The big man grabbed her by her good arm, pulling her in front of him as he held the syringe to her neck with his right hand. “Don’t be stupid,” he said as he started walking towards the door.
The Chief was on his side, his leg hurt like hell but he kept his pistol trained on the man’s head. “Let her go,” he told him.
Treasure looked around, it was all going bad, and then the headache started again. She brought her good hand up and things went black again.
The Chief heard her try and scream through her closed mouth, and when she dropped to her knees he took the shot. One round hit just under the big man’s jaw, blowing the back of his head onto the ceiling. He fell, releasing Treasure, who ran from the room as he bled onto the floor.
The wait for backup may have seemed like forever, but the first squad arrived only three minutes after the 911 call came in.
The gunshots had ended, but the screaming continued. Chief Clarke yelled for help after verifying the first man was dead. A nurse cautiously looked in, then ran over to Chief Clarke and started putting pressure on his bleeding thigh. “I NEED HELP IN HERE,” she yelled.
More nurses and a doctor showed up, and when the two patrol officers arrived at the room they were already loading their boss onto a gurney. The officers talked briefly with him before he was whisked away to the emergency room, and a shaken Dawn was led out past the dead attackers. “Treasure, we have to find Treasure, she ran out,” she told the officers.
“Anyone see where she went?” Nobody had, they were all taking cover. The officer put out on the radio that the scene was secure, but one of the victims was missing.
Dawn was put in a wheelchair and taken down the elevator to the Emergency Room to be checked out. “I don’t need to go there,” she said, “I need to find Treasure.”
“We have the whole hospital and the police looking for Treasure,” the nurse said. “You were hit pretty hard, you need to be checked out.”
Detective Jensen arrived, and as senior man took charge of the scene. “Get down to the security center and check the tapes, we need to see where she went,” he said. “A teen with her left arm in a cast and a broken jaw can’t have gone too far.” The hospital room she was in had been sealed off for crime scene techs, and when Detective Jones arrived, he took the Chief’s statement before he was taken to surgery.
He went to Jenny’s room, knocking and identifying himself. He heard some scraping, then the door opened, and Debbie peeked out before opening the door. “Sorry, Chief told us to lock the door and there isn’t a lock on these things, so we moved the chair in front. What happened?”
“The men who attacked you went after Treasure, and Chief Clarke stopped them. You guys all right?” They nodded, but Jenny had to sit down. “Treasure took off, I was hoping she ran in here with you.”
“Sorry. Do you need help finding her?”
“Just stay here, the hospital is on lockdown procedures. We’ll find her.”
They started a room-by-room search after a check of the stairwells and elevators showed nothing. They found her in a family bathroom at the end of the hall. The officer at the door was backing out, and he could hear her screams through her wired-shut jaws. “She’s afraid of me,” the officer said as Jensen approached. “She freaked out when I went to help her up.”
“She’s been through a lot,” he said. He stood in front of the open door, his heart breaking for the poor girl. She was in the corner next to the toilet, curled up in a ball and protecting her injured side. “Treasure? It’s Detective Jensen. Come on out, it’s over, those men are dead.” he said.
She shook her head no, her body shaking. He could see blood on her hospital gown, and she was obviously in pain. Squatting down to make himself less threatening, he approached her like he would a scared animal. “It’s going to be all right. Let us help you.” He held his hand out, but she started kicking at him as she looked for a way out. Recognizing she was hurting herself even more, he backed out of the room and let her calm down.
“Call down to the ER, we need her Mom up here. Maybe that will calm her down,” he told the nurse waiting with them.
“I’ll call the Psych Department, they’ve dealt with her before,” she said. “We may have to sedate her.”
The statement seemed to trigger something, because Treasure was up on her bare feet and ran for the door. Jensen caught her as she ran out, and she flailed and scratched with her good limbs to try and get away. He pulled her to the floor and wrapped his legs around her thighs, trying to keep her still. One of the other officers grabbed her good arm, and she still didn’t give up. “Calm DOWN,” he said, and this just made her struggle more.
“GURNEY AND RESTRAINTS,” the nurse yelled as she tried to keep Treasure’s head from being used to hit the detective’s face. Four people held her down until the gurney arrived, then more helped to move her to the gurney where leather straps were used to bind her legs and her uninjured arm. Heavy leather straps were used over her hips, chest and thighs.
The psychiatrist showed up from the ward, and he injected her with three milligrams of Midazolam. They all breathed a sigh of relief when she finally relaxed and stopped struggling. “Everyone all right,” the Doctor said. Luckily, the young woman hadn’t been able to bite him, and other than a bruise or two the Detective was fine. “Take her down to the ER, she’ll need X-rays to make sure none of those injuries were aggravated.”
The fall from the bed had done some damage, they found. Dawn was all right, just bruised, and she watched as they worked on her yet again. The detectives took her statement, then left her alone.