Page 137 of Encounter

It took a while for my blurry vision to finally focus on the white ceiling panels.What is this smell? God, I hate it. Always did.

Something clouded my peripheral vision—a dark spot blocking anything to the right of me. Closing my eyes tightly, I drew in a deep breath and felt several places on my body responding with various degrees of pain and discomfort.

What happened? Why am I in a damn hospital?

“Oh, thank god!” I heard a familiar voice next to me. Moving my head, I saw Mia struggling to get off a chair near the wall. “I think he’s waking up—for real this time!” Before even acknowledging me, she disappeared into the hallway.

“Fuck...”I lifted my hand, wanting to touch my temple, but was stopped by the tubes and contraptions connected to me. Groaning, I tried to recall the last thing that happened.

The Yakuza. I left Galen and went right to the meeting point with John. We caught them off guard, but there were more of them than we expected.Goddamn bastards. They fought like hell; dirty. Was a complete mess. We about managed to clear the warehouse, but... The rest of my memories were fuzzy and incoherent.

I remembered the pain, the adrenaline, and the heat surrounding me. I got hit, more than once, but couldn’t pinpoint when I lost my consciousness or why.

Gregory barged into the room, eyes wide. “You stupid motherfucker!” he shouted, raising his hand like he planned to slap me over the shoulder but thought better of it. With a deep sigh, he leaned on the bed and hung his head down. “Fuck, Chast. I really thought you were done for this time.”

Jeez, getting all mushy over me, are you Gregory?“You oughta know by now you can’t get rid of me,” I murmured with a smile, touched by seeing both of them so relieved, but my attention quickly turned to the more important things. “What the hell happened?”

Scoffing, Gregory moved the chair Mia sat on closer to the bed, letting her poor pregnant ass rest again, and sat on the armrest. I had to turn my whole head to see them properly.

“God, those cunts did you in good. An hour or so after you went in, I got a call from John, sayin’ he had to get you to the hospital. The stragglers you didn’t kill ambushed you in some hallway. John got shot in the leg but managed to take ‘em out and drag you away. He asked me to tell you that you’re even now—whatever that means.”

I chuckled, shaking my head.The bastard probably only saved me so that what I did for him in Kandahar didn’t have to hang over his head anymore. How very much like him.

“How long have I been out?”

“Four days. You kept goin’ in and out,” Gregory said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Got really worried about you there, man.” Mia’s expression echoed his sentiment.

Four days? Shit.“Galen.” The words fell out of my mouth, and it became all I could think about. “M-My phone, where is—”

“He hasn’t called,” Gregory said in a low, careful tone.

Drawing my brows together, I looked down on my arms covered in bandages and tubes, resting on the white hospital blanket. It wasn’t really that surprising he wouldn’t get back to me after what I said.He looked so damn hurt...

Hearing him call my name with such urgency and despair was agonizing, and I barely managed to force myself to leave then.Was he okay now? I knew he’d get a ton of shit from his father, but surely, it was better than him getting more involved in my chaotic mess of a life. It was so idiotic of me to think my work would never intervene with the rest—that it wouldn’t endanger him.

I was beyond lucky, the way it hasn’t affected my personal life until this point. How fucking naive to expect that luck to never run out? I took it for granted. Everything. The way I could walk away from it all, settling down in my safe place with Kitty on my lap... That was all gone now.

“Mr. Lahad?” All of us turned at the door. A balding man in doctor’s scrubs stood there, smiling hesitantly. “Just got a word from the nurse that you woke up. How are you feeling?” Stepping in, he immediately started touching and prodding my arm and studying the machines, making me nervous.

“My head’s killin’,” I mumbled. “But I’ve been worse.”Have I? I don’t even know anymore.

He glanced at me and then took out some records from behind my bed. “Well, you came out pretty lucky, all things considered.”

Judging by the look Gregory gave me, it was safe to assume the doc was one of the ones willing to not ask very many questions about the cause of the injuries. Not like the police could chase every single gang- or illegal-activity-related admissions, either with the amount of work they had on their hands, but having to dance around it was what I always hated about going to the hospital.

“You have a concussion from the head trauma you’ve experienced. Thankfully, there doesn’t seem to be any serious damage or swelling of the brain—though you might experience slight vision problems for a while.”So that’s what that is.“Our biggest worry was the bullet wound which went through your abdomen. It seriously damaged your spleen, which became life-threatening, so we were forced to remove it.”

“Shit.” I felt pretty damn groggy, but not missing-an-organ groggy.What does the spleen even do?

“You can live a pretty normal, fulfilling life, presuming there are no further complications. It will affect your immune system—you’ll be more susceptible to infections, but you’re otherwise in surprisingly good health, so I’d say the outlook is fairly good. May I?” Pointing at me, the doctor helped me move to the side, so he could check a wound on my lower back. I barely felt anything thanks to all the pain meds I must’ve been on.

A pretty normal life? Fairly good? God, I hate this tippy-toeing bullshit.Then again, at least I didn't wake up in a bathtub filled with ice, gutted like a fish.

“Looks good,” he noted after he was done, and let me lay on my back again. “Right now, we’re looking at a lot of rest and some antibiotics. We’d like to keep you here for observation for a few more days, in case there are complications.”

I couldn’t remember the last time I was this messed up. And I couldn’t remember what mistake I made with the Yakuza.How could

I let some fucks nearly kill me?

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