my mind.
“DROP THE WEAPON!”
The light of rationality faded to black, and I felt my hand begin downward.
I only remember three things after that: a bright flash, a loud explosion, and the feeling that my chest had just caved in.
CHAPTER 39:
The first thing I did was cough.
The second thing I did was groan.
The third thing I did was open my eyes.
When my vision started to clear, I could see that there was a white ceiling above me-but not too far above. At least that is how it looked. My depth perception seemed to be a bit off for some odd reason.
There was something resembling artificial light filtering in to aid my sight, which was a far cry better than darkness. Why darkness stuck out in my mind I didn’t know, but I didn’t need to give it much thought to decide that I preferred the light.
There was a lot of noise too. Things like distant voices and staticky radios. I picked out the rumble of a motor and even a few electronic sounding beeps. There were countless other things, both identifiable and not, but I very quickly grew tired of trying to associate names with them.
Everything in my head was a jumbled blur. I had no idea where I was or why. There wasn’t an inch of my body that wasn’t killing me, but at the moment the real pain seemed to be centered on my chest. Just the very sensation told me that I had been hit by something, but I couldn’t begin to say what. I knew what it felt like, and that was a freight train; but since I appeared to still be in one piece, I decided that might be an exaggeration on my part.
I lay there for a moment trying to remember. There seemed to be something important stuck in the back of my head, and it was fighting a desperate struggle to be released from its holding cell. It felt like an imperative, something urgent, but I couldn’t connect with it and that just brought on a feeling of frustration.
“Hurts like a motherfucker, don’t it, paleface?” Ben’s words worked their way into my ears over the multitude of ambient sounds.
I rolled my head in the direction of his voice and blinked, then I blinked again. When I was still unable to focus, it dawned on me that I wasn’t wearing my glasses. Somewhere in the dark ball of memories that was bouncing around inside my head, I seemed to recall having lost them. But at the same time, I remembered having another pair. The attempt at reasoning just made me hurt even more, so I gave up and centered on his blurry face.
“What?” I croaked.
He started to repeat himself. “I said, hurts like a motherfu…”
“Yeah,” I eked out the gravelly word to cut him off. “I got that.” I cleared my throat and coughed again before continuing. “What hit me?”
“Piece of lead,” he said. He held up his hand, thumb and forefinger spread slightly apart, then added, “About so big, actually. But it was movin’ pretty fast.”
“Porter shot me?” I asked.
“No, not Porter.”
“YOU shot me?!” I half yelped then immediately regretted it.
“Hell no,” he returned. “SWAT did it. If I’d shot you I probably woulda aimed for your goddamned hard head.”
“They shot me?” I muttered.
“Hey, look at it this way, white man,” he offered. “You just joined an elite club. That friggin’ vest you were wearin’ saved your ass.”
“But they shot me,” I said again, confusion permeating my voice. “Why?”
“Row, what the hell? You got amnesia or somethin’? They didn’t have much choice. You were gettin' ready to stab Porter to death with a big ass butcher knife. Don’tcha remember?”
His words triggered the mechanism that released the lock on the cell door, opening it wide to allow the urgent memories of the evening to flood back in. Everything rushed to the front of my brain and then vied for my undivided attention. One item stood out from all the others, and I seized on it immediately.
“Star?” I asked. “How’s Star? Is she okay?”
My friend stayed conspicuously silent and simply looked away.
My brain was adjusting to the blurry picture being fed to it by my uncorrected vision, and I watched as he brought his left hand up to smooth back his hair then massage his neck.
“Let’s talk about that later,” he said.
“Tell me she’s okay, Ben,” I insisted.
He hung his head down and continued to work his fingers against a muscle in his neck. His only audible answer was a heavy sigh.
The stark memory of the wet sound just before Porter and I crashed through the floor returned to echo in my ears. The phantom odor of urine and feces sharply tingled my nose, and I instantly realized I had been standing next to Star when she had died.
I wanted to cry, but my body refused. It had nothing left to give. Not now, anyway.
“They should have let me kill the sonofabitch,” I muttered.
“I’m sorry, Row,” he returned quietly.
“At least tell me they shot him too,” I said, my voice a mixture of pleading and demanding.
“No,” he shook his head as he uttered the word. “He’s already been transported to the hospital.”
“Critical?”
“No. He’s worse off than you,” he replied, “but not critical. He’ll make it.”
“Too fucking bad,” I said.
“He’s off the street, Row,” he offered. “It’s over.”
“Yeah. Tell that to Randy and Star.”
“Row…” he let his voice trail off.
“What happens now?” I asked.
“Whaddaya mean,” he replied with a shrug. “We’re sittin’ here in the back of an ambulance. They’ll be takin’ you to the hospital in just a few.”
“So that’s where we are,” I said.
“Man, what did they dope you up with?”
“The way I hurt? Nothing.”
“The way you sound? Something,” he replied.
“So which one?”
“Which one what?”
“Which hospital?”
“Oh, yeah. I already asked ‘em to transport you to University.” He picked up on where he thought my mind was going. “Felicity will be waitin’ for ya’.”
“Where did they take Porter?” I asked.
“Not there, so don’t worry.”
“Where then?”
He shook his head. “No way, Row.”
“So maybe I’m just curious,” I returned.
“Uh-huh, yeah, sure,” he grunted. “I know better. You ever hear the term ‘malice aforethought’? How about ‘premeditation’?”
I stewed in silence for a moment.
“You know, this is gettin' to be a pattern with you,” he announced. “This is the second person you’ve tried to
