RYKER
I wake to the sound of beeping. It’s a small but constant beep. A repetitive blip through the haze of my mind. Light floods my vision, making everything blurry. I blink a few times, waiting for my world to come into focus, but it remains obscured, only dark and light shapes, nothing defined.
“He appears to be waking,” a female voice says.
“Mia?” Her name comes out as barely more than a croak and I swallow, my mouth dry and my saliva thick.
“I’ll take it from here. Go fetch the doctor, would you?”
There’s a squeak of shoes against linoleum, the sound of curtain rings pulled across a rail, and then the click of a door shutting.
“Ryker?”
I blink a few more times for my eyes to adjust and try to lift my hand to wipe them, but something is restricting it, holding it tight against my chest.
Senior’s face blocks the overhead light. “How are you feeling?”
“Confused.” I try to pull myself up on the bed, pushing off with the one hand that works, but my body is heavy. Rubbing my free hand over my face, I’m surprised to find a drip inserted in my arm. My memories are fuzzy. They’re there, but the edges are slippery, confusing me. “What happened?”
“The bitch stabbed you, that’s what happened.” Senior chuckles and walks over to the window, cracking it open. “It’s hot in here, don’t you think? Too stuffy.” He loosens his collar.
I can’t tell if it’s hot or cold. My body just feels weighed down in the bed, slow to respond to my wishes. Closing my eyes, I think back to lying on the floor of the cell, the blade stuck at an awkward angle in my shoulder, and completely unable to move my body.
“Did she get away?”
Mr Atterton paces in front of the window. “Don’t you worry yourself about that. You just worry about getting better.”
I attempt to sit up again but fail miserably and lie back on the bed. “I’m sorry I let you down, sir. You trusted me, and I didn’t live up to your expectations.”
“Nonsense.” He sits himself down on the chair beside the bed. “It was my fault. I got carried away in the nostalgia of it all. Reminded me too much of the first girl I ever wanted. She was a local too, did I ever tell you that?”
I shake my head, his words thumping through my brain, his voice too deep, too invading. I don’t give a fuck about his girls. I want to know if Mia is okay, if she managed to get out, if she escaped him and his son.
“That turned into a shit show too.” He lifts one leg and hooks his ankle over the knee of the other. “I shouldn’t have asked it of you. It was too much to expect of you with no training, no experience. I shouldn’t have listened to the boy. I should have let Marcel handle her. It was my fault.”
Senior never admits fault. Something is off. Strange. Maybe it’s just left-over anesthetic from the surgery making me hear things. I test my shoulder gingerly, attempting to rotate it but pain slices through me, silencing my efforts.
“But that’s all over now.” He pats the sling holding my arm in place awkwardly. “You’ll need a bit of time to recover from this.” He chuckles again. “She’s got some fight in her, I’ll give her that. Junior sure knows how to pick them. The bitch has cost me a lot. First Marcel and now you.”
I want to ask about Mia again but too much interest will only be suspicious. “I’ll be back at work in no time.”
The nurse walks in with a doctor in tow. I turn back to Senior as they consult my notes. “Tell Junior thanks from me. He possibly saved my life. I would have been lying there for a long time if he didn’t turn up when he did.”
“No need for thanks. You’re like part of the family, Ryker. We look after our own.”
Until you decide they’re not your own anymore, I want to say, but just grimace a smile instead. Junior had taken his fucking time to call his father. He stood there and just stared at me helpless on the floor for a long time. I could see the thoughts racing through his mind. I know he considered walking away and leaving me and I’m still not sure what made him call his father. Maybe it was because I was so pathetic, lying there on the floor unable to move and he took pity on me. Maybe it was because I agreed never to go near her again. Junior knelt beside me as he said it. I remember watching the blood soak into his pants.
“I see the way you look at her,” he hissed in my ear, getting far closer to me than he would have dared if I was able to move. “She’s mine, do you hear? Mine. Not yours. Not my fucking father’s. Mine. Go near her again and I will make sure she is the one who pays for it.” He stood back up, dark patches from my blood staining his knees. “Blink to show me you understand. Blink to promise you won’t go near her again.”
I blinked, and it was only then that he pulled his phone out of his pocket and called for help.
