“Do you know your name?”
She’d just used it, could she really not remember?“It’s Sam,” he said clearly.He tried to lift his head and his headache ratcheted up another notch when the thing around his forehead pulled him back.
“Good job.”What was this, kindergarten?“Do you know what year it is?”
Oh for God’s sake, was this necessary right now?“Yes, it’s, um ...Nik, what’s the date?”
Nik didn’t answer, but the woman didn’t ask him any more questions, so Sam dropped it.“Fuck, my head hurts,” he moaned.
“I’m going to give you something for that,” the woman said.She started fiddling with the nail in his arm.
“I don’t think aspirin will be enough,” Sam told her.
“Oh, it’s going to be alittlestronger than aspirin.You enjoy your trip in la-la-land.”
“Wait!”Nik screeched.“You’re giving him drugs?I thought you weren’t supposed to do that with head injuries.”
She was giving him drugs?He didn’t know drug dealers made deliveries.Was it an extra charge?
“Nikky, let her do her job,” Jurgen said.
“That’s a common misconception.In most East Coast protocols you can’t, but on the West Coast we’re much more aggressive with drugs.”
“Yeah, the voting public makes that obvious,” Jurgen interjected, sounding almost normal.
“At the hospital they’ll give him a CT scan to check him for head trauma.”
Hospital?What?“Where’m I going?”Sam asked her, but she didn’t answer.Instead Nik was back, hanging over his face.
“You don’t remember what happened?You got hit in the head with a baseball bat.”
Sam’s body felt weird, a little bit like he was on a carnival ride.“Are we in an airplane?”
“No,” Nik snapped.“The paramedics are moving you to the ambulance.You got bashed by a bunch of rednecks!You and Miller.”
“Miller’s here, too?Oooh, head rush!”Sam giggled.“Did I have something to drink at the bashing?”If he had, he needed to remember what it was, because it was making the headache recede.Not really go away, more like it was sitting in the corner and watching him rather than jumping up and down on his brain stem.Oh, the airplane was flying over gravel, he could hear it.
“Nikky,” Jurgen’s voice said from somewhere down a tunnel.“You need to take it easy on him.”Sam couldn’t see Jurgen, though.Dammit, that womanhadblinded him!
Oh, wait, he’d shut his eyes again.“Nik, I think this’s my Dark Moment.D’you think my prince’ll come?”
Nik gulped and gasped.Sam felt shaking fingers on his cheek.“You’re not ’im,” he mumbled.He didn’t want Nik to get the wrong idea.
Nik sounded like he’d swallowed a cough.“I know.”He paused, then took a deep breath and spoke in a calmer voice.“Sam, you were beaten up and so was Miller.Do you remember that?”
“I might, actually ...”Sam tried to grasp the elusive memory, but it slipped away on the back of a bubble, except it left a few scraps behind.He gasped, eyes flying open.“I got beat up by rednecks, ’s tragic.”
“Why didn’t you run!”
“Shhh, there’s no need to yell.”Sam focused on Nik.He was sort of bobbing up and down.“I didn’t run ’cause I’m Too Stupid to Live,” Sam answered, watching red and blue lights twirl slowly by behind Nik’s head.“I suffered from the foolhardy notion that I could help, like any good romance character should.”
Someone grasped his hand, holding it too tightly.“What the fuckare you talking about?”they shouted in his face, and it sounded like Ian.Sam blinked a few times, trying to focus on the head bobbing and weaving on the other side of him.
ItwasIan.
“Oh, you’re here, thank God,” Sam said with a sigh.“But your voice is too loud,” he whispered, trying to encourage Ian to do the same.Having Ian here was a relief, but he was just so tired ...The airplane came to a halt.Could they do that in midair?Wouldn’t they plummet to the earth?Oh, there it was jerking, but then flying again.This time when he came to a stop, there was aclick.The airplane had been tethered, now.No more flying for it.Poor airplane was trapped.
“Sam, please, just ...be all right, okay?I’ll come with you to the hospital and—” Ian interrupted himself with a weird, gulping noise, and something wet hit Sam’s forehead.
