Starting Over Pt. 07 Ch. 03

John could feel that emotions sweep over him as this beautiful young lady curled up for comfort and he stared at her mother. She must feel more than him. Maddie had been abandoned by her father and she and her mother had become reliant on each other for most of Maddie's life. She must feel lost right now.

"She's going to make it," John finally said.

Maddie looked up at him, the tracks of her tears evident. "She has to. It was her and me against the world for so long until we met you. My father is an asshole so we became this survivalist pair. We managed to have good times even without him, but we were pretty insular for a long time. My grandfather, Mary, and then you, were always there to help, but it was mostly just me and her."

"I know you two have been through a lot. I love you both very much."

"You were so good for my mother, but she was so messed up from her youth and my father, that it took a while for her to realize it."

"Well, she finally did."

Maddie looked back over at her mother. "She has to make it. I don't know what I will do without her."

"She will."

They sat there for a long while, not speaking, until John finally had to get her up off his legs, which were falling to sleep.

The rest of that day, the nurses and doctors kept coming in and checking on everything. Yeah, hospitals are not a good place to get some rest. Too many checks and interruptions.

---------------------- Friday, April 15, 2022, University of Washington Hospital, Seattle, WA -----------

The last three days had been hell, but on Friday, after easing up on the sedatives, Maggie opened her eyes. It was 3pm and John, Mary, Maddie, and Mr. Bradford were all standing there with a doctor and a nurse.

The doctor spoke to her for a second and told her that everything from the surgery had gone fine. He said some other things to her, but John knew that she was not hearing anything. She was still too groggy to be able to understand what was happening.

The doctor and nurse left and the family members all gathered around just to lend support and wait for her to talk. John took her hand and Maggie glanced down at that briefly, but didn't say a word. She looked around for a few minutes and seemed to fall back to sleep.

Everyone shook their heads.

John was the first to speak. "Well, that went well. She at least was aware of our presence before she went back to sleep."

Everyone agreed and went back to waiting.

---------------------- Saturday, April 16, 2022, University of Washington Hospital, Seattle, WA -----------

On Saturday, it was around 10am when Maggie became aware of everything. She opened her eyes and looked around. She saw John sitting there and tried to say something, but had trouble.

John jumped up and gave her some water. Finally, Maggie said hello.

"Hello, gorgeous. How are you feeling?"

"Ummm, awake." Maggie's voice was very rough and gravelly. She looked around the room and Maddie came in. John gave her some more water and Maggie asked, "Maddie, are you okay?"

Maddie shook her head. "Mom, I'm fine. You are the one that got shot."

"I -- I just couldn't take it if something had happened to you."

"Nothing did. Except my mother got shot and has me worried to death."

Maggie gave a slight grin. "Mmmm."

---------------------- Wednesday, April 20, 2022, University of Washington Hospital, Seattle, WA -----------

Maggie was in and out of consciousness the next few days and they moved her from the ICU to a standard room on the 20th. She was feeling a little better, but had been worked over pretty well to repair all the damage. She was feeling well enough to get to the bathroom when she needed to, so that was a great improvement. John was relieved that she seemed to be recovering so fast. She was healing better than the doctors expected, too.

Maggie was awake and John was in the room with Marty, Carl, and Allison, all of them saying how strong she was based on her recovery. She bemoaned the coming rehab, but other than that she seemed pretty happy.

It was about 3pm and Marty, Carl, and Allison were all saying their good-byes when they heard it. All three of them and John were very familiar with the sound of a weapon on automatic. And that's what they heard. It was coming from somewhere down the hall. There were no police stationed outside Maggie's room, so a security guard out front may have been the target.

All four rushed into action. They were all carrying handguns and pulled them out. Maggie looked petrified, so John tried to calm her.

"Maggie, look at me." She looked away from the doorway and up into his eyes. "I'm going to get you up and into the bathroom. It has a good solid wooden door. I will stand outside here guarding it. Okay?"

Maggie nodded and he worked to get her up.

Meanwhile, Marty, Carl, and Allison all checked out the hallway. They had heard John, so they knew he was staying there. Allison spoke first.

"Marty, Carl, the entrance is on the first floor to the left of here. You two head that way. Check it out to see if the shooter is on this floor. If not, one of you stay at the end of the hall near the elevators and the desk there and the other head down the nearest stairwell to the first floor. I'll go to the right and guard against anyone coming from that direction."

The three sprung into action. John stayed in the room, but moved some things around so that he could have some protection from anyone entering the doorway.

Marty and Carl reached the end of the hall and saw nobody except some hospital staff scurrying into hiding places. They could hear some screaming and running from the first floor. Marty got behind the desk and nodded at Carl. Carl pointed over at the stairwell entrance and Marty nodded again as Carl entered the stairwell and proceeded down.

Allison didn't see anything either, so she held her position near the corner and the stairwell at that end of the hall.

John waited. He had left the door cracked open for now and kept speaking to Maggie, who was having trouble remaining calm. She had recently been shot by an automatic weapon and was having trouble coping with the trauma of that event.

Suddenly, John heard the firing of a handgun from down the hall to his left, where Marty was. There was automatic firing after that and then it seemed a little quiet. John told Maggie to stay there and closed the door. He peeked out the door just as Allison was creeping past. She was completely focused on the corner of the hallway to John's left, where her new boyfriend, Marty, had been stationed.

