Vinny came awake at the sound of a door closing in the distance.
Er…maybecame awakewas too strong a phrase. At best he wasfuzzily conscious. His mind felt like it was wrapped in cotton.
What day is it?
Where am I?
He couldn’t remember much except his name was Vincent Romano. He lived with his grandmother in New York City. And…
The cotton isn’t only in my head. It’s in my mouth too.
He tried to swallow and couldn’t. Tried to lick his lips but his tongue got stuck to the roof of his mouth.
“Water,” he said—or, rather,rasped—frowning in confusion when he heard his voice echo around the room.
He screwed his closed eyes tighter. Trying to concentrate. Trying to make sense of time and space andhimself.
He wasn’t in the back room of his nanna’s walkup. That much was clear. There was no familiarhumandhonkof traffic outside. No comforting scent of his grandmother’s favorite lemon Pledge. No soft yellow glow from her prized Tiffany lamp pressing against his eyelids.
Unfamiliar voices sounded from somewhere nearby. They competed with the distant ringing of a telephone and the closer sounds of mysterious machines humming and beeping. The harsh smell of cleaning products mixed with the unforgettable stench of Betadine. And the light beating against his lids was severe enough to make him frown.
Something told him to keep his eyes shut. An ominous feeling that assured him he should cling to the last vestiges of oblivion for as long as possible. But curiosity, and a sense of desperation, won out in the end.
Blinking open his eyes was more difficult than it should have been. Each lid felt like it weighed ten pounds. But once his eyes adjusted, he instantly realized where he was.
A hospital.
But why?
Had he gotten into an accident? Had he been nailed by a yellow cab while jaywalking and—
It was like someone flipped a switch inside his head. Everything came rushing back with sickening clarity.
Yang. The plan to plant the malware. The months in Texas. Gettingshot.
It was as if the pain had held off until he could remember its source. Suddenly, he was racked by a dull agony that began at his shoulder and radiated down the length of his arm.
Breathing through his nose because breathing through his mouth only dried it further, he glanced down and noted his shoulder was wrapped in a large, white bandage. There was an IV needle shoved into the back of his hand, administering a clear liquid. And the blue hospital blanket someone—probably some kind nurse—had pulled up to his chest was thin and faded from having been washed a thousand times in industrial strength detergent.
He racked his brain, searching for a memory of what’d happened to him after the car ride to the hospital. But blankness—deep, abiding blackness—was all he could recall.
Where are the people who brought me here?he wondered anxiously, his breaths coming hard and fast as he looked around the room. He half expected them to hop out of the shadows to pepper him with more questions and tell him again what an idiot he’d been.
But he was alone. His only companion was the bag of IV fluid hanging from a silver pole beside his hospital bed. Which was a relief.
Of course, that relief was short-lived when he realized that because he’d come into the emergency department with a bullet wound, the cops would soon show up and start asking questions. Questions he wasn’t ready to answer. Questions he wasn’t even sure he had the answers to.
And the answers hedidhave? Well, they were going to besucha disappointment to his grandmother.
He’d been able to hide his criminal activity from her over the years. But there was no way to hide this. No way to pretend he hadn’t beenshotand—
His thoughts came to a screeching halt when the door to his room opened. He blinked in disbelief when he saw it was Yang who’d come to visit him. Yang with that eerily soft smile that was incongruous when paired with his hard, flinty eyes.
Vinny tried to push up in his hospital bed. But movement caused the pain in his shoulder to grow fangs that ripped and slashed. So he remained flat on his back and watched as Yang slowly made his way around to the side of the bed.
“What are you—” Vinny’s voice was little more than a dry rasp. He worked up what saliva he could and tried again. “What are you doing here?”
Yang cocked his head.
