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

the availability and skill to save and yet you corrupted it for no purpose, for nothing more than an adrenaline rush? For some sort of sick pleasure? Is that how you get your rocks off, you sadist? No, who I am isn’t important. I think it’s only justified that you will be ended in yet another setting in which your name will be forgotten. This isn’t at all how I planned on eliminating you. I planned on making you suffer. I still wish I had that ability, but we’re running out of time. Your name will be pushed into the background of some insignificant casualty of a bank robbing gone wrong. At least you can die knowing that nobody will remember you. That will have to be enough.”

“Wait … no … we can work something out, what do you want—money? You want drugs? I can get you drugs—”

Nathan cut his final pathetic words short. The doctor likely never let any of his victims have the chance to beg for their lives and Nathan certainly isn’t going to give him that chance either. Nathan makes it clean. He shoots him right through the left eye socket. It will be passed off as the last casualty and Logan is unconscious so he will not be able to contradict it. Everything is a mess, but it will be handled.

Without satisfaction, Nathan lays the gun back into the hand of the assailant and moves back to Logan, monitoring his breathing as William and Denzel come busting in through the back door. “NO!” Denzel cries as he rushes to Nathan’s side on the ground beside Logan and William swiftly goes to check the rest of the bank, only to find all of the rest of the would-be hostages dead. Hopefully the woman and her child are safely at one of the nearby hospitals by now.

Nathan doesn’t bother asking what happened outside. He knows that it doesn’t matter in the long run. The job is over. He will be moving on before the night is over. As soon as he sends the check in to the company they will contact him with his next job. It’s just a reality and one that he accepted a very long time ago.

With the room cleared, William comes back to join them and signals for Denzel to take his feet while William and Nathan take one of his arms each to carry him carefully and steadily back out through the back doors. “On the count of three … one, two … up,” William commands softly, and the concern for their fallen brother is deep and obvious on both of their faces.

They carry him through the hallway and out the back employee entrance door and lay him down on the hood of a police car where they start to manually check his vitals and Denzel takes off running, looking for a medic, and they finally hear the sirens of an ambulance coming around the corner. Movement is everywhere and Nathan doesn’t even want to begin to speculate how much damage has been done or who these robbers are. It will all be covered by insurance he’s sure, and they didn’t get away with the money. It seems that luck favored the police on this side.

Paramedics fly out of the back of the ambulance. Two rush inside to confirm the status of the hostages while another two rush over to the Smiths with a blue plastic gurney in their hands. They are assisted by the two standing Smiths to get Logan onto it and strapped down securely; then all four of them carry him back over to the ambulance to ride with him to the nearest hospital without blinking. They have forgotten that Nathan, or Locke, is even here. Perhaps that’s for the best.

This will be the only chance that he has to slip away unnoticed into the background. Nathan needs to get back to his rental car and check in with the agency. Strangely, it hurts him to leave without saying goodbye to the Smiths, but he knows he must. He has to move on and he needs to get back to his assignments. He has his own life path to return to. The job was done incorrectly; there are far too many bodies, but the important ones, at least as far as he is concerned, have all made it out. Nathan can be alright with that. He can deal with whatever comes next knowing that he did the right thing. He’s never had an opinion as to what the right thing might or might not be before.

It doesn’t take long for him to get back to his motel room and shower quickly. He lets the icy-cold water rush over him despite his shaking and the headache that it’s starting to cause because it’s easier to focus on that than on anything else he has felt today. The cold keeps his skin numb and his muscles tense. He doesn’t want to relax. He doesn’t want to feel better or to attend to any of the numerous cuts and scrapes all over his body, nor does he want to do anything about the bruises mottling his torso from the fight. He prefers to keep them there despite knowing that he could have them healed. It gives him something simple to focus on. Something easier to stomach.

He stays there for a long time. Finally he dresses and checks out of the motel the same day, just like he thought that he was going to do. There will be no trace of him left here. No marks at the Smith house, no trace of him at the motel. He never even checked in under his real name but rather yet another pseudonym given to him by the company.

Nathan waits until he’s seated back in his black rental car with all of his evidence carefully repackaged to text his contact at the company. He