Stefan. . . .
Only Stefan could put that much grim promise in the word “ever.”
Hazy . . . everything was hazy, lazy, dazy, wavy. No . . . no z’s in wavy. It was dark and bright and red and dark again. The rapid switch didn’t improve the hazy, lazy, dazy any.
“Sir, we’re trying to help him. He could have a crush injury to his chest. That can be fatal, do you understand? He has a pneumothorax—one of his lungs is deflated. He probably has blood building up around his heart. We have to stabilize him now or he’ll die. You got that? He’ll die. Now, get the hell back. Lenny, where the hell are the cops? We need them on this guy.”
Cops. That would be bad. That had the haze fading faster as I felt my adrenaline increasing on its own, doing what a chimera’s body was built to do. I helped it with what I’d learned in the past years. I increased the adrenaline tenfold. That much would be detrimental and lethal to a human; to me, it was fuel accelerating the healing.
“Jesus, he’s going into some serious sinus tach. What the fuck? Four hundred and fifty beats? Jackie, the cardiac monitor is screwed. Get the backup monitor!”
We chimeras would not be good for the mental health of EMTs, paramedics, or any other medical personnel because we made all their medical knowledge useless. I knitted the hole that had been torn in my lung back together, causing massive numbers of cells to rush to meet one another. The three broken ribs would have to wait. I flooded my system with endorphins to dull the pain. There was some small amount of blood around my heart. I had my blood vessels reabsorb it. Opening my eyes, I lifted a hand and pulled the irritating endotracheal tube used to intubate me out of my throat and whacked the EMT on the head with it. It wasn’t very polite of me, as he was trying, in his mind, to save my life, but the only thing he could do was slow the process down and do more harm than good. Stefan knew that, which was why he was threatening to beat the shit out of my would-be angel of mercy.
Said angel of mercy was a balding, chubby man, and I’d left a red mark on the top of his shiny head with the tube. I felt guilty about that until I heard more sirens in the distance. Cops. Either the cops weren’t enthusiastic about coming to this part of town for a truck running into a building, or any other reason, or the fire station was closer. I sat up on the gurney and put my hand out. Stefan, covered in dirt and blood, instantly clasped my arm and lifted me to my feet. The ribs twinged, but that was all. I might’ve overdone it with the endorphins, nature’s morphine. I gave Stefan a loopy smile. “Did a building fall on me?”
“No.” He had his arm around my shoulders and was helping, if helping was half carrying, me to the SUV waiting for us two buildings down. It hadn’t seemed far when we’d parked. It seemed a half-hemisphere walk now. I vaguely noticed his other arm was pointed behind us as he crabbed us along sideways. He was holding his gun on the EMTs. None of them was inclined to die to take me to the hospital for a Snoopy Band-Aid. “You were hit by a semi and then a building fell on you. You are incapable of doing things the easy way, aren’t you?”
“Hit by a semi and lived.” My grin stretched wider.
“Clipped,” Stefan elaborated. He had no grin or smile.
I ignored him. “I’m indestructible.” The s in indestructible was slurred, but I didn’t mind. I was the king. I told Stefan so. “I’m the king. All hail the king.” I decided I felt too good to walk and gave up. Forget the cops; napping on the sidewalk sounded like a great idea. We were about ten feet from the SUV when I decided that. Stefan half lifted me with one arm and carried me like a sack of potatoes the rest of the way, which was no way to treat the king, while Saul opened the door to the backseat from inside. He put his hands under my shoulders and eased me in while Stefan slammed the door behind me. Saul jumped behind the wheel and Stefan reappeared at the other side of the SUV, climbed in, and lifted my head to rest in his lap.
“Get us the hell out of here, Saul.”
“Yeah, like you had to tell me that, oh great master criminal. Jesus.” I could feel the SUV already moving and moving fast from the screech of tires. “What is it with these damn little psychotics and destroying buildings? I nailed one in the chest as he was coming out the back. He had black hair, about eighteen. I think it was that Peter kid. He came out the second-floor window, flipped up over to the roof, and then jumped to the next building. Like goddamn Spiderman. He was weaving, though. I was going to go after him, but then Rome fell. I think you need to juice up your tranq-cure, kid.”