Page 81 of Don't Game Me
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Jake came to as he was being transferred to a hospital bed. Pain filled his head. He dug deep and tried to expel the pain and the haze bogging down his brain.
“Becca?” he croaked as he was lifted. Sounds bombarded him—too many people breathing and moving around him.
“Hold on, Jake. You’re going to be okay,” said a young male voice. “You need to hold still because we have an IV line in your right arm. We’re giving you a medication to counteract what you were given.”
“Where? What?” He opened his eyes to see a white-tiled ceiling before the bright overhead light forced him to slam his eyelids closed.
He could barely move. He struggled. Had to get to Becca. He remembered the gun and her bleeding. Then nothing.
“You’re all right,” said a guy helping with his move. “Just hold on. We’ll get you some pain meds.”
“No.” Jake struggled to a sit in the hospital bed. “Where’s Becca?”
Something cold worked its way up his right arm, and he passed out.
He came out of darkness and sat straight up. His head pounded like someone had put it in a vice and was compressing his skull. He blew out a breath and tried to control the pain. Machinery beeped around him, and liquid dropped into an IV line next to him. He held up his hand, where a catheter had been placed.
“You’re up.” A thirty-something nurse pushed a button on the beeping machine next to him to turn off its noise. “You got drugged. Something pretty powerful that will leave you with a huge hangover, but the doctor says you’re going to be okay.”
“Where’s Becca?”
“There are some people waiting to see you. Perhaps one of them can fill you in. If you’re up to it, I’ll tell them to come in,” the nurse said as she exited.
“I need answers.”
Noah entered, along with Agent Reynolds.
“How you doing, man?” Noah asked.
Jake did a few slow blinks of his eyes to get Noah into focus. He winced when agony slammed through his temples. With his head between his massaging hands, he asked, “Becca?”
“She’s fine. Bruised and got drugged by the same thing you got, but okay,” Agent Reynolds said.
“I saw her get shot. Point blank into the stomach. She was bleeding…”
Noah put a hand on Jake’s shoulder. “Relax, she’s safe. She’s okay at least physically. After that stunt, though, I think she’s certifiably insane. She was wearing a Kevlar vest outfitted with blood packets—a set up to make it look real and get Lisi to talk.”
“Not real? Not shot?” He fell back against the bed, barely able to wrap his head around the revelation. Betrayal dark and anguished swallowed him.
“We got him. Well, her. Symphis is Lisi. She confessed. Becca got it recorded,” Reynolds said.
“You knew about all this, Noah? Her planning to fake death on the gamble she’d get shot in the chest?”
Noah shook his head. “Hell, no. I’d never have signed off on anything so stupid. What if Lisi shot her in the head? Or somewhere not protected? Quan helped her plan the whole thing, and everything out in California.”
“Quan? The guy Tori played with on that gaming team?”
“Yeah, him. NSA guy.” Noah rubbed the scruff on his jaw.
“Becca didn’t tell me. Should’ve…” He shivered and pulled the thin covers around him and over the sparse hospital gown.
Noah requested the nurse bring him another blanket. When it arrived, Noah draped it over him. Softly, he said, “I think she thought if she told you, you’d never have let her get off the elevator.”
He’d put his heart on the line, and she’d betrayed him by not trusting him with her life.
“Thank you for doing this,” Becca said as she followed Quan through a bland office building in Queens that housed a ton of cubicles. Despite the austere decor, the building buzzed with people wearing NSA badges on lanyards. Becca felt like she’d stepped onto a CSI set, even if the dingy, worn interior lacked color. “Have you seen her?”
