DorkFish 4: The Ruthless Scheme

Nineteen Hours

Sometime
Somewhere

Stiffness.

Throbbing.

But by some miracle, no pain.

The steady bleeping of an electronic monitor.

The smooth softness of thin linens.

Cold, sterile brightness overhead.

‘Hospital,’ Jensen concluded as his mind resurfaced from the deep black ocean of unconsciousness.

But the light of awareness came at the price of dark remembrances, his eyes flew open to the unforgiving dawn of reality with only one word on his lips.

“Jared.”

A rustling nearby, an intake of breath, as if someone were waking beside him.

“He’s here, too, lad. He’s still out cold, but he’s doin’ just fine.”

‘I’m fucking hallucinating,’ Jensen thought as the voice registered. He made to turn his head only to discover the full extent of the incapacitating rigidness in his neck, but he willed his way through it, determined to put a face with the statement.

He did, and waited until he had enough confidence in his freshly functioning vision to confirm it.

“Da?” he whispered.

Alan gave him the wan smile befitting an estrange father who’d been sitting at his unconscious son’s bedside, his relief insufficient to erase the lines of worry that had etched themselves into his face.

“Yer a sight for sore eyes, Jensen.”

He blinked in stupefied amazement. “Why are you here?"

That smile transformed into something much more complex. “Hello to you too,” he said, his voice tinged with the unique combination of regret and amusement. “I’m guessin’ yer bonnie lad didna tell ye about his wee visit with me, then.”

Jensen’s immediate frown confirmed the supposition. “He’s just full of surprises these days.”

“So I’ve gathered from yer friend Christian.”

“You’ve talked to Kane?”

His father nodded. “Jared sent a text for help yesterday to me and one other person. I didna ken the number, so when I couldna get ahold of him, I called it. That was quite the fucken story I got from him, too, let me tell ye. With the temperament of this Misha, the two of ye are both lucky to be alive. Ye wouldna be, either, if he hadna had the wits to also call the emergency line.”

Jensen closed his eyes for a second, allowing himself time process these new nuggets of intel. “So before he got to the house, he contacted you, Kane, and 211. When you couldn’t get him, you called Kane, who brought you up to speed. The emergency dispatchers here followed up on his call, and we’ve been comatose in the hospital for...I don’t even know. How long has it been?”

“Nineteen hours,” Alan said grimly. “If the medics hadna found ye there in that basement and gotten ye here toot de suite, ye wouldna be havin’ this conversation with me right about now.”

Jensen pursed his lips. “What happened to him?”

“Looks like he did his damnedest to protect ye. Ye musta collapsed on him, and seein’ as he used himself to break yer fall, he took a nasty crack to the head on the cement floor. As fer you, they stitched ye up fast enough once ye got here, but ye needed liters o’ blood to replace what ye’d lost. Bleedin’ like ye were, they said another two hours and -”