Page 5 of Outside The Wire

Lock turned and grinned at FNG. “Oh, that’s right. You have to be in the back of the hearse.” He tskd sadly. “Sorry, man. Looks like you’ll have to do the honors another time.”

FNG’s jaw dropped as he looked from me back to Lock. “But…that’s not fair. You already promised.”

“I did, but you’re our medic.”

He scoffed, bouncing down on the edge of my bed a little too harshly. “Stupid medical training. I should have been a mechanic. Then I could have driven the damn car.”

“Yeah, that’s what would have allowed you to drive the car,” Lock snorted.

We were getting way off-topic. “What about this nurse?”

“He’ll meet us at the compound later tonight. He’s dealt with situations like this many times before.”

“What? Sneaking patients out and treating them in silos after they’ve faked their deaths?”

“No,” Lock said slowly. “Aftercare of near-fatal wounds. He’s being paid handsomely, so don’t piss him off and threaten him. We need him to stick around.”

“Fine,” I grumbled. “But I don’t have to like it.”

“If you stick your tongue out at me, I’ll cut it off,” Lock said, narrowing his eyes at me.

I waited until he turned around and then I repeated his words back to him silently, mocking him the whole time.

“I saw that.”

I rolled my eyes. The man just couldn’t let me have any fun. I had nearly died and he still had a stick up his ass. All I wanted was to feel alive for five fucking minutes. Maybe eat some chicken and remember what ketchup tasted like. Was that really too much to ask?

“Yes,” he answered as if he heard my silent thoughts.

“Don’t worry,” Red grinned. “In another few hours, you’ll be back at the compound and all the women will be bugging the shit out of you.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Better them than Fox. He’ll make you watch musicals with him all day. Then you’ll wish that sniper bullet hadn’t missed its mark.”

Shit. I was gonna have to get one of them on my side to run interference.

“Fuck,”I moaned, grasping the bed rail as Red hit another bump, jolting me yet again.

“Sorry.”

“You’ve already said that.”

“Well, I meant it.”

I would twist my neck to look at him if I could. “You know, you could have just fucking let me walk.”

“Doctor’s orders.”

“Fucking doctor,” I griped. “I could have taken a wheelchair. That would have been more comfortable.”

“But a wheelchair isn’t a bed. And it won’t allow you to lay flat and stable.”

I grumbled at that. “I hate to point this out, but I’m not exactly laying flat or staying stable.”

“Would you quit your whining? We’re doing the best we can.”

I highly doubted that. In fact, I was pretty fucking sure they were doing everything possible to make this the most uncomfortable ride I’d ever taken. Why? I wasn’t precisely sure. Maybe it was because they wanted to fuck with me. Or maybe they wanted to remind me I was alive. Newsflash, I already knew that.

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