“Arh fuck it!”
He grabbed the revolver from under the desk, checked the cylinder (yep, fully loaded) and went to answer the door. The knocking finally stopped just as he grabbed the handle.
Gun in hand and ready for anything Al carefully inched the door open.
“Sorry, but we’re closed…” he started. But the next words froze in his throat.
A petite redheaded girl sporting one of those edgy asymmetric hairstyles with partly shaved areas and dressed in a black leather jacket decorated with a myriad of patches sat slumped next to the door in a widening pool of blood. She looked sickly pale and weak.
“Help,” she pleaded with an almost inaudible voice.
“Holy shit!” Al exclaimed and pocketed his revolver. “What happened here? Oh my god lass, you are bleeding bad. Come on! Let’s get you inside quickly.”
Al wasn’t a big man, but luckily the girl was unusually light, and he had no problem dragging her inside and locking the door behind them. He tried to handle her as gently as possible, but if she had been attacked by somebody, that somebody could still be out there. Getting them both inside was a priority, he decided.
The girl moaned a little as he carefully placed her on the floor, but otherwise she took it like a champ.
“I’m sorry lass, but we had to get off the street,” he apologized. “Just hang on, ok? I’ll call for help. Everything is gonna be alright. Don’t you worry.”
A slim but surprisingly strong hand grabbed his sleeve, and the the girl looked up at him with an intense stare out of a pair of emerald green eyes.
“No! I’ll be offed. Shoulder… dig it out…”
She let go of his sleeve, but kept her gaze locked on him.
“Seriously lass. This is a bar. Not a hospital. Even if you don’t want the police involved, you need proper medical care.”
“No!” she repeated in a strained but firm voice. “Shoulder – just remove that shit. Please.”
Despite the absurdity of her obvious delusion, something about her desperate plea felt genuine. Al wasn’t prone to believe in conspiracies, but this girl was clearly convinced that she was in danger from the authorities. And regardless of whether she was delusional or not, a panic attack was the last thing she needed in her weakened state. Judging from her pallor she had lost a significant amount of blood. Fugitive from the law or not, her life could be in jeopardy.
Thus Al decided to take a look at her wound himself before calling for help. Partly in the hope that he might be able talk some sense into the crazy girl after accommodating her wish.
With a little assistance from the girl herself, he managed to get her out of her bloody jacket and onto a table. Now that she was wearing only jeans and a white sleeveless top, he was struck by how skinny she was. Her richly tattooed arms were hardly thicker than the muscle and bones inside them, and when he turned her onto her stomach, he could literally feel her ribs through the thin fabric. But malnutrition wasn’t the most pressing issue right there and then.
“Sorry, but I need to cut your shirt,” he warned her.