“How are we all doing?” I ask, feeling compelled to offer some level of comfort to him.
He starts to answer, but Agent Chambers walks in, followed by Agent Johnson, and he stops himself. They both look like they’ve been dragged ass-backward through a trash heap, but they’re in one piece at least.
“Can you give us a minute?” she asks Wallis.
He nods and heads out of the door. Johnson follows him, but stops and turns back to look at me.
“Everything else aside,” he says. “That was a real gutsy move back there, Adrian.”
He walks out without waiting for a reply and closes the door behind him.
I look at Agent Chambers. Grace. She stands next to me, where Wallis had just been. She smiles a weary smile.
“You alright?” I ask.
“I’ve had better days, but I’ll live.”
“I’m just glad we all survived. You might not believe me, but I do genuinely feel for those SWAT guys. I know this is my fault.”
“This isn’t your fault,” she says, putting her hand on mine and squeezing gently. I try to return the gesture, but don’t quite have the strength. “This is The Shark’s fault. And whether I like it or not, we were lucky you were there.”
“Ah, team effort,” I say, smiling. “Hey, where’s Josh? I don’t remember seeing him in the chaos back there.”
Chambers says nothing, but looks down and squeezes my hand again.
“What is it?” I ask, with growing concern.
“Your friend was hit,” she says. “He’s in the ICU now and he’s listed as critical. I’m sorry, Adrian.”
I feel sick to my stomach. Like I’m on a rollercoaster and I’ve just been flipped upside down at a hundred miles an hour. The room starts spinning almost as fast as my mind is. How the hell could Josh have been shot?
I replay the scene in my head as best I can. Parts of it are still blurry to me, thanks to what I can only assume is a fairly significant concussion.
The first blast was over to our left. That was the SWAT van. The second blast was high above, which was the chopper. That crashed down on the school bus, causing a third blast — that was the one that just about got me. So how did Josh get shot?
I close my eyes and rub my temples, trying to make sense of everything.
The gunshots…
There were two gunshots. They were barely audible at the time, but there was no mistaking them. I remember hearing them in the few moments between the first two explosions. I dismissed them as random at the time, but I was wrong. The timing of them was too specific. Two bullets.
The Shark intended to take Josh out.
I don’t have the energy to get angry. I’ll save that for later. I’ll save that for when my hands are around The Shark’s throat.
I look at Chambers. “I need to see him,” I say.
“You need to rest,” she replies.
“I wasn’t asking…”
I sit up, pulling all the leads off me and causing the machine to sound the constant beep of a flatline. I swing my legs over the side of the bed just as the door bursts open and three nurses run in shouting.
“Sir, you must stay in bed!” barks one of them.
I wave them away and stand up slowly, adding weight to my legs gradually to make sure I can actually get out of bed under my own strength.
“Sir, please,” continues the nurse. “You need to rest.”
I look at her. She seems like a nice person. Short brown hair and brown eyes. Probably mid-forties. A career nurse, for sure.
“Where is he?” I ask, calmly.
She looks confused and glances at Agent Chambers for some kind of verification. I see the look on her face as she realizes who I mean.
“Your friend is in critical condition,” she says.
“I know. What happened to him?” I ask.
“He was shot in the center of his chest and at the top of his left thigh. We’ve done our best to remove the bullets, but the damage was extensive. The loss of blood was significant and one of his lungs has collapsed. Luckily, the bullets managed to miss any major arteries, so we were able to stop the bleeding, but he’s still suffered a massive trauma. We’re keeping him in a medically-induced coma until he stabilizes.”
I nod, taking in the information while at the same time barely hearing a word. That’s Josh she’s talking about. My friend. My partner. My brother. And he’s lying in a hospital bed because of me.
“I still need to see him,” I say, standing and staggering over to the door. “Where is he?”
The nurse sighs, giving up the argument. “He’s down the hall to your left, through the double doors and it’s the first room on the right. Let me get you a wheelchair.”
I wave my hand dismissively, refusing the offer, then set off to find him. I realize I’m wearing a hospital gown and underwear and nothing else. But I don’t care. I have to see Josh. Even if he’s in a coma, he’ll hear me.
I need to tell him I’ve just figured out who The Shark really is.
8
I’m standing at Josh’s bedside, looking down at him, as he lies there motionless, connected to a heart rate monitor with an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. I notice his machine’s beeping a lot slower than mine was.
The bed sheet is down by his waist. His chest has a bandage across his left pectoral, with a red circle in the center of it over the bullet wound. On his left hand, a clip on his index finger also links to the monitor at the far side of the bed.
I stare at him, feeling an emptiness inside that I haven’t felt since losing my family all those years ago. It feels like a black hole in my stomach, gradually sucking in and crushing every ounce of humanity that I have remaining.
Josh is all I have left. My life doesn’t exactly allow for many friends. My family has already been taken from me and all I know is him, the open road, and me. Josh keeps me grounded; keeps me sane. He rescued me from a very dark place and helped me channel my anger into something positive. Granted, to call killing people for a living a positive thing is arguably dark, but it’s a job with a big market and lots of money to be made. Over the years, I’ve probably accumulated close to thirty million dollars. When the time comes to walk away from this life and retire, we'll be set. But right now I’d trade every cent to get him back.
“I’m sorry,” I say to him quietly. “This is my fault. For every job I take, I make two enemies. I should’ve done a better job keeping you away from this. I’m supposed to be the one in the line of fire, not you. You’re the one who sits behind the desk and tells me what to do. Why did you even come here, you dumb sonofabitch? Eh? We both have phones — why didn’t you stay away from all this like normal? Now you’re lying here attached to some fucking machine, and it’s all because of me!”
Josh is in a coma and there are no signs of life from him at all, other than the slow, constant beeping of his heartbeat on the machine next to him.
But I know he can hear me.
“I’ve figured out who The Shark is,” I continue. “You’d be so proud of me. I know who he is and why he’s pissed at me. And I’m gonna find him and I’m going to torture him and I’m going to watch him die screaming in pain.”
Still nothing. But he can hear me — I’m sure of it. He’s far too talented to let something simple like a coma stop him from utilizing all of his senses. He can hear me, and if he could reply he’d tell me to watch my back. He’d tell me to remember the FBI are in charge, and that if I wasn’t careful I’d expose myself and risk spending the rest of my life in prison. Or the last three minutes of my life strapped to a chair. He’d say it in his bouncy, happy, optimistic tone of voice that makes me sick and makes me feel at peace, all at the same time.