Just Don't Die

Run

Blaine waited for his fidgety roommate to head off to bed and then he followed him into the room. It was already one in the morning and if the anticipation of what Blaine was about to try wasn't so exhilarating, he would have been more than ready for bed. He had figured out that a nurse or a mental health technician walked into each room, checked on each patient and then moved on to the next room. They did this every 15 minutes and Blaine had picked out a short, slight nurse with blond hair for his target. He didn't want to hurt her, but did need to get her badge and needed to either leave her incapacitated or unaware that he took it. He was thankful that his truck had one of the keypads on the handle and a spare key inside and doubly thankful he actually had the code memorized.

Blaine knew he had to wait long enough to make sure his roommate fell asleep but not so long that people were starting to wake up. If it went as he planned, he could be completely out of the building before they realized that a nurse was missing a badge. All he had to do was wait.

He pretended to sleep upside down in his bed so he could see who was coming in and out. By the time 3 am came around he knew it was the only chance he would get. He watched the first nurse walk in, passed the bathroom by the door and all the way in to check to make sure both him and his roommate were still breathing. Unless he was wrong, or the nurses had changed their order, the next person to enter in the room would be his target.

As soon as the nurse walked out, Blaine quietly slipped out of bed, listened to his roommate's deep breaths, and waited as he readied himself. He knew that there would be no coming back from this, but also knew that he was out of options. As soon as he got free of this place he would get a hold of Kalvin and Dr. Latourney and let them know what happened. For now, however, he still had to make it out of the first set of doors.

He appreciated that this nurse at least made an attempt to be quiet when she made her checks. She was careful when she opened the door, she walked on her toes, and she always carefully closed the door on her way out. She was incredibly quiet. Unfortunately for her, so was Blaine. As he watched her shadow pass in front of the bathroom door towards the beds, he softly tiptoed his way out to where he was directly behind her. He watched her darkened figure stoop over his empty bed and as she stood back up, he softly slid his arm around her throat. It took less than a quarter of a second for him to get the crook of his elbow in the right position around her trachea and his other arm providing the leverage. If he hadn't been so much taller than her, she might have been able to kick the bed or a night stand. As it was, her legs flailed and her hands slapped uselessly at his much stronger arms. His years of training made performing the rear-naked choke nearly reflexive. The pressure on her trachea kept her from screaming, but it was the pressure on both of her carotids that he was after. He had choked people out before, but never on someone so small and never on someone who didn't even know they were in a fight.

He felt her small body go limp and held it just 5 seconds longer just in case she was faking it. He laid her softly on his bed, grabbed her badge, and walked out the door. He walked calmly down the darkened hallway until he saw the lit nursing station and felt a tiny bit of relief to see every single nurse staring at their phones. He walked with confidence straight past them, towards the door that he came in. He took one quick look behind him before he pulled the badge out from under his paper scrub top and scanned it against the black box. The familiar beep of the box that signaled the unlocking of the door was almost drowned out by the sudden hoarse scream coming from the room he had just left.

"Help!"

Blaine turned to watch every single nurse and mental health tech bolt out of the nursing station and run in the opposite direction of the doors closing behind him. He wanted to make sure he would have at least a few seconds head start before he started to run down the hallway. He recognized the room that John first interviewed him in as he ran past. The only sound he heard was the sound of his slip-resistant socks softly padding across the tiled floors. He saw the black box on the wall next to the set of double doors. He swiped the badge again and then entered in 5280 and held his breath and prayed that John hadn't screwed him over as he waited for the locks to disengage.

He let his breath out when he heard the locks on the door click open, but also heard the slam of the door on the other end of the hallway too. He was hoping he wasn't going to have to fight any of the nurses because he knew they already had to deal with a bunch of crap every single day, but he also knew he wasn't going to be staying here. He pushed through the doors and headed for the next set of double doors that didn't require a code, just the badge. He quickly found himself in the front lobby area that led to the outside.

Without hesitation and knowing that he was going to be quickly followed, he sprinted towards the front doors of the empty and dark corridor as fast as he could possibly manage. Every ounce of strength was pushed through every step towards the exit. He figured it was only fifty yards to the doors, but that would give him enough time to get ahead of his potential captors to make it to his car. Every second counted and every step he took gained him a second ahead of them.

There wasn't a soul in the front lobby, thankfully, and Blaine still hadn't heard the doors behind him open yet. He turned to the door and hoped against hope that they were unlocked because he wasn't slowing his momentum a single step. As he busted through the doors, into the brisk night air, he felt his mood elevate higher than he'd felt in months. He could get into his truck and get out of the lot before the nurses even got out the front doors.

At least that was the plan. As Blaine knew from experience, no battle plan lasts past first contact. For Blaine, that first contact hit him from his left side with no warning. It wasn't a glancing blow or a light hit either. The security guard who hit him was obviously an NFL wannabe, because the last thing Blaine saw before impact was nothing more than a flash of blue from his blazer.

If Blaine had seen him earlier, he could have braced a little, or at least positioned himself a little better to fight back, but as it was, he found himself face down on the asphalt with his wrist between his shoulder blades and that left him with very few options. The guy was trained enough to keep enough pressure on his arm to keep him from rolling out of the hold, but from Blaine's perspective, it was a little excessive. Either way, this was it. Blaine was done. He had just tried to escape by choking out a female nurse half his size and there wasn't a judge he could imagine siding with his sanity for that. He would lose his nursing license and probably return here after jail.

The panic that had receded when he had hatched his plan was coming back in full force. There was nothing he could do. The guard was taking no chances while he waited for the backup that Blaine heard coming out the front doors of the building. He figured it was all but one or two of the nurses on his floor, but to his surprise, only one set of foot prints approached him. They were not hurried but very deliberate. He felt the pinch on his arm, but the guard was still holding him too tight for him to even flinch. He knew he would be out shortly. If not from the meds he had just been given, then from the lack of breathing as the pressure on his back was the entire weight of the guard.

As the blackness started to envelope his vision, in his view was what looked to be a parked car with someone inside the drivers seat. He knew it was a hallucination, but he could have sworn it was Dr. Latourney slowly shaking his head. Then the darkness took over.