Stockholm Syndrome Read online

  But I wanted to. I wanted to charge at them and kick Bastard in the goolies.

  I was getting a taste of how Tucker must have felt, watching Bastard hold a gun to my brain. Answer: crammed with impotent rage.

  Too bad that, contrary to stereotype, I’d never taken up martial arts beyond an intro class or two.

  I would have dearly loved to scream, “Haiiiiiiiiii-YAH!” and jump-kick-fly-beat Bastard into the ground.

  But he held the gun.

  He held the balance of power.

  Hang on. What about the flip side? If Bastard no longer controlled the gun, he wouldn’t be the boss anymore.

  If we could just get that g-d gun away from him.

  “Damn straight. So shut it,” said Bastard. His voice sounded compressed, like he was struggling to control himself.

  He’d never spoke like that before. It made me question his tenuous grasp on sanity.

  My fantasies shriveled. I forced my body into immobility. As in, I tried not to breathe.

  It was so quiet that I heard Tucker swallowing his own saliva.

  My heart clutched.

  And then I heard a tiny moan from the floor.

  CHAPTER 14

  Slowly, it percolated through my brain that the sound had come from below me, behind me, and to my left, from behind the toilet.

  Manouchka.

  I’d forgotten her for a moment.

  Bad doctor.

  Bastard’s gun appeared below the broken door. He couldn’t possibly have a proper view of us, because the top part of the door was still attached, but his muzzle rotated toward us.

  Threat received.

  I inched my feet toward Manouchka, not daring to make much noise. She still hadn’t acknowledged me. Maybe post-traumatic stress had kicked in. Was that how it worked? Too bad Tucker couldn’t tell me.

  “I’m here to help you, Manouchka. I’m a doctor. Dr. Sze. You met me before, remember?” I tried to sound as compassionate and welcoming as possible, but my dry throat caught, and I coughed the last word.

  Manouchka didn’t answer me.

  I thought something was really wrong with her. Besides labouring at gunpoint, I mean.

  Regardless, the baby was coming. I circled around to the business end.

  Manouchka’s hips shifted under her pale blue gown, briefly pointing her bum toward me. I got a good look at the distinct dark patch on her rear end, which made the thin material clung to her buttocks.

  “What the fuck is wrong with that bitch?” Bastard said, even though it didn’t take a MacArthur Genius Award to figure it out.

  “She broke her water,” I said, shivering involuntarily. “Things will move a lot faster now.”

  For whatever chemical reason, the amniotic fluid accelerates the labour. If she’d been at six centimetres an hour ago, she must be at eight, or even ten centimetres now. And if she was at ten, she was ready to push.

  “Shit,” said Bastard.

  For once, we were in agreement.

  Manouchka couldn’t deliver a baby head-down on the bathroom floor. Well, she could. But it was already inhumane, how long she’d held on, soundlessly, while Bastard shot her nurse and busted into her room, and people jabbered in a foreign tongue. Meanwhile, her baby had signalled its unstoppable intention to enter this terrifying world.

  I know that babies are born in wartime, or enter the world during earthquakes and tsunamis. But Manouchka might have emigrated from another country, seeking asylum and a new way of life, only to find herself struggling not to deliver a baby at the feet of a maniac. It was almost incomprehensible.

  But she was tough. She’d hidden herself. She’d kept quiet as long as possible.

  This was a risky business, though. If she moved, Bastard might suddenly decide he hated her black face and drive a bullet through it.

  I imagined her crouched there, legs trembling, her baby’s warm amniotic fluid leaking down her thighs.

  She shouldn’t risk his ire. But I could.

  I said, “Ben, she’s in labour. May I check her?” Scrupulously polite. Just like Tucker.

  It flitted through my consciousness that once this baby was born, Tucker and I would no longer hold a Get Out of Jail Free card. Bastard might execute us.

  But until then, he needed us. Because, judging from the rigidity in Bastard’s legs, he had no desire to deliver this baby himself.

  Fierce gladness flashed through me, that we could make Bastard uncomfortable, even if he was the one armed and dangerous. Probably, like most guys, he loved sex but had to leave the room if girls started joking about their period.

