Chapter 6 - The Blood on the Linoleum
The deafening roar of automatic gunfire inside the enclosed bedroom was absolute agony to the ears.
Bullets shredded the antique furniture, tore through the plush velvet curtains, and shattered the tall glass windows into millions of falling crystals. The metallic smell of cordite and burning gunpowder filled the air instantly.
Clara dropped to her knees on the floor, covering her head with her hands, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
"Clara! Down!" Liam’s voice boomed from the bed.
Despite his shattered leg and torn abdominal muscles, Liam moved with terrifying, predatory speed. He rolled off the side of the bed, dragging his heavy external fixator frame across the mattress, and reached down into the hidden compartment built directly into the heavy oak bed frame.
His large hand emerged holding a matte-black heavy automatic pistol.
In the dark room, lit only by the bright muzzle flashes of the attackers' weapons, Liam fired back with deadly, surgical precision.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The heavy gunshots echoed like thunderbolts. The lead attacker collapsed backward onto the ruined mahogany doors with a high-caliber entry wound through his tactical helmet.
The second attacker swung his assault rifle toward the bed, but Liam fired two rounds directly into his chest armor, knocking him backward onto the hardwood floor.
The third mercenary, seeing his teammates fall, spun toward the corner of the room where Clara was huddled on her knees near the leather armchair. He raised his short-barreled rifle, aiming straight at her pale face.
"No!" Liam screamed.
Without a second thought for his broken body, Liam hurled himself completely off the high bed, slamming his two-hundred-pound frame directly onto the third attacker.
The two men crashed violently onto the floor near Clara. The mercenary’s rifle went off, firing a wild burst into the ceiling plaster.
Liam, lying on his back on the hardwood floor, locked his massive left arm around the attacker's neck in a brutal sleeper chokehold, while using his right hand to drive the butt of his heavy pistol repeatedly into the man's face until the attacker went completely limp.
The chaotic room suddenly fell into terrifying, ringing silence, broken only by the howling storm outside and the sound of Liam’s ragged, agonizing gasps for air.
The red emergency backup lights flickered on, casting a eerie, blood-red glow over the destruction.
Clara crawled out from behind the armchair, her hands shaking violently, her scrubs covered in plaster dust and shattered glass. "Liam!"
Liam lay on his back near the fallen attacker. His face was ghostly pale, his broad chest heaving desperately.
The violent physical exertion had taken a catastrophic toll. The heavy metal pins of his external fixator had torn violently through the skin of his right leg, pooling deep red blood onto the floor. Worse, the fresh surgical sutures across his abdomen had completely burst open, soaking his white shirt in bright, arterial blood.
"Clara..." Liam gasped, his gray eyes rolling back into his head as he fought to remain conscious. "...are you... hurt?"
"I'm fine! I'm fine!" Clara cried out, scrambling on her knees over the broken glass to reach his side.
She looked down at his ruined abdomen and felt a wave of cold horror wash over her. He was hemorrhaging rapidly. Without immediate surgical intervention and pressure, he would bleed to death on his own floor within three minutes.
"Leo!" Clara screamed at the top of her lungs toward the open hallway. "Leo! I need the trauma kit now!"
Leo burst through the ruined doorway, holding a smoking tactical shotgun, three armed guards right behind him. He took in the scene—the three dead mercenaries, the shattered room, and his boss lying in a pool of expanding blood.
"Holy shit," Leo gasped, dropping to his knees beside them. "Merc!"
"Get me sterile towels, quikclot gauze, and three bags of O-negative blood from the medical fridge downstairs!" Clara barked, her nurse instincts taking over completely, overwhelming her fear. "Move!"
Leo didn't argue. He turned and sprinted down the hallway.
Clara ripped open Liam’s bloody shirt. She placed both of her hands flat against his torn surgical incision, leaning her full body weight directly onto the open wound to compress the bleeding artery.
Liam let out a horrific, guttural groan of agony, his large hand reaching up to grip Clara’s forearm with desperate force.
"Look at me, Liam!" Clara yelled, leaning down close to his pale face, her tears dripping onto his cheek. "Look at me! Don't you dare close your eyes! Look at my face!"
Liam’s storm-gray eyes fluttered open, locking onto her brown ones through the haze of agonizing pain. "Clara..."
"You promised me ten thousand dollars on Friday midnight!" she cried out, her hands slick with his blood as she pressed down with all her strength. "You don't get to die on a Tuesday! You hear me?! Stay with me!"
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Liam looked up at her—at the quiet nurse from Queens who was currently fighting with everything she had to keep his soul inside his body—and a faint, blood-stained smile touched his lips.
"Relentless..." he whispered faintly, before his eyes rolled back and he slipped into total darkness.
