Chapter 20
Time, August was convinced, was fluid.
He stared at the ceiling in Ricardo’s room, on the eleventh floor of the private Panama Clinic, the hospital they’d been helicoptered to from the tanker, and thought about how strange it was that five minutes crouched behind a car could feel like two days while the hours he’d spent waiting for Ricardo to wake up from his emergency surgery to repair the bullet wound and treat the collapsed lung were next to nothing.
It was a genuine miracle they’d even been able to get a helicopter. The crew of the tanker had radioed for help before they’d even set foot on the boat, and they’d warned August that because of the lightning, a helicopter might not be possible.
Someone above the clouds was apparently looking out for them, though—the storm had been moving east, and it had been clear of the Pacific end of the Canal. A helicopter had been dispatched and plucked Ricardo off the deck of the tanker.
Ricardo had also gotten stupidly lucky as far as the bullet went.
It had entered his body at a sharp enough angle to bounce off his ribcage and exit again, cracking two ribs and breaking another in the process.
It was both the bullet and the broken rib that had led to the chest wall puncture and collapsed lung, and that had apparently been a bitch to handle.
The doctor had said a lot of things August only vaguely understood, but the long and short of it was that the chest tube was necessary, a blood patch was an actual thing you could do to a lung—so gross—and Ricardo wouldn’t be flying until his lung recovered.
Which…great. They were stuck in Panama City for at least two more weeks, and NightPigeon was still out there, and August wasn’t sure he’d scrubbed the serial numbers off the guns that the cops were sure to find at the scene of the shootout, which could mean burning Ricardo’s Senor Munoz identity permanently.
“You’ll hate that,” he murmured into the room, barely audible over the host of monitors attached to Ricardo.
“All that work, just pssht, down the toilet. What a waste, huh?” He rolled his head along the chair’s backrest until he was looking at his husband—actually picking it up felt like too much work right now.
“Come on, wake up and tell me how pissed off you are.”
Nothing. It wasn’t surprising; Ricardo was on enough painkillers and sedatives that the very nice ICU nurse taking care of him had warned August he probably wouldn’t wake up until tomorrow.
He needed the rest; his surgeon had quite candidly admitted to August that she was surprised he’d survived long enough to make it to her operating table, between the blood loss and the tachycardia and the diminished oxygen and and and…
August laughed. It made his throat hurt, but he did it anyway. She’d clearly never encountered someone as stubborn as Ricardo.
“You’re going to be fine,” he told him. “You’ll live to fight another day.
” Then he paused and snippily added, “Or not. Not would be even better.” Anger flared bright and warm in his chest, his righteous indignation raring for the fight of the decade between them, but that shouting match would have to wait until his husband was at least awake, preferably recovered enough to shout back.
August shifted in the hospital chair and winced.
He was wearing borrowed scrubs after concluding that his clothes were unrecoverable, and he’d rubbed himself down with a washcloth but could really use a shower.
He could only have that if he left, though, and that wasn’t happening. Not until he knew what came next.
It would be stupid, na?ve, or both to think that the NightPigeon wasn’t going to be able to track them here. August was a lot of things, but he wasn’t an optimistic moron. It was just a matter of time until they had company. The question was, what could he do about it?
Not as much as he wanted. Coming in from the top of the building had allowed him to skip the metal detectors and bring his gun in, but in the chaos of getting to the boat, he’d lost his spare magazine. That left him with exactly one bullet in his gun, which wasn’t ideal.
Eh, he’d manage. There were plenty of things around here he could kill a man with.
He simply had to manage the approach to play to his strengths, but unfortunately he wasn’t feeling very strong right now.
Fatigue made his vision blurry, his hands were trembling from low blood sugar despite the package of coconut cookies he’d eaten, and he could do for his very unhappy feet at this point was change out his wet socks, wrap them tight in ace bandages, and down anti-inflammatories in the hopes that he would fit into his shoe collection again one day.
For now, he was stuck in hospital-issued slippers, which at least came with rubberized soles but had nothing in the way of—
A faint hum joined the hiss of air and pulse of electronics in the air. August whipped his head back so fast it hurt, standing and crossing the space to Ricardo’s bed in a second. His lips were parted…they hadn’t been just a moment ago, had he… was he…
“Hhhh…”
“Oh, thank fuck,” August whispered. The shaking in his hands got worse, and he wrapped one around the rail of the bed and clenched the other in the pillowcase above Ricardo’s head as he leaned in close and pressed a kiss to his husband’s forehead. “Hey, baby.”
