Liam glanced over his shoulder, letting up on the pressure on Nick’s arm and incision. He reached out to the screaming machines and silenced them somehow, then pulled the green mask down his chin. A smirk curled his lips.
Nick pressed his hand to his incision, feeling blood seeping through the stitches. He curled up and rocked, unable to stop himself. “What are you doing here?” he gritted out.
“I heard you were under the weather,” Liam said, his tone entirely conversational. He pulled up a chair and sat, then gently took Nick’s hand in his, cradling the morphine clicker in Nick’s palm. He wrapped Nick’s fingers around it and pressed his thumb against Nick’s, making him push the button a few times. “Let’s just up this a little, shall we? Can’t have you in pain.”
“You okay over there, boy?” Nick’s dad asked.
“Dad, it’s fine,” Nick managed. “It’s fine. Go back to sleep.”
Liam rolled his eyes and stood. “I’ll be right back.” He yanked the curtain aside, standing in the middle of the room to look down at Brian O’Flaherty’s bed. “You have some fucking nerve, don’t you?” he said as he examined the equipment around Brian’s bed.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Just a friend of your son’s, don’t mind me,” Liam murmured distractedly.
“Bell, leave him alone,” Nick tried to say, though his voice was weak and his words were slurring and panicked. He tried to reach the call button, which had been moved out of the way to make room for the box of zombie shells.
Liam plucked Brian’s IV line between two of his fingers, then pulled a syringe from his pocket. He whistled as he injected whatever was in it into the IV.
“Liam!” Nick shouted. He reached for his own IV to yank it out, intending to get out of bed, but his movements were sluggish and his mind was growing foggier. He couldn’t manage it. His hand landed on the shotgun shells, prepared to hurl the box at Liam’s head.
“Relax, he’ll be fine. He’ll just go to sleep.” Liam tossed the syringe in a receptacle and then leaned over Brian. “I ever see you with a drink in your hand again, I’ll put a hole through your fucking skull. Understand? You don’t deserve this man as a son.”
Nick saw the anger and fear in his father’s eyes before the medicine Liam had injected him with put him to sleep.
“Wanker,” Liam added. He pulled the curtain closed again and sat down beside Nick. He batted Nick’s hands away from the heavy box of shells, then from the IV line and the nurse’s call button. His movements were extremely gentle considering he’d just jabbed the heel of his palm into Nick’s incision several minutes before. He patted Nick’s chest. “All right, then.”
Nick groaned and tried to shove him away, but couldn’t. “Why can’t you just slink off to somewhere and die like you were supposed to?”
“Well, that’s not very nice.”
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I knew now would be the best time to see you, since when you’re healthy you tend to punch first and discuss after you’ve tied me to something that’s not very fun.”
Nick grunted.
“To get right down to it, I need your help.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Nick growled. He tossed his head and writhed on the bed, fighting through the pain.
Liam took his hand in his, pushing Nick’s thumb to hit the morphine drip again. He held on to him this time, as if he were offering comfort.
Nick glared at him. “How could you convince yourself I’d help you do anything?”
Liam glanced at the doorway. “Because I finally have leverage over you.”
Nick’s eyes darted toward the door.
“You and the Doc, yeah? Never saw that coming.”
“You hurt him and you’re a dead man. I’ll hunt you down and make you suffer, I promise you that.”
“I accept those terms. And . . . I am suitably intimidated by the violent declarations of an otherwise gentle man. The thing is, I’m going to need your help. The details are a bit fuzzy yet, but rest assured it is something you and only you can assist me in doing. And when the time comes, I’m going to need you to mobilize without questions and without your nasty habit of being morally opposed to . . . things.”
“Things?”
“You know. Stuff.”
Nick’s breathing was growing more labored, and it was harder to fight past the morphine to keep his eyes open. The only reason he was even still conscious was pure hatred.
Liam smiled kindly at him. “You help me on one simple task, and then you and the Doc sail off into the sunset together. You refuse, and I finish the job New Orleans started with that hole in Doc’s chest.”