  Bastard managed three words. “Make it quick.”

  Another idiotic thing to say. You can’t pull a lever up to maximum so that the baby can be delivered in 15 minutes, or it’s free. But I ignored that.

  “I can help,” said Tucker.

  My heart thumped twice.

  If he would just let Tucker go. If I could stand shoulder to shoulder with him, sense the warmth of his arm against mine. Failing that, if I could look into his eyes and catch his nod of agreement before I clamped the cord and he cut it.

  I wouldn’t have to wing it. We could guide each other.

  It would transform me.

  Funny. Yesterday, I would’ve hurried around the hospital, jockeying with Stan, trying to deliver my quota of babies, complaining if the cafeteria closed before I grabbed supper, and now I was ravie, as the French would say, at the mere thought of working alongside Tucker.

  You know how Oprah’s always going on about gratitude for the small things in life? As a hostage, living minute to minute according to a lunatic’s whims, I finally understood what she was talking about.

  Life before today had been fantastic. If only I’d realized it.

  And if Bastard gave me the gift of Tucker, I’d practically kiss his sweaty toes.

  ’Course, part of my anticipation was purely practical. I’ve only delivered four babies in my life, all of them under the guidance of an experienced obstetric doctor. I could really use a partner in crime.

  I shifted to the left, and suddenly, I could make out their top halves through a crack in the door frame. Tucker stood facing me, only a few feet away from the broken door, trying not to grimace as he kept both palms at shoulder height.

  Bastard loomed close behind him, his body relaxed, but his gun jammed deep into Tucker’s back.

  “You stay right where you are, motherfucker,” said Bastard. “You’re the one I’m aiming at right now. You do anything weird, I’m pulling the trigger. Then your girlfriend gets it. And then the black bitch. I’ll save an extra bullet for the baby, if I have to. Hands up.”

  Bastard managed to annihilate every buzz of gratitude, “girlfriend” notwithstanding.

  I watched Tucker’s hands extend even higher in the air, on either side of his head, and I wanted to kill Bastard. Especially when Tucker’s fingers trembled.

  I know sometimes I get an involuntary tremor. Usually at the worst times, like when a surgeon says, “Let the medical student try the next stitch.”

  I thought maybe only I’d noticed, because I was so closely attuned to Tucker, but Bastard laughed and said, “Now who’s scared.” Bastard chuckled a little to himself before he drove his right hand, his gun hand, forward.

  My head jerked up. I couldn’t see exactly where it landed, but Tucker’s upper body rocked toward me, hinging at the waist. He suppressed a grunt.

  “Who’s the baby now? Who’s going to cry waa-waa?” Bastard taunted. While he spoke, he insinuated his body closer, almost like a lover, spooning Tucker’s hips with his crotch.

  Tucker tried to jerk away from him, and his hands slammed the top half of the door.

  The wood creaked under the impact.

  Bastard chuckled. “Are we gonna have two babies in the room now?”

  I had to do something. Manouchka moaned behind me, and I called, “I’m coming, Manouchka!” but I couldn’t rip myself away from Tucker. The air between
the two men felt dangerous. Menacing. Either Bastard would fire, or Tucker might explode. Either way would spell death for my man.

  CHAPTER 15

  I bent double and started wheezing.

  It’s a high-pitched, strained out-breath. I don’t have asthma, but I get quite a bit of practice at imitating it, because whenever parents bring in their children and say they have trouble breathing, I reply, “Do they sound like this?” and put on a similar performance.

  Right now, even a few seconds of whistling like a train strained my dry throat. I’d have been better off imitating stridor, which is rasping on the in-breath, but I couldn’t suddenly switch sounds. It would tip my game. And the name of the game was saving Tucker’s life by distracting Bastard from his killing spree.

  Since I was folded in half, under the remains of the door, I was now fully visible to both men, or at least to Bastard, who had more freedom of head movement. I hadn’t stepped toward them, which might seem too aggressive, but I was quite the noisy sideshow.

