Page 89 of Leading the Blind
“My what?” Bax looked down. “That ain’t my blood.” He couldn’t feel anything.
Beau snorted. “Your shirt’s all tore. Just let Jonesy or Shane look at you.”
“Okay… I just…”
“Andy.” Beau’s voice made him stop. “He did it. He won. It’s over. No matter what. Jase won. You get to take him home.”
“Okay.” He swallowed hard, the lump in his throat suddenly huge. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.” His ears rang and he got a little lightheaded.
“Come on. We’ll get you cleaned up and go see Coke.” Beau sighed softly. “I hate this fucking place. I hate it so goddamn bad, man.”
Bax blinked. “Sports medicine?”
“No. Reno.”
Oh. Oh, shit. Yeah, Sam had been ruined for life here.
“Andy. Sit here.” Shane steered him to a gurney. “Shirt off.”
He stripped down. “How’s Coke?”
Shane shook his head, snapping on gloves. “Ambulance took him for X-rays. He was still out, last I heard. Doc’s with him.” He got a quick look. “Jason’s really blind?”
Bax nodded slowly. No sense lying now. “Yeah. Yeah, since he got hit so bad.”
“Jesus, brave, crazy son of a bitch. Good on him. Seriously.” Shane wiped him up. “It’s not deep. I’ll bandage it.”
“Thanks.” He winced when Shane cleaned out his scratch. Now he could feel it, and it had been a while. “I need to get back out to Jason.”
“Sam is there. So are AJ and Balta,” Jonesy said. “Chill. Breathe a minute, because shit is gonna hit the fan, Andy. But your crew is rallying.”
He looked up to Beau, who gave him a nod. “They can’t fight us all. They won’t. They’ll want to spin this to suit them. Trust me. I’m with you.”
Beau and Balta—they were three-time champs. They were on his side.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Bax heard Kynan’s voice raised in the hall outside, then the slam of maybe a helmet against the wall. “I got beat by a fucking crippled blind dude?”
Bax saw red, and he was up and out before Beau could catch him, barreling into Kynan. “You don’t call him that!”
“What part of it is a lie? Oh wait—fucking crippled blind queer dude!”
The sound of his fist hitting Kynan’s jaw was fucking amazing—and it felt pretty good too. He was going to clean the floor with that fucker once and for all. “No one even likes you,” Bax screamed.
“Jesus, Andy!” Jonesy grabbed his arm, and Kynan took a swing, that Beau caught, whipping the kid around and forcing his hand behind his back.
“Walk it off, kid. You take it outside and walk it off, and I won’t beat you so bad you aren’t recognizable.” Beau’s voice was ice cold.
Kynan scoffed, but when Beau let him go, he was surrounded. Beau and Raul, Cotton and Hank. “Fucking old school bastards.”
“Go on. Go lick your wounds. You’ll be old soon enough.” Beau’s lip curled. “If you’re lucky.”
“Sim. Until he finds out we all get hurt at some point, no?” Raul stuck out that barrel chest, and that was it. Kynan stomped off.
Bax rubbed a hand over his ribs, which were bleeding again. “Sorry,” he muttered to all and sundry.
“Go get Bax a clean shirt, Cotton. I’ll finish taping him up.” Jonesy took him back to sports medicine. “Now, you need to keep your cool. When Jason leaves, he’s gonna need to be able to tell the reporters when and where his press conference will be.”
“I was gonna take him home.”
