Re: Hospital: Sam & Loren & Cris (pt 2)
[Cris wasn't blind and he wasn't stupid, whatever white boy thought. He saw the careful seclusion of the gun, a common enough tactic to look out for, and he noted the complete lack of resistance, as he and the men toppled to the mopped tiles like two sacks of flour, one atop the other. Yeah, this guy was someone who'd been on the wrong (and right, surely) end of a fight one too many times, a jagged scar shining through buzzed hair (military or mercenary, Cris would have guessed. The man was wiry, smart enough to move his chin, so as not to crack it on the ground, had prepped, with a tightening of controlled muscle, for being torn from Sam's bedside, had had a gun, and was from the hotel (he'd seen the name)—it wasn't that much of a stretch). Cris wouldn't have gone so far to say the compliance was annoying.
He looked up at Sam, her white fingers sewn along his sleeve, and he eased up. He didn't apologize and he didn't help the guy up. He just got off of him, ignoring the quip like it was nothing. Cris heard the step of a man behind him—one of the guards—and he ignored that too. Sam looked woozy and the machines were telling him her BP was plummeting. She was gonna drop.
He put an arm around her waist and turned her back to the bed, careful of the tubing lolling at their feet.] Okay. I got it. [His eyes were on Sam, to the exclusion of all else. Only, before he let her back in the bed, he bent in front of her to fish the stowed gun out from between the sandwich of trolley and mattress. He aimed it to the side, toward the floor, and ejected the magazine, checking in the chamber for another round. Once it was clear, he tossed the thing in the nearest trash, magazine tucked into his pocket. He tugged Sam's starched sheets back into place and patted there.] Come on, mami. Before the guy behind me drops me. [His thumb jerked in the guard's general direction.]