adrenaline.

This is some next-level Lance Armstrong bionic shit going on.

I’m stronger now—I don’t just stand up, I bounce to my feet.

I step out of the ambulance feeling like I’m made of pure energy. I run toward where I last saw Jillian.

I’m moving fast. Subconsciously I’m aware of the fact that my left leg is dragging because of the puncture wound, but the stimulants keep the nerves firing, and the muscle fibers do what I ask them, all their overrides having been shut down.

The Nazis used to pump their soldiers full of shit like this to turn them into super soldiers. They paid a heavy price for it physically, but it’s not like Nazi physicians had the best intentions to begin with.