Chapter Seven

On Monday, nine whole days after the shooting, the police dropped by Jordan’s hospital room to take his official statement. It wasn’t like there was really anything left to wrap up about the case, but apparently it was just standard procedure for everyone who came into direct contact with the gunman. There were two of them, Officer Coyle and Officer Lang. Both burly white men in their mid-thirties. They didn’t have any specific questions for him, they basically just wanted his version of events from that day for their records.

So, Jordan went through the whole afternoon, reliving the nightmare and telling them everything he could remember. He told them about the Santa crowd and how they’d been left out on the floor when all the stores had been ordered to go into lockdown mode. He told them about how he’d kept a key to Bobby Lee’s on him for his night shift and how he’d herded everyone there. Their eyes became more and more glazed with every passing second. They didn’t believe him. That much was instantly clear.

Up until that point he had been planning to ask them if they knew anything about Lucy but seeing their skepticism over the rest of the story, he decided to make something up about getting cornered and shot just so he could get them out of there as soon as possible.

“Thank you for your time Mr. Mitchell,” said Coyle. “Feel free to call the station if you have any more...factual information to report.”

With that, the man looked Jordan up and down distastefully and followed his partner out of the room.

Jordan hated to be a racially fueled stereotype, but man, cops were the worst. They’d been looking at him as if he couldn’t possibly have a heroic bone in his body. He didn’t really consider himself a prideful person, but their disregard for him stung more than he would have liked to admit.

As he laid back down and tried to cool off, his phone started ringing, startling him. He glanced down at the screen and saw that it was his landlord calling. That certainly didn’t do his frayed nerves any favors. Jordan clenched his jaw and stared up at the Christmas lights above his bed until they blurred into indistinguishable blobs of color. Finally, on the very last ring, he pressed the pad of his thumb down on the green button and accepted the call.

“Hello?” he said as evenly as he could manage.

“Well, well, well,” said Chad on the other end of the line. There were voices and the whooshing of wind in the background. It sounded as though he was out and about, briskly moving through a crowd. “If it isn’t Jordan Mitchell himself. Just the tenant I was hoping to reach.”

Jordan worked his jaw.

“What do you want Chad?”

Chad had the nerve to actually tsk at him like a misbehaving child.

“Hey man,” he said. “Don’t come at me when you’re the one who’s rent is three days late.”

Jordan sat up so abruptly that his stitches tugged, and he doubled over in pain.

“No,” he croaked. He’d been paying close attention to the date while locked up in medical jail and he knew for a fact that his rent wasn’t due for another week. “I always pay on the tenth of the month.”

“You used to pay on the tenth of the month, but now you’ve gotta pay on the first just like everyone else. I haven’t been able to get ahold of you, so I slipped a note under your door.”

Jordan felt his face getting hot and struggled to keep his breathing even.

“I didn’t get the note Chad. I haven’t been home in over a week.”

“Hey man,” Chad said, voice dripping with condescension. “What you do in your free time isn’t any of my business. I just need my money. Like right now.”

Jordan ran his fingers down the length of his jaw, feeling the stubble there. He knew there was no use arguing with Chad. The dude had like, no scruples whatsoever, but that didn’t stop Jordan from pleading his case.

“I don’t have any money right now Chad. I’ve been in the hospital for the last ten days. I had to have emergency surgery.”

Chad scoffed.

“Yeah. Likely fucking story. Next you’re gonna tell me you were shot at Northgate.”

“I was shot at Northgate!” Jordan shouted. He could feel the vein throbbing in his neck. “That’s why I’m in the hospital.”

“Woooow dude. That’s really fucking disrespectful.”

Jordan wanted to throw his phone across the room and watch it shatter into a million expensive pieces.

“I’m not lying Chad. Why would anybody ever lie about something like that?”

There was the distinct sound of Chad taking a puff from his vape pen and blowing the smoke into the microphone.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he mused. “Maybe some low life like you who can’t pay his rent on time?”

Jordan wanted to tell him off so badly. He wanted to grab one of his doctors and make them explain. He wanted to post a million pictures of his x-rays and bruises and scars on the internet and tag Chad in every single one of them. He wanted to go on and on about how entitled, self-righteous people like him made him sick until his throat could no longer make a single sound, but he didn’t get the chance.