  Bastard didn’t move away from Tucker. I assumed he was still boring his gun into Tucker’s neck/back/other unacceptable region, but he called, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “I need—” I gestured in front of my face, pretending to hold an inhaler and squeeze it. Asthma is so common, he’d probably have seen someone use an inhaler before, even if he didn’t have asthma. Unfortunately, because of the remaining door bit, I had to stay hunched over. At least it made me more red-faced and desperate-looking.

  “Oh, fuck,” he said. “Where’s your puffer?”

  Ah. Puffer. The more common word for an inhaler. He knew what I was talking ’bout. “In. My. Call. Room,” I wheezed.

  “Stupid bitch.”

  I nodded, wide-eyed, gesturing at my throat.

  “Fuck! Shit!” and he fumbled in his burqa with his left hand, still keeping his gun hand on Tucker.

  I jerked, ready to duck down. Not that I could dodge a bullet, because he could easily murder me at his feet, but instinct gripped me.

  I was trying to distract him from blasting a hole in Tucker’s head, but Bastard might decide that we were too much trouble and assassinate both of us. A two-fer.

  Bastard was still trying to grab something from inside his burqa, using his non-dominant hand. I couldn’t see properly, because Tucker’s body blocked most of my view, but he must have had a slit in the material to access his real clothes, or maybe a pocket inside the burqa itself, because he didn’t have to lift up the floor-length covering. He just shifted his arms around a bit before he tossed something blue that hit the floor with a rattle.

  A silver-topped Ventolin puffer in a blue dispenser.

  Our kidnapper had asthma.

  This could be useful.

  “Try not to touch it,” he said, which made no sense, because you insert the inhaler in your mouth.

  I was stuck. I have this thing. I know this sounds crazy, because he could blow our heads off at any second, but I’m a bit grossed out by cold sores. I don’t have them, and my risk of getting them is low because I hardly ever kiss anyone besides Ryan. Before I share a drink with my friends, I always ask about herpes. A total buzz kill, I know, but since a lot of them are doctors, they understand.

  Also, I’ve never had to use an inhaler. No one in my family has asthma. Eczema, yes. We’re often itching and scratching. At this exact moment, thanks to the drier winter air, I already had a rash on my hands, and a bit from the elastics around my ankles and waist, exacerbated by the stress of getting kidnapped. But none of us wheezes. The closest I’ve come is imitating taking puffers, for patients, but I’ve never actually put one in my mouth.

  And now I’d have to share one with a killer. One that had fallen on the floor, no less.

  Slowly, I bent over, still wheezing. I semi-deliberately fumbled the puffer. If the police burst in now, Tucker and I would be home free, and a real doctor could deliver Manouchka’s baby.

  The inhaler plunked on the ground again.

  The cavalry did not arrive.

  “Those are expensive, bitch! You putting me on?”

  Oh, crap. My heart rate zoomed to 200. He had better instincts than I thought.

  I dove for the inhaler, gasping and wheezing. For better effect, I should probably rasp out a thank you, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that. Yet.

  I stood up, trying to look as helpless as possible, while I uncapped the inhaler and held it to my lips. At least he was watching me instead of Tucker.

  Bastard said to Tucker, “Open the door.”

  Tucker stepped forward and reached under the broken door to flip the lock from our side before he pushed the door remnant open, easy as you please.

  Manouchka half-screamed.

  “I’m. Coming,” I wheezed at her, but I was staring at Tucker in Bastard’s chokehold. Tucker’s eyes looked like dark holes bored into his face. I’d never seen him so white. And his natural colour was pretty pasty to begin with.

  Behind him, Bastard watched me with the gun rammed against Tucker’s occiput.

  Now was the time to open my mouth wide for the killer toilet puffer.

  Don’t think about herpes.

  Don’t think about hepatitis A. Or B or C, if he bled on it and you have a cut somewhere in your mouth.

  You can deal with disease if you don’t get your head blown off.

  First things first. I exhaled as much as my lungs and tachycardia would allow.

  I pushed down on the little blue canister, puffing medicine into my mouth and trying not to gag. It tasted a little bitter, but more than that, like the erasers I used to nibble on the top of my pencils. So, gross, even without worrying about infectious diseases.

