Page 81 of Thin Lives

The Irish?

He couldn’t see a face, he was too focused on the hand holding the gun that was pointed straight at him through the back windows.

Bullets shattered the back window as Calisto hit the gas. He didn’t make the sharp turn at the end of the alley that would lead him out the other side. He’d been too focused on the person still shooting at him.

He didn’t even see that brick wall coming …

Calisto

At first there was light.

Clear and streaming through his lids.

Waking him up.

Calisto, stiff in his arms and neck, pushed himself up from whatever he had been slumped over. A steering wheel.

Then there was pain.

Radiating and sharp.

It started in his neck, traveled through his upper torso and limbs, and straight down his back. He sucked in a harsh gulp of air and then let out a groan, his fingers tightening around the steering wheel as he tried to ride the waves of pain to a more manageable state.

It didn’t help all that much.

As much as he blinked and stared around, he couldn’t quite make out what was wrong or where he was. The blurred vision probably didn’t help any, and neither did the pounding headache making him cringe and wince with each and every movement.

Then, when he did wince, a stinging pain seared through his cheek.

Calisto smacked his mouth, feeling the dryness there. He reached up with his right hand, patted his cheek, and hissed, pulling his fingers away just as fast at the sensation of pain that followed the action. Thick, red liquid covered his fingertips.

For a long while, he just stared at his fingers, trying to figure out what that red shit was. His gaze traveled from his fingers to the broken windshield in front of him, and the tufts of smoke coming out of the smashed front end of his SUV, to the brick wall that was also spattered lightly with red. He could hear the hissing and pops of the engine, and he could see the long crack his vehicle had made in the brick wall when it hit it.

Damn, how hard had he hit it?

Calisto blinked again.

And again.

With shaking hands, and a dizziness making him sick to his stomach, he grabbed the rear-view mirror and twisted it downward. The red made sense when he could see the ugly, two inch long gash on his cheek that was bleeding a little too much for his liking.

It was only then that he noticed the right side of his jacket was soaked in the blood from the wound.

Fuck.

That was going to need stitches.

More than anything, Calisto needed clarity in his mind, but the more he tried to get the blurriness from his vision and clear the haziness from his mind, the worse it all became and the sicker he felt.

Concussion?

Likely.

Calisto decided to take it all in one thing at a time and he would go from there. The most obvious thing was the brick wall he’d obviously driven into. And while his windshield was broken, the glass was scattered across the hood, like it had been broken from the inside. That didn’t explain his cheek, or why his back window was broken.

Another pop from the engine answered a hiss, and Calisto decided he should probably get the fuck out of the SUV just in case that gray smoke meant something bad was about to happen.

You’re not usually this slow on the ball, he thought.