Sacrifice

A hospital. He was in a hospital.

His brain didn’t want to work. How—when—?

He lifted a hand to rub his eyes—but his arm hit resistance.

He tried again, and this time he heard the rattle of metal against plastic. He jerked hard and blinked his eyes before he figured out what was going on.

Handcuffs chained his right hand to the bed rail.

His heart rate tripled, making the beeping behind him accelerate. Every muscle in his upper body protested, but he forced himself upright. His chest felt as if it might cave in. More metal clinked and rattled.

His ankles were chained.

Now he was fully awake. He jerked at the handcuffs again, as if maybe he’d been wrong, and this time there’d be nothing there. His head pounded, keeping pace with his pulse. Breath rattled in his chest, every inhale like a stab through the heart.

If he was here, where were his brothers? Who had chained him to the bed? He didn’t even know which hospital this was. The décor revealed nothing more than careful neutral blends of beige and pink.

The door stood partly ajar, and aside from a few people dressed in white passing by outside, he couldn’t see anyone. A good thing or a bad thing? He didn’t like this. He needed to be out of here.

“Hey,” he called out. Speech forced a cough from his throat, and he almost doubled over from the sudden pain. He gasped and tried again. “Hey!”

The door swung open, and a policeman peered into the room.

Michael blinked in surprise. He’d expected a nurse or an orderly.

Then his brain caught up. Nurses didn’t use handcuffs.

The man didn’t seem much older than Michael himself—but he looked fierce and determined, like he enjoyed his job a little too much. His hand actually rested on the butt of his gun.

“You’re awake,” he said. “I’ll let them know.” Then he pulled the door almost all the way closed. Michael could hear him murmuring to someone—or maybe into a radio.

Handcuffs. A cop. He was being guarded.

What happened?

“Hey!” he called again. His voice sounded thin and reedy, and his entire rib cage really wanted him to lie back down.

The door swung open again. “Calm down. They’ll be up in a while.”

“Who?” Michael paused for breath. It took him a minute. “Why am I chained to this bed?”

The officer snorted and began to pull the door closed again. “Because we don’t usually let bombing suspects wander free. Go figure.”

“Hey. Hey!” Michael yanked at the chain restraining him to the bed rail. It felt as if his chest were being pulled apart from the inside. His muscles finally rebelled, and he collapsed back into the bed.

Bombing suspect.

Did that mean he’d been arrested? If he healed, would he be taken to jail? He couldn’t catch his breath at all. His shirt felt too tight, like someone had grabbed hold and started twisting the fabric at the center of his back.

Then he realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt. His chest was wrapped in bandages.

The door opened, and Michael gritted his teeth, ready to let loose on the policeman. But no, this was a nurse with a tiny cart. The officer followed her in and stood at the foot of the bed.

He looked like he was hoping he’d get a chance to draw his weapon.

The nurse—whose name tag read ELISSA—pulled a blood pressure cuff off the cart. She wore no makeup and her skin was barely lined, but there were traces of grey in her blond hair. Her movements were sure and confident. “Good morning,” she said, as if she treated patients in handcuffs every day.

“We’ve been waiting for you to wake up.” She pushed a few buttons on the monitor at the top of the cart, then reached for Michael’s restrained arm. “May I get your blood pressure?”

“I didn’t set any bombs,” he said darkly, his eyes on the cop.

“I didn’t say you did,” the nurse said equably. She pulled the nylon cuff around his bicep and fastened the Velcro, then pushed a button on the machine to make it inflate.

Then she frowned and leaned closer. She pulled the sheet down, exposing the bandages around his chest. “We’ll need to redo your dressing.”

“He’s fine,” said the police officer.

“You can do your job and I can do mine,” she said. “I need to check the stitches.”

“Stitches?” said Michael.

She pulled a pair of latex gloves out of a little box on the cart. “Do you remember what happened?”

“I remember the restaurant. People were hurt.” He glanced between her and the policeman. He remembered Tyler and the steel beam. He remembered exchanging texts with Hannah. He remembered finding people alive—and dead.

The blood pressure machine beeped and the cuff deflated. The nurse ripped the Velcro free. “You took four bullets.”

Michael stared at her. His brain didn’t want to process this information, and all he could say was, “I did what?”

“You were lucky. Only one needed to be removed.” She gestured. “Your shoulder. The others glanced off your rib cage.”

Only one needed to be removed. But he’d been shot four times?

She peeled at the edge of the bandaging. “I was going to yell at you for pulling your stitches loose, but these look great. You kids always heal fast.”

His voice was tired. “I’m not a kid.”

She chuckled. “One day, you’ll wish someone was calling you a kid.”

Michael hoped he’d live long enough for that to be true.

Then he realized what she’d said about healing. “How long have I been here?”

Her eyes flicked up to his. “Almost twenty-four hours.”

A day! He glanced at the dim light peeking through the window blinds. It must be evening. The machine behind him kicked up its rhythm again. Michael swallowed. “My brothers. Do you know if my brothers are okay?”

