Then, he ordered someone to bring a needle as thick as a child’s arm. Without hesitation, he plunged it into mine!
“Jericho!” I shouted. “I told you! You can check the surveillance! It wasn’t me!”
My head spun, and I used the last of my strength to talk some sense into him, but he only stared at me with that same unyielding calm.
Slowly, blood drawn from my arm filled bag after bag, each one marked about 14 ounces.
Even the doctor’s hands began to tremble.
“Sir,” the doctor said cautiously, “we’ve already taken over a quart of blood from Ma’am Venice. If we keep going, she might not make it. Ms. MacGill has already gotten enough for the transfusion. Perhaps we should—”
“Draw another fourteen ounces,” Jericho interrupted. “Consider it her punishment.”
When the final bag was filled, my lips were blue, my face deathly pale. As soon as the needle was removed, my body gave out, and I collapsed to the floor.
In the last fleeting second before I lost consciousness, I clearly heard his voice again.