Page 8 of Where Would You Be Now? (The Bannerless Saga 0.50)

“Yes, okay, fine!”

And they checked, too. While the caravan pulled their injured out of the backs of the vehicles, Maggie and the clinic folk hauled open the gate, but only a couple of feet, just wide enough for two people to walk through. Two of the clinic’s biggest guys, Jim and Jorge, patted down everybody at the opening, even the injured. But they didn’t have anything, which gave these people an incremental point of trust.

The injured men were being carried chair style, one by two men, one by the man who’d greeted them and a woman. One of the injured seemed to be unconscious, but the other was making the guttural, deep-belly groans of someone moaning through clenched teeth. Every shadow on them looked like stains of blood.

“Okay, get ’em inside!” Maggie, Dennis, and a trail of clinic folk escorted them to the door of the clinic.

Jim stayed at the barrier. “Kath, go with them, stand watch inside, we’ll keep an eye out here.”

An odd quiet had fallen—the vehicles in the convoy had shut off their engines, turned off their headlights; those left behind waited quietly. Evening light had all but gone, so figures moved as shapes in the dark. Shotgun in hand, extra shells jangling in the pocket of her windbreaker, she trotted after the others.

Unlike the quiet at the barricade, inside the clinic was loud and brightly lit. Someone was herding the kids outside, to sleep in tents. Kath spotted Chloë and spared her a smile. She and her siblings looked like they might bolt at the sign of the injured men. Kath hurriedly told her, “It’ll be fine,” and hoped that was enough. Chloë nodded, and might even have been convinced.

Past the waiting room, the first exam room was noisy with shouted orders. Dennis and Melanie had taken the first of the injured men here, the one grunting with fierce pain. Maggie and Anita took the unconscious man to the second exam room. Both doors stayed open and Kath was able to keep an eye on them all. Dennis was shouting orders. Melanie was talking to the first patient in Spanish, telling him to lie back, to breathe, respire, respire, bien, bien. The man started crying, ayudame, ayudame! Help me, help me.

In the second room, Maggie and the gang’s spokesman were talking.

“We can barter,” he was explaining. “We have a whole warehouse, whatever you need. We have food. Just save them. Can you save them?”

The man laid out on the table had a great stain of blood covering his chest. It seemed centered on his right shoulder. A gunshot wound, not necessarily fatal. Likely he was in shock and needed support, fluid and oxygen, while the doctors cleaned the wound. But they’d need to get started on him right away. Anita and one of the nurses had cut away his shirt, inserted an IV and were peeling away cloth that had been stuffed into the wound.

After a deep breath, Maggie seemed to come to a decision. She explained, “We don’t need food as much as we need protection.” She looked him straight in the eye, unwavering. “We help you, you help keep us safe. You get the word out to your people, to anyone else—this is neutral ground. We stay safe, no matter what. No one attacks us, no one hurts us, no one hurts anyone while they’re here. Got it?”

“We protect you. And you help us and no one else. Just us.”

“No. We help everyone or it doesn’t work. We’re not a commodity. We’re here for everyone.”

“Can’t promise that.”

Maggie bit her lip in a moment of thought. Then she put up her hands and stepped back from the table. After glancing at her and each other in a moment of hesitation, Anita and the other nurse stepped from the table, hands up like hers, blood on latex gloves.

The guy and the woman with him started forward, fists raised as if they could beat her into saving the man’s life. Kath stepped in front of him, shotgun raised, warding them off. The standoff persisted for a handful of heartbeats.

The lead thug grinned. “You ever even shot anyone, kid?”

“Yes, I have.” No hesitation, no hint of bluffing. She didn’t need to bluff. Her tone convinced him; his smile fell, and he backed off.

Everyone watched him now, the one who would decide. His gang would listen to him. But Maggie and the other doctors were the ones who could fix things.

“Okay. Fine. This whole place is off limits. I’ll spread the word.”

“And you’ll make sure we stay safe.”

“As much as anyone can stay safe.”

Maggie and the others closed back to the table in a flurry of action. Low-voiced commands and bits of information passed back and forth. In moments an impromptu surgery was underway.

Maggie said, “You all should probably wait outside.”

A spike of tension followed, both strangers poised to lunge forward again. As if the doctors would really do something nefarious if they weren’t supervised. Kath reasserted herself and the shotgun.

The clinic director made a calming gesture. “My people need room and quiet to work, it’s better if you wait.” She added, “One of you can stay to watch. Her—”

She nodded to the woman with the leather jacket and wary gaze looking past too much eye makeup. And where had she found a stash of useable eyeliner? “Why her?” the man asked.

“Because she’s quiet.”

“Cynthia?”

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