The nurse must have seen the panic, because she laid a hand on my forearm, softening. “Is there someone else you’d rather we contact?”
I shook my head. “No. It’s fine. It’s—” My voice broke, and I swallowed the rest.
She nodded and slipped out, leaving the curtain half-closed. I could hear the rustle of charts and the low hum of voices. My chest hurt more than my side now, a pressure building under the ribs.
A few minutes passed, then the curtain snapped open and a man in a white coat stepped in, his smile as fake as a DMV photo. “Sheriff Hardesty. Good to see you awake.” He ran through the usual script: name, year, place, the president. I passed with flying colors, which seemed to disappoint him.
He rattled off the injuries: “Severe concussion, facial lacerations—fifteen stitches, by the way, you’ll have a hell of a scar—two fractured ribs, and a mild kidney contusion. You’re lucky.”
I didn’t feel lucky. I felt hollow.
“Can I leave?” I asked.
He snorted. “Absolutely not. You’ll be in here for at least a day, probably more. If you’re lucky, the swelling in your brain will go down and you won’t have to stay longer.”
He ran through a checklist of symptoms—nausea, confusion, dizziness, headache. I answered honestly, even though it made me look weak. He didn’t linger; just gave me a nod and a patronizing “We’ll check on you again soon.” The moment he was gone, I reached for the plastic water cup on the tray, nearly spilling it down my front before getting a sip.
There was a voice in the hallway, louder than before, arguing with the nurse. I recognized it even through the fog—Deputy Latham, with his relentless drawl and the subtle note of panic he tried to bury under professionalism.
He poked his head in, eyes going wide when he saw I was conscious. “Well, shit. You really are indestructible.”
I glared at him. “Feel like a wet sack of cement.”
He laughed, but it sounded strained. “You look like one, too.” He shuffled inside, hands jammed in his pockets, not meeting my eye. “I called him, like you told me to. McKenzie. Said he was already on the way.”
I closed my eyes, let out a slow breath. “Thanks, Latham.”
There was a long pause, then: “You want to talk about it?” He meant the call, or maybe the shop, or maybe the last three weeks of me coming unspooled. Didn’t matter. The answer was the same.
“No,” I said, and meant it.
He nodded. “Just… let me know if you need anything. Medical said they’re keeping you until tomorrow, minimum. You’re going to have visitors.”
I smirked, just a little. “Thought I was the least popular guy in the county these days.”
He shrugged. “Guess word gets around.”
He left me with that. When the door closed, I let my eyes fall shut. I pictured the shop, the beautiful flash art, the way Ransom’s hands would move when he was lost in the work. I thought of the mess left behind, and wondered if he’d ever forgive me for not keeping it safe. I wondered if he’d even show up.
I lay there, listening to the pulse monitor, wishing I could fast forward to whatever came next. But that wasn’t how it worked. Never was.
Time went liquid. At first I tried to track it, counting the intervals between the nurse’s check-ins, the cool pressure of blood pressure cuffs, the drip-drip in the IV line, the shift changes announced by new faces and the sterile chit-chat at the nurse’s station.
But the drugs made everything slippery. I’d blink, and ten minutes would dissolve into a half hour. I’d close my eyes, and in the space of a single breath, it could be midnight or high noon or some hourless void where nothing ever happened but the endless beep of the monitor and the ache in my skull.
The first dream came on like a sucker punch: I was in Ransom’s shop, but it wasn’t wrecked. It was the way I remembered it before everything went to shit—walls lined with his sketches, the heavy air tinged with ink and aftershave, the low growl of classic rock from the speakers.
He stood over me, arms crossed, smile tilted like he was waiting for me to make a move or a mistake or both. His hair was tied back, exposing the scar above his eyebrow that I’d only ever traced with my thumb, never my mouth. He looked at me, and I couldn’t tell if it was challenge or invitation, but I reached for him anyway.
My hand passed right through. The room flickered, the colors draining out, and I jolted awake with my fist clenched tight around nothing but hospital sheets.
There were voices in the hall. At one point, I thought I heard Latham, but it could have been a morphine hallucination or just wishful thinking. The next time I came up for air, it was darker—the room, the sky beyond the window, my own thoughts. A nurse checked my vitals and left a fresh pitcher of water, but I barely heard her. I was counting the seconds between when the door clicked shut and the moment it might open again, bringing with it… what? Forgiveness? A new kind of hell?
It was worse when I slept. Ransom followed me into every dream, sometimes grinning like he’d won, sometimes screaming, sometimes just staring at me with that cold, disappointed calm I knew he reserved for people who let him down. I tried to tell him I was sorry, but my voice didn’t work, or he couldn’t hear me, or I’d wake before the words ever left my lips.
Once, the pain got so bad I pressed the call button, hoping for a hit of something that would knock me out for good. The nurse who came—same one as before, the one with the honest eyes—leaned over me and said, “Try to sleep, Sheriff. You’re safe here.”
But she didn’t know. I was never safe, not really. Not from myself.
