Die for You

Chapter 63

I woke up in a bed, but I had no idea where the fuck I was. I was tucked up tightly and my head was fucking throbbing. As I opened my eyes wincing against the light, I saw a familiar face staring down at me, blurred though it was.

"Hey, you," Becky said with a smile, "you had me worried there, how you feeling?"

That was a question, how was I feeling? Pretty shit as far as I could tell. My head was pounding and my vision was fucked. I stared up at her smiling face, my rattled brain blinking rapidly, trying desperately to bring her into focus.

"Where am I?" It was the only question on my lips as I stared at her, confused and concerned.

"It's ok, babe, you're in a hospital," she replied, drifting into focus as my eyes managed to make sense of the world. "You've had a nasty knock."

"What happened?" I asked, my memory not giving me the information I needed.

"You got hit in the head, babe," she replied, reaching out to touch me, "one of the police officers we approached thought you were a threat and hit you with his rifle."

"Is that why my face hurts?" I replied, reaching up and tugging at a dressing that was attached to my forehead.

"I'm afraid so, now stop playing with it before you make it worse," she replied pulling my hand away from the dressing and across back down to the bed, squeezing my fingers tightly. "The policeman hit you quite hard; you've been out for ages."

"How long?" I asked, my mind trying to put two and two together from what I could see around me and getting nothing.

"About a day," she said shocking the fuck out of me. "Like I say, he hit you pretty hard, bastard said he hit you because you were carrying a gun in a threatening way, and that we were lucky not to have been shot. It took a lot of fast talking to convince them you weren't a danger to them."

"A danger to them?" I repeated confused, having no idea what she meant, "I had my fucking hands up."

"That's what he said," she replied with a smile, rubbing her thumb over my knuckles soothingly, "and you didn't have your hands up, babe, when you were in front of me you only had one hand up, the other was still on that rifle you were carrying. Originally, they thought you were responsible for the attack; but I managed to convince them you weren't"

"How did you do that?" I asked wincing in pain as I sat up.

"It wasn't easy," she said with a smile, "but I think throwing myself across your body and sobbing my lungs out helped."

"You did that?" I asked, wondering why.

"Of course I did," she said caressing my cheek, "I thought they were going to kill you. Instead, they stopped and got an interpreter and when I explained things, they were all apologetic and brought you here to get you patched up; we've been waiting for ages for you to come around."

"We?" I replied, staring at her with confusion in my eyes, it was all too much. I didn't have a clue as to what was going on.

"Yes, we," a familiar voice said from the other side of my bed. "You gave us all quite a scare there, Blondie." I turned towards that voice and saw the serious face of James Porter staring back at me, eyebrow raised.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" I muttered, surprised to see the face of my boss here, half way around the world from where I had seen him last.

"There's gratitude for you," he said winking at Becky, "I drop everything and fly thousands of miles non-stop to get here and all I get is abuse from my staff... why the hell do you think I'm here, Freen? I'm here to see you." He patted me gently on the leg, "and JJ of course, but ashis medical people won't let me in to see him at the moment, I've had to put up with sitting here all night waiting for you to get off your lazy ass and wake up."