He shoved her into the back of the ambulance, climbed in with her, and slammed the door behind them.
"Just do your job!" he growled, wincing at the effort it took him to close the door.
"No. Find someone else. Leave me out of this," she snapped as she climbed back onto her feet in the cramped space.
"And let you go tell the cops where I am? I don't think so," he said, pointing his gun at her, blood dripping from his fingers. "Get the bullets out or I'll put some in you!"
The man's hands were shaking almost as much as the medic's knees were. She couldn't tell if he was bluffing or not, but she tried her luck and refused him again.
"My job is to help people like the one you shot, not to help the asshole who shot them!"
"I had no choice," the man insisted. "It was him or me."
"Cops aren't even allowed to shoot unless they're shot at first," she pointed out. "It's your fault you killed him. It's your fault he shot you."
"God damn it," the thug groaned, holding his bleeding side.
He winced again and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his face was contorted in pain as he moved toward her. All she saw in him was pure animalistic rage.
He switched the pistol to his bad hand and grabbed her with his good one.
"Get off me!" she yelled as his blood smeared over her work scrubs and skin. There was a lot of it, she realized. In his excited state, the man's body was still pumping adrenaline into his system and increasing his blood pressure. He could bleed out before the sun went down that night. But she couldn't feel sorry for him, nor would she save him.
"You gotta help me," he demanded, pressing her into the back wall. "If you don't help me, you're a killer too."
Despite working in the back of ambulances for years and holding the lives of countless people in her hands, what he said actually got to her. Whenever a patient died in transit, she never blamed herself if she knew she had done her best to help them. But now if she just waited for this man to die, with all the tools necessary to save him, she may just as well have killed him herself.
I don't want to die," the man said, less angrily. There was fear in his voice.
When she looked up, he was waiting for her to meet his gaze. There were actual tears forming in his eyes this time.
He let go of her and sat down across from her. The wound in his side leaked more blood onto the seat.
"I don't want to die," he repeated, his voice cracking now.
She had heard that so many times in her work from so many dying people. Every time she heard it, it spurred her into action, but this time she still hesitated. She still wasn't sure of what to do.
"Carrol, just help me, please," the man said, using her name now as he read her name tag.
She cringed as her name exited his mouth, as if he didn't even have the right to speak it. She wanted to believe he was still just a monster using a different tactic to survive. But then she realized that maybe he had actually submitted to her and was genuinely depending on her goodwill to save his life.
"The hospital would do a better job than I could," Carrol responded neutrally.
"No," he shook his head. "I can't go back to prison. It's worse than dying."
"Even if I tried, I don't know-" she started.
"I can't go to the hospital. It's got to be you," he insisted.
