29. Dane

Alex was no longer buried beneath an oxygen mask and a million hoses and gadgets. The nurses still monitored his vitals, and fluid lines still snaked from shiny stands behind his bed into his arms, but he was out of imminent danger.

More telling than any medical test, Alex was freely giving each of us shit. Nothing signaled recovery like the return of sarcastic wit. I'd never been so glad to be called an idiot by my teammate.

Sam, Burton , and I had the day off. There was no question how we would spend it. I didn't have a family waiting for me at home, and Sam's wife worked during the day. Burton quipped that he'd been married long enough that his wife didn't monitor his ankle bracelet like she used to. That drew an uncomfortable chuckle out of Alex. So there we sat, the entire team huddled around Alex's bed, eating hospital cafeteria food and drinking stale coffee, just happy we weren't gathered around a gravestone instead.

"Keep that up and I'll find some excuse for the nurse to take a weed whacker to that silly mustache," Sami said through a broad smile.

Burton sipped coffee from his chair in the corner, well out of range of cannon fire. Alex looked like he wanted to leap off the bed and go toe-to-toe with Sam.

"Nobody's touching my kiss brush," he said, smoothing the corners in a most Dudley Do-Right-esque gesture. I thought about it a moment. It was Snidely Whiplash who had the mustache, the bad guy in the cartoons, not Dudley. The memory sparked an evil grin. I would have to find old cartoon images and plaster them across the station when Alex returned. The team would have a ball with that prank.

"What are you smiling at, ya big slab o' beef?"

I raised my arm and formed a tight bicep. "Like my muscles, do you? And here I thought you played for the other team."

Sami laughed so hard I thought she might pee. Alex gripped his chest and tried not to laugh as the monitor next to his bed beeped faster.

On cue, the nurse appeared. "What's going on in here? Who's making my patient laugh?"

Matty was a twenty-something nurse with platinum blond hair. The badge hanging from a rainbow-colored lanyard was so adorned with tiny walruses, it was hard to make out his name. In all the time we spent in his ward, we never got an explanation for the sea creatures. The rainbow lanyard and frequent hip kicks spoke for themselves.

Matty worked exclusively in the ICU and had proven himself to be both incredibly proficient and incomparably snarky. The boy had more sass than a runway model high on crack, and he didn't take shit from anyone—definitely not from the four firefighters staring blankly back at him as he zipped past us toward the screaming machine.

"Listen, you." Matty stabbed his index finger toward Alex. "You need to rest. If these so-called friends of yours keep getting you worked up, I'll kick them to the curb." Then he turned and redirected his pointer at me. "Except him. I'll haul that sexy beast into the nearest closet and give him a thorough exam."

There was a moment of utter silence in which I was sure everyone's brain caught up with Matty's mouth, then the room erupted. Even Burton was doubled over, sloshing coffee all over his pants and the floor around his chair. Matty patted Alex's arm, spun in a full three-sixty, then darted out of the room, slowing long enough to drag his fingertips across my chest as he passed. His flirting had been little more than a ruse to get Alex laughing, but I was starting to wonder.

"You should see your face," Alex said through tears.

Sam, never one to miss a free shot, reached up and raked her fingers across my chest, just as Matty had. "I'm gonna sop you up with a biscuit, you juicy sausage."

Burton snorted, and the rest of his coffee hit the floor—along with his Styrofoam cup.

"Juicy sausage!" Alex wheezed.

I was trying to hold it in, to keep from laughing. The last thing I needed to do was encourage that lot, but it was impossible. Seeing Alex healing and laughing made it impossible to suppress my smile.

We hadn't noticed the door open until Alex's face smoothed and something odd entered his eyes. The rest of us turned to find two police officers entering, Matty trailing behind.

"Officers, I'm going to get the doctor. This is not the time—"

"That's fine," the taller officer, whose shaved head and broad shoulders announced his prior military service, said. "Get the doc, but this isn't waiting."

"What's going on?" Sami asked, stepping forward to block the policemen's path.

The second policeman, a shorter, balding man with lieutenant's bars on his collar, took a step forward. His voice was filled with sympathy but brooked no argument. "Step aside, miss, please."

Sami reluctantly moved to stand beside Burton . I stood on the opposite side.

The lieutenant strode forward to the foot of the bed. The hulking officer remained at the door. "Alex Bennet?"

"That's me," Alex said, scooting to sit up.

"You're under arrest."