  I sucked the Ventolin into my lungs and held my breath for one. Two. Three. Four breaths—

  Bastard shouted, “What’cha doing, bitch?”

  I coughed and gagged again, expelling my breath. “I’m—counting to ten!” I said, barely remembering to wheeze in time.

  “You’re supposed to take two puffs, stupid!”

  “No! You’re supposed. To take. One puff. At a time and. Hold it. In. Your lungs!” I wheezed for effect, but this was ridiculous. I was giving a murderer asthma teaching. Better not to teach him and let him wheeze to death.

  His brow furrowed. He seemed to be thinking it over, but then he heard voices in the hall and dragged the gun away from Tucker to aim it at me. “Just take your medicine and deliver the baby, bitch!”

  Tucker opened his mouth, but Bastard brought the gun back on Tucker’s forehead and said, “Not one word, Blondie.”

  I took my next puff, counting to ten as quickly as I could while Bastard’s calculating eyes fixed on me.

  I exhaled, still wheezing a little, and said, “I’m. Better now.”

  “You better be. C’mon, bitch. Go get the baby.”

  Aww. You talkin’ to me? You shouldn’t have.

  I re-capped the inhaler and handed it to him, but he shook his head. “Put it in my pocket, bitch.”

  Right. He only had one hand, what with the gun and all. That didn’t mean I wanted to touch him. I picked the puffer up with my fingertips, but then I realized his burqa was hanging down like a curtain. I couldn’t access any of his pockets unless I reached inside the slit (not happening) or pulled up the hem (also gross).

  Bastard shot me a crooked grin. “Get it in, bitch. I’m waiting.”

  Well. I wasn’t going to fumble blindly inside the burqa. That was disgusting.

  So I held my breath as I used two fingers of my other hand to draw his burqa up from the floor.

  “That’s it. You know it. You know where to put it.”

  Was it just me, or did that sound like a double entendre?

  I glanced at Tucker’s grim face.

  It wasn’t just me.

  But I’d managed to raise the burqa above his hips, so I shoved the puffer into his right pocket as quickly as I could before I let the material drop back down to the ground.

>   Tucker exhaled in relief.

  I took a few steps toward Manouchka, feeling light-headed and a little breathy, for real. Ventolin makes your heart race, your hands tremble, and your potassium drop slightly. Although most people who have asthma are otherwise young and healthy and can handle the side effects, I was hungry and on edge, which made me more brittle.

  But Manouchka needed me. She was on all fours, on the bathroom tile, panting now.

  Uh oh. I’d never delivered a baby on all fours. You have to mentally spin the anatomy around 180 degrees, which I’d have trouble doing at the best of times.

  I started talking to her. I didn’t want to croon like Bastard. I tried to keep a level tone, although my voice trembled, and I couldn’t think of all the words in French. It was like my brain kept putting on the brakes every few words. “Manouchka. It’s me. Dr. Hope Sze. You remember, I came to say hi earlier?” That sounded so stupid, I pressed on. “Your water broke. The baby’s coming. I’m going to help you.”

  “Non,” she said, low and drawing the syllable out and flat. At least she was talking.

  I could sympathize. She’d used up so much of her self-control already.

  “Why,” she groaned in French, but I didn’t think it was aimed at me. More a general why-me-Lord kind of expression.

  I could see her legs shaking underneath the gown, and now that I was within arm’s reach, I could see and smell the slightly bloody amniotic fluid puddling on the tile.

  Wait. That wasn’t just blood.

  It was hard to say, in the dim light cast all the way from the lamp in other room, but blood sends out long tendrils. It’s kind of mucousy. It likes to mix up with the amniotic fluid. But there was something else, more like yellowish flecks in the fluid.

  This baby had meconium.

  In the days before fetal monitors, there was one sign that the baby was in trouble, and that was meconium.

  CHAPTER 16

  Meconium, in case you don’t know, is a polite word for baby poo.

  Fetuses pee in utero all the time. They drink it and pee it out, over and over. It’s normal.