Page 22 of Tied Over

“I can,” Crouse told him, and shot out his kneecap. “But I won’t.”

Petrov screamed in agony, and Crouse limped back over to me, moved the other chair, and took a seat beside me.

“You should have shot him with something not yours,” I said, having trouble forming thoughts.

“His word over mine. Are you going to back him up or me?”

I grunted.

“I should have thrown him over the side.”

“Very Untouchables,” I said, chuckling. “Very Nitti is in the car.”

He groaned loudly. “Don’t make me laugh. Everything hurts.”

“Yeah,” I said with a long sigh.

“Oh, Jed,” he gasped as I slid off the chair to the ground. “We shouldn’t have—”

“Federal marshals! On your knees!”

“Don’t shoot,” Crouse called out. He raised his hands, seeing no point in getting shot after surviving a damn firefight. “I’m FBI.”

Petrov was still shrieking, and then I felt a warm hand on my forehead and another on my side. I tried to open my eyes, but I was done.

“Jed,” Wes said sharply. “Open your eyes and fuckin’ look at me right fuckin’ now.”

I had to listen to him, but I could only manage squinting up at him, and he forced a smile.

“Say you understand. Stay here.”

He meant stay as in don’t die. “Yeah,” I murmured and closed my eyes.

“I need the EMTs up here now!”

There was scrambling and movement, but I was cold, my body so heavy.

“It’s clear! We’re all clear! Get someone in here!”

And I really tried to stay awake, but the spinning was too much, and because throwing up would be bad, I passed out instead.

FOUR

Blood loss is one of those tricky things. Most of the time, the injury itself is not that bad, it’s what you do after you take the bullet or knife wound that determines whether you live or die. Basically, it’s the blood loss that will kill you. So it wasn’t that the bullet to my side tore through vital organs. It actually went right through me, in and out. The problem was, I didn’t lie there and put a compress on the injury, both sides, front and back, but instead I got up and walked around, not trying to stop the bleeding in any way. In the end, it was the moving that very nearly killed me.

When I woke up in the hospital, Bodhi was asleep in the recliner beside my bed. He looked terrible. There were dark circles under his eyes, his hair was a mess, his clothes were the same ones he’d been in the last time I saw him, and his shoes were off. I was going to wake him up and tell him to go home, but the nurse who came in shook her head slowly, so I kept my mouth shut. She smiled when I nodded, poured me some water, then lifted the tumbler with the straw in it to my lips. I was only allowed a couple of sips before she moved it, shot something into my IV, and told me to rest. I was out like a light.

The second time I woke up, Bodhi was in the same recliner but now in old, threadbare jeans, a pale-blue crew-neck T-shirt, and an unzipped gray hoodie I was pretty certain belonged to me. He was typing on his government-issue laptop, and I could see that he was working on a report. I knew the form well, the million boxes and the tabbing he was doing.

“Hey,” I whispered, and he jolted, almost throwing the computer off his lap.

“Shit, Jed,” he grumbled, getting up.

“Sorry,” I said, chuckling and regretting it instantly. “Ow, ow. Fuck.”

Moving to my bedside, he leaned over and put a hand in my hair, pushing it back from my face, and stared down at me. “You scared the shit out of me.”

He spoke softly, and because of that I could hear the depth of pain in every syllable. The way his jaw clenched, how red-rimmed his eyes were…my misadventure had been painful for me but had gutted him. I said the only thing I could. “I’m sorry,” I ground out.