Page 236 of The Night Shift
“No,” I whisper. My voice is shredded wire. My fingers shake around the scalpel.
Cami sighs like I’m annoying her. “I’m going to give you ten seconds,” she says, reaching for the black leather bag on the ground. One hand never leaves the pressure point on the pager. The other pulls out a sleek, compact gun. She doesn’t even flinch as she lifts it and aims it directly at my face. “If that scalpel isn’t inside his body by then, I’m gonna kill you both.”
It happens too fast.
Theo tilts his chair forward — somehow, even bound, even bloodied — and his body knocks into mine. The scalpel jabs into his side. Just the tip. Just enough. He hisses through his teeth.
I scream. “Theo!”
Cami makes a manic, gleeful sound. “Good boy. See? He gets it. Now push it in deeper. Let’s see him bleed.”
I’m sobbing now, shaking so hard I can barely hold the damn thing. “Please don’t make me do this.”
“You take your hand off that scalpel and his face gets it.”
“Just shoot me. Let him go. He won’t tell anyone anything, will you, Theo? Please, Cami. I’m begging you.”
“Why the fuck are you so hell-bent on saving him?” she snaps.
“Because he’s innocent!”
Cami circles around behind me. The barrel of the gun presses against the back of my head. My hair sticks to it, damp with sweat and blood.
She leans in. “He’s hardly innocent. I’m the innocent one here. He is nothing. You’remyfamily. I’d die for you, would he?
Theo’s response is immediate. “In a heartbeat.”
“Cami, please —”
“It’s okay, love,” Theo stammers, pain thick in his voice. “Just do as she says. It’s okay.”
“No,” I gasp. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
With the tips of his fingers poking out of his sling, he struggles. Shaking, desperate, he reaches for me — just barely manages to graze my thumb. His touch is feather-light and clumsy. He’s trembling. He caresses the pad of my thumb, back and forth, as if trying to soothe me.
His words loop in my head like a lifeline:Hurt me all you want. I promise to hold your hand through it. You’ll never be alone.
I let out a broken sound. It doesn’t feel like a sob. Something is cracking open inside my chest.
“Hurry up, Holly,” Cami says.
“No.”
“Why the fuck not?!” she shrieks.
“Please,” I cry again. “Just shoot me —”
“Why won’t you kill him?!”
“Cami, please —”
“Why?!”
“Because I love him!”
Silence.
Dead, electric silence.
