Page 24 of Off the Rails
Chapter 7
He woke in slow increments, head throbbing, blood draining from his veins.
Drip, drip, drip.
Dying didn’t feel like the release from pain and suffering he’d expected. One the contrary, his entire body ached as if he’d been stretched on one of those torture racks. He must be in hell. The underworld stank of rubbing alcohol, rather than fire and brimstone. He didn’t hear any tortured souls shrieking, just the vague sounds of medical equipment.
Hijo de puta. He wasn’t in hell. He was in ahospital.
Even worse.
Armando Villarreal wrenched his eyes open and looked around. The rhythmic drip was IV fluids flowing into his arm, not blood coming out. An electronic node was attached to his finger, beeping along with his heartbeat. His mouth was drier than the Sonoran Desert and his brain felt sluggish. He vaguely remembered getting shot in the back by Chuy Peña.
He hated thatpinchecabrón.
A dull ache in his side confirmed the injury, but he was more disturbed by a strange discomfort below the waist. He pulled the blanket off his lap and blinked to clear his vision. There was a rubber cup on his penis, with a tube leading down to a urine collection bag. It wasn’t a catheter. He didn’t know what it was, but it had to go. He ripped off the cup and tossed it on the ground. Then he inspected his male parts for damage. They looked okay.
As an afterthought, he checked the bandage on his abdomen. It didn’t feel great, but the wound seemed to be healing well.
“You’re awake.”
He replaced the blanket over his lap and squinted in the direction of a female voice. He wasn’t in a hospital after all. The room was too large. His companion was sitting on a cot in the corner, her reddish-brown hair mussed from sleep. She looked familiar, but he struggled to place her. When she stood up, he saw her white lab coat draped over a nearby chair.
Oh, right. She was that animal doctor. The one he’d kidnapped. He let his head fall back against the pillows, groaning.
“Let me give you something for the pain,” she said.
He was lucid enough to find her offer suspicious. She sounded too calm. What was she doing here? She wouldn’t be with him by choice. He glanced around the room to get his bearings. No windows, bare walls. There was a bathroom with no door on his right; on the left, a heavy wooden door with a metal slot near the bottom that could be used to insert a tray of food.
The details came together like puzzle pieces, drifting into a picture that made sense. He knew this place. He’d seen it before. They were in Carlos Moreno’s secret safe house in TJ. And they’d been here more than one night, judging by the doctor’s unkempt appearance. Her hair was tangled and limp, and there were dark circles under her eyes.
“Stay back,” he said, ripping the IV from his arm with clumsy fingers. He felt slow in a way that couldn’t be explained by his injury. There were several vials on an aluminum tray near his bed. “Have you been drugging me?”
She flinched at the accusation. “I’ve been keeping you comfortable.”
“Why?”
“Why…what?”
“Why take care of me at all?”
She moistened her dry lips. “They said…if you live, I live.”
“Who said that?”
“A man with a scar,” she said, touching her chin.
Jorge Felix. Moreno’s gardener. He wasn’t an active member of the cartel, but that didn’t matter. He was fiercely loyal to the family, and perhaps the only man in their circle who couldn’t be bought. Armando’s chances of escaping this house or bartering a deal were close to nil. Jorge wanted him alive so they could question him. Then kill him.
Armando rubbed a hand over his jaw and was shocked by the amount of stubble he encountered. “How long have I been out?”
“I’m not sure.”
“How many days?”
“Three, I think.”
Three days. He’d lost three days. “You haven’t been keeping me comfortable. You’ve been keeping meunconscious.”
