“Sir, you cannot park here,” a fireman said, as if he was stupid or something.
Matthew flashed his credentials quickly and the fireman waved him through the barrier. “Over there,” he said and though Matthew wanted to get a little closer to the Rebel Blaze building, he’d take what he could get and pulled the borrowed truck over into the next available spot.
“Damn fire’s coming this way.” The wind blew in hot gusts between the buildings. It wouldn’t be long before this end of the Magnificent Mile was also engulfed. As it was, the other end looked like a warzone. Small planes were now dropping fire retardant on blazes just like back home. It was jam-packed with fire crews fighting a losing battle, and Matthew realized he should be there helping. Instead he was doing this. This meant more to him at the moment.
Matthew hurried along the concrete sidewalk to the address on his phone and as he reached for the door a skinny man barreled through. Matthew caught the door.
“Oh, sorry.”
The guy’s glasses were knocked to the ground and Matthew reached down and picked them up and handed them to the guy, but not before he noticed the man was covered in spots of blood.
“Thanks. You should get out of here. Building’s on fire.”
“Do you know…” Matthew began to say but the guy took off running down the street and never looked back. Pretty soon, he’d know why.
“Hmm,” he said and then heard bloodcurdling screams from somewhere in the back of the building. Matthew made his way from one office to the other. Up a few stairs and then down a few more. These old buildings were a maze once the newer generations got through with them. A box on the outside, a labyrinth on the inside. Then he came to a door that looked different from all the rest, something more modern, but whoever was screaming was somewhere beyond that barrier. When he opened the door, it was Dane that turned to him first.
“What are you doing here?” she asked him.
His eyes first went from Dane to the bloodied woman leaning against the wall, wailing with every breath. “What are you doing to her?”
Dane shook her head. “I’m trying to help her. I didn’t do this, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
Matthew went to them, saw all the blood. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. I walked in and found her here like this. Again, what are you doing here? Wait, how did you find me, Matthew?”
“Let’s talk about that later. We need to get her to the hospital. Ma’am, stop crying. Who did this to you? Are those gunshot wounds?”
The woman nodded with tears streaming down her mottled face. Her bleached blond hair was stained with so much blood, providing a morbid but vibrant contrast. Matthew knew then he’d not get that picture out of his head for a while. Her hands were shaking like butterfly wings. “She’s going into shock. Let’s find something. Stanch the bleeding.” The woman’s eyes darted to a corner of the room and Matthew looked too. There, lay a gun on its side. “Is that the gun you were shot with?”
The woman hesitated for the briefest of seconds but then nodded and began crying again. He grabbed what looked like a discarded plastic bag on a side table, put his hand through it and picked up the gun, then pulled the bag over the weapon and then shoved it into a large cargo pocket.
Dane’s mind was still on Matthew’s appearance because she said it again. “How did you know where to find me, Matthew? Answer the question.”
She was high or inebriated again, her words slurred a bit. How the hell was she getting the stuff? After knowing a little more about what she’d gone through he certainly didn’t blame her for wanting an escape. “Stop, Dane. I know a few things, all right? After you took off, I did some searching. I know what happened. I know what happened to your father and I put the rest together.”
The woman’s cries lessened.
“Put the rest of what together?”
“Look, I’m not going to talk about this right now. Let’s get this woman to the hospital and then we’ll talk about a lot of things.”
“Who did this to you?” Matthew directed his attention to the victim, who was now biting her lower lip to keep from screaming out. The woman shook her head as if she didn’t know or didn’t want to say, while she held onto Dane’s hand for comfort.
“Sick bastards,” Matthew said. “Look, we’ll have to carry her out of here. There’s not a way we can get an ambulance here.” He reached under the victim and began scooping her up into his arms but she was heavy and he strained.
“Wait, Matthew, did you see anyone else in the building when you came in?” Dane said, stopping his momentum to lift the lady.
He said, “No,” but later he would realize his answer was wrong. He should have said yes, despite the urgency to get the traitor he held in his arms to medical care she so desperately did not deserve.