“Mm.” Ricardo’s brow wrinkled, and August chuckled.
“I know, it’s your least favorite pet name, but it fits, sweetheart, sometimes it just fits.” He kissed him again. “Honey. Angel. Mon petit chou.”
Eyelids fluttered, and a moment later Ricardo was staring up at him—or trying to, as focus was a thing that wasn’t quite happening yet. “Not… cabbage.”
“No,” August agreed brightly. “You’re not a sweet little cabbage, you’re more like a braying jackass.
” He rested his cheek on top of Ricardo’s head and squeezed his eyes shut.
“I will call you anything you want as long as you stay with me. Got it? Are you tracking that?” His heartbeat began to speed up, and August did a few cycles of box breathing to get it back under control. “Stay with me.”
There was a long pause. “W’s wr’ng?”
Oh, where to begin? “What do you remember?”
Ricardo’s brow furrowed again. “Um…”
August smoothed his thumb over the lines. “Slow down, I can smell the smoke coming off your cogs from here. It’s not important right now, you just need to—”
“The lakeshore.” Ricardo’s eyes went wide, and the monitors began to beep more insistently as his vitals picked up. “NightRaven. I was shot.” His gaze roved over all he could see of August. “You?”
“I’m fine,” August said. “He ran when the cops got close, remember?”
“A… a boat?”
“Yeah, I got us to a boat.” There was a lot more to say about that process, but August left it there for now. “And then—”
The door swung open. “Ah, he is awake already!” Their nurse came in, beaming in teal scrubs and sensible white sneakers, her hair pulled back in a high, tight braid. “Your husband warned me you might be an early riser, Senor Torralba.”
Ricardo looked at August as if to say “Why the fuck is she using our real names?” while the nurse began checking him over.
Yours was compromised and I was out of my mind with worry and I gave them the first ID I had on hand connected to our offshore accounts so we could afford this shit and it’s our actual ID, so sue me!
August knew his message had gotten across when Ricardo just scowled and stared at the ceiling instead of continuing the nonverbal argument with his eyebrows and a forceful finger poke.
“Things are looking very good,” the nurse went on, ignorant of or ignoring their silent discussion.
“I’ll let the doctor know to come and tell you more about the surgery and your recovery, but your husband knows everything already, so maybe he can start.
” She winked at August, who smiled back with as much charm as he had on hand.
It didn’t do to irritate the nurses. “In the meantime, you can—” Her phone went off, and she frowned and glanced down at it. “Oh, hmm.”
August froze. “Hmm?”
“It’s from security. Apparently we’re under lockdown.
Some disturbance in the front lobby.” She shook her head.
“We should be fine up here, but—” A new message came through.
She sighed. “I have to leave you momentarily, I’m sorry.
The charge nurse will be at the main desk, but the rest of us have been called into a quick meeting.
I will be back as soon as possible.” She quickly walked Ricardo through the button that would deliver his high-octane painkillers, then left.
“Well.” August sighed and rolled his neck out. “It looks like he’s here.” At least he waited until the surgery was over.
“August…”
“Don’t worry.” He stood up and fussed with Ricardo’s canula to distract himself from the throbbing ache in his feet.
“There are only two ways up to this floor if you’re not Spiderman, and the elevator and stairs are right beside each other.
I can monitor both at the same time.” He pulled the gun out from where he’d tucked it behind the plant in the corner and brought it to the bed.
“Just in case,” he said, and watched with satisfaction as Ricardo managed to reach out and take it on his own.
Ricardo frowned. “Light.”
“One round left and counting,” August agreed. “So make it count if you do have to use it, it’s the only gun we’ve got.”
It didn’t take long for Ricardo to puzzle through that. “Shit.”
“Exactly.” August leaned over and kissed the top of his head. “Don’t worry, you won’t need it. I’ll take care of things.”
Ricardo’s free hand came up to fist in his top before he could pull away. “Just stay,” he said hoarsely. “Stay here, let him come to us.”
August shook his head. “The sitting duck strategy has worked zero times against this guy, no way. With our luck, he’d just find a way to set the room on fire while we were both in it. I’ll be fine.” He couldn’t let himself consider anything else.