“Not at all, sweetie,” he said, but she knew he was just trying to comfort her.
Chapter Nineteen
Gabe’s eyes felt like someone had hot glued them shut by the lashes. It took three tries to pry them open, and then he had to blink several times before he got a load of the white plaster ceiling overhead and a line of florescent lights turned on low. Bags hung on a pole to his right, one filled with a clear fluid and the other with a dark red substance that could only be blood.
Hospital.
Hello, déjà vu.
Except this time, unlike when he woke in the hospital in Virginia after the car accident, he remembered exactly where he was and what happened to him. Colombia. Shot.
Audrey.
He searched the small room for her with his eyes. Nothing but a visitor chair, TV, and dresser.
Okay. He refused to panic and squashed the instinctive surge. If he made it to a hospital, she’s the one who got him here. Good chance she was also here somewhere, unharmed. Maybe off getting food and a cup of coffee or having whatever minor injuries she had tended.
God, he hoped they were minor. His were serious enough for the both of them.
Speaking of, time to take stock of his condition. Gabe drew a breath and shifted in the bed, expecting pain, but instead got little more than a numbed-out tugging sensation in his side.
Not bad.
His foot hurt more than the bullet wound. A pull on the sheet covering him showed it wrapped in an ace bandage and caught in a splint. Crutches leaned against the wall across from his bed. And he was not naked or in a johnny gown, thank God, but dressed in hospital scrubs. Perfect.
He swung his legs over the side and sat up. Dizziness swamped him, but only for a second, and he studied the IV pole when his double vision merged back into one picture. A painkiller, no doubt. Saline. Both of those he could do without and pulled the tape, sliding the needles out of his arm. Machines started beeping and he jabbed the off button. Last thing he wanted was for some pushy nurse to come running.
Gabe hesitated over the bag of A neg still hanging from the pole. It was almost gone, but he’d bled hard and probably needed every drop of the transfusion. Instead of unhooking it, he grabbed the bag and took it with him. His foot held okay, so he ignored the crutches and peeked out the door.
In the dimmed hallway lights, a clock jutting from the wall halfway down the corridor said 2300. With everyone tucked into bed and the staff whittled down to the skeleton night shift, that made things extra convenient. Should be no problem to find Audrey, get back to his team, and finish this whole goddamn catastrophe of a mission.
He slipped into the hallway and—shit, footsteps coming his way. The fast, sure, quiet stride of someone on a mission. He faded back into his room and waited for them to pass, but the steps slowed as they reached his door.
Yeah, figures. He knew it was too easy.
He pressed his back to the wall at the left of the door. Across the room, his bed, in plain view of anyone in the hallway, was a rumpled mess and obviously empty, but there wasn’t much he could do now to disguise that fact. Besides, if those heavy footsteps belonged to a nurse doing nightly rounds, he’d eat his dog tags.
Possibilities raced through his mind. One of Mena’s men come to get revenge? Or one of Cocodrilo’s men? Or, hell, with the rotten luck he’d had lately, it could be someone totally unrelated to this whole mess yet just as dangerous.
The man paused outside the door, then stepped quietly into the room. He moved two steps before he realized the bed was empty and started to turn, but Gabe was already on him, an arm around his neck in a hold meant to put him to sleep in less than a minute. The guy tensed in automatic reaction like he wanted to fight back. His arms even came up, but then he relaxed and his hand tapped out against Gabe’s arm in a very familiar way.
“Gabe,” he choked.
Quinn? Gabe spun him around by the shoulders. Dim light spilling in from the hallway cast deep shadows around his nose and eyes. Exhaustion, worry, and relief ravaged his normally stoic features, his gray eyes red-rimmed and haunted.
Gabe clasped Quinn’s head in his hands, just to make sure this was real, make sure he wasn’t still unconscious and dreaming of his best friend. He wasn’t. Quinn’s head was a solid mass under his hands, skin warm, beard stubble abrading the cuts on his palms.
He let out a relieved breath. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you, bro.”
“Same here, man. When I heard that shot over the phone—” Quinn’s voice came out thick and he paused to clear his throat. Then he drew Gabe into a hard hug.
Gabe wasn’t a big hugger by nature, but with a brother as physically affectionate as Raffi, it was something he’d gotten…well, if not comfortable with, than tolerant of over the years. Still, he didn’t know who was more stunned by the contact: him or Quinn, who abruptly released him and backed up, looking anywhere but at him, uncomfortable with even that small amount of affection.