Page 2 of See My Words

“Where’s the fucking ambulance?” he screamed, and he looked up into the crowd, enraged to see how many of them were just standing there, filming on their phones. “Tell me somebody called a motherfucking ambulance!”

“Easy, man,” Jerry murmured at his shoulder. “Travis just radioed me that the cops and paramedics are on their way.”

Rylan crouched next to Scott and stroked his temple, his jean-clad legs soaked through with Scott’s blood, and prayed like he’d never prayed before. It seemed like hours but it had to have only been a few minutes until he heard sirens followed by the sound of booted feet running toward them.

He moved back, collapsing down on his ass and watching through his tears as the paramedics and EMTs worked over Scott.

“Probable mandibular fracture,” one of them called to another, who was relaying information to someone through a cell phone. “Patient unconscious and unresponsive. Crepitus, malocclusion appear to be present.” She probed inside his mouth carefully with a gloved finger, her voice clipped and clinical. “There is active intraoral bleeding and edema also present.”

A neck brace was clicked into place before they carefully rolled Scott onto his side and then to his back again on top of a rigid board.

Rylan let out a gasp as the first paramedic, her hands sure and swift, used some sort of blade slipped between Scott’s teeth to ease a breathing tube in. A bag was attached, and another paramedic started to squeeze it rhythmically.

“He can’t breathe?” he choked out, and he felt a strong arm come around his shoulders.

“It sounds like he has a broken jaw,” Chris said. “If so, it’s possible the muscles aren’t strong enough anymore to keep his tongue from blocking his airway. Plus there’s a lot of blood in his mouth. They’ll breathe for him until they make sure he’s breathing okay on his own.”

“You a doctor, man?” Jerry asked, sounding as shaken as Rylan felt, and Chris shrugged.

“No, just a photojournalist who was embedded with a combat unit in Afghanistan for several months. Saw a couple of bullet ricochets to the face. Not enough velocity to kill, but it sure as fuck could mess a guy’s jaw up pretty good.” Rylan and Jerry flinched in unison, and Chris tightened his arm around Rylan, remorse in his tone as he said, “Aww, shit, I’m sorry, guys. I didn’t mean to be so blunt, and that was uncalled for. I know that’s your friend over there.”

They sat in silence for a minute, watching, until Jerry demanded, “What the fuck they doing to him now?”

Chris glanced over. “Stabilizing his jaw with a bandage wrapped around his chin and head. It’s kind of like a splint.”

The paramedics started an IV, and Scott was lifted onto a stretcher and wheeled to the waiting ambulance.

Rylan turned and buried his face against Chris’s bare chest. “Will you drive me to the hospital, please?”

“Of course.” He helped Rylan to his feet. “I’m over this way.”

They followed the ambulance as best they could, and when they reached the emergency room entrance, Chris dropped him off. “I need to run home and get another shirt, and I’ll bring you some sweatpants to change into. Be back in a few, okay?”

Rylan wanted to tell him he didn’t have to come back, that he could handle it, but at the moment, he wasn’t sure he could. Seeing Scott, always so larger than life, now battered and broken, made Rylan feel like he himself could shatter into a million pieces at any moment. If there was any kind of bad news to come, he selfishly didn’t want to be alone.

“Thanks,” he croaked. “I appreciate that.”

Chris nodded before roaring away. Rylan hurried through the doors into the ER, a couple of horrified gasps echoing around him.

“Sir, you okay?” asked a man sitting in one of the rows of plastic chairs, his wide-eyed gaze fixed on Rylan’s legs.

“Not my blood,” he said tersely as he strode to the admitting window. A few minutes later, he was ensconced in a plastic chair of his own, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Wait. Of course he had to wait.

“Rylan, baby!” An unmistakable voice, and Rylan looked up to see Teena—no, there was no trace of Teena in the man who rushed toward him, no sparkly dress or fabulous makeup, no badass attitude or snarky words. Just a friend wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and a terrified expression on his face.

“Hey,” Rylan said, accepting Minh’s fervent hug with gratitude. “There’s no word,” he said, forestalling the anxious questions he could see welling up on Minh’s lips. “I’ve asked a couple of times, and the receptionist lady won’t tell me anything.”

“Well, I’ll get that bitch to tell me some-mahfuckin’-thing,” Minh snarled, and before Rylan could stop him, he’d headed toward the admitting window. Some loud words and wild gesticulations later, Minh slunk back, looking abashed.

“That lady don’t give no fucks,” he muttered, and Rylan huffed out a mirthless laugh.

“Yeah, I’m sure she’s used to shutting down hysterical people in her waiting room,” he said drily. “Which is why I’m just sitting here staring at nothing!” His voice rose in spite of himself, and Minh slid an arm around his shoulders.

“Hush now,” he soothed. “Scotty’s tough, and that man been through way worse things than a lil’ ol’ punch to the face.” His tone held a determined cheerfulness, and Rylan heaved a ragged sigh just as Minh dropped his arm and sat back, his eyes narrowed.

“Y’all way more to each other than just ‘old friends,’” he said, “which is all Scotty will tell me about you.”

Rylan stood and stretched, wincing as his lower back and ass protested the hard plastic they’d been subjected to for the last half hour. “Would you believe we’re stepbrothers? His mom married my dad when we were teenagers.”