“How are you feeling, Mr Blake?” The doctor asks, his eyes flicking between me and the clipboard in his hands.
Blake. It’s one of the aliases Senior has on file for me, my real name unknown. The only name I came to him with was Ryker and he’s developed different aliases over the years for me to use. Ryker Blake must be one with medical insurance.
“A bit groggy, if I’m honest, but not too bad, considering.”
“Considering indeed.” The doctor gets out a torch and flashes it in each of my eyes, blinding me until my vision is filled with red dots. “You were rather lucky. The blade almost pierced your spinal cord.” He holds out his hands. “Squeeze,” he orders. “You would have been paralyzed for good instead of temporarily if it had.” I squeeze his fingers and push and pull against his grip. He nods in approval and pulls a pen out of his pocket to scrawl on the notepad. “As it was, we were able to repair the damage and remove the blade successfully with surgery.” He smiles and places the pen back in his pocket. “You’ll need to keep the sling on for at least two weeks and then ensure you take it easy for a few more weeks after that. You’ll also need to attend physio, but I don’t see why you won’t regain full use of your arm.”
I briefly wonder what story Senior made up for the reason I ended up in hospital with a knife stuck in me, but the doctor nods knowingly to Atterton so I know they have some sort of understanding. It’s probably best if I don’t know what.
The nurse wraps a blood pressure band around my good arm and pushes a button on the machine. It starts to inflate.
“When can I get out of here?”
“We’d like to keep you in for a day or two for observation, but I don’t see any reason why you can’t go home in a few days. You’ll need assistance, of course, someone to help you navigate only having the use of one arm, but from a surgical point of view, I anticipate no problems.”
Senior claps the doctor on the back, following him out of the room and speaking in hushed tones. The nurse smiles at me timidly.
“Pain level okay?”
I nod. “Could do with taking a piss though.”
The Velcro rips noisily as she removes the band from my arm. “Shouldn’t be a problem. You’ll just need to pull the drip along with you. The doctor wants your fluids kept up for a while longer yet.”
I wince as I attempt to sit up and the nurse holds the elbow of my good arm to help. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and wait for the dizziness to subside, shaking off her assistance.
“Let me help you,” she offers, but I shake my head and stand, using the pole of the drip for balance.
“I’m fine.” My steps are slow and small but I make my way over to the bathroom, turning only to close the door and find the nurse checking out my bare ass. I can’t help but grin and throw her a wink. Color paints her cheeks and she walks out of the room quickly.
My piss comes out in a flood and I moan with the relief it brings. I stand there, dick in hand, head rolled back, and ignore the tug of pain that jolts down my back.
The light above me flickers on and off annoyingly as I shuffle over to the basin and wash my hands. Staring at my reflection in the mirror, I run my finger over the small cut on my neck thinking back to when Mia held the knife there.
“I won’t do it, Mia. I won’t let you die. I can’t. I’d rather you be with him than dead.”
“This time you’re not the one who gets to choose.”
“You won’t do it. You can’t do it.”
“Let me go.”
“No.”
Fumbling through my belongings on the shelf, I find my cell phone and turn it on. Was it really only yesterday that all that happened. It seems like a lifetime ago.
My right arm is in a sling that drapes around my neck. Tape is wrapped around my middle to hold it in place. I pick at the edge until the tape lifts and then I rip it off and lift the sling over my head, placing it in the basin, holding my arm in the same position it was in the sling. There are bandages over my wound, so I pull them off, eager to see the mess underneath.
A thick red line runs over my shoulder, the skin held together with glue rather than stitches, tearing apart the tattoo that used to be there. The wound is angry and red, and I can’t help admiring Mia’s handiwork. It took a lot of guts to do what she did. And for some sick reason, I like that she’s marked my body.
Senior appears in the doorway. “I haven’t told Everly anything. I thought it best not to worry her.”
“Thanks,” I mutter, pushing past him and returning to the bed. My steps are easier by now, my body already adjusting to the way it needs to move to ensure the least amount of pain.
Senior lifts his arm, checking the time on his watch. “I’ve got to go but I’m pleased you’re doing well. Flick Cameron a message when you get to come home and he’ll come pick you up.” His eyes fall to the exposed scar on my shoulder. “And I’ll call the nurse back in to re-dress that wound.”