Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Four Days Later
The dull thud of a body hitting the dirt close to him made Shaun jerk in his sleep, the sound cutting through whatever part of dreamland had held him under and dragging him toward something he already knew he didn’t want to see.
His body fought the pull even as his mind tried to sink deeper, but the nightmare was waiting for him on the other side of consciousness.
Wake up... Wake the fuck up.
Shaun fought his way through dreamland, every instinct screaming at him to wake up as the nightmare dragged him back toward the memory he had spent days refusing to revisit.
He could feel himself trying to break free, but the harder he fought, the more brutally the scene took shape around him, forcing him to watch what had happened to Zenko all over again.
“Zenko!” He scrambled across the short distance and dropped hard to his knees beside him. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
A bullet skimmed his cheek, leaving a burning track across his skin, but he barely registered it as he dropped lower beside Zenko.
More rounds cracked through the air around him, close enough that any sane man would have been looking for cover, but he couldn’t take his attention away from the blood pouring from Zenko’s neck.
He pressed his fingers into the side of Zenko’s neck, searching through the blood for the wound as it ran hot between them. There was so much of it, coating his skin and soaking through everything he touched, and still his fingers kept working because there had to be something he could do.
So much blood. He grasped and pinched the wound, trying to hold the pressure where it mattered, but blood sprayed between his fingers with every fucking beat of Zenko’s heart.
“TOC, Ambra Two!” He forced the words out over the gunfire. “Ambra One is down. I repeat, Ambra One is down.”
Finally, the nightmare released him, and he jerked awake with a sharp breath, his heart pounding hard enough to hurt.
For a few seconds, he couldn’t separate the memory from the hospital room around him, his eyes searching through the darkness until the shape beside him registered as Zenko instead of the blood-soaked body his mind had left him with.
“What the fuck are you doing?” He jerked awake properly this time, his heart still pounding from the nightmare as he found Zenko standing beside the bed instead of lying where he had left him. “Get your ass back in the fucking bed, Zen. What the hell are you thinking?”
“Nope.” Zenko gritted his teeth, and Shaun had to fight the urge to physically put him back where he belonged.
A week ago, he’d been fighting to keep Zenko alive, and now the stubborn bastard was standing beside the bed, acting like a bandage around his neck was the only thing wrong with him.
“It’s my neck that was hurt, not my fucking feet, and I’m done with being poked and prodded at stupid o’clock every night. ”
“Zen, slow the fuck down.” He pushed himself upright, dragging a hand over his face as the last of the nightmare still clung to him.
He needed a second to get his bearings, but Zenko was already standing there, pale beneath the hospital lights and looking far too determined to stay put.
“You can be pissed at the doctors all you want, but you’re not walking out of this room until somebody clears you. ”
“Babe, either find my damn clothes and boots and help me out of here, or I’ll fucking climb out of that window and go anyway.”
Shaun stared at him for a beat, still trying to shake the last fragments of the nightmare from his head, because apparently nearly dying had done nothing to cure Zenko of his lifelong inability to follow fucking orders. “You’re serious.”
“I am not fucking falling over.” Zenko stayed upright despite the way his face had gone pale, refusing even the suggestion that he might need to sit down.
“My head is spinning because I’ve been lying in that damn bed for far too long, and if I close my eyes for more than a second, somebody is going to decide I need another fucking hour of observation.
” He squared himself toward the door, then stopped when the movement clearly made the room tilt again. “I can walk.”
Zenko shrugged off his attempt to steady him.
“I am not going back in that fucking bed. I need to see the sky. I need to breathe. I need to be out of here.” He turned his whole body toward him, moving slowly enough that Shaun could see the effort it took to keep his balance.
“You understand what I’m saying, right? I’m going fucking crazy in here. ”
“I get it.” Shaun got his feet beneath him.
Zenko needed out of the room, and there was a difference between helping him do it safely and standing there arguing until the stubborn bastard tried it alone.
“I also get that you’re about two seconds away from hitting the floor, so how about you sit down while I figure out how to get you outside without either of us ending up back in a hospital bed? ”
Shaun guided him toward the chair beside the bed and waited until Zenko was safely sitting before he released him.
