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I didn't remember much about that night.
The skull-splitting migraine had stolen all rational thought, all observation skills save but to notice the crippling pain of it, the way even the faint glow of my alarm clock was too bright to bear.
But the pain became a dull, throbbing ache by the next day when I woke up, unable to get any more rest.
And he was still there.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, voice a little sleep-rough.
"Like I had the piss beat out of me," I admitted, whimpering a little as I pushed myself up, feeling all the pains the migraine had blocked out the night before.
Everywhere hurt.
Places I didn't know could hurt if they got hit, hurt.
I felt like one giant bruise.
"I need to wash this all off of me," I said, gesturing to the dirt, gravel, sweat, blood all over me still. He had mopped up my face and hands, but that wasn't all there was.
"I'll help you to the bathroom," he offered.
"How is Cam?"
"Fine. He insisted Astrid do some stitching. Which she went green at, but pulled through and got it done. He will have a scar, but he will heal just fine. We can catch up with them once you clean up. And let me treat some of these cuts again."
"Okay," I agreed, letting him take care of me because, quite frankly, I didn't feel like I could do it myself, as much as that hurt my pride to admit.
I'd had my ass kicked a few times in the past. I didn't like admitting that, but it was the truth. I'd had ribs bruised and broken, black eyes, road burn, loose teeth, fat lips. You name it, I had been there.
But this beating, this might have taken the cake.
A situation had never gotten that out of control for me. I had never been that outnumbered, that outgunned. We had always managed to get out before things got that bad.
So this, this was maybe the worst I had gotten. And I was including the knife to my face and the bullet to my shoulder.
This was easily worse.
The shower took me twice as long as it normally would, sapping all of the energy the sleep had given me.
So when Roderick let himself in when I was in nothing more than undies and a tee, I sat down on the closed toilet lid and let him take it from there, accepting the pain pills he handed to me without objection, let him clean, slather, and wrap any part of me he saw fit, then half-carry me into the living room, settling me onto the couch with three blankets and two pillows, leaving me only to fetch me coffee, water, and two old-fashioned donuts.
I didn't even think to tell him to move away when he came in beside me, wrapping an arm around me gently, holding me to his side, letting me drink and eat in silence waiting for the pain medicine to turn the shooting and throbbing pain into dull aching that didn't make thinking completely impossible.
"Okay," I said when Astrid and Cam came over, sitting down, looking at me with worried eyes. "I need to know what happened," I told them, attempting to put some authority into my voice, but I was pretty sure it just sounded weak and pleading.
"You guys were probably just getting there when I got a message from a virtual buddy of mine," Astrid started, reaching out to give my foot a small squeeze. "Telling me that JB was a con, just a street thug known for violence. That we shouldn't have anything to do with him. But... it was too late at that point. You left your cells in the car or they were off. I couldn't get in touch."
"So you went into the storage and just... got an AK?"
"I figured if the ship was going down, at least we would all go down together," she admitted. "I wouldn't have made it without you guys anyway."
"How did you get there?" Roderick asked, clearly a question he had been thinking on because it burst out of him.
"You know, it's crazy what New York City cab drivers will overlook," she admitted with a smile.
"How is this looking?" I asked. "On the news? What is the story?"
"Gang shooting," Astrid supplied. "No survivors, so there is no one to point fingers."
"None?" I asked, thinking of how many of them there had been.
"Cam and Roderick had gotten three of them by the time I got there. I got the rest. Well, all but JB."
"You said there was no one left," I objected, feeling my stomach plummet.
"There's not," she reassured me with another foot squeeze. "Once Roderick here saw what he did to you, he filled him with holes."
There was a strange floaty feeling in my chest as my head slowly turned to find him already looking down at me.
