The Preying Doctor by Nadia Siddiqui (most recommended books .TXT) 📗

The assailant shifts the aim of his gun and shoots the man in the scrubs right between his eyes.

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S omewhere above them on the roof gunshots start to match those firing at the police cars, to the point where it’s nearly impossible to hear anything happening inside of the building. The armed man seems completely indifferent to the fact that the man who likely thought they were a team is lying on the ground, dying if not dead already. Nathan can remember what he said. The man had been pacing, sounding terrified out of his wits remarking that they had left him behind. Were they hiding in the safe the entire time? Was that the real reason the lights had been out? Nathan and the Smiths had just assumed that the lights were out because the door was closed. They had been so stupid to overlook something so simple. That door should have been open, of course it should have. Vault and safe doors are supposed to be kept open for the duration of business hours. This is messing with the entire timeline of events that Nathan has made in his head.

Regardless of the timeline, he needs to get this man under control and he needs to make sure that Logan makes it out of here alive. Mostly in one piece would be preferable. The woman near the entrance sounds like she’s sobbing; the scrunching sound of her skin against the polished floors is almost unnoticeable. At least to everybody but Nathan, who is trained to hear these sorts of things. With any luck, she might make it out of here so long as she can keep from drawing any more attention to herself. Nathan doesn’t know where she was shot so it’s also possible that she could bleed out any moment now. Nobody will be in a position to find out until this man is under control.

Doctor Cox doesn’t seem bothered in the slightest that his co-worker has been killed and it just leaves the four of them here. Slowly, with steady hands, Doctor Cox attempts to reach over to the bleeding wound. Logan is keeping his teeth clenched shut to keep from making noise. Nathan needs to distract the assailant. “Hey!” he calls. The assailant’s attention snaps over to him and so does the aim of his gun as he chambers another round into the pistol. The assailant appears to be breathing rather heavily. Nathan wonders if he managed to break or crack a couple ribs in their scuffle.

“What do you want? You got what you’ve come here for, haven’t you?” Nathan breathes, attempting to keep focus on himself entirely. The man’s eyes crinkle as he looks at Nathan but Nathan cannot tell if it’s because he’s disgusted or if it’s because he’s grinning. “You got the money? That’s what all of this has been about, right? Just the money? You have it, so why don’t you go? None of us are going to stop you.” It’s a long shot. It’s not like the man has anywhere to go. He goes out back, he will be shot.

“I will, when it’s time,” the man says.

“What does that mean?” Nathan asks.

“Like I’m going to tell you,” the man scoffs, clearly mocking Nathan’s audacity for asking anything in the first place.

“You have no reason not to,” Nathan says. “Are you waiting for something?”

“Good job. You want a gold star? Of course I’m waiting for something, you idiot. You think that I planned on dying today? No, I don’t fucking think so. I’m going to be leaving here with my money and if you want to be able to walk out of here then you would do well to shut the fuck up. Your voice is so fucking annoying.”

Nathan wants to laugh. He likes that he is annoying him. Nathan has been shot before; he can survive that sort of pain again if he needs to. He’s not afraid to antagonize this man until he gets shot. Yet another thing that has been instilled into him by the company throughout all of his training. Nathan knows he is replaceable. While he doesn’t have any active or present desire to die he knows that should he fail this task, the company will just send out another Doe to replace him. The doctor will still die, one way or the other. The outcomes will always be the same. Nathan doesn’t really want to ruin his track record though.

“So why not just let us go if you don’t want to kill us?” Nathan presses the envelope just a little bit further.

“Because you’re obviously my insurance policy that nobody is going to come charging in the back again. They should have more than enough to be keeping them busy right now, but just in case they decide to get squirrely.”

This tells Nathan a couple things—that there is a getaway car coming for him, also that he doesn’t have any other teammates or people coming with guns to cover the back of the building. They must not have factored any employee entrances into their original heist plans.

The gunshots assailing the police out front sound like they are slowing. Nathan just needs to stall him for a tiny bit longer. He wonders if that car with the heavy fire coming from it is supposed to be the getaway car or if there is another one coming. The masked assailant keeps looking from Nathan’s face to somewhere over Nathan’s shoulder. So he takes advantage of that to sneak a glance over to Logan on the floor where the doctor, somewhat infuriatingly, has gotten the silent message that Nathan is distracting this armed gunman for the sole purpose of giving Doctor Cox more time to work, to save his life and hopefully to keep his arm from needing to be amputated. Of course, living with one arm is