30. Ranger

[ 30 ]

RANGER

I woke up alone, to an invisible cunt performing a violent Heimlich manoeuvre to my gut.

The force of it wrenched me sideways, my body heaving, a rising sensation blocking my throat, acid filling my mouth, choking me. But my body still hadn’t figured out how to puke. All it gave me was pain. No relief, and I fell onto my back again, lights flashing in my screwed-shut eyes, agony pounding in my skull, like I’d been dropped down the trapdoor to hell.

Maybe I had nothing inside me to give. Maybe . . .

I couldn’t finish the thought. It spun me out too much, the pain in my head too brutal to bear, and the sudden light that flooded wherever the fuck I was nearly finished me off.

Strong hands grabbed me. Familiar hands. Too far gone to figure out who the fuck he was, I took comfort in his voice.

“Easy. I’ve got you.”

The world turned upside down. I left whatever cave I’d woken up in and more light hit me, searing my nerves, even through my closed eyes.

“I know, brother. I know. I’m so fucking sorry.”

I think I passed out. I came round on a hospital bed, needles being jabbed in me, the brightest light I’d ever fucking seen being aimed right at my eyeballs.

Did not recognise the sound that tore from me. Or the apocalypse that happened in my gut as it finally, after twenty-nine fucking years, gave up and let me puke.

Shitting hell. It hurt. A lot. Everywhere from my belly to my brain. I was dying, I had to be.

Think I passed out again. Voices kept me company, but none of them were Viktor’s, so I didn’t pay much attention.

“Ranger.”

Nope.

“Ranger.”

My eyes opened against my will. Cam loomed over me, blocking the worst of the light, his face and clothes covered in mud and blood.

Viktor.

“He’s fine, but I need you to listen to me, okay?”

I tried, but I felt like I’d drunk eight bottles of Mad Dog, and total fucking madness drove me to try and sit up.

Viktor.

“He’s fine.” Cam caught me, keeping me on the bed. “I promise. But he won’t be if you fucking die on me, and neither will I. Work with me, brother. I don’t need another mad Russian wanting to kill me.”

Viktor.

But the fight in me expired, eclipsed by cold sweat and sickness, the ringing in my ears, and dizziness that hit so hard I rocked back from it, almost careening off the other side of the bed.

“Ranger.” Cam anchored me with his bulk. “Listen, okay? You took a hit to your head and I need to know how bad it is before I risk taking you to a real hospital.”

His words came out in coherent sentences, but by the time they reached me I had no clue what they meant.

Cam tried again. “They’re going to scan your brain and give you something for the pain, and you need to let them, okay? So I can get you out of here and somewhere safer.”

I had no idea where here was. Rising nausea overcame me and I puked over the side of the bed.

Everything after was a blur. Cam’s voice. Someone else’s. More needle pricks in my arm, and then a careening oblivion that wasn’t much better than the muted agony squeezing my skull.

The next time I opened my eyes, Cam was still there, holding my fucking hand and leaning over me. “You with me?”

My tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. He brought a cup to my lips, skewering me with a paternal gaze that made me feel like crying.

Or maybe I did cry. After I upchucked on him again. This puking shite was wild.

Don’t like it.

Cam cleaned me up, but urgency flared behind his kindness, and somehow I saw it and reeled myself in enough to listen as he gave me the good news. “Your brain’s fine. No bleeding. You have a hardcore concussion, and you need to lie the fuck down and stay there for a month, but you can’t do that here. We need to leave the area in case the others haven’t got shit done in time to avoid the feds.”

The others.

Viktor.

“He’s fine.” Cam read me. “At least he was when I left him, apart from being scared as shit for you. But we need to get out of here, and that means a long drive while your brain feels like it’s bouncing around your skull. It’s gonna hurt, brother, and I’m so fucking sorry about that.”

I’m so fucking sorry. He’d said that already, I was sure of it. But more than that, I had nothing beyond the fact that I trusted him. If Cam said we needed to go, I was right there with him.

In theory.

In reality, I should’ve heeded him more when he’d warned me how much this shit was going to hurt.

He got me in the van, propped up on the seat beside him. We made it a mile down the road from wherever I’d had my brain scanned before I got sick, and my body spent the rest of the journey making up for the fact that I’d lived my entire life blissfully unaware of what this felt like.

It grew dark.

We swapped vehicles and Cam changed my clothes.

Or maybe it was me.

At one point, I was pretty sure he injected me with something. That he warned me beforehand, giving me every chance to stop him. But I had nothing, and life just happened to me until whatever shitbox we were travelling in finally eased to a stop.

“Where are we?”

Cam squeezed my hand. “Somewhere safe. There’s some steps, but once we’re inside, you can chill, okay? Let us take care of you.”

Viktor.

“Soon, brother. Soon.”

Cam helped me out of the vehicle. Even with his help, keeping myself upright was a fucking joke, and I didn’t raise my gaze from the strange boots that had appeared on my feet until we got inside and reached a staircase that smelt of black cherries and lemon.

Jean had a stroke five years ago. The first sign she knew something was wrong was that she could smell my long-dead grandpa’s dodgy baccy. Was that what this was? Or did I just really need a fucking cig?

I thought about it. Wished I hadn’t. But I’d run out of shit to puke up, and I held myself together up two flights of stairs and into an apartment I’d definitely never seen before.

Cam got me to a bed. Spinning, I lay down, lost in the fresh plaster on the ceiling, the one construction job that didn’t make me want to hurl bricks at people. There was a lumpy bit by the light fitting. It annoyed me, until it didn’t, and the pain in my head came back full force.

A wild animal groaned.

I think it was me, and as boots thundered somewhere close by, I legit believed I was dying.

Or that I wished I was dead.

I groaned again.

Someone rubbed my arm. “Rest, brother. It’s the best way to heal.”

Fuck, I wanted to. I was so tired my body felt like I was sinking through the bed. But pain kept me awake, dancing a merry dance with the brutal dizziness still spinning me out. The inability to keep still, and the fear for Viktor that amped up every minute I spent away from him. It didn’t matter how many times Cam—or maybe someone else, told me he was okay, how much I believed them, I couldn’t fucking settle. I couldn’t fucking breathe until finally, what felt like days later, the bed dipped beside me, orange blossom filled my lungs, and sweet lips grazed my aching head.

“Asher, I am here. You can sleep now.”