In the semi-darkness, the pebbles looked like coffee beans. The sight gave Blair a disgusted chill down her body. Coffee never did anything to her personally, but she hated it all the same. The smell took her back to too many hungover mornings trying to make herself socially acceptable to function out in public, college Blair was a real winner. Now the scent followed her around like a bad habit, she couldn’t shake it no matter what she did to Povlo herself into having a more positive connotation toward the smell.

The irony of the difference between how Blair perceived coffee verses blood compared to the average person made her laugh out loud, stifling the sound with the back of her now bloodied hand. She had just happened to see the man currently bleeding out beneath her stabbed by who originally seemed to be an innocent, passing hooded stranger. The once grey gravel pebbles of the parking lot were now painted a dark red, almost black color in the tail end of sunset. The smell of blood gave her a feeling of calm, calculated focus that comes with years of exposure. The sharp tang of iron that panicked most people wrapped around her in a warm sensation of familiarity, unlike the nauseating, complex aromatics of coffee her mother raved about every morning on their phone calls like it was her favorite child.

The only reason Blair put herself in the middle of this situation was because she technically did have the skills to help this patient as a trauma surgeon, even if working off the clock pained her a little. Based off the stab wounds location she knew without interference ahead of the ambulance arrival the patient would be dead before even having a chance at survival. A stab wound to the lower abdominal region seems a relatively inconspicuous location where people would assume no permanent harm would be done to a person besides the need for a few mental health therapy sessions. However, if a person was stabbed in just the right spot, they could easily bleed out equally, internally and externally in seconds.

The man started moaning as Blair applied pressure to the wound with her sweat jacket as a buffer and reassured him he’d be alright. He tilted his head toward her and opened his eyes at the sound of her gentle tone.

“This wasn’t suppose to happen,” he mumbled to her, “they found out who I am and if I live I’m finished, finished!”

“No one goes out expecting to be stabbed sir, what do you mean he found out who you were,do you know the man who stabbed you?” Blair asked mindlessly as she pressed harder.

“What man? You have to promise me you’ll let me die,” his tone turned pleading, he grabbed her wrists in earnest, “I’d rather be dead than suffer the consequences of my actions by her hand, look what she did to me already!”

“You’re not going to die, what’s your name, sir, who did this to you, sir?” She continued without much concern for the delirious rambling that usually accompanied blood loss.

“Let me go, now!” The man gave a weak attempt at wiggling free of her ministrations.

“I understand you’re-“

“You understand nothing woman, nothing! Let me _go_! I’ll tell the cops you’re the one who did this to me if you don’t grant me what better be my final wish!”

The man shouted in earnest, drawing new found attention to their spectacle. The hair on the back of her neck prickled with fear, the possibility this stranger really might try to ruin her life for just doing her job might be a sign she should separate herself from the situation. There were no other witnesses to this attack that she saw before jumping in to help. Blair had been the only person on this neglected side alley as she took a shortcut to the subway just a block away. People started pulling their phones out to record the scene and she needed to make a decision now.

She already put her hands on him, she couldn’t in good conscious make a decision, and possibly legally, the Good Semaritan Law’s details were lost on her at the moment, while her mind spiraled between all the choices she needed to make in this moment.

“Please!” The man shouted, “Somebody help me!”

The sirens of the inbound ambulance rang louder and louder as it got closer to the scene, panicked eyes turned menacing as he made one final comment to her before passing out from blood loss, “you were suppose to me my target Dr. Blair Beachum, but I’ll gladly blame you for the death of that woman on Poplar Street if they save me.”