Page 21 of Ruined

* * *

I open my eyes.

Behind a plastic sheet of the kind you can get at any hardware store, I am operated on by a silent surgeon. I am heavily dissociated under the influence of a massive dose of ketamine, but not fully sedated. They don’t have an anesthetist. This is not a hospital. This is the kind of operation that might easily prove just as dangerous as the bullet itself.

I close my eyes.

* * *

I open my eyes.

When I wake, I am in what looks like and feels like, and in fact is, a cheap motel room.

Bobby is next to me on the bed, in his shirt sleeves. Something about the way they’re rolled up reminds me of how Angelo looked before the federal government pumped hundreds of rounds into the room. His hair is falling into his eyes, and there’s a look of solemn concern and uncharacteristic maturity around his features.

“Stay still,” he says. “If you pull those stitches, you’ll regret it.”

He speaks sternly, as if I would be in trouble for messing with my stitches. It’s not a tone I’m used to hearing out of his mouth. He sounds very controlled, very calculated. Very caring.

I’m temporarily lost for memories. Something has happened. Context floats just beyond my reach, hazy impressions of bullets and glass and coffee…

“What happened?”

“Feds hit the house,” he explains, holding a cup of water with a straw in it to my lips. “Drink.”

I take a sip. I do have memories of chaos, and of the hospital that wasn’t, and I do have that fuzzy ache that you get when you’re in agony but opiates are keeping it at bay. It’s like my body is screaming, but I’ve put it on mute.

“Where’s Angelo?”

“They have him in custody,” Bobby says. “We need to get him back.”

“He’s alive?”

“Yeah. He’s alive.”

“How is that possible?”

“Your people have shitty fucking aim.”

Now that I cast my mind back through the rubble of my memories, I know that I’m not recalling absolutely everything as it actually happened, but as best I recall, it didn’t feel like they were aiming at all, or if they were, it feels as though I had become a target too. I suppose I must have looked very cozy breakfasting naked from the waist down with Angelo and Bobby. Maybe they assumed I had turned. Even so, it’s not typical for any mission to be… eh, who am I kidding. Once the cowboys are called in, and assuming the target has been assigned a kill status, Uncle Sam makes sure they have all the bullets they need.

“They’ve offered me a trade. You for him. Angelo told me to take it, so I’m going to take it. Congratulations, you’re free.”

“Uh. Thanks.”

He offers me another sip. I take it.

“Thank you for saving my life.”

“Doctors saved as much of you as they could,” Bobby says. I won’t realize until later what that little sentence means. For now, I assume he’s telling me I was pretty badly injured.

I lift the sheet that is covering me gingerly and look down my body. There’s a bandage over my stomach, but it’s not large, and other than that I seem to be okay. I can both feel and wriggle my fingers and toes.

I breathe a sigh of relief. This could have been much worse. I could have lost the use of my limbs. I could have lost my life.

Bobby fusses over me for a few minutes before making a call on speakerphone. I’m surprised he isn’t trying to hide any of this from me.

“Robert,” the voice on the other end says. “How are you?”

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