Page 6 of Outside The Wire

I sighed as they finally moved me into the depressing-as-hell room in the silo. Medically monitored, they called it. Glass walls with no fucking privacy. How the hell was a guy supposed to recover when everyone was staring at him like an attraction at a zoo?

“Welcome home,” Red grinned, waving his hand around the sterile room.

I quirked an eyebrow at him. “Wow. It’s very homey.”

“Zoe got you a teddy bear,” he said, walking across the room to the bed and snatched it off the pillow. “She said something about everyone needing a teddy when they were recovering. Don’t ask me what that means. I’ll put it away.”

“Hey!” I stopped him, snatching it out of his hands as he passed. “It’s my fucking teddy.”

The surprised look on his face would be comical if it weren’t for the tragically sterile room I was about to live in. “Do you see where I am? This is the only fucking happy thing in this room. I’ll keep the fucking bear.”

“Fine, but if you sleep with that thing, I’m getting pictures.”

“Good, and I want pictures. You think you can fucking tease me and embarrass me? I’m pretty sure I pissed myself as I was dying in a grave. Not sure it gets worse than that.”

He finished wheeling me over to the bed and spun me until the head of the bed was aligned properly. “Seriously, how are you feeling?”

He looked at me so worriedly that I nearly laughed. “Fuck, stop looking at me like I’m about to die.”

“Well, you almost did.”

“Almost. I’m not ready to ghost you yet.”

He shook his head, letting out a long sigh. “How the fuck did you know?”

“I saw a glint.”

“A fucking glint?”

I nodded slightly. “Call me crazy, but after the old man got sniped, when I saw it, I just got this uneasy feeling and knew.”

“You’re fucking lucky you turned. Otherwise, that could have been a direct hit.”

“I’d rather not think about it.”

Lock knocked on the door before entering with FNG and my male nurse. I glowered at the sight of him. Not that he didn’t know how to do his job, but I didn’t like the idea of a man going anywhere near my junk.

Red leaned in close. “Do you really want a chick touching your limp dick?”

“Point taken.”

“Alright, let’s get you into bed,” the nurse said a little too happily.

Fuck, I hated him already. After a grueling five minutes of torture, I was settled into bed and sweating my ass off. The nurse was connecting me to a bunch of wires that I felt were completely unnecessary, but Lock insisted on. I was to be “monitored” until further notice.

I was about to tell him where he could shove his monitoring when he told me it was this or I would not be involved in finding out who fired the shot.

“Alright,” he said as soon as the nurse left the room. “We really haven’t had much time to work the senator’s case since he was shot. There’s been too much security around you. But now that you’ve been released from the hospital?—”

“Declared dead,” FNG clarified.

“—we can continue with our own investigation.” Lock passed around file folders that were color-coded (something he really loved) to Red, FNG, and me. Eli rushed into the room just moments later.

“Sorry, I’m late. Had to see a man about a horse.”

“A what?” FNG asked, scratching the back of his head.

“He had to shit,” I answered.

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