Rise [Bruno Mars]

Chapter nine

Bruno approached slowly. He didn't know what to do. I could sense it on him. The smell of him wafted up my nose. It used to bring me comfort, now I didn't know what it made me feel. I swiveled my neck slowly to him. “You have a child?”

“No,” he hastened to respond. “No. I don't, Dri. I can explain.”

No? When he realized I wasn't going to say anything he licked his lips. “I hadn't finished. She got an abortion and—”

“An abortion?”

He nodded. He looked so sad, at having an aborted child or at me finding out about this I wasn't sure. “Yeah, Adrian. An abortion—”

“Excuse me, but if you may exit the premises now? We have given you what you've bargained for,” the woman in the lab coat interrupted.

I looked to the bags in Bruno's grip. I saw sterile needles. Filled clear. Clear. Not cloudy. “That's not the medicine,” I said.

The woman blinked blankly. “Are you speaking of the medicine regarding the animus incompletus? I'm sorry. That's out of stock.”

The straightening of my spine was an instant, a sudden flick of spark. “What do you mean out of stock?”

“We no longer have it.”

“This is a weaker form, Adrian,” Bruno told me. “It's all they have.”

No no no no no. “How long does it last?”

She shrugged. “An hour or two at the most.”

Her personal space became nothing to me as I advanced forward. “We need it to last more than an hour!”

She stepped back. “I will call security.”

“Call them! I want what we asked for in return.”

A tentative hand on my shoulder. “Adrian—”

“The medicine,” I said, disregarding Bruno.

“I told you. It's not in stock.”

My fingers went fast to the coldness tucked in the waistband of my jeans. “Babe!” Bruno grabbed my arm with such force I tripped towards him. “What the hell is wrong with you? There's nothing she can do. There's more safe houses we can check. We're leaving.”

Bruno pulled me quick through the crowd of refugees who shrank back, no longer curious, but petrified. And I knew why.

I was about to pull a gun on an innocent woman.

In the elevator, I collapsed against the single-barred wall, trembling. Why was I about to do that? If the medicine wasn't in stock, what could she have done? Make it out of thin air?

I took the caliber from my waistband and tossed it from me. It was an evil thing. Metal wrapped with too much power. Bruno bent to pick it up. “I know you didn't mean to,” he said, then swallowed hard. “Listen, about Jamie. . . I thought you'd broken up with me. And when you came back I didn't know how to tell you. I was embarrassed and ashamed. You were taken by Joseph, struggling to come back to me, while I was just. . . sleeping with another woman.” Bruno pressed the button for the last floor. We lowered with a jerk. “When you told me I was dying, it completely slipped my mind. Then Jamie calls me and says she thinks she's pregnant. I went to the doctor with her, and she was. I didn't know what to do. So I. . . bribed her. To get an abortion. Not only her, but her family, too. So they could. . . talk some sense into her. Those three days I was gone I was with her. First at the clinic. The next two to make sure she was doing all right.”