When I came to, I was in an unfamiliar bright room with lots of noise and too many people. My whole body hurt; it felt like I’d been beaten with a crowbar. I struggled to open my eyes.
“Where am I?” I croaked in a dazed voice. “What’s going on? What happened to me?”
An unfamiliar and butch woman wearing green scrubs came over to me and stared at some machine next to my bed that was making an infernal racket. “Detroit Grace,” she said, her tone curt. “You were shot. Don’t you remember that?”
I shook my head. “Barely. What happened?”
She pursed her lips. “You don’t remember?”
“Not at all,” I said sincerely.
The woman glared at me, and suddenly I wanted to punch her for treating me like garbage. As the room around me came into focus, I narrowed my eyes and winced. The walls of the hospital were painted a putrid yellow-green that looked like the woman’s scrubs. The lights about me were a harsh fluorescent, like the kind of thing you see in old sci-fi movies. I rubbed my hands over my eyes and face and discovered that even the ends of my hair hurt. It was incredible. I’d never been in this much pain in my life. I had a hard time believing it was just from the bullet I’d taken.
“Where was I shot?”
The woman frowned at me, then grabbed my arm and held it in front of my face. Pain blossomed in my limb, and I cried out in agony.
“Right there,” she said smugly. “You should thank your lucky stars that someone above thought it fit to save another loser.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, lady,” I finally said. “I had nothing to do with it.”
She smirked. “And yet you know what ‘it’ is, don’t you?” The doctor laughed mirthlessly and continued. “I think you’ll be pleased to know that Nefertiti Davis was apprehended moments after your prone body was discovered by the cops. Seems someone had the presence of mind to call the police when they knew a huge deal was about to go down.”
I swallowed. Nefertiti, arrested? It made me chuckle. The doctor glanced at me suspiciously. “I’m sorry,” I said through a hail of laughter. It felt both good and immensely painful to laugh; my whole body seized and tensed with the effort. “It’s just, you have no idea how interesting it is for me to hear that.”
The doctor narrowed her eyes. “Your boss got taken, and you don’t even care?”
I shook my head. “Lady, you don’t get this. Stay out of my fuckin’ business,” I snapped. “You have no idea who I am.”
She looked at me, her smug expression still in full swing. “You’re Zed McIntyre, ex-con—I know that much. You were found without a wallet, but there was ID nearby that matched your description.”
I flashed back to those asshole thugs in Nefertiti’s hideout yanking my pants down and going through my shit. At the time, losing my wallet hadn’t seemed nearly as important as losing my gun, or getting groped by some crazy gangster bitch.
“Yeah,” I said, looking away. “I lost it. Sorry.”
The doctor rolled her eyes. “Probably too busy thinking about crank. I bet that’s it. You detoxing?”
I shook my head. “I don’t fuck with that shit anymore. I’ve been clean for a long time.”
“Good for you,” she snapped. “By the way, do you know a Laurie?”
I shook my head. Then it dawned on me. “Lily? What the fuck? Is she okay? Is she hurt?”
The doctor gave me a strange look. “No,” she said slowly. “She’s fine. She was here to see you, but you didn’t wake up in time to catch her. She spent the whole night sitting by your side and crying.”
A weird feeling washed over me. It was desire and want and tenderness all mixed together, and I had to shake my head to clear it rapidly. “She’s my friend. Did she say that she was coming back?”
“She said that she was working or something and that she’d stop by after her shift.”
“Did I come in with a cell phone?”
The doctor blinked. “I’m not sure. I can go check your personal possessions though. Can you wait or do you need it right now?”
Considering how bitchy she’d been before, I was pretty impressed. “Now,” I barked out. The doctor looked angry. “Sorry,” I amended. “Whenever you have time, but as soon as possible. Please.”
Her expression softened. “Wait a second. I’ll have one of my interns bring it in.”
The doctor breezed out in a cloud of disinfectant-smelling perfume. It felt like an excruciatingly long time before a younger, cuter doctor came back in. She was carrying a white plastic basket, and she dug through it, finally finding my phone and putting it on my lap.
“Now, you’re not supposed to strain yourself,” she said carefully. “I’ll have to stay here and watch you talk, okay?”
“Can’t I just keep it in my room?”
The doctor shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said, blushing. She bit her lower lip in a way that reminded me of Lily, and suddenly, my loins were on fire. She leaned closer and whispered confidentially, “Sir, I have to inform you that this case is being treated as criminal. We have to take all precautions since you were brought in with a gunshot wound. Once we find out how and why you were shot, you may be free to go. But right now, we’re working with the authorities.”
“Shit,” I muttered softly. “Fuck.”
The doctor looked upset. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said in a more professional voice. “It’s our policy to inform you, that’s all. I’m afraid there’s nothing else I can do at this point.”
I closed my eyes and let my head flop back against the hospital bed. Pain shot through my body, and I winced. “Can I have some medication?”
The woman bit her lip. “Sir, that’s the other thing. Since you were found at the site of a massive opiate drug deal, we cannot give you any medication right now. If you’d like me to bring you a packet of ibuprofen, I could do that, but I’m not allowed to give you anything stronger.”
If I’d had a gun, I would have shot myself. “Fine,” I snapped. “I want to use my phone now.”
The doctor shifted from foot to foot. “As I said sir, I have to stay with you. Would you like me to wait behind this curtain?”
I rolled my eyes. Even the smallest gesture of contempt filled my body with torment. “Fine,” I said. With shaking hands, I dialed Lily’s number and hit Call. It rang and rang and rang and eventually cut to voicemail. In irritation, I threw my phone on the ground. The screen had already been cracked, but this final act sent it shattering into tiny pieces of plastic. I laughed until it hurt my chest too much to keep going.
“Sir,” the doctor said. Caution was evident in her thin voice. “Are you okay? Is something the matter?”
“Oh, nothing,” I said sarcastically. “I’m in a lot of pain, and I can’t get any good drugs, my girlfriend isn’t answering the phone, I’m shot, I’m possibly going back to prison, and I don’t even fucking remember how I got here!”
The doctor looked taken aback. “Sir, that certainly is a lot. And you know, we may be able to give you some pain meds. We’ve tested your blood for drug content, and once the tests come back negative, we’ll be able to help you feel a little better. How does that sound?”
I nodded. “Great,” I muttered. “Just fuckin’ great.”
“Good!” the doctor chirped. “I’ll go check on those, and I’ll be back really soon!”
I closed my eyes in defeat. Even with my lids shut, the bright fluorescent lights on the ceiling penetrated into my skull. Everything was blindingly painful. I knew that it would be ages, probably hours, before the doctor returned. Any time someone said they’d be back soon, I knew it might be days before I saw them again. When it came to time management, hospitals sucked.
I looked at the pieces of my shattered phone on the floor and cursed myself for not being able to withstand the urge to destroy whatever I had in my hands at the time. And ‘my girlfriend’? Why the fuck had I said that? I wasn’t Lily’s boyfriend. But all the same, thinking about Lily made me feel a little better.
I pictured the concern written on her pale, heart-shaped face, her gray eyes wide with love. I knew that we didn’t have any business being together. But that didn’t mean that I didn’t honestly miss her sometimes. I imagined being in her apartment, with her sweet smell all over, and I felt a twitch between my legs. As my cock started to stiffen, I groaned. Just like everywhere else on my body, it hurt a lot. But hey, maybe I was lucky. At least I still had my cock.
Peyton dead. Nefertiti arrested. Lily at my side all night. What the fuck was going to happen now?