3. Jackson

CHAPTER 3

JACKSON

T he woman lands on top of me in that movie-worthy-straddling kind of way, which would be funny if she wasn't pinning my arm to the ground at a weird angle. I cry out in pain as we hit the ground, scraping my face against the sidewalk as I turn to try and get away from her.

"What the hell, dude?" I yell as my senses recover enough to push her off me, sending her sprawling to the ground beside me. The movement of doing it sends a shockwave through my arm and jars my elbow in some of the most acute, blinding pain I've ever felt. It grips me like a metal claw covered in spikes and poison, and I clutch my arm in agony. "You've broken it!"

"Don't be so dramatic!" she snaps as she pushes herself up, dusting the dirt from her clothes and retrieving her backpack before she softens and reaches out her hand to help me to my feet. I take it without complaint, taking deep breaths to try and ease the pain. She frowns at me and says, "I'm so sorry. I didn't see you."

"Well, you should watch where you're going," I mutter, wincing as I explore my elbow with my fingers. I don't think it really is broken, but every tiny pressure sends another shot of agony up my arm.

"Let me see," she says, reaching out to me. I snatch my arm away from her with a hard glare, but she insists with her own stern look. "I'm a nurse. Let me see."

"Some bedside manner you've got," I sigh as I give in, letting her take my arm in her hands so she can peer at it.

"It's looking bruised already," she says, her face twisting into the kind of frown that I can only call bad news before she catches herself and wrangles her expression back to neutral. "I'm on my way to work right now. Let's get you to the hospital where a doctor can have a look at it."

"No!" I say sharply, pushing her away again. "I'll be fine. I just have to shake it off."

"I don't think this is a shake-off injury," she says with more authority than she has a right to have. But before I can say anything smart in reply, she pokes me in just the right place that it makes me want to crumple back to the floor and wait to die. I growl, not trusting myself to speak in case I say something I'll regret. "Come on."

She gestures ahead of us, and I know I have no further arguments I can make against following her, which makes me even grumpier. At least she'll probably give me special treatment and get me in with the doctor faster, which is about the only positive I can see in this whole situation.

"I have a job, you know," I say as we approach the hospital. It's an ugly building, a gray cube of a high-rise, no doubt filled with diseased and dying people. Nothing about it is cheerful at all. There's a reason I try to avoid going. And anyway, the team doctor looks after me well enough that I don't usually need anyone else.

I can't think about the team right now. The idea of not being able to go back to play is worse than unbearable. The game is my whole life. Being told I can't do it will be like tearing my soul out. "I can't miss work," I add. "I can't lose time just because a clumsy idiot fell on top of me."

"You might not have to. We don't know how bad it is yet," the woman says gently in that practiced kind of tone that doctors and nurses use because they're not allowed to shout at their patients.

But somehow her calm exterior just makes me angrier. It's like I'm about to lose my whole life and she doesn't even care that it's all her fault. Whether or not that's actually true isn't relevant — because right now I need someone to blame, and she's here. I yell again, "I'm going to get you fired if you've damaged me!"

Maybe that's a bit too harsh, and she probably doesn't deserve a difficult guy being on her case — and the way the receptionist rolls her eyes when we walk through the door basically proves that they all think I'm a dramatic loser who shouts when he can't get what he wants. But the pain is stopping me from caring about any of that. Right now I am going to be difficult until I get what I want. And that might just be getting her to suffer just as much as I am.

The woman doesn't reply to my outburst, though, just raises her eyebrows ever so slightly, like she knows I couldn't get her fired even if I really wanted to. I don't think I do really want to, but if she gives me bad news, I'm going to lose it. And unfortunately for her, she's going to be in my firing line.

She leads me through the corridors, past sick and other injured people, some of whom are even managing to smile despite the fact they're probably all dying. The more people we walk past, the sicker I feel. What if I'm about to die too?

And then we dip into a little room, out of the way, with drawn blinds and just a hint of a distantly crying baby. Maybe this is a torture room. Maybe this is where all liability cases go to die.

"Wait here," she says. "I'll be right back with a doctor."

Before I can say another word, she darts out the door, leaving me to sink slowly onto the bed, the covers crinkling underneath me, and wait for someone to give me more attention — or at the very least, painkillers.