George ignored him, trying to focus on the scene in front of him. The women were whispering, and the baby killer he’d shot was still lying on the floor, a bandage twisted around his thigh. “Joy needs to use the bathroom,” said the kid.
The one who’d scratched him.
He glanced at her hands, making sure they were still tied.
“Well, hold it in,” he muttered.
The nurse who was kneeling on the floor looked up. “It’s not that,” she said. “She needs to check her pad. She just had a—”
“I know what she had,” George snapped, interrupting.
“Is everything okay?” asked the cop. There was a strange note in his voice, a vibration.
“I have to go.”
“Wait!” Hugh said. “George, I wasn’t lying before. I didn’t say your daughter was here. I said she wants to talk to you. She’s listening to the news, George. And they don’t get things right. They’re not going to give your side of the story to her. Only you can do that.” Hugh paused. “I can make that happen, for you. I can get her on the phone.”
“Wait,” he muttered, distracted.
“What’s wrong, George?” the cop asked. “Talk to me.”
He was staring at the television that had been on the entire time. When he first got here, there was some daytime food show on. But now, there was a breaking news banner and a picture of a reporter with the clinic behind her. Her lips were moving, but the volume had been lowered; George couldn’t tell what was being said.
What if Hugh was right? What if Lil was listening?
“Where’s the remote?” he asked. When the women stared at him like he was crazy—was he? Or was he thinking clearly for the first time in hours?—he barked at them again. “Theremote!”
The old lady pointed to a shelf near the television.
“Get it,” he commanded. He was still holding the phone, but he had tuned out the cop’s insistent voice.
The old lady was fumbling with the control. She dropped it, picked it up, and pointed it at the television. “I think this is the right button,” she said, but nothing happened.
“Faster!” George yelled, and he jerked the gun at her.
The woman screamed and dropped the controller again.
“Leave her alone!” the kid cried.
“George?” Hugh’s voice blistered against his ear. “George, who was that yelling?”
“Give her the damn thing,” he ordered, pointing to the teenager. “Kids always know how to work stuff like this.”
“What kid?” Hugh said.
George let the phone fall in his hand, holding it against his thigh, as the girl managed to increase the volume even with her hands bound.
“…given that Goddardwasin fact dishonorably discharged for killing civilians during his service in Bosnia.”
The screen cut to a studio anchor. “So we can say that there’s a historical pattern of violence…”
“Turn it off,” George breathed.
He couldn’t even see the screen. His vision was blurred, and all he could imagine was Lil listening to this utter bullshit. “That isn’t what happened,” he muttered.
He could feel the phone vibrating against his thigh, emitting sounds.
Suddenly it was 2001 and he was in Bosnia and he was doing his job and everyone was out to get him.
