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Gritting my teeth, I rushed forward, flinging open the door, and moving out onto the sidewalk of a side street.
I was disoriented, having come in a different entrance. But I kept moving, refusing to stand still on an abandoned street. When any one, or all three, of my attackers, might be right behind me.
I made my way to the corner, looking for a cab, but having no luck.
Glancing up, I looked at the cross-section signs.
It couldn’t be.
I was that close?
To backup?
To someone who could have helped me avoid the worst of the damage raking across every inch of my body?
Swallowing back the lump in my throat at even needing help, I turned and kept walking, my pace just shy of an old-school zombie trudge, but it was forward motion.
It was the best I could do.
No one ran out behind me as I closed in on it.
A simple apartment building emerging, modern and sterile-looking.
Limping up the steps, promising myself it was just a few hundred more feet, that it was almost over, I slammed the side of my fist into the buttons for the apartments, running it down all of them.
Chances were, someone was waiting on someone. A booty call. A plug. Take out.
Something dangerously close to a sob escaped me as the door clicked.
I grabbed it like the lifeline it was, moving inside and closing the door, knowing I was safe.
Safe.
The idea had my eyes stinging and I blinked back the water as I pulled myself into the elevator, and hit the button for the door.
Almost there.
Then it could be over.
I could stop being so strong.
Stop enduring.
Give into the urge that was begging me to let go, to slip toward unconsciousness. If only to escape the pain.
The chime of the car as it hit the floor felt like it was attached to a megaphone, making my shoulders pull up to my ears as the sound sliced through my skull.
Almost there.
Twenty more steps.
That was the door right there.
Number forty-four.
My favorite number.
Though I would never have told him that.
