Chapter 9

Caroline and Jason called 911 as Aimee tried to contact nearby officers via her radio, but they did not stay where they were, instead they followed Aimee to the ICU.

When they got to the ICU room, one of the officers guarding the room was down on the ground and struggling to crawl away from the room. And inside the room, Thomas was in a standoff with the other officer who was guarding the room, who is now standing right beside Emilia's bed.

"Back off! You as well! Back off!" the officer inside the ICU room had his gun pointed towards Emilia, "You shouldn't be here Chaver!"

"Well, I am here, so what can I say." Thomas's answer was stern but still slightly sarcastic, "Why did you do this, Cliff?"

"The Corins want to get rid of a rat." the police officer's hand was trembling, but his voice was still calm: "And I want my debt paid."

"Let me guess, gambling issue?" asked Thomas, while he slowly side stepped to block Cliff's view of the downed officer, with one hand behind him to signal to Aimee to carry the downed officer away, "Then I am sure you'd have no problem with Aimee here getting Lopez here some medical help. Murdering an officer is a serious crime that's gonna make your debt seem like nothing."

"No, and I don't care, as long as you and your sister stay out of my way." Cliff tried to look behind Thomas and Aimee, he slightly frowned as he saw Caroline and Jason helping Aimee carry the severely wounded officer Lopez away, "Drop your gun! Drop your fucking gun or your witness gets it!"

"Alright." seeing that the downed officer was pulled away from the scene by Aimee, Caroline and Jason, Thomas laid down his gun, and slid it to Cliff's side.

"And the other gun."

Thomas sighed heavily, then took the gun from the back of his boots and slid it to Cliff's side as well.

"Don't you have one more?" Cliff looked at Thomas with half-narrowed eyes.

"I left it in the car. Which is something I do." Thomas said with his hands slowly rising to above his head, "Now the only one in the room with a gun is you. You don't have to do this Cliff, let this poor girl go and this doesn't have to escalate."

"Well too bad - she could have gotten an easy death. But you just have to get in the way!"

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Though the hospital staff were in panic after they heard the gunshots, they were still quick to action when they had a gunshot victim.

Right after officer Lopez was pushed into the ER and confirming that backup is on the way to the hospital, Aimee, Caroline and Jason started rushing back to the ICU room.

"You guys need to stay put!" while running towards the ICU room, Aimee said to Caroline and Jason: "This is a police matter, civilians stay away!"

"Tough luck. I didn't see you earlier!" Caroline picked up a vase still with a plastic flower inside along the way.

As they got to the hallway to the ICU room, they heard another gunshot, and Thomas, who was at the door of the room, fell down face up right before their eyes.

"No, Thomas!" Aimee lunged to hold Thomas, giving a clear view into the ICU room for Caroline and Jason.

Before Cliff could react, Caroline already threw the vase in her hand at him.

The vase shattered on Cliff's jaw, knocking him back and bumping his back against the wall. This and the knife on his right shoulder caused him to drop his gun and slowly dropped to the ground.

"Ouch, sis, looks like you're not gonna be the only one with cool scars." Thomas laughed though his face is slightly twisted under the pain.

"Hey, hey, just a flesh wound. And you wish you could have my scar." Seeing that Cliff was down on the ground unconscious, and that Thomas took the hit on his right side of his torso and it was only a grazed wound, Aimee chuckled with tears in her eyes with relief.

"Yeah, well." with Aimee's help, Thomas sat up with one hand applying pressure on his wound, "My knife throw is still way cooler."

Backup came a few minutes after Aime put handcuffs on Cliff and confiscated his guns. Some of the officers sweeping the ICU room found a needle under Emilia's bed, filled with presumably some sort of poison to kill her.

"Alert the units and do a search around the hospital. " as his wound was being treated by a nurse, Thomas told Aimee, "Cliff kept looking behind me and out the back window, looked like he was expecting some sort of backup."

"All units, there might be accomplices nearby around the hospital. We need a sweep in the one mile radius." Aimee nodded and talked into her hand radio, "I repeat, we need a sweep in the one mile radius..."

"We found some guys tied up in the back parking lot." Another officer's voice came from the radio, "Looks like they are from the Corin family … is that Ricardo Corin?"

"Holy shit, Ricardo's here as well? And tied up?" Thomas laughed out loud but his wound stopped him midway, "What do we have here, a friendly neighborhood - "

"I'll go check it out. You stay put." Aimee gently elbowed Thomas's arm, then turned to Caroline and Jason: "And you guys should go home. We have more units here now, I'll be watching her with Thomas here. And we will place her in protective custody."

"OK." Caroline and Jason took a look at each other and sighed, "It's been a long night. Good luck officers."

"Yeah tell me about it. Goodnight you guys." Thomas still couldn't control his grin.