John watched as a figure with an automatic weapon flashed past the corner from one side to the other. Allison didn't shoot. She just tracked him quickly and then ducked into the next room. John stayed in Maggie's. A face peeked around the corner. John, who had lined his gun up with that corner, and Allison, who had done the same, both fired immediately. The individual ducked back around the corner, the bullets glancing off the walls and spewing some plaster into the air.

Carl had climbed the stairwell back to the 2nd floor and peeked through the glass to see that the shooter was behind the desk. He could see Marty laying on the floor next to him. He just hoped he wasn't dead. Carl had a decent position to be able to shoot at the guy. The desk was between the two, but it was only the width of the hallway to the desk so Carl could see most of the guy and would be able to step towards him and shoot over the desk if he took cover.

Carl prepared himself, pulled the door open suddenly, and started shooting at the guy. The guy jerked as Carl's first bullet hit his left shoulder. The shooter turned to return fire, but Carl kept shooting and walking forward until he had emptied his clip into the guy.

Allison and John saw it. Allison jumped up to run to check on the shooter and Marty. John went and calmly opened the door to Maggie's bathroom. She was sitting there trembling. John went in and held her and told her it was over. He then helped her back into bed.

By the time John had done that and walked out into the hallway, there was a gaggle of people out there. He could see that Marty had been shot and was being tended to as they put him on a gurney to take him to surgery. It didn't look too bad, but Allison was at his side holding his hand. Carl was there talking to some police, who had arrived, and handing over his weapon.

John walked up next to Carl and looked at Marty. "Very bad?"

"Not too bad. Took it in the side and if you are going to get shot, best to do it in a hospital."

"Yeah." John walked over to Allison and Marty. He looked down at Marty. "Hang in there, tough guy. I don't want Allison blaming me for this."

Allison looked up and appeared to be pretty calm. "I already am, smart-ass."

About that time the doctors and nurses told them they were taking Marty to surgery, so they stepped back to let them get out of there and watched as he was wheeled away.

"You okay?" John asked Allison.

"Yeah, I guess. I just thought that as the FBI agent, he'd be the one watching as I got wheeled into surgery."

"Yeah, I bet." John turned toward her. "I'm sorry about this. After a few days, I'm going to take care of it."

Allison looked up at him. "You think this was the Romanian gang out of Chicago?"

"Absolutely. And now they've killed two and injured eight at the Bradford's, attacked a hospital, shooting who knows how many, shot one of my best buddies, and shown that they want me dead very badly. Oh, yeah, I'm going to finish this mess."

"Be careful. You know it's dangerous and the FBI has some surveillance on that gang, so they will know if you go after him."

"Don't worry. I'll figure something out. People who act so capriciously cannot be allowed to continue to do this."

John turned and was walking back to the room when another guy appeared around the corner of the far hallway. He looked suspicious from the start. John stared at him, his gun still in his hand when the guy started taking shots down the hall at him. Allison and anyone else in that hallway started diving for doorways or behind the desk.

John got grazed by one on his leg as he was diving into a room, but it wasn't much. He had his Glock in his hand as he crawled back to the edge of the doorway of the room he was in and peeked down the hall. It was only a couple seconds, but the guy had advanced halfway down towards Maggie's room.

"Not going to happen!" John muttered to himself. The guy was now within 40 feet of him, so he suddenly stepped out and started firing at the guy. The first shot hit him center mass and the guy staggered back, but didn't go down. John's second shot hit him on the shoulder as he stumbled, and this time he went down. His gun clattered on the hard floor a few feet away. He scrambled back toward his gun, but John was advancing quickly and deliberately. He walked up and kept firing. The guy took another round in the chest, but John could now see that he was wearing a vest. So, he shot him in both legs before he reached him.

The shooter was lying there, bleeding, staring at John with hatred in his eyes. John gave him an evil grin.

"Who sent you?"

The guy smiled. "Fuck you."

John shot him in the left arm and the guy reacted with a yell and looked extremely surprised. "Try again."

"You can't shoot me. I give myself up."

"Sorry, I'm not a member of law enforcement. Now answer the question. I can keep shooting in your appendages until you answer."

The guy now looked more scared then angry. He looked down the hall quickly, but didn't see any assistance coming. He hadn't expected this. He had expected to be treated nicely, if caught.

John stared. This guy was a professional from the looks of him. He had expected the low rent folks to kill and distract everyone while he came in here to find him and Maggie. He waited, then aimed at the man's right arm.

"Alex sent us."

"The target?"

"Your wife first, then you."

John stared at him. They had targeted Maggie first? They weren't just after him? What kind of guy was this Alex? His anger started building. This could only end one way.

Suddenly, he was surrounded by all the others. It seemed like it took a long time, but time had seemingly slowed during his shooting and discussion with this guy. John watched as doctors attended to the guy and took him away for surgery. The police and FBI were everywhere to start collecting evidence.

Finally, Allison slowly pried his guy away from him. "You'll get it back after the incident is reviewed and you have your interview."

John stared at her for a second, then blinked, and walked stunned into Maggie's room. He stared at her scared face. He went to comfort her, but knew that the only way this could end was with the death of someone named Alex.