Why couldn’t she just stab me?
Damn it.
I yanked my jeans up over my limp dick and looked around me. For a basement, it was relatively neat and tidy except for the one thing tied to the web. I looked through the flames to see it was a body, wrapped in plastic. I could see the familiar face through the plastic and I stumbled back.
Shit. Had that been down here the entire time? She’d killed Stanley…I’d gotten here too late.
I ran from my position just as a beam fell from the roof. The basement was caving in. The stairs were relatively untouched as I ran up them, fire licking across my arms, singing the hair. I burst through the door, landing on it awkwardly as I struggled to get my ass up.
Grunting, I rolled over, using every ounce of strength I had left to crawl my way through the smoke heavy hallway toward the door. The smoke was filling my lungs as I tried to get closer to freedom and fresh air.
But it was too much.
I felt my body give up.
Inches from the door…everything went black.
Chapter Six
Kane
“Will someone turn offthat incessant fucking beeping?” I yelled out, surprised at the gravel to my voice.
“There he is,” I heard an unfamiliar voice say before a face I’d never seen before hovered over mine. “Welcome back, Detective Garrick.”
“Where am I?” I asked, my eyes darting around the room to try and make sense of where I could be and why I felt like I was floating.
“You’re in East Wendell Hospital,” she said, smiling down at me. “You’ve been out for a few days, but it seems your body is recovering well.”
I tried to remember the last thing that happened or why I was in here, but everything was coming up blank.
“What do you have me on?” I asked her.
“Morphine,” she said. “Don’t worry, you’re safe. You needed to be dosed due to your injuries.”
“What injuries?” I grunted. “What the fuck happened?”
“Hey now,” I heard a familiar voice boom from the doorway. I closed my eyes, knowing what was coming next. “Don’t be turning your old, grumpy ass on the innocent nurse.”
The nurse, who’s name was Grace, if I was reading her name tag right, helped me to sit up. I still couldn’t feel my legs or my arms, or anything really as I looked over at the one person who had been with me through thick and thin.
My best friend.
The one who I rarely spoke to anymore.
“Kemp,” I greeted him as he moved into the room. “It’s been a long time for a reason. What are you doing here?”
“That’s no way to greet your oldest friend, now is it?” he replied with a shit eating grin on his face. “How did you get yourself into this mess?”
“Avoiding the question, I see.”
“It’s not my fault,” he said, pulling the chair from the side of the room and dragging it over to the side of the bed. “They called me.”
“Who?”
My head was starting to pound with the sounds of the hospital and chatter outside.
“The doctors, I guess,” he shrugged. “You still have Mimi listed as your next of kin.”
