“Thank fuck for that.”
There’s so much noise around me that I can’t work out what’s happening. It’s all shouting and jostling. I do know that I’m on the ground, and it stinks of piss. Someone knocks into me, and I scream out in pain.
“Hey, sorry. We’re getting you out of here. The police are just clearing up the mess and loading everyone in the vans. You did good, Dean.”
“I’m fucking bleeding out here, you twat. Give me my gold star later,” I tell him though gritted teeth. A rattling metal sound gets closer to me. When it stops, I assume it’s my transportation out of the cess pit. I’m moved onto the gurney, and a paramedic leans over me to strap me in.
“I’m going to give you something to knock you out.”
“Thank fuck for that.”
Where the hell am I? What the hell has happened?
Christ, my mouth is like the fucking Sahara Desert. I try to swallow but haven’t any saliva to make it easy. My eyes feel like they’re glued shut and gritty, probably with the same sand as my mouth. “Fuck,” I mumble. It feels like I’ve been run over by a truck.
A scrape over the floor makes me turn my head and try again to open my eyes. “Stay still. I’ll go and fetch someone.”
I feel like I should know the voice, but with the cotton wool that seems to fill my head, I can’t work out who it is. Instead of thinking, I drift back to sleep.
The soft voice wakes me up. “Dean, can you hear me?”
“Yeah,” I croak, my throat burning when I try to swallow again. “I can’t open my fucking eyes.” I flinch when a damp cloth wipes over each eye, once, twice and stops.
“Try again now,” the female voice says, and I try blinking.
“Did you glue them shut? It fucking hurts.” I’m not going to admit this to anyone else, but I’m scared. Nothing seems normal.
I try opening them again, and this time my eyelashes separate, and a very foggy face is looking down at me.
“I’m thirsty,” I tell them, then a straw is placed on my bottom lip.
I take a sip, and the cool fresh taste of water slides over my tongue and down my throat, making me swallow.
The sandy aridness dissipates as I draw more into my mouth.
“Slowly,” she says and pulls the straw out. “The doctor wants to talk to you, and there’s another man here for you too.”
I look to my left, and even through blurry vision, I can see it’s Pilkinton. Fuck, it’s coming back to me now. Tyrone, the drugs, the underpass, the knife, the pain. “I was fucking sold out.”
“I know, but you got us the break we needed, and the team took control. Both DeVon’s crew and the Saints have been compromised significantly. We have Tyrone Mathers in police custody.”
Before anything more can be said, a doctor walks up to me. I listen to how close I was to bleeding out and dying. I look over at Pilkington, who has the decency to look chagrined, and he fucking should.
“We had to graft a vein from your right leg to the damaged artery. You’ve been in ICU for three days, and we have kept you sedated to minimise your movement.
It’s going to be a slow recovery, Dean, which will certainly include physiotherapy, but you can cross that bridge when you’re ready.
Other than that, the wound in your arm has been cleaned and sutured.
The one in your neck was only a graze, thankfully.
If that had gone deeper, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. ”
“Look, all I want to know is when can I leave?” I ask, cutting through any more of his lists of injuries.
He looks at Pilkinton again, making wonder who’s in charge here. I take a moment to look around the room; it sure is posh. Too posh to be an NHS hospital. “We’ll keep you here for another week,” he says, and I’m shaking my head.
“No way. I need to get out and away from here.” I don’t care if the police have one or one hundred gang members in custody, I’m not safe. I look at the man who told me I’d be looked after. “What are you going to do about this?”
“Steady,” the doctor tells me, his hand on my shoulder as I try to move. “You can’t move about like that.”
“You’re safe here. No one knows where you are. I made sure of that. I gave you my word, Dean. I keep my promises. You have already died. No one is looking for you.”
I stare at him, my throat suddenly as dry as it was when I woke up.
I’m dead.
No one will be looking for me.
Not even Ellis.
I close my eyes, drawing in a staggered breath.
I wonder if he knows. Will he care? I know now that he’ll never try to find me.
Maybe that’s for the best; there’s nothing for me to offer him.
I count silently to ten before I open my eyes again.
The doctor has gone, and the door is closed.
