21:00 ~ The Intention

    He wore the scrubs. He had the same strong walk. She saw his face. It was him. Bonnie jerked out of her relaxed position, still clutching the smouldering relaxation tool.
    ‘Doctor! Doctor!’ She felt ridiculous. She shook herself up as she jogged after him. He had been walking along the road scanning the cars on the other side.
    ‘Hello?’ Said the doctor calmly, turning slowly round to see who was approaching him.
    ‘Doctor! Phew! You’re quite a hard one to catch there. I was running and everything!’
    ‘Well, how can I help you nurse…’
    ‘Bonnie.’
    ‘Yes, I know. I saw you earlier on the ward.’
    ‘That’s right. I saw you too.’
    Hesitation.
    ‘So, are you new here young man?’ She posed, laughing like his grandmother - or how his grandmother may have laughed.
    ‘Err, yes. I’ve just been transferred here.’
    ‘And how are you finding it here?'
    ‘Oh everything’s great. Yeah.’ He looked at her cigarette.
    ‘Oh, good. Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.’
    ‘I’m Jack.’
    ‘Right. And if you wouldn’t mind, could we keep this little thing burning away in my hand a secret? It’s just better if I can just have my little break every now and again.’
    ‘Oh sure. No problem.’
    In a backseat nearby, she heard his name. Jack. He wasn’t lying. That was his name. She knew. Looking up, over the seats, she could see him talking to the nurse. He seemed so normal - reserved even. Jamie was fearful of this. She feared for the nurse - just a bug under his crazed, though still aloof, thumb. What was he doing? What was she going to do?
    She continued to breathe deeply whilst shivering as breezes passed through the open edges of the multi-storey, chilling all inside, like a freezer.
    Dr. Jack’s hand began to move, as if he was scratching  his a*s. Jamie knew otherwise.
    Before she could make any sort of move to save the poor nurse, Jack twisted his arm around her neck with the blade directed toward her eye.
    Jamie watched the entire sequence like a silent movie. He thrust himself forward, grabbed the nurses shoulders and swung her round. The muscles in his arm flexed around her throat like a constrictor snake. The snake had them both.
    ‘What the f**k are you doing!?’ croaked the choked Bonnie.
    Dr. Jack replied to the air. He was calling out to someone. This change in volume startled the startled Bonnie.
    ‘Come on out now Jamie!’ He commenced. ‘Unless you want to see this nurse blinded - painfully so - get the f**k out here now! I won’t ask again.’
    Pause.
    ‘I know you’re in one of these f*****g cars ‘cause I’ve checked the rest of the f*****g car park. Now come out or the Detective's wife is going to get this f*****g blade shoved into her f*****g skull!’
    Jamie hadn’t ever seen someone quite so furious.
    Bonnie shook at the shock of the man’s knowledge. Jack giggled behind her.
    ‘What? How do you know..?’
    ‘I know. And don’t worry, you’ll soon be seeing your husband again,’ answered Jack. Bonnie didn’t like the way he had phrased it.
    ‘Did you come here for me?’
    ‘Not just. I’m killing two birds with one stone at the moment, it would appear,’ he whispered to Bonnie, directly into her ear.
    Jamie was trying to map out their escape in her head. She wasn’t succeeding. Time was running out. Time in which to save this nurses' and her own life was running out. She had survived one attack tonight. As far as Jamie was concerned, the only thing that still mattered were the children. The kids were out there somewhere still.
    ‘Okay! That’s f*****g it. I’m going to count to five and if you don’t come out, I’ll take this woman’s eye!’
    Jack didn’t need to begin. Jamie responded immediately.
    Jack watched as, only four cars down, Jamie, his favourite patient, emerged low from the back seat of a car.
    Her bare feet bizarre on the tarmac of the cold parking-lot floor. Unbearable. Like walking on hot coals and broken glass. She couldn’t move very quickly. She gazed out through her straggly hair to see Jack, still holding the nurse. The long strip lights above them flickered, possibly due to the conflicting energies at work in the middle of the road. They were icy flames barring the way through the ceiling, reflected in the shards of glass that made up the road beneath their feet.
    Jack’s eyes were fixed on the newly emerged Jamie. Bonnie took advantage. She slipped her hand into her jacket pocket, still with the cutter practically grazing one eyeball. Jamie saw this, yet, being a smart girl, didn’t react - she approached the dancing couple.
    Bonnie fingered delicately for her car keys. Only using her middle and index fingers to grip, like a poor arcade lucky dip game, the claw had them. Bonnie geared herself up.
    Swiftly, she lodged one of her arms between the blade and her face, whilst using the rest of her body weight to wind Jack with a blow to the stomach. He bent and curled like a wilted flower. Bonnie was free. She threw the prized keys into the air, in the direction of Jamie, who caught them with one hand.  She scuttled toward the car, still with its passenger seat open. She rolled over into the driver’s seat. It was a good job she could actually drive. The nurse couldn’t have known that for sure in her haste.
    Bonnie also started to make her way toward the car, but Jack’s will power dwarfed that of her own and he managed to regain some balance. Bonnie was but a metre from him.
    The evil doctor swung for her. He missed. He swung again - this time with twice the force. He thought about his aching lower body. Bonnie was impacted in the shoulder.
    Jamie saw it from inside the car, ready to go. The nurse was airborne for a couple of seconds. She landed, ungracefully, on her side rolling. When the forces were balanced again, she was lying on her front. Eyes closed.
    Jamie wept at the choice she had to make, there and then. She chose. From the rear-view mirror, Jamie viewed the shrinking image of Dr. Jack lifting the unconscious nurse from the floor in his strong arms.