Hitman vs Hitman - L.A. Witt Page 0,90

was pissed off.

But August sounded more worried than put out, and Ricardo didn’t like that at all.

The pressure on the wound intensified.

More voices. He couldn’t make out words, but the steadily increasing panic was impossible to miss. Everything else, though… Everything was fading out.

“Ricardo.” The woman spoke sharply and patted his face. “Come on. Open your eyes.”

“Listen to her, Ricardo.” August sounded so, so far away. “Is he opening his eyes? Tell me he’s awake.”

“Come on, Ricardo. Come on. Stay with me.”

“Augustus.” The man’s voice again, and now he sounded scared. “Step on it.”

August said something.

But Ricardo didn’t hear it.

He wasn’t moving anymore. That much he knew. Everything hurt, but the pain was muted somehow. Still there, still throbbing and glowing, but not burning as hot as it had been…whenever he’d last been aware of it.

His mouth tasted foul. His left arm was pinned to his side. His right hand could move, but not much. Something was blowing cold air into his nose and—

Oh Goddammit. I’m in a hospital, aren’t I?

He opened his eyes a tiny slit, and the light wasn’t too blinding, so he cautiously opened them all the way. Or, well, partway. His eyes didn’t want to focus any more than his brain did, but he took in enough to confirm what the plastic cold air blasty thing had already told him. Yep. Definitely a hospital room.

With a sigh, he let his eyes slide closed, relieved he didn’t have to exert the effort to keep them open anymore.

He might’ve fallen asleep. It was hard to tell. At some point, though, his head was clearer and opening his eyes didn’t take quite so much effort. He took in more of his surroundings. From the number of monitors hovering beside his bed, he must’ve been in the ICU. That probably had something to do with the relentless pain in his side, which had definitely brightened from an intense ache to something that made his eyes water. The rest of his body hurt too, he thought. Like toenails and all. That was probably just sympathy pain or some shit. Except hadn’t he done a rolling fall out of a moving vehicle, like, last week? Or was that today? Had he dreamed that?

And the pain behind his shoulder was not sympathy pain. That was its own pain. What the fuck had he done to his shoulder? Was that from rolling out of the van? No, his body armor had protected him from—

“D’d you just…use me…as a…shield?”

“It’s not like I’m wearing body armor.”

Suddenly Ricardo was wide awake and his thoughts were crystal clear. August. Where the fuck was August? He looked around the room. There were a couple of chairs beside the bed, but they were empty.

“August?” he called out, as if the fucker might be waiting in the hallway to make a dramatic entrance, complete with a smarmy, “Well, well, well, look who’s awake!” that would make Ricardo want to choke him with his oxygen line. But he didn’t come into the room.

A nurse, however, stepped in. “Oh, look who’s awake!”

Ricardo closed his eyes and groaned. Her perky delivery of the line was ten times more annoying than it would’ve been coming from August, largely because it meant that August wasn’t here.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Like shit.”

“Mmhmm, that’s not a surprise. How’s the pain? On a scale of—”

“August.”

“What?”

“August.” He had to fight to open his eyes again. “Is he here?” Maybe he just went to get a cup of coffee or something. Maybe he just had characteristically annoying timing, and there was still a chance he’d come strolling in and say—

“Who’s August?” The nurse looked puzzled.

“Who’s…” Ricardo sighed. Damn. He wasn’t here.

The nurse continued asking him questions about his pain, which he answered truthfully: he felt shittier than he’d ever felt and really wanted some goddamned pain meds, ideally the good stuff. No, the really good stuff.

“How fucked up am I, anyway?”

She pursed her lips, and it occurred to him she might not appreciate his language. And usually he tried to be courteous and read the room. His mother hadn’t raised him to be a caveman, after all. But he hurt all over, August wasn’t here, and he was short on drugs, so he didn’t put a lot of effort into prettying up what came out of his mouth.

“Dr. Simmons will be along shortly,” she said. “She’s making her rounds right now, and she’ll fill you in.” The nurse watched herself inject something into the IV line, which he sincerely hoped