Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Hurt.
Every bit of him hurt so bad he couldn’t barely stand it.
Coke tried to open his eyes, tried to move his…
His head.
Something in the back of his neck screamed like a whore, and he went stiff, that pain deep and desperate and sickeningly familiar.
Oh, sweet Jesus, please.
No more.
No more.
His belly jerked as his eyes rolled. Coke couldn’t fucking breathe, couldn’t…
He remembered the bull coming at that little rider, the scream of the kid’s momma and he remembered knowing…
Knowing without a shadow of a doubt that there wasn’t a bit of good coming out of this.
That was steel chute behind him, steel gate beside him, a scared sixteen-year-old kid from Wyoming scrambling under his feet, and that piss-yellow bull bearing down on him like the rapture.
He didn’t remember nothing else.
Nothing.
“Coke? Man, can you hear me?” Nate’s voice slid over his nerves like a balm, one hand landing on the center of his chest, bracing him. “Relax, Hoss. Relax. I got you. You’re in the hospital, buddy. You got fucked up.”
He tried to ask how bad, but his throat felt like a bunch of horror movie leprechauns had been at him with sandpaper. He’d never liked those creepy little green guys.
Never.
There was something unnatural about the idea of gold-hoarding, green-wearing midgets with weird accents and stupid hats.
“It’s bad. They had to fuse C3 and C4 and wire your damn collarbone again.
I told them to get you a fake one, but they wouldn’t listen.
They fixed your hand, too. Surged on them little bones.
” Nate’s face appeared above him, eyes a little like an unbroke horse, mouth just moving and moving. “You scared the fuck out of me, Hoss.”
“Yeah.” He almost asked over Dillon, then he remembered that he might not have the right to, no more. He didn’t know for sure, and it looked like maybe it’d be a couple three days before he could manage to find out.
“You’ll be out a few weeks, but you’ll be back working for the Finals, so it’ll be okay.” He got a quick, shit-eating grin. “You and Coop, man, always trying to make my life difficult.”
He tried to nod, then he went stiff with a wave of pain that had his legs slamming on the mattress, just pounding, and Nate groaned. “No. No, Hoss. Don’t. Nurse! Nurse, motherfuck! You get in here!”
God, yes. Get in here, because he was tired of this shit already.