Page 134 of Dark Surrender

I don’t want to go on.

Doesn’t he get it? I can’t walk, move right, or talk normally. I’m pissing blood. The infections, the agony, the fever, the medications that force me to rest. The nausea and itching from the stitches… All of it is prolonging what we already know to be true. I’m dying. Hell, I should already be dead. Watching stupid shows that rot my brain isn’t helping. Nothing is.

Dad said I saved him, but I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything about that night. Part of me wishes I did, while the other is glad I don’t have more shit to dwell on.

A nurse comes in to change my bandages and give me a bed bath. Yeah, those are a thing.

Jasmina hums as she gets to work with a washcloth and a plastic bowl of warm water. She doesn’t speak English, and that’s just fine with me. I can’t talk without my throat hurting anyhow. The doc mentioned inhaling toxic chemicals. Just add that to the laundry list of what’s wrong with me. Painful to swallow, check. Unable to chew right because of a hole in my cheek, check. At least that’s on the mend. The throbbing has gone from an eight to a three. I’m sure everyone thinks I look even more like Frankenstein’s monster than before. Fucked-up face. Fucked-up leg. Fucked-up arm. Fucked-up… whatever else I missed.

Gritting my teeth, I punch the mattress as Jasmina changes the bandage on my side. She has caring hands. But that doesn’t stop the pain from doin’ what it does. Turning my nerves into live wires of fuck-you-Dark.

What if Iris thinks I’m ugly now? What if all this… that I now am… disgusts her?

See, this is why Dad needs to just get it over with. Put a bullet in my skull. Iris can move on. Get her happy. Not wait around for the likes of me.

As if summoned by my thoughts, Pops enters my room just as Jasmina pulls the sheets down to wash my legs. They’re a mess of faded bruises and fresh scars. One leg still doesn’t move right and can’t bear weight.

“Good news,” Dad says, sitting down in the recliner across from my bed. “Doc said we can start therapy next week.”

Oh. Joy. Just what I wanna do.

“Did you bring the gun?” I ask like I always do, hoping one of these times he’ll get my not-so-subtle hint.

Propping a sandal-covered foot on his knee, Pops rolls his eyes. “No, asshole, and I’m not going to.”

Jasmina flashes me a sympathetic smile and moves to another bandage that pulls what’s left of the hair off that part of my leg. Pressing my lips together, I hold back the yelp of pain and breathe through it. Once the worst is over, I grit, “Did you call your wife?” to piss my dad off.

Knowing me too damn well, he doesn’t take the bait and strokes his beard. “No, and I already told ya, I’m not doin’ that until we’re both healed up and ready to leave.”

“If you let me die, you can leave sooner.”

“Dark, shut the fuck up. You’re not dyin’. Neither of us are.”

“Tell that to last night’s fever.” Or the one the day before. Or the oozing from the hole in my arm. Or… or… fucking or.

“Your body hasn’t given up yet, and it won’t. Not when it knows what you get to go home to.”

“What if she doesn’t want me?” I voice for the first time out loud.

“She does.” Pops sounds far too goddamn convinced.

“You can’t know that. She doesn’t even know I’m alive.”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t know if you’re dead either.”

Not in the mood to argue semantics, I try a different tactic. “Kali’s gonna murder us both for not reachin’ out to her.”

“Kali’s mine to deal with. She’ll understand. This is between you and me. We’re in this. We don’t need our women down here worrying their fuckin’ asses off, or worse, them coddlin’ you. She was a mess after the cabin. This is…”

“Bad,” I add when he trails off.

“Yeah, but at least you’re talkin’ again, even if you do sound like a thousand-year-old smoker.”

Snorting, I flip the wiseass off. He’s right, though.

Jasmina hands me the wash rag so I can do what I gotta do to clean my nethers. Once that’s done, she changes my top sheet, refills the water cup on the rolling stand beside my hospital bed, and leaves the small cup of meds for me to take whenever I’m ready to swallow the horse pills. Antibiotics, vitamins, painkillers, the works. Doc has hooked me up.

Pops, doing what he does best, regales me with stories from his past or the outside world. There’s a love affair brewing on the compound here between one of Angel’s brothers and one of his sister’s friends. The gossip is better than anything on television.