Chapter 44
Avidya
“Hey there, sunshine,” Travis said, giving me a smile as I opened my eyes. I had to blink them a number of times before anything came into focus.
The first thing I saw was Travis as he stood up above me, looking down in concern at me. His dark hair was wild and crazy as though he had run his hands through it one too many times. His light brown eyes were shadowed by the lack of sleep.
“Glad to see you awake,” he said, taking a seat beside me again. “The nurse should be back shortly.”
Glancing around the room, I found it to be like any normal hospital room I’d see on TV before. White, clean, and with an attempt to make it feel like home. It was a long way from being anything like home.
I was hooked up to an IV, the same hand that Travis took ahold of once more. My other arm was wrapped up in a sling against my chest, holding it still. The rest of me was covered by an ugly green hospital gown and white scratchy blanket.
I was slightly afraid to see what other damage there was.
“How long have you been here?” I asked out as I let my eyes slid closed again. It was too much work to keep them opened.
“About a day,” he answered. “You have everyone worried.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled out.
“Oh, no you don’t. I’m not letting you go back to sleep yet,” Travis stated, his voice a bit harder than I was used to. It caused me to fight to open my eyes and meet his once more. “That’s better.”
“How . . . how bad am I?” I asked out, fighting my eyes to stay open.
“What do you remember?” he asked out instead of answering me.
“Enough to know I never want to be in a car again,” I muttered out through a yawn. “I’ll just walk everywhere I want to go from now on.”
“Well, walking may not be happening for another week or so,” Travis grimaced.
I simply stared at him, waiting for him to explain to me why. It took too much work to talk too much. Thinking took too much work.
“You got . . . shot in your leg,” he said, having to pause in the middle of his the sentence.
“Oh,” was my brilliant response. I remembered the gun that was aimed at me, and it made sense on why my leg was pounding with each beat of my heart.
“The bullet was lodged near the bone,” he said, his voice weakening with each word spoke.
“Who was it?” I asked, not able to think of anything else to say. Therewasn’tanything to say about it.
“Whoever it was will be wiped out sooner or later,” Carlos said, entering the room carrying a yellow McDonalds bag with him, which was shoved into Travis’ chest as soon as Carlos was in the room. “Glad to see you awake.”
“I’m not,” I muttered out as the pain began to increase along with the tiredness. Hadn’t I slept long enough already? Four days of sleep almost, and yet I felt like sleeping for another week.
“I just don’t get why he didn’t kill them both. It would have been easy to do,” Travis said with a small shake of his head as he dug into the food.
The food smelt amazing, but I had no energy to try to eat anything, let alone talk anymore as my eyes slowly slid closed. Where was that nurse with pain meds?
“I don’t know either,” Carlos said. “But we’ll find him. I have men out looking. He won’t be hiding for long.”
“He had a mask on,” I said with painful words.
“I did get that off the footage I was able to dig up,” Carlos said as he moved something that was beside me. He then pushed the button that was next to me on the remote as I lazily watched what he was doing. I hadn’t even noticed it.
“Just calling the nurse for you,” he explained with a soft smile. “Everyone will be happy that you are awake.”
He then backed away, taking a stand at the window that was only feet away. The room was much smaller than I first thought as both men attempted to make themselves smaller and out of the way as a Hispanic nurse made her way in.
