Vice

43: Re-Attempt

The last thing she wants to do is knock. She doesn't want to face him. 

What would she even say? What would he say? Natara considers just leaving the coffee and bee-lining back down the hallway. How mad would Mr. Vice be if she did that? Would he try again to get her fired? Would she be in trouble with Jaquie for not following orders?

She hates that Mr. Vice of all people is her boss. If he was just some random adult guy she met on the street and had coffee with ever so often, it would be different. She wouldn't have to worry about following any of his orders at work. She wouldn't be standing here feeling conflicted about knocking.

Another groan escapes her lips and she gives in to her worries. She raises her fist and knocks once on the door, almost praying that he didn't hear the knock. Several seconds pass and she wonders if he really didn't hear her light tap. She knocks again, a little harder. Almost a minute passes. She tries one last time, knocking hard.

Why would he tell her to knock if he wasn't even going to open the door? 

She wonders if maybe he forgot he asked or if he got called into a meeting or another business event. But if there was a business event, wouldn't he have forced her to come with? She stands in the hallway for a few seconds, awkwardly holding the coffee cup and glancing around nervously, before she tries the handle.

To her surprise, the office is unlocked. It is also pitch black. Natara blinks a couple of times until her eyes adjust and she steps inside, wondering if Mr. Vice is even here at work today. She even half-wonders if he just sits in darkness most of the time. Now that she's faced with a quiet, dark office she berates herself for even opening the door at all.

"Mr. Vice?" She calls out nervously. She should have just waited for him to answer instead of barging in like this. Now what has she gotten herself into? What would someone think if they saw her sneaking around his office?

As she walks across the room her foot taps against something on the floor, almost tripping her, and she looks down. She blinks again, still struggling to see what exactly she's nearly tripped over, and when her eyes fully adjust she gasps.

"Mr. Vice?" She kneels down beside the thing - person - she nearly tripped over and gently shakes his shoulders. 

He isn't snoring. He doesn't move when she tries to wake him. 

Natara's blood runs cold and she places her ear on his chest. It's matted with sweat and his heartbeat is excruciatingly faint. What happened to him? Her anxiety spikes like a thorn in the center of her chest, whipping the air out of her lungs. What is she supposed to do?

Natara takes a deep breath, tears welling in her eyes, and tries to steady herself. She pulls her office phone out of her pocket, hands shaking, and dials an ambulance. Then she pushes herself up and runs out of the office, barreling through the halls as fast as she can until she finds Jaquie. 

She opens her mouth to tell him what happened and she isn't sure what she should say, or if she can speak at all with how much anxiety she's feeling. She just ends up wordlessly motioning for him to follow her.

Everything else passes in a blur. Jaquie and Natara sit down beside Mr. Vice's motionless body while they wait for the ambulance to arrive. 

When it does, people funnel in the room with a stretcher and carry Mr. Vice out. Jaquie follows behind them in a company car with Natara in the passenger seat and drops her off at the hospital entrance, telling her to wait in the hospital until she hears news and report back to him.

Natara sits alone with her thoughts for hours before someone walking by interrupts her with a tap on the shoulder. She glances up and locks eyes with a woman just a few years older than her, wearing scrubs and a name tag. If Natara could have gotten into a technical college maybe she could have been as successful as this woman in a couple of years.

"Miss, you should maybe go clean up," she gently suggests, giving Natara a genuine pity-filled smile. 

Natara walks to the bathroom, curious about what she means. When she gets to the bathroom and sees herself in the mirror she almost vomits. The side of her face where she had pressed her ear to Mr. Vice's chest is covered in blood and so is part of her shirt. She hurries to scrub the blood from her face and hair. 

Natara wants to tell herself that Mr. Vice just got sick or got hurt and that's why he was on the floor but deep down she knows it isn't. It wasn't like he was sick yesterday. He seemed perfectly healthy and she knows there was enough blood that he didn't just fall into something and get a little hurt.

Mr. Vice tried to kill himself again.

Natara wants to tell herself that she didn't see it coming and that Mr. Vice seemed to be getting happier but, when she really thinks about everything that happened, she can't even do that. Every time she glanced into his grey eyes it was apparent how empty and broken he still was. Even right there beside him, he sometimes seemed distant. 

It wasn't something that was hidden to her, especially after the night on the bridge with him, but she just hadn't expected it. 

And maybe she should have. She knew what he was capable of and what he wanted to do. She had almost assumed that he was getting better after the time they spent together but maybe she was right last weekend when she thought she didn't mean anything to him at all. 

Maybe she didn't know Mr. Vice at all.