Page 114 of Reacher
“This is a knee-jerk reaction to what’s going on with Stitch. This is you feeling the burden of mortality. All of our mortality. We don’t have to do everything this instant. Let’s help Stitch first, and then we can talk to the club again. Together.”
He slumped back on the bed with me.
“I fucking hate this. In the last few months, it seems like everything that could go wrong fucking has.”
“Including me?”
He grabbed my hand and squeezed it.
“You fishing for compliments, woman? You know you’re the only good part of all of this shit. I just need to figure out how toget my club back on track, and maybe do it without keeling over again.”
Reacher
ThenextmorningIwas at the hospital, a place I’d seen way too fucking much of lately, and it looked like that wasn’t about to change anytime soon. It was good news this time though.Ice was finally coming home.
I’d gone with Ryder and a prospect, so we could bring him home in a van, since he couldn’t ride yet.
When I reached his room, he was just arguing with a nurse over a wheelchair.
“Jesus, help me out here, Pres. I can walk, for god’s sake.”
He still didn’t look or sound quite like himself, but he was alive and moving, and that was better than we could have hoped for when he was first attacked.
“Brother, just let them look after you. There’s plenty of time to be a stubborn ass, once we get you home.”
He sighed, and let them wheel him out of the place, and then we carefully loaded him into the van to take home.
Ryder sat up front with the prospect, and I sat in the back with Ice. He was quiet.
“You okay, Ice? You’re finally coming home.”
He ran his hands through his hair, tugging at it in agitation.
“I don’t know how much of me is coming home, Pres. I’m not sure who I even am anymore.”
“Without the drugs, you mean.”
“I’m not just off them, Reacher. I’m a fucking addict. I… I was reliant on them just to function. I needed them, and I still need them. It’s like a fucking burning urge inside me. Like everything will be fine, if I just fucking go back to the way I was.”
Jesus. “Look, we’re gonna help you, okay? We’ll get you home, and things will start to feel normal again.”
He stared at his hands.
“Normal was me doped up to the fucking eyeballs. Everything about me now feels wrong, and I still can’t fucking remember what happened.”
I watched him carefully. He’d answered some questions when he first woke, but since then he seemed to be less sure of what happened.
“It was the cartel, that’s what you told us.”
He sighed. “It makes sense. I remember I was trying to infiltrate their little operation, but I don’t remember what led to the attempt on my life. They said I might never get everything back. I was on so much shit then, and I was barely sleeping before what happened.”
He wouldn’t even say what had happened, just kept tiptoeing around it.
“You were stabbed, Ice. Someone stabbed you, with the intention of killing you.”
He finally looked at me.
“Yeah… so they tell me. I wish I could fucking remember.”
