Page 18 of Property of Bob

Now I could talk.

It hurt sometimes, especially when I overdid it, but I could fucking talk.

I could move my arms and legs. I could stand with help for a short time, though I wasn’t going to admit how much that took out of me. The wheelchair was still my main mode of transportation whenever they let me out of bed, which pissed me off, but I was working on it.

That was progress.

Slow as fuck progress, but I’d take it.

I turned my head carefully toward the chair beside the bed.

Skull was passed out with his arms folded across his chest and his head tipped back against the wall. His mouth hung open slightly, and every few seconds, a soft snore came out.

I would’ve taken a picture if my phone wasn’t sitting on the table six fucking feet away.

Might as well have been in another state.

I looked back at the muted television mounted on the wall. Some game show was on that I hadn’t been watching.

I was sick of this room. Sick of the bed. Sick of the smell. Sick of nurses asking me to rate my pain on a scale from one to ten. Sick of getting blood drawn. Sick of doctors coming in and telling me I was doing great while following it up with another list of reasons I couldn’t go home.

More than anything, I was sick of one of my brothers being here around the clock.

They rotated.

Skull took most of the nights, but everyone had been taking turns. Somebody was always sitting in that damn chair. If one of them left, another showed up.

At first, I hadn’t been in any shape to argue.

Now I was.

Skull needed to be on the island. They all did.

We still had a fucking psycho running around, and instead of having every man available, they were spreading themselves thin because nobody trusted me to spend a few hours alone in a hospital.

I understood why, but I didn’t like it.

I knew what had happened to me. I’d nearly died.

There wasn’t any pretending otherwise when doctors had explained exactly how much blood I’d lost or how fucking lucky I was that the blade hadn’t done a little more damage than it already had. My throat had been slit. I’d lost enough blood that I shouldn’t have been sitting here bitching about hospital food and watching Skull drool on himself.

I wasn’t dumb enough to think I wasn’t one lucky son of a bitch.

I was alive. Bernice wasn’t.

That thought shut down the bitching in my head pretty damn fast.

I looked toward the window.

I wasn’t sure what time it was. Seven? Eight? Time didn’t mean much in here. Meals showed up. Nurses came and went. Doctors appeared whenever they felt like it. Day turned into night and then did it all over again.

I was ready to go home.

I needed to go home.

Not only because I was losing my fucking mind, but because the club had enough shit happening without babysitting me.

Skull shifted in the chair, and his head rolled to the side. The snoring continued.