“She has a GSW, Drew. They’ll get her to the nearest hospital then med-flight her to LAC.”
“That bad?” Shock ripples through me. I’m doubly determined to follow.
“You’ve broken so many laws. We have to take you into custody.”
“That has to wait.” I push past him. He lets me, but Mark’s right by Tiffany’s front door. He’s a wall, a barrier, a border between me and Lindsay.
“You have your own wounds, Drew.”
I brush him off. “I’m fine.”
“Looks like you broke something in your left hand, and you’re limping. You’re not fine.”
“I’m fine. I’m not letting her leave without me. I’ll ride in the ambulance with her.”
“No.”
“Fuck you.”
“No to that, too. You don’t understand how bad this is.”
“And you don’t understand how bad this is going to get if you don’t let me go with her.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It is what it is. Let me go with her, damn it.”
“I can’t. I have to take you into custody.”
“What?”
“You just killed a man on live television, Drew. So did Lindsay. Jesus Christ, millions of people just watched this scene as it unfolded! You killed two people here. I can’t just let you go.”
“Then take me to the hospital with her.” I start coughing. I taste blood. I lick my lips.
His face fills with alarm and he waves a medic over. “Pull up your shirt,” Mark orders.
“What?”
Without asking, he grabs my shirt. My belly is covered in nasty contusions, bright red marks deep. I inhale sharply and feel a diffuse pain, spreading through me like sunshine when you’re camping in the pines in the northern woods, that moment when the sun pours through and chases the cold away.
“You could have internal bleeding.” He’s somber, glaring at me like I’ve done something wrong.
I cough again. More blood.
“No. I have to go with her -- ” The coughing fit consumes me, followed by a sudden tightness inside my gut, like someone’s twisting and pulling a rope in me. My organs are playing tug of war. I’m aware of thirst, then pain, my eye fuzzy, vision weird. During the lead-up and the fight, I fought it all off.
The body remembers.
The body demands to be heard.
“God damn it,” Mark snaps, holding my arm. “We need another stretcher for him!” he shouts as a strange pounding fills the room, like thousands of soldiers in formation, headed for war on a hollow gymnasium floor.
“I’m fine.” Cough. “I’m -- ”
I’m tired.
So tired.
And then I’m not there.
Chapter 11
One day later...
Lindsay
The nurse’s assistant comes in at four a.m. to take my temperature. She flips on the lights. Fluorescent lights suck. I don’t say a word. She comes to me with the thermometer, sticks it under my tongue, pushes something on the handheld machine, then waits. She hums a jazz tune. I’m an obedient patient.
She records the results and leaves, turning off the lights.
I shift in the hospital bed, my mouth dry. I swallow, then gag. I need water. I look at the pitcher on the table-tray above my thighs.
Might as well be on the moon.
My one good arm has a million tubes in it, covered with so much surgical tape I look like a mummy. But if I don’t drink, I’ll keep gagging, and when I gag or cough, my shoulder screams out in heated pain.
So I have two choices.
Suffer or suffer more.
Not really a choice.
Like an inch worm, I move to my back, then feel for the bed controls, my good hand fumbling. They’re tangled in the sheets, but I get them eventually. Pushing the button to raise my head is an art form, one I haven’t mastered.
Because this is the first time I’ve done it.
I woke up around midnight, groggy and unreal, with no one here. Someone noticed. I think I’m in ICU because of a sign I read. The doctors called my name, flashed lights in my eyes, asked me to nod and squeeze their hands. I did everything they wanted.
Except speak.
I can’t.
Okay, I probably can. But I can’t. My voice is broken.
Just like my soul.
It’s not raw or injured. The mechanics of verbalizing are present.
But the part of my brain that connects to my mouth to interact with other people is gone.
Poof.
I have no will to speak. I have no will to speak because that requires looking at people and being looked at and emotional demands and processing and I just can’t.
I won’t.
My body is naked under a thin hospital gown, covered with a sheet and a few of these warm white woven blankets. I have a tube sticking between my thighs and I jolt as I move up. It’s in me.
In me.
I freeze.
Then I realize it’s a catheter. Gross. Screw that. I reach down under the covers and remove it, something inside me uncomfortable with pressure, then a strange pop feeling. A small amount of water pours out. I’m not peeing the bed. I can tell. There’s water coming out of me, but it’s over.
Done.
The tube isn’t in me. Nothing is in me. I toss the tube off the end of the bed. I can pee on my own.
I have to be allowed to control that.
I push the remote button to move the bed because I’m starting to die if I don’t get water in my mouth.
Maybe I press the wrong button because instead of feeling the bed move, the nurse’s assistant rushes into the room. She’s followed by two people in scrubs, a tall man with dark brown hair and kind eyes, and a short woman not much older than me who smells like peppermint tea.
“Hey there,” says the man, who reaches for my good arm, touching the biceps with a warm palm. “Look who’s getting feisty.”
The short woman frowns at him and gives me an eye roll. “That’s not patronizing at all.” She expects me to react. To smile. To join the joke.
I don’t.
I can’t.
I appreciate the attempt. They don’t understand. They’re trying to talk to Lindsay Bosworth. They’re trying to connect with someone they assume is a whole human being with a distinct self, with plans for the future and a rich inner life. Someone who has emotions and nightmares and memories of the horror she just experienced.