“I fucking hate that chair. I slept in the damn thing until my ass went dead. I’m pretty sure I lost all feeling below the waist at least twice, but I wasn’t leaving you.
Period. So you can sit your stubborn ass there while I figure out a way to make this happen, ‘k?” The thought of Zenko trying to make it down the corridor alone was enough to settle the argument for him.
“You want out of here, fine. I’ll help you get out of here, but the doctor checks you over first. That part isn’t negotiable. ”
“I know you’re pissed at me, and I know I’m being a stubborn asshole, but I can’t stay in this fucking room anymore.
” Zenko settled deeper into the chair, some of the fight going out of him now that Shaun had agreed to help.
“They replaced the blood I lost, they fixed the artery, and I’m still fucking breathing.
I’m good to go, babe. Maybe not back into the field tomorrow, good, but I need to get outside and feel like a person again instead of somebody’s fucking medical emergency. ”
“If you tell me ‘Easy day’ or ‘the only easy day was yesterday,’ or give me any other BUDs bullshit about pain being weakness leaving the body, I’m going to beat you,” Shaun warned.
“You nearly bled to death a few days ago, Zen. You’re allowed to sit in a fucking chair without turning it into a test of mental fortitude. ”
“I wasn’t going to say it.” Zenko gave him a look that suggested he absolutely fucking had been.
“For the record, threatening to beat an injured man seems a little excessive, babe. Pretty sure there are rules about that.” His mouth twitched before his expression sobered.
“I hear you, okay? I know my body took a beating, but lying here staring at the same four walls is fucking with my head worse than getting up will. I need to move, even if you have to walk beside me while I do it.”
“Although, if we’re actually doing this, finding my pants and my boots would probably be a good idea.” Zenko glanced down at the hospital gown. “I’ve already traumatized enough people this week without giving the entire hospital a view of my ass.”
“You know they’re not going to let you walk out of here barefoot, right?” Shaun pointed out. “So unless you’ve suddenly developed the ability to conjure boots out of thin air, your great escape has a fairly obvious problem.”
“Then find my damn boots.” Zenko settled back in the chair with the satisfaction of a man who clearly believed the argument was over. “I’ll deal with everything else once I’m outside.”
“Keep your ass in that fucking chair,” Shaun warned as he headed for the door. “I’m going to find you a wheelchair, and if you’re not sitting exactly where I left you when I get back, you can forget about going outside.”
The door slammed behind him hard enough to make the nurse at the station glance up, but he kept walking.
If their positions were reversed and Zenko had woken to find him staggering around a hospital room a few days after nearly dying, Shaun knew exactly how that argument would go.
Zenko would lose his fucking mind, threaten half the medical staff, and probably call Noble for backup before Shaun made it five feet.
Knowing that didn’t make him any less pissed, but somewhere between the nightmare and Zenko admitting what being trapped in that room was doing to him, he’d accepted one unavoidable fact.
If he didn’t find a wheelchair and take the stubborn bastard outside himself, Zenko would find another way to get there.
He almost walked straight into the nurse coming the other way with a tray balanced in her hands.
“Shit, sorry, ma’am.” He caught himself before they collided and glanced at the wheelchair parked farther down the corridor. “Actually, you’re exactly who I need. What are the chances you’ll let me borrow that chair before my idiot decides the window is a viable exit?”
The nurse scowled at Shaun, apparently deciding his request wasn’t worthy of an answer, and pushed through the door ahead of him.
“Mr. Marks, what the hell are you doing out of bed? I left you two alone for five minutes, and suddenly you’re staging an escape?”
“Um…” Zenko glanced past her toward him, clearly expecting some fucking assistance with an explanation he didn’t have.
“He’s a dumbass.” Shaun stepped into the room behind her before remembering who he was talking to. “Err… ma’am.”
The nurse startled when she realized he had followed her into the room, nearly losing the tray before she recovered and set it on the end of the bed.
“How many times do I have to tell you to make a little noise when you move, Mr. Jacobsen? You’re going to give me a heart attack one of these nights. ”