The Losing Game (20 page)

The yellow headlights were replaced first by red taillights, then the all-encompassing shroud of darkness.

Lucas dropped to his knees. His shoulder hurt with indescribable pain. Every inhale, every tiny increment his chest moved as he delicately tried to fill his lungs, was like someone had taken a hammer and chisel to his left collarbone. By comparison, his forehead and his jaw barely hurt at all.

Lucas heard his blood rushing in his ears. Th-thud, th-thud, th-thud. Very fast. Over it, he heard the noise of a car engine.

Was Shaw returning to finish the job?

Lucas opened his eyes and saw the outlines of the hedges and the lavender clouds in an indigo sky. Ahead he heard the clunk of a car door closing. He squinted, straining to see something in the direction of the sound. He saw nothing. No one. Until he did. A silhouette in the shape of a slender man, completely black.

“
Lucas
!”

A shadow descended. Lucas blinked once, twice, to focus.

“Lucas. It’s me, Dante.”

Of course it was him. Lucas knew that silky voice, but he couldn’t work out why or how. He said, “Dante. It
is
you.” Which wasn’t what he wanted to say at all.

“Yes.”

Dante knelt down in front of Lucas, pushed back his hair, and kissed his bashed forehead so gently that Lucas let out a sob.

Dante soothed Lucas again, touched his face, then took out a tiny penlight from his pocket and shone it over Lucas’s upper body. Lucas winced, not from the light but at what he saw when he glanced down at his left shoulder. The warmth of his spilling blood was spreading, along with the pain. Tendrils of agony stretched to the back of Lucas’s head, to his arm, and his back. His body began to shake, completely beyond his control.

“I’m sorry.”

Dante hushed him. “I need to see where you’re hurt.” He spoke very gently. “Try not to move.”

“Just my shoulder. Shaw shot me.”

“Your face.” Dante shone the light into the space between their faces. The whites of his eyes, the way they seemed to pop out of his head, would have looked comical if Lucas wasn’t so scared.

Dante unwrapped Lucas’s scarf from his neck, rolled it into a ball, and pressed it to Lucas’s shoulder. “Can you hold this?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now I’m going to help you up, and you’re going to sit over there, so that you can lean against the fence.”

Lucas didn’t question Dante. He felt Dante’s breath on his cheek as Dante slid his arm and shoulder under Lucas’s right armpit and helped him stand. Lucas had the stupid urge to kiss him. He wasn’t sure if that was shock or relief or something else. Something uncomfortable that he didn’t want to—
couldn’t
—think about at this particular moment.

Dante lowered Lucas gently. “Sit very still. Try to stay calm. It’ll slow down the bleeding.”

“Where’s your car?”

Lucas had heard a car. He was sure of it.

Dante didn’t answer the question. He said, “I need you to listen to me very carefully. Can you do that?”

Lucas wanted to ask Dante so many questions. He knew he did, but the words wouldn’t form. All he could focus on was in, out, in, out—breathing carefully through the hammer and chisel, clawing and tearing at his shoulder muscle and collarbone.

He shivered, and it hurt. The ground was freezing. His fingers and toes were numb. Dante pressed his hand over Lucas’s, over the bullet wound in his shoulder.

“Lucas? Are you listening?”

“I’m so cold.”

Dante took off his jacket and draped it over the front of Lucas’s body and the tops of his thighs. He put his hand under Lucas’s jaw, the good side. “Please, Lucas. Please focus.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. You’re doing well. But you need to listen to me. I have your handset. I’m going to call 9-9-9, and when they answer you’re going to speak. You’re going to tell the operator that you’re alone. Do you understand me?”

Lucas tried and failed to move his left hand upward, as if he could somehow hold on to Dante. “Are you going to leave me?”

“
No.
No. Not until the ambulance is here.”

“But….”

“No more questions. You have to trust me. No one can know that I was here.”

Lucas blinked wearily. His eyelids were heavy, but he had to tell Dante. He didn’t know why, but on some level he understood that Dante had a plan. Because of this, he couldn’t help thinking it was important for Dante to know, “It was my gun. Not registered. Shaw took it from me…. I messed up.”

“It’s okay. Everything will be okay.”

“It was
my
gun.”

