He was good with that; he didn’t want to talk to her anyway. He’d been a prison guard long enough to know the inmates, no matter how friendly they might appear, were not his friends. Especially the good-looking ones.

Melanie definitely fell into the good-looking category, even now, without make-up or having put a brush through her auburn hair in over a week. After being stabbed repeatedly and beaten into a coma, she was still somehow attractive. Kantor was glad she chose to keep her nose in a book just like he did to pass the time at the hospital. Even though he knew better than to give someone like Melanie a chance to manipulate him, he was still a man and talking to pretty girls, especially on the rare occasions when they talked to him first, was ingrained in his system.

Kantor realized if he were to answer her, he’d have to say yes. He was beyond sleepy, which was weird; he prided himself on his ability to stay awake, even when getting little to no sleep. That wasn’t even the case right now. Of the six men given the Melanie Harris hospital duty, he didn’t have the best shift, which would be eight to four. Basically banker’s hours, but the four to midnight wasn’t bad and he was used to it. He’d put in a full eight hours of sleep before his shift started so there was no reason to be so tired.

Even if he hadn’t put in a full night’s sleep (or in his case, full morning’s) his shift was just getting started. He’d even had a cup of coffee.

Which he’d dropped. He looked at the spilled coffee and then back to Melanie, who was smiling ear to ear.

He tried to ask her why, but his mouth wouldn’t work right. It occurred to him he must have been drugged right before he passed out and fell into the puddle of spilled coffee.

The coffee hitting his face woke him up just long enough. He saw the nurse taking his gun out of the shoulder rig he wore along with the keys to the handcuffs holding Melanie to the hospital bed.

Kantor dropped back into dreamland as the nurse went over to unlock Melanie.

“With the shift change and dinner break, it’s as clear as it’s going to get,” the nurse said as he helped Melanie into a waiting wheelchair.

“No shit, Nate. I know the plan. It was my plan.”

“No need to be mean.”

“Give me the gun.”

“You sure?”

“You took the one off the guy outside, didn’t you?”

“No, it would look weird if he didn’t have his weapon,” Nate said as he handed her the Glock he took from Kantor and started wheeling her toward the door.

“Him sleeping on the job won’t?”

Nate the nurse didn’t reply. Unlike the guard in the room, he’d propped this guy up since him being on the floor would get someone’s attention for sure. He thought about pausing to grab the pistol but kept moving. This was the riskiest part. They were out in the open in a busy hospital. Sure, since this floor had a prisoner on it, it was restricted. A couple of guards like the two Nate just roofied made sure no one unauthorized made the trip to this floor. But that didn’t mean people weren’t here. The hospital didn’t have enough beds to give up an entire floor for one patient. If someone saw him wheeling her down the hall, there’d be no way he could lie his way out of it.

The floor may have been restricted, but the service elevator the staff used was still operational. Employees of the hospital were instructed not to use it to go to this floor, but they didn’t turn it off. Nate’s keycard would still work.

He turned a corner and the elevator was in sight when he heard a voice behind him say, “Hey.”

He didn’t look back. Instead, he started to run.

As he ran, he noticed Melanie chambering a round on the pistol.

“You can stop, or I can put a bullet in your back,” the voice called.

Nate looked back and saw the detective who’d been questioning Melanie standing at the end of the hall. A gun much like the one he took from the guard was pointed at him. Nate kept moving.

“Stop, you idiot!” Melanie said. “Even if he doesn’t shoot you, he’ll have an army of cops waiting for us when we get off the elevator.”

“But if I stop…”

“This is the last time I’m going to ask,” the detective yelled.

Melanie shook her head. “I wouldn’t push him.”

Nate stopped.

“Hands on your head and then get on the floor.”

“Do as he says,” Melanie told him.

Nate did as he was told. It was hard to go to the floor with his hands on his head, but he managed.

Just as the detective told Melanie to put her hands where he could see them, she turned and brought up the gun.

He didn’t anticipate her being armed; he was more worried about the nurse, but he adjusted quickly. They both fired at nearly the same time. He put a bullet through her chair that hit her in the stomach, but she hit him in the chest. His bullet went right through her while hers caught him in the sternum and knocked him backward.

She was quicker on the second shot, putting another bullet in his chest while he fired over her head. He hit the floor.

Melanie had to scoot up on her knees to get a good angle for shots three and four. He didn’t return fire this time. She thought she might have wasted two bullets on a dead man, but it was always better to be sure.

Nate sat up. “Holy shit, you just shot a cop!”

“No kidding. We need to move. Someone is going to be coming, but we might have time to get down to the parking lot before they figure out what happened.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Push the damn chair, Nate.”

Nate started pushing the chair.

“That’s a lot of blood,” he said as they reached the elevator.

“Good thing I have a nurse with me.”

Nate had called the car to this floor before going to retrieve Melanie. The timing had been excellent; by the time he got back to her room, the guard in the hall was dropping off. Nate was able to catch him and prop him up in his chair before he fell without being noticed. It was lucky he got there to catch him since the guard was no stranger to the weight room or steroids.

Everything had been going so well until the detective showed up. Nate was pretty sure he’d wasted his luck on the guard in the hall now. He was sure the elevator car had moved on.

It hadn’t though. The door opened within seconds of his hitting the button. They were both inside with the door shut before anyone reached the hallway to discover the detective.

“They’re going to be waiting for us for sure,” Nate said as the elevator started down.

“If they are, they are,” Melanie said as she checked the magazine to see how many bullets she had left. “You didn’t happen to grab the spare mag, did you?”

“No. What would it matter? Even if we had both guns and all the bullets they had, it wouldn’t be enough to get us out of here.”

“Who said anything about getting us out of here?”

“You’re not planning to shoot it out with them, are you?”

Before Melanie could answer, the door opened. The only thing waiting for them was the ambulance the Proctors stole just for this occasion.

Mrs. Proctor opened the back door and Nate wheeled Melanie over.

“She’s bleeding,” Mrs. Proctor said.

“We had to improvise a little,” Melanie replied as they lifted her inside.

They put her on the bed for patients and Mr. Proctor started driving.

“How hot is it going to be out there?” Mrs. Proctor asked.

“A cop is dead and I’m not in my room. They should figure it out pretty quickly.”

Mrs. Proctor took an AK-47 from under the bed and chambered a round.

“Turn on the lights,” Nate said. “They won’t think to stop us if they think we’re on a call.”

Mr. Proctor did as he was told. They drove out of the parking lot without being stopped. He hit the siren and traffic cleared a path. They were pulling out as the cops were pulling in.

“Can you stitch her up?” Mrs. Proctor asked Nate.

“I’m not a doctor.”

“I didn’t ask you that.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Melanie told him.

“You’re losing a lot of blood,” Nate replied.

“I noticed. Do what you can to stop it, then call Blake. He can fix me up.”

“I thought he wanted out of this shit.”

“He did, but that’s not the way this works.”

Mrs. Proctor nodded.

“Won’t that mess up our getaway?” Nate asked. “What about the plan? The plane won’t wait forever.”

“It’s not really a getaway if I bleed to death, Nate. Besides, it won’t take that long.”

Nate wasn’t so sure, but she did have a point. It would be weird to go to all this trouble to bust Melanie out of prison just to let her bleed to death when they didn’t have to.

Nate did his best to patch up the wound while Mr. Proctor guided the ambulance to the alleyway where their van was parked. They switched vehicles without being noticed and left the ambulance behind.

They headed south and Melanie felt as in the clear as an escaped convict with a bullet hole in her gut could.