Chapter Fifty-Six

 

RYAN

 

I have vague flashes of memory. I remember waking up and being surrounded by people I didn't know. Wearing masks. Might have been doctors, but I really don't know and I really don't care.

I remember waking up someplace else. The ceiling was white, the room was white, and I remember hearing someone shouting that I was awake, but I wasn't. I was still asleep. Mostly.

Then it was back to sleep, back to darkness, back to not really remembering who or where I am. All I know is, I'm so tired.

The third time, I had a minute or two. Not just a brief glimpse, not just a moment between dreams, but enough time to really feel awake. To feel like I knew what was going on. Enough time to notice the handcuff around my wrist.

It's night time. I can see out the window that the sky is dark. Jada's sitting by the bed. She's asleep, and I don't want to wake her up. I want her to stay asleep.

Is she the one who locked me up like this? How should I feel about anything? I don't know. I'm not sure I want to know, to be honest. But I know that it's late, and everyone else is asleep, and the truth is, I'm still so tired.

I don't know what they've got me on, but my head feels loopy. Everything feels far away, foreign. And I must have been sleeping for a very long time, but… I'm so tired.

It was nice seeing Jada again, though, even if it wasn't under the best circumstances. I suppose I always knew that it would happen eventually, but I wish I'd been able to talk to her a little.

The fourth time, I woke up for real. Well. Not totally for real, of course. I was still high as a son of a bitch. Ironic that in all the years I've done this, since I was fifteen practically, I've never wanted to sample any of the stuff I've been moving.

Well, thanks to the perfectly legal prescriptions they've apparently got me on, I've got a pretty good sense for what it must be like, and boy—is it a real dream.

My body feels like someone else's body entirely, but somehow in a good way. I don't know how else to explain it. Like everything is being relayed to me, but it's being re-routed through something else. Through another structure.

That's the best I can explain it. I like it more than I want to. I should be out of here, popping a few Ibuprofen and hoping that the pain stops screaming in my ears for a few seconds, but instead it's someone else's pain. I'm not the one feeling it.

I push myself up as high as I can in the bed. The other side of the wrist restraints click up against the plastic hand rail and stop me from getting as comfortable as I'd like.

I'm surprised how many people are in the room. Looking around, Logan's there. Jada's there, still in that same chair. It's funny that I saw her sleeping, because otherwise I wouldn't believe she'd slept a wink from the stress lines carved into her face.

I know the big guy, too. Big guy in a white shirt. Cop. I don't remember his name, but I remember he can hit like a son of a bitch when he needs to.

"Hi," I say. I sound like a damn pussycat. Can't stand that. I shouldn't be so out of it. I am in control of myself.

The big bruiser rolls his eyes and turns around. He doesn't leave, but he turns his back. I guess that's his idea of privacy, and I'll take it.

Logan comes up and around the bed. "Hey, man. How are you feeling? Y'in any pain?"

I laugh a little. That hurts, and it might even be touching me through the thick layer of pain medicine. "What's pain?"

He rolls his eyes. "Doctors say you're going to be just fine. You'll be up and moving in no time."

"What's this?" I yank on my arm. The handcuffs make a rattling noise, as if they're trying to draw attention to themselves just as much as I am.

"I'm sorry, man. I don't know what else I can do to get you out of that one. But I'm doing my best, and Davis—"

He shuts up. I look over at her just in time to catch the tail end of a hard look. She sits forward in the chair. "You alright, Beauchamp?"

"I guess so. How's Brian?"

Jada looks up at Logan. I look over to him, and he's looking back at her. Finally Jada answers me.

"He's going to be fine, but they're keeping him another couple of days."

"Am I going to be able to see him again, before… you know?" I raise my hand again, and the handcuffs rattle again for me, right on cue.

"I don't know."

I take a deep breath. "How'd it end up? Did we get 'em?"

The big son of a bitch turns around. Ball! Agent Ball. That's his name.

"Oh, you sure as hell got 'em, all right, Beauchamp. You should have seen the God damn mess we had to wade through in your place—"

A look from Jada shuts him up. I like the looks she gives people. I like the way she can tell someone to go fuck themselves without opening her mouth. It's a real nice trait in a woman, if you think about it.

"So what's the charges?"

"Well, you got a few."

"Sure, sure. Just run me through them, and I'll tell you which ones I didn't do."

"Trafficking of automatic firearms without a class-3 license, sale of said firearms to unlicensed individuals, illicit trade across national borders… smuggling, in other words, for the first portion."

"Okay, now, I didn't do that."

"Of course you didn't."

I hold my hands up as best I can with one of them tied to the bed. "Think what you want, but I didn't do any of that."

"Secondly, you murdered a dozen people."

"Okay, now, I might've did that, but one, those people had it coming, and two, they were going to kill me, so it was self defense."

Agent Ball frowns and looks over to Davis for guidance. She's not looking at him, though. She's looking at me, and I'm looking at her, which is pretty much the best I can ask for under the circumstances.

Maybe we can get Logan and Agent Ball to step outside, and then we'll have a party on our hands. But somehow, I don't think that's going to happen.

After a long pause, finally Ball answers me. "Be that as it may, you're going to have to stand trial."

"Sure, but who in the world would convict me for destroying a drug running ring in self-defense?"

"No, I get you. But you're still going to have to face trial, whether anyone would convict you or not."

"Imagine the headlines. 'Man cleans up streets; hauled into court with a bullet hole in his belly.' God. I wonder if they'll want pictures?"

Davis rolls her eyes at me. I can only imagine the look that Ball must be giving me. I'm getting tired again. Too tired. I don't know if I like this medicine very much. Sure, it keeps me from being in pain, but… my head's all fuzzy all the time.

And I can't seem to think real clearly, about much of anything. Maybe, just maybe, I'll feel a little better after a nap. I have to hope, because otherwise, I'm going to be real tired for a good long while.

"We can talk more about this in the morning," I tell Jada. The others can hear it, too, though, just in case they need to know. I like that. It's efficient. People should always be able to hear what I'm saying when it's in the room with them. Unless I don't want them to. Then they shouldn't listen because that would be

The world goes dark again.