“There’s no proof of that. When the police ask you what happened, you say you were out for a night run. You accidentally crossed paths with a couple of men, you can’t describe them because it was too dark, and one of them shot you. That’s it. You keep it simple.”

“What about Shaw?”

Dante paused and pressed harder onto Lucas’s shoulder. Lucas hissed with the pain.

“I’m sorry.” Dante paused again. “Don’t mention Shaw. Say as little as possible.”

“Okay.” Lucas nodded and repeated, “Night running. Two men here on the lane. One of them shot me.”

“Good. Now, to get you an ambulance.”

Dante held Lucas’s handset where Lucas could see it and pressed the keypad. 9-9-9. He waited for the call to be picked up—Lucas heard the ringing, then the voice—and held the handset to Lucas’s ear.

“Emergency. Which service do you require?”

Lucas tried to speak clearly, but he stumbled over every word. “I’ve been shot. In my shoulder. I need an ambulance.”

The operator asked Lucas a series of questions. When he replied his voice sounded far away, like it belonged to someone else. He gave the operator his name and his handset code and repeated that he was alone. “I don’t know where I am exactly. In Milton. At the entrance to a private drive.”

“Stay on the line. An ambulance is on its way.”

“I’m very tired.”

“I know, Lucas. But you need to try to stay awake.”

Lucas lifted his eyes to Dante’s. Dante nodded, then pressed his lips to Lucas’s head.

“I’ll see you soon?” Lucas asked, no louder than a whisper.

Dante nodded again.

The operator replied, “That’s right. They’ll be there soon. Don’t hang up, Lucas, and stay awake. Can you do that?”

“I think so,” he said, leaning against Dante, crouched at his good side, cradling him against his chest.

They didn’t speak. They couldn’t. In any case, as the minutes ebbed away, Lucas found he cared less to say anything. He turned his face into the steady warmth of Dante’s neck. Dante still smelled of the musky aftershave he’d worn earlier in the evening. It was a spicy, Christmassy smell that made Lucas think of mulled wine and mince pies.

He tilted up his face, close to Dante’s ear, and whispered, “I wish I’d asked you to come in tonight.”

Dante lowered the handset to the ground, cupped the back of Lucas’s head in his hand, and whispered back, “So do I.”

Somewhere, at the edge of Lucas’s mind, he had a terrible premonition. His hand could barely hold the handset, let alone control it, but with every ounce of his focus, he swiped his thumb over the End Call button.

“Dante,” he croaked. “Don’t go after Shaw. If you kill him, I’ll never forgive you. Do you understand?”

“You’re going to be okay.”

“Promise me.”

There were no sirens, but they both seemed to see it at the same time—the flash of blue lights arcing into the sky in the distance.

“I promise,” Dante said. “I have to go.”

When he took away his hand, his jacket, and his embrace, the loss was unbearable. Lucas tried to hold in the urge to cry. He curled up his knees and pressed his hand against his shoulder harder, as hot tears ran down his cheeks.

WITH MONUMENTAL
effort, Lucas lifted his eyes. Fluorescent jackets moved toward him. The voices of the paramedics sliced through the mental fog. It took every ounce of his concentration and energy to answer their questions.

A police car swerved around the ambulance. Lying on the stretcher, Lucas heard their voices as if he was submerged, under water, and they were above, far away. From the snatches of conversation, he could pick out enough words to understand. This was a crime scene. The victim would need to be asked questions. Could one of the officers ride in the ambulance and speak to him? Was the wound a through-and-through? Should they be looking for the bullet on the ground?

Lucas knew, on some level, that in his current state he wouldn’t do a good job of lying. He wasn’t a good liar at the best of times, though lately he’d made remarkable improvements. Thus, he decided, as he was jabbed and jolted and moved, that it was best he say nothing. A decision that was made easier by the addition of an oxygen mask.

He needn’t have worried about the police. The paramedic crew wouldn’t let anyone else in the ambulance. Though at that point, the police were the least of his worries.

The ambulance bumped and swerved. A clear plastic bag swung overhead. And suddenly the pain in Lucas’s shoulder exploded. He grappled with the mask, only to have the paramedic sitting next to him ease it back over his face.

“It hurts. Fuck. It hurts.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she said. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. We’re trying to replace some of your fluids, but the downside is that as your blood pressure goes up, so does the pressure in your wound.”

