“What the hell is going on here?”
Sisk lets out a long breath. “You showed up about eight hours after you ran off,” she says, her arms crossed over her chest. “Covered in blood. We found you passed out in the alley,” she finishes.
Viper just shrugs, looking me over like I’m a piece of shit. “Had to drag your heavy ass inside.”
“We’ve been waiting for you to wake up ever since,” Murtaugh says from the counter, playing doctor with his medical supplies. “Been two days.”
Right on cue, the door swings open, and Lou walks in, juggling two bags of takeout. His face goes pale when he sees me. “You’re awake.”
I nod once. “I’m fine.”
I look down at the cuffs on my wrists. “Can you take these off now?” I glance at Sisk, annoyed.
Everyone in the room looks at each other.
“Sisk?”
Sisk looks between them, then sighs.
“We have to,” she says firmly. “He’s awake. He’s talking. We can’t keep him chained up.”
Still no one moves.
Fine.
I pull, and the cuffs snap like a toy. The broken pieces of clatter onto the floor.
Lou drops one of the takeout bags and noodles spill everywhere.
Everyone else in the room goes still, as if they’re watching a grenade with the pin pulled.
“Well,” Lou says, his voice barely a whisper. “That answers that.”
Sisk grabs a bottle of water from the counter and walks over, sitting beside me. “Here,” she says.
I snatch the bottle, twist the cap, and drain all of it without stopping. I crush the plastic in my hand and look at her. “So what have you told them?”
Sisk leans closer, her fingers fumbling with the broken cuff on my other wrist. “The basics.”
“What basics?”
“You know. We fell in the pit. We made a bargain. We’ve been doomed ever since.”
I shift on the floor, the concrete digging into my ass. “How about the… offspring?”
Sisk looks at me. “You mean the baby?”
Lou freezes mid-bite, a noodle hanging from his mouth. “WHAT baby?” he asks, spraying food.
Sisk pinches the bridge of her nose and lets out a long-suffering sigh. Then she launches into it. The whole insane story, laying it all out for the room.
Halfway through, my eyes start to glaze over. My head still feels like a marching band is using my skull for a drum solo.
“Hold up,” Murtaugh says suddenly, cutting through Sisk’s explanation.
Everyone stops.
He’s staring at me, his eyes wide behind his glasses. “You got the surgery?”