Then I turn my head to look at the man who has just murdered Dean Mitchell.
“By the time you’re well enough to leave here, we’ll have your new identity and life set up for you.
We can work on your back story, and by the time you’re ready to be out in public, you’ll have your own place to live and a job.
We will never leave you struggling; you have given up everything to help us get some very dangerous people off the streets, saving thousands of lives. ”
“It’s that simple?” I scoff; there’s no way this is going to work.
“Not one part of this is going to be simple, Dean. It’s going to take a long time to get you used to a new name and back story. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together. First, you need to be healed and healthy. So, do as the doctor says and rest. Leave all the details to us.”
“Fine. Just don’t give me a shit name; I want something cool.” I close my eyes, and it’s a few seconds before his footsteps retreat, then the door opens and closes softly behind him.
Sleep isn’t happening. All I can think about is DeVon and everyone else caught up in this round-up of criminals.
Some of them are serious hardcore nutters, doing whatever they want with no fear of any retribution.
They believe they are above the law, untouchable.
And now they will know it was me, my fault, that I snitched, grassed them up.
They will never forget. My name is top of the wanted list, and they won’t settle until I’m in the ground.
It won’t matter that they’re locked up; there are plenty of others that aren’t and will do as they’re told.
I’m going to be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.
Nothing Pilkinton says will change that.
DeVon will have found out I was in body armour.
He’s sharp enough and just as paranoid to think I sold out. He won’t believe I’m dead.
On the fourth day after waking up, I get the news I’ve been hoping for and dreading at the same time. I can leave the hospital. As I sit on the edge of the hospital bed, fear and panic course through me. I’m waiting to be collected, but it’s not Pilkington who enters the room.
It’s Cole. He smiles and holds out his hand. “You look better than the last time I saw you,” he says lightly, a soft laugh playing on the words. “Seriously though, you did so well. I wish I could’ve got there a minute earlier; you wouldn’t be like this if I had.”
I nod. The words I want to say are locked down, deep in my chest, because ranting and arguing isn’t any good. I went into this knowing the outcome could’ve gone either way. “How do we get out of here?” I ask instead.
Cole opens the door to the same SUV that I was in before. I step up and into the seat gingerly, not wanting to bend or straighten too much. Cole hovers, ready to steady me if I stumble, but it’s good. I’m up and in with no catastrophes.
We head out of the hospital grounds and onto a road that I don’t know. “Where are we?”
“It doesn’t matter; we won’t be here for much longer. I’m taking you to a safe house, where you’ll be staying until you’re fully fit and up to speed on your new identity. From now on, you can forget every piece of your past.”
With no answer to that, I keep my mouth shut and look out of the very tinted windows.
No one is going to be able to look in. We drive for a couple of hours, heading up the M1 to fuck knows where.
Eventually, the movement of the car lulls me back to sleep, unaware of anything and anyone until the car comes to a stop.
As I fidget into a more comfortable position, the view of a large house fills the windscreen.
It’s stunning, the stone a pale sandy yellow, the windows old and set back in thick brick work.
“Where are we?” I look at Cole.
“Have you ever heard of Rutland? It’s the smallest county in England, maybe the UK. I’m not sure. It’s a pretty place, somewhere I think you’ll like.”
“Considering I’ve never been away from my hometown, I guess this is as good as any.
” I undo my seatbelt and open the car door.
Again, it’s with as much cautious movement as I was getting in.
Cole retrieves the bag I left the hospital with, and I wonder what has happened to the rest of my belongings.
I’ve never had much to call my own, but there were a few mementos of my life in foster care with Ellis. Some things I’ll never see again.
Cole leads me straight into a large living room, and wouldn’t you know it, Pilkington is standing by a huge fireplace, looking as if he’s the lord of this manor.
I wait patiently as he goes through all the usual pleasantries, not bothering to interrupt.
It’s only when a thick file is handed over to me that I start to pay attention to him.
“This, Dean, is the new you. Everything you need to know and have is in that file. Including your new name. From now on, you will never be called Dean.”
I look at the file, and there’s a photograph of me on the front, but it’s not me: it’s the face of Maddox Levin.
At least they picked a cool name.