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here.”
    “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
    “No.” A quick smile crossed his face, and then he gestured to the door.
    *   *   *
    I saw myself out the short hallway. Strike one. But I probably had twenty-four hours’ grace at the clinic—it’d take them that long to find my replacement, and I hadn’t seen my current job up on Craigslist this morning. No way for them to know I was fishing for a new one. I should call them tonight, in case none of this went well. I tried to muster up some enthusiasm for going back there, and found myself hollow.
    I let myself into the waiting area just as the far door to the outside world opened. Two men came in, one holding the other as he stumbled and bled. The mother sitting in the waiting room screamed, while her daughter stared innocently.
    “¡Médico!” the standing one shouted, pulling the bleeding man another step into the room. The elderly woman with the rosary beads began to pray aloud.
    I stepped through and let the door close quickly behind me to protect the staff. I could see into the plastic-windowed wall to my right where the receptionists had scurried off like rabbits. Hopefully to tell someone in charge there was a bleeding man out here.
    “They tried to kidnap me!” The standing man pointed what I belatedly realized was a gun at me. Instantly I held up my hands. “¿Quién eres?” he asked me.
    I didn’t know what he was asking precisely, but the gun helped make it clear. “La enfermera,” I said, at least knowing the Spanish word for “nurse.” I opened up my purse slowly and pulled a pair of gloves out. “Let me see your friend.”
    As an actual clinic employee had yet to be seen, the gunman grunted assent. I moved closer to the bleeding man. He was shot in his upper arm. Behind us, with the men distracted and the gun pointed at me, the other patients filtered out, stepping over the wounded man’s trail of blood.
    “That’s gotta hurt. Let’s get you sitting down. How long ago was this? How much blood did he lose?” I kept asking questions, trying to distract them both from the mass exodus happening at the door. I inspected the rest of him visually and with both gloved hands—he’d slimed blood all over himself in getting dragged here. There could be a second, worse gunshot wound hidden somewhere else on him, easy. When I didn’t find anything else, I tested a finger near his wound, and he yelped.
    “Pray for me, Grandmother,” he begged the elderly woman sitting behind us, the only waiting room occupant left inside.
    The grandmother snorted, loudly. “I would sooner die than pray for you!”
    I heard the back room door slam open behind me. “Goddammit, I told you all to call ahead. You all have our number.” Dr. Tovar was at my side. He looked at me. “You go home. Now.”
    This wasn’t my fight, my place, or my people. But I was here, and my hands were covered in an injured man’s blood.
    “I mean it! Go home!” Dr. Tovar yelled at me.
    “I’m not some dog you can shoo away!” I yelled back. He closed his mouth and glared, but then he turned to our patient rather than continuing our fight.
    The door to the outside world opened up again. I turned around to see. Two men stood in the doorway, sunlight pouring through from behind, casting them in deep shadow. They both held up guns. The man holding his friend dropped him to hold his gun up too.
    “Not in here!” Dr. Tovar yelled. The standoff continued over our heads. I looked back at the floor, not wanting to gawk at the men holding guns. “We’re off limits!” Dr. Tovar yelled again.
    None of the men moved.
    I closed my eyes and winced, waiting to hear a round, not knowing who or what it’d strike. The grandmother prayed louder, “Santa Muerte, escucha la or ación de su hijo pobre.”
    I opened my eyes in surprise and turned to look at her. The gunmen were closer now. I could make out their faces and see the beginnings of strange tattoos high on their