“They’re fine.” A male voice spoke from the doorway, but Michael couldn’t see past the nurse or the police officer. Then Hannah’s father stepped into his line of sight. He carried a cup of coffee, and he looked about as worn and weary as Michael felt.

Then again, he was walking around unhindered, not chained to a bed with a bullet wound in his shoulder.

Marshal Faulkner clapped the police officer on the shoulder. “Thanks, Tony. You can take a break.” He glanced at the nurse, then pulled a plastic chair away from the wall to sit down beside the bed.

Michael didn’t want to look at him. He gritted his teeth as Elissa changed the gauze.

“Feel up to answering a few questions?” the fire marshal finally said.

“I want to see my brothers.”

“Prisoners don’t get visitors,” he said.

Michael turned his head to glare. He tried to force as much fury into his voice as possible—because that was infinitely better than breaking down sobbing. “I shouldn’t be a prisoner. I didn’t do anything.” His breath caught and he winced.

“Take it easy,” said the nurse. She glanced at the fire marshal and gave him a stern look. “Not too much questioning. He just woke up.”

Michael expected him to say something to put her in her place, but the marshal just nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

Then she was gone, wheeling the little cart beside her.

Michael stared at the ceiling. His throat felt tight. Maybe it was the fire marshal sitting here waiting to question him, or maybe it was the fact that Jack Faulkner was Hannah’s father, but there was something extra-humiliating about being chained to a hospital bed, waiting for his fate.

He remembered the weeks after his parents were gone, how it had seemed he couldn’t get through forty-eight hours without a social worker or a police officer or an attorney at his front door. He hadn’t trusted any of them then, and he didn’t trust Marshal Faulkner now. Then, he would have given anything for one of them to step in and tell him everything would be okay, that he could handle it if he’d just be patient with himself and let the right answers come to him.

Now, he knew it was up to him alone. He could get out of this if he kept the upper hand, if he didn’t let emotion overrun his actions.

When he was sure his voice wouldn’t crack and his eyes would stay dry, Michael said, “So I’m under arrest?”

The fire marshal sighed and rubbed at his eyes. “Maybe, Mike. I don’t know.”

That wasn’t the answer he’d expected. Michael turned his head. “What does that mean?”

“It means I’ll uncuff you, but I need you to be really honest with me.”

“Fine.”

The marshal unlocked the handcuffs first, and Michael felt his tension drop a few notches, just knowing he wasn’t chained to this bed. The ankle chains were next. Everything rattled against the tile floor where the marshal dropped them.

Then the man straightened. “Did you start the fire at your house?”

“No.”

“Did any of your brothers?”

“No.”

“Did you plant a bomb at the Roadhouse?”

“No.”

“Do you know who shot you?”

“No.” He remembered the flash of the phone’s camera, seeing the edge of a face and some sandy-colored hair. It wasn’t even his own phone, so he’d never be able to go back to it. A Guide? A cop? He had no idea. Still, it was something to offer.

“Someone was in the wreckage. He was looking down at me. As soon as I saw him, he was shooting.”

The fire marshal looked interested at that. “Could you give me a description?”

“I only saw him for a second. Less than a second.”

“But it was definitely a man?” Jack pulled out a notepad and a pen.

Michael thought. He’d assumed man, but really, his memories weren’t even clear enough to confirm that much. “Maybe. I’m not one hundred percent sure.”

“Race? Hair color? Height? Anything?”

Michael closed his eyes and tried to remember. All his thoughts would supply was a flash of movement, and then the sound of the gun firing. “Sandy hair. I don’t know.” He opened his eyes. “I don’t know what happened to the second phone I used, but I might have caught him—or her—in one of the pictures.”

Another quick note on the pad. “Why were you at the restaurant at all?”

Michael froze. His brain wasn’t organized enough to lie, but he could go with the same story he’d given everyone else. “I was meeting someone about a job.”

“Your brothers told an officer that, too. You know who didn’t say that? Every single witness from the restaurant that I could question. They said you walked in and picked a fight with Tyler Morgan.”

Michael fought to keep his voice even. “I didn’t know Tyler would be there. The guy I was meeting never showed up. I thought—”

He stopped short. He’d almost said, I thought Tyler had set me up.

But that would lead to more questions.

“You thought what?”

Like that one. Michael shook his head. “Nothing. It’s nothing. I didn’t know he’d be there. I was supposed to meet someone else.”

“Okay, give me a name.”

Michael turned to stare at the ceiling again. “I don’t remember.”

The fire marshal pulled a plastic bag out of his pocket and held it up. “Maybe you should check your text messages.”

Michael whipped his head around. His vision spun for a moment, and he had to blink.

His cell phone was hanging in a plastic baggie marked Evidence.

All he had to do was meet Marshal Falkner’s eyes to know that his text messages had already been reviewed.

Michael had no idea what to say.

“You know what we found, don’t you?” said the marshal.