“God, I feel like shit. Can’t you put something extra in the gas?” Lucas could feel the slur in his voice. His lips and tongue didn’t seem to want to move. He doubted the paramedic could understand him through the mask, and even if she did, he didn’t care. It was on his mind, and he had an ominous sense of urgency that probably had something to do with the fact that he might be bleeding to death. “I really like Dante.”

She must have had a sixth sense. Or maybe Lucas’s expression alerted her that he was saying something important. She lifted the top edge of the mask and bent down closer. “What was that?”

“I really like Dante. I wish he was here.”

“Who’s he? Your boyfriend?”

“I think so.”

Lucas noticed the lights in the top of the ambulance had little rainbows shooting out of them. He chased one with his forefinger. Until the paramedic lowered it and said, “Only think so? You’re not sure.”

Lucas struggled to think of how to word what he wanted to say. He ought to have said nothing, but it helped to keep his mind off his shoulder and his jaw. “I wish I could speak to him.”

The paramedic had red hair. And freckles. And a dimple on her chin. She’d told Lucas her name, when she was helping to lift him onto the stretcher, but he couldn’t remember what it was.

She spoke to the driver for a few seconds, then returned her attention to Lucas. “I have your handset. Is there anyone else we should call? Mum? Dad?”

“Dead. And my sister. And Avery.” Lucas felt his throat closing, and his eyes prickled.
Not now. Don’t get upset about that now.
He summoned up the strength to draw in a big breath, but it hardly seemed to fill his lungs. “Not Lily. She’s in a wheelchair. Dante. He knows what to do.”

The paramedic put her hand—it was so warm—on his face, just as Dante had. His eyes filled with tears he couldn’t stop.

“It’s okay. You’re going to be okay. Is his number on here, sweetheart?” She lifted his handset into his line of sight.

“Yes.”

The paramedic held the handset in front of Lucas. “Is the screen locked?”

“No.”

She swiped her thumb over the window.

“I see him.” She checked over Lucas’s shoulder and said, “That’s it. Here we are. I’ll make sure one of the A and E nurses calls your friend.”

A crowd of faces haloed Lucas’s vision. Still, the lights inside the hospital were blinding. He squinted. A wave of nausea roiled through his gut. He tasted the cheese from earlier. Only now it was acidic and pungent, and there was nothing nice and nothing romantic about it.

He tried to concentrate and listen. He lay there like he was at the center of a tornado, still and unruffled, while all around him everything and everyone rushed by. He had to sign a consent form. He was in so much pain that he’d have given away the rights to his testicles—anything to make it stop.

Very soon he would be going down to surgery. They’d paged the surgeon. The bullet had hit and shattered Lucas’s collarbone. They had the bleeding under control, but they were worried about the state of his (
brachial? Was that what they’d said?)
blood vessels. They weren’t sure yet about nerve damage. They needed to investigate.

He was going to go to sleep now.

“Count back from one hundred, Mr. Green.”

“’S Lucas.” He tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry. “Ninety-nine. Ninety-eight.”

Lucas realized he hadn’t actually said the one hundred part. He wondered if it mattered. He said, “Ninety-seven. Nine….”

No going back now.

Lucas entered the dark. Moments later he awoke. His eyelids were jammed closed, despite his best efforts to open them. The thin skin of his eyelids looked red and swimmy. Through them, he could see it was light, outside, out there in the land of the living.

Lucas mumbled, “I need to call Dante.”

Away, he heard a woman’s voice say, “He’s on his way back.”

Lucas wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or about him, or whether it was absolutely nothing to do with Lucas at all. He still couldn’t open his eyes.

He wasn’t sure if the next time that he came around was seconds, minutes, or hours after the last he’d surfaced. His tongue scraped the top of his mouth. He cracked open his eyes and noted that, bizarrely, the ceiling was moving from side to side. A nurse in a dark blue top and trousers walked across Lucas’s line of vision, apparently unfazed by the current break in the laws of physics. He loomed over Lucas with a bearded smile.

“I expect you’re thirsty,” he said cheerfully. He brought a straw standing in a plastic cup to Lucas’s lips. “Sip it. Don’t gulp. You don’t want to throw it straight back up again.”