Page 13 of Out of Nowhere

“Dex!” Rushing forward, Seo-jun forced himself to follow protocol and check out the bedrooms and bathrooms to make sure the assailant wasn’t hiding in one of them, although he was pretty sure Sarah witnessed the person leaving the scene. Satisfied, he holstered his weapon and kneeled on the floor beside Dex, who lay face-down on the carpet.

Putting a hand to Dex’s back, Seo-jun could feel him breathing. “Thank fuck,” he whispered, relief rushing over him. Blood matted Dex’s hair, some trickling over his face. The aluminum baseball bat that Seo-jun knew Brand kept under his bed rested on the floor a few feet way.

“Police!” Suddenly the apartment was swarming with officers. Seo-jun got to his feet, hands in the air while Brand followed them in, explaining he was the owner of the apartment. When Seo-jun’s identity was clear, he told the officers his partner was down and they needed an ambulance before lowering himself to the floor next to Dex again.

“Dex?” he whispered and was heartened when Dex’s eyes fluttered open and he moved his lips as though saying Seo-jun’s name, although no sound came out. “It’s okay. The ambulance is on its way. Just rest. Brand is safe with me,” he added when Dex looked like he was trying to say something else.

“Paramedics coming through!” one of the officers called out, and a couple of women wheeled a stretcher in before squatting to examine Dex. Seo-jun told the middle-aged woman with the nametag that said Jan that he thought Dex had been hit from behind with the aluminum bat, which an officer bagged as evidence while Brand gave a description of Matt Pierce and his vehicle.

Forced to move out of the way, Seo-jun could only watch as Dex was carefully loaded onto the stretcher. He seemed agitated, and after he repeatedly tried to sit up on the gurney, the paramedic named Jan turned to Seo-jun.

“Come walk beside him. I think he’s worried about you.”

Seo-jun hurried over, grasping Dex’s hand when it flailed toward him. Seo-jun was worried. What if Dex had sustained a brain injury? He squeezed Dex’s hand and was relieved when Dex settled down.

“You can ride in the back of the ambulance with him to keep him calm,” Jan said kindly as they hurried to the elevators.

Seo-jun looked at Brand. “I want to, but I need to stay with our client.” It killed him to have to let go of Dex’s hand when they got outside to the waiting ambulance, but he had to protect Brand.

Chapter Nine: Dex

“Dex. Dex, can you hear me? Dex.”

Seo-jun sounded very far away, as though he were calling to him from another room. Had he locked himself out of the apartment? Dex remembered going back there to take a nap. Had he slept too long? Why was he having so much trouble waking up?

Carefully reaching out with his senses through a pounding headache, he heard a beeping sound—like someone scanning items at a supermarket—and the murmur of distant conversation. He was lying down, he thought on a bed, although it didn’t feel as comfortable as the one in the guest room of Brand’s apartment. HIs head was bound with something. The sheet? He tried to raise his hand to feel it but couldn’t seem to move. He couldn’t even muster the energy to open his eyes, he realized with sudden panic.

Meanwhile, the beeping sound continued, as if someone scanned product after product after product without rest. Dexcould see them in his mind’s eye, running a box of butter over the scanner, a can of peas, a bag of walnuts…

“Don’t forget the energy drinks,” he murmured.

“Thank God,” he heard Seo-jun say. “He’s coming to.”

A female voice said loudly and succinctly, “Dex. Can you open your eyes and look at us?”

Dex really didn’t want to. He wanted to go back to sleep. His head pounded relentlessly, but the woman was more relentless. “Dex. Open your eyes. I want to see them. Can you do that for me?”

Why was this woman so desperate to look into his eyes?

“Not…into women,” he said, voice slurred. Was hedrunk? He did feel kind of swimmy in his head.

The woman chuckled. “Well, I’m devastated. Will you let me see your eyes anyway? Just for a moment.”

With difficulty, Dex peeled his eyes open, wincing when a light was flashed into them. “Ouch.”

“Can you bend your arm for me?” the woman asked.

Obediently bending his arm, he wondered if he’d slipped and fallen at the grocery store, not that he remembered going to one. Or, if he was drunk, was he at a bar? He was so confused, and his head ached so much, he was nauseous. He wished the fucking beeping would stop.

“Turn it off,” he grumbled. “The…beeping.”

“Silence that,” he heard the woman say, and, like magic, the beeping sound stopped.Thank fuck.

“It’s normal after a head injury to be confused,” the woman said.

A head injury?

Dex tried to sit up. “Seo-jun?” He cringed at the agonizing pain that shot through his head.

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