Page 41 of No Safe Place
Stop.
Cal forced his attention back to Sam’s face. She was trying to cough, and Callum considered twisting her onto her side.
He should phone an ambulance. His phone was in his back pocket.
The cough exploded out of Sam and Callum felt blood spatter his face.
Callum gagged again, pressing the back of his wrist to his mouth. In the dim streetlights the blood looked more black than red. Fake, Hollywood gore. It was everywhere – his T-shirt soaked, his jeans.
Her feet scrabbled feebly, kicking out at the air. She’d lost a shoe, one foot bare.
The effort of pressing down on Sam’s neck was making him sweat, beads of it dripping down his forehead.
Phone an ambulance. Do it.
Sam’s head moved and Callum’s hand slipped again. In the split second he broke contact, a new rivulet of blood sprang from the wound.
‘You’ve got to stay still, Sam,’ Callum urged.
Call an ambulance.
Call 9-9-9.
‘I can’t,’ Callum gasped. ‘I can’t, I can’t.’
Callum screamed for help again, threw his head back and let rip. Not even words, just a desperate noise. It could have been an animal.
The blood had reached paving slabs over a metre away. A tear leaked out of one of Sam’s eyes.
There was a shift in the darkness, a few houses down. A square of light in a window.
‘Please,’ Callum said. ‘Please, fucking please.’
The light stayed on.
‘It’s all right, Sam. It’s all right, someone is coming.’
Theycould phone – they could ring for help.
Sam’s eyes were unfocused now. Staring at a point in the sky, over his shoulder.
A door banged open.
‘What the fuck—’
‘Ambulance,’ Callum spat at him. ‘Call an ambulance.’
Callum squeezed his eyes shut. Not wanting to see the man dial. Not wanting to see Sam’s now vacant expression.
Then there were strong arms on his shoulders, pushing him aside. Clean hands taking over from his bloodstained ones.
A voice shouting into the night, down the telephone.
Callum scrabbled backwards, away from the pool of blood.
The man was bare-chested and barefoot in jogging bottoms.
‘She looks about early thirties – maybe younger. I can’t tell. There’s blood everywhere. Yeah – multiple stab wounds.’
