Want You to Stay || Chenford / The Rookie

Part 28

Evaluate.

Evacuate.

Negotiate.

Lucy repeats the phrase over and over in her head, trying to settle her nerves. Tim had drilled the hostage protocol into her head during training, and she focuses on the memory, the sound of his voice in her mind grounding her as she scans the mini-mart.

For a flicker of a moment, the thought of Tim — of not getting to see him again, not getting to tell him exactly how much he means to her — makes Lucy's stomach bottom out. But she forces the feeling down and takes a slow, deep breath, her training kicking back in. Evaluate.

She stares at the lifeless, bleeding body lying a few feet away from her trying to gauge how much longer the girl will survive without some kind of aid. Not long.

Then Lucy turns her focus to the original target of her surveillance, Patrick Patterson, currently crouched on the floor just behind the check-out counter with a Glock 17 pointed at him. She had been assigned to gather intel at the Gas 'N' Go after her team had gotten a tip that Patterson was using the mini-mart as a drop location for the drugs he was running through the local high school. The undercover surveillance had been going smoothly — until all hell had broken loose.

Her gaze travels from the gun up to the panicked expression on the face of the hostage-taker, Joe Khan. Lucy hadn't recognized the older man when he stepped inside the store, but the frenzied yelling that had broken out between him and Patterson made it immediately clear who he was. His daughter was one of the recent overdose victims from the high school whose death had kicked the investigation into high gear. Lucy remembers seeing her smiling school portrait tacked up on the case bulletin board.

The fight between the two men had escalated quickly; one second Lucy was texting her supervising officer about the altercation, and the next second the older man was pulling out a gun he had clearly never used before and waving it in the air erratically.

Lucy had managed to shove her phone back into her pocket and ducked to the floor as the man whirled around to survey the rest of the store. Unfortunately, the mini mart clerk, a mid-20s female whose name tag read Lani, hadn't reacted as quickly. The girl had been staring down at her own phone, her shaking fingers frantically trying to send a text, when Joe had swung the gun haphazardly in her direction. And then a shot had suddenly rung out, the sharp bang echoing off the tiled floor and glass refrigerator doors.

The clerk's head had struck the shelves of cigarettes behind her as the force of the bullet hitting her shoulder propelled her backward, her phone clattering across the floor as it flew from her hands. Joe's mouth had dropped open in horror as the girl's body slumped to the floor, motionless. Then his shocked, disbelieving gaze had darted down to the gun in his hand.

Forcing her mind back to the present, Lucy knows the time for evaluating is over. She can't leave the wounded girl unattended for any longer, even if moving means drawing Joe's attention and possibly his next bullet. So she scrambles across the floor on her hands and knees, sliding through the rapidly growing pool of blood forming on the floor. Lucy's heart thumps wildly as she keeps her eyes locked on Joe, while checking for a pulse (weak, but still there). Then she yanks off her jean jacket and balls it up to press against the wound on Lani's shoulder.

"It's going to be okay," she soothes softly to the unconscious girl.

Joe appears to still be in shock, his face pale and eyes wide as he keeps staring at the clerk's limp, crumpled body. Lucy can tell he hadn't meant for this to happen — hadn't come to the store today planning to take hostages and shoot an innocent bystander. He just wanted justice for his daughter. She opens her mouth to speak, certain she can get through to him and hopefully end this ordeal right here and now.

"I —" Lucy's voice is drowned out suddenly by the sound of a loud clatter behind the counter. Her head swivels toward the noise and her jaw drops open as Patrick Patterson clumsily attempts to make a break for it. There's no way he can be this stupid — putting himself directly into the line of fire mere minutes after Joe had put a bullet, however unintentionally, into his colleague.

And just like that, the unbridled rage returns to Joe's eyes, washing away the shock as he refocuses his attention on the suspected drug runner. A sinking feeling forms in Lucy's gut as Joe's movements take on an even more frantic edge, his voice shaking with his fury as he grits out, "Don't move another inch you soulless piece of shit." He pauses briefly to suck in a shaky breath and stabilize his trembling gun hand before adding, "Trust me — I'd be more than happy to put a bullet in you next. If anyone here deserves that, it's you."

Lucy swallows, eyes darting between the two men as she reevaluates the situation. Joe may have entered the store as a father grieving for his daughter, but he's very quickly become a man with nothing left to lose.

Patterson drops back into a cowering position on the floor, an odd whimpering noise coming from him as Joe keeps the gun trained on him for what feels like an eternity. Lucy wonders if she's going to see this man be murdered right in front of her eyes as the seconds tick by, and she hisses a quiet sigh of relief when Joe finally relents, turning his attention back to the rest of the store. He walks across the mart, pausing to peer down each aisle and take account of the three shoppers-turned-hostages that had dropped to the floor when the shot had rung out. The sounds of their distress — panicked breathing, quiet sobs, one woman begging for mercy — becoming disturbingly audible over the buzz of the fluorescent overhead lights and the ridiculous '90s pop song blaring from the speakers.

Joe covers his face briefly with one hand, and Lucy wonders for a moment if he is crying. But then he straightens, shakes his head, and sets his attention on the task of barricading the two entrances. Both are sliding doors, one to the right of the register and one along the back wall, almost catty-corner to the check-out counter.

He orders one of the hostages up from the floor, a middle-aged man wearing a cap and T-shirt emblazoned with the logo of a major trucking company. On Joe's command, he begins to shove a combination of standalone ice cream freezers, refrigeration units, and shelving in front of each entrance.

Lucy never stops evaluating, fingers curling over the cool metal of her weapon in her ankle holster as soon as Joe turns his back on her. She warily keeps Patterson in her peripheral vision as she tends to Lani, in case he attempts to make another stupid move. If she wasn't certain that backup was on the way, she'd risk it — take advantage of Joe's distraction as he oversees the construction of the makeshift barricades to pull out her weapon and take him down. But it's too dangerous — she can't risk a shoot-out with civilians in the store. And Joe's emotional state is far too unpredictable to chance a violent confrontation. There's no guarantee he'll make rational choices, but there's a very real possibility he'll risk everything, including his own survival, to get what he came here for. She has to try and reach him in another way.

Lucy releases a breath she hadn't even realized she was holding when she glimpses the crisis response team approaching through the store window, a steady wave of flashing red and blue lights cutting through the rapidly darkening sky.

An illogical part of her wonders if Tim might be out there, even though she knows it's his day off. A dull ache in her stomach returns at the thought of him, the way he'd looked at her this afternoon — blue eyes crinkling with fondness and desire as he had tugged at her dress and mercilessly flirted with her.

She'd been so stupidly adamant, so stuck on the idea that he needed to be the one to make the decision for them to move forward. But she can see now what she had missed in that moment. They had already proven to each other that on the other side of heartache and grief and questionable decisions in their darkest moments, there was a place where they both knew, without a doubt, that they belonged together.

Lucy swallows down the lump of emotion in her throat and takes another deep breath to steel herself. She's getting out of this alive, one way or another.