“I’ll give you until tomorrow,” Chad said. “But if I don’t have the money by then, consider this an eviction notice.”

“Chad wait,” Jordan pleaded, hating himself for allowing desperation to win out over his hatred. It didn’t even matter in the end though. Chad had already hung up.

Jordan put down the phone very carefully and pressed his clenched fists into his eye sockets. He had no idea what he was going to do. It was his worst nightmare. Everything he’d worked so hard to build was crumbling down before his eyes and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He was stuck in a downward spiral and things kept getting worse by the day. It wasn’t enough to have to recover from a gunshot wound all on his own. Now he was going to be released from the hospital and have no place to go home to.

He was as good as homeless. He’d have to work all day and then find a park bench to sleep on and hope that he didn’t freeze to death. Or maybe he could stay up all night and really make the most of his breaktime naps at the furniture store; this is, assuming it was still open and that he was still employed there. He honestly had no idea.

He briefly toyed with the idea of finding somebody to crash with for a couple of months, but he really didn’t have any good options. There was his freshman roommate, Donny, but they hadn’t spoken in years and Jordan didn’t think he’d take kindly to the out of the blue distress call. Even if he let go of his pride enough to call Maddie, she was out of town with Marcos. And that left his uncle, who had given up his place and sold most of his things in order to move into the treatment center.

Maybe there’s a shelter I could stay at, he thought to himself. The idea seemed almost ridiculous, but that’s what homeless shelters were there for, right? People who had nowhere else to go. Besides, it would only have to be for a few hours each night. Just long enough for him to sleep between shifts. It would have to be within walking distance of work though. He was in no shape for a long commute through the brutal winter cold. He stopped chewing on his fingernail long enough to grab his phone and start looking it up.

He was so absorbed in the task that he nearly jumped out of his skin when there was a loud knock on the door. Jordan’s broken ribs sent a jolt of white hot pain all up and down his torso. He hissed and grabbed at his sternum, fighting the urge to double over, knowing that doing so would only cause him more pain.

“Come in,” he hissed through clenched teeth. 

Mark the nurse entered and looked down at Jordan with a raised brow.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

Jordan took a deep breath and nodded.

“Yeah, I just sat up too fast. Did you need something?”

“You’ve got a visitor. Just wanted to check if you were in here and make sure you were up for company.”

“A visitor?” Jordan asked incredulously. Who on earth could it be? Someone from work maybe? But he didn’t know any of their names. His school friends didn’t know he was here, nor did anyone from his previous job. The police had just left less than an hour ago and surely Chad couldn’t have gotten here that fast even if he did believe Jordan’s story.

Mark gave him a tiny half smirk.

“I know,” he said. “I was surprised too. Should I send him up, or nah?”

“I guess,” Jordan said.

Mark nodded and promptly left with a promise to return in a couple of hours with dinner.

Jordan sat up straighter and checked out his reflection using his blank phone screen. He looked rumpled and sickly, but there really wasn’t much he could do to fix that. Not in the five minutes it would take someone to walk from the front desk to his room. Still, he rubbed at his stubble in order to make it look purposeful and adjusted the collar of his t-shirt. He was extremely grateful to not be wearing a hospital gown right now.

After a few minutes went by, there was another knock on the door, this one much less forceful than Mark’s. In fact, the knock seemed downright timid. Weirdly nervous for some reason, Jordan carefully slid off the bed and shuffled five feet over to the door. When he opened it, he was greeted by a tall white man with icy blue eyes and light brown hair that defied gravity, sloping upward and to the left in a perfect textured coiffe. His features were soft, but his jawline sharp in the way that most people would immediately find handsome. He had overly large hands and ears, almost as if he’d never quite grown into them. That, combined with his flighty eyes and fidgeting limbs, made him seem awkward and childlike despite the fact that he had visible wrinkles and smile lines on his cheeks and forehead. The way the harsh fluorescents out in the hall were backlighting him, gave him sort of an ethereal presence.

“Uh, can I help you?” Jordan asked after a few long moments of silence.

The other man blinked and shook his head a bit, as if he’d just now realized where he was and what he was meant to be doing.

“Right, sorry,” he began. His voice was smooth and buttery. Like an actor or sports broadcaster. Someone who was hard not to listen to. “Hi, I’m Noah Andrews. You don’t know me, but you saved my daughter’s life.”