Page 103 of Diary from an Inked Throne

The nurse waited until I’d coughed up every note I had in my wallet, and I rolled my eyes when she picked it all up and pocketed it.

“You know, I think we just had a room open up.” She leaned backward to peer at a whiteboard down the hallway. “Room 303. I’ll have someone wheel him up.”

French, along with the rest of the nursing staff, seemed surprised when a few minutes later he was on his way up to a private room. The woman I’d paid off just put her hand in her pocket, no doubt happily fondling the cash she’d made that night.

“You should go home,” French said quietly when we were alone in his new room. Which was old and outdated but at least it had a door we could close.

“After you get your brain scanned.”

French sighed, then nodded. “I need to piss.”

I eyed him. “I’m happy to hold your hand, but please don’t ask me to hold your cock too.”

That got a tiny smile out of him. He got off the bed just fine and crossed the room without a wobble. I kicked my feet up on the bed and fiddled with the remote, trying to get the tiny TV mounted above the bed to turn on. “What do you want to watch?” I called out when the toilet flushed. “I think we have exactly three options. News. Some sort of romantic movie. Or football.”

The door to the bathroom opened.

“Football, right?” I asked him, not even bothering to turn around as he came up behind me.

His hand landed on my shoulder.

Something sharp dragged along my neck.

“Please don’t move,” he whispered.

I froze.

In the reflection of the black, shut-down heart rate monitor screen across the bed, French stood with a syringe pointed at my neck.

I tried to breathe evenly and calmly, even though I wanted to lose my shit.

Being a nice guy was so fucking overrated. “What are you doing, French?”

“I don’t want to. He’s making me.”

“Who is?”

“I can’t say.”

“Well, I can’t help you if you don’t.”

French choked out a laugh. “You can’t help me anyway. Nobody can.”

“Try me.”

The syringe scraped over my neck, and I winced, fighting the urge to try to turn around and take French on head-to-head.

I knew he had that needle aimed right at my jugular. And I knew he understood enough about human anatomy, all athletes did, that it wasn’t held there by accident.

This little shit was actually seriously thinking about injecting me with something. “Okay, if you don’t want to talk, let me. Someone came to you, told you they’d pay you a whole lot of money if you took me out, how does that sound?”

“Half right.”

“Only half?” I pondered that for a second. “Which half?”

“The part about killing you is correct. But I don’t get any money.”

“Just doing it for the love of death then? Or to try something new? Can’t say I picked you as a murderer to be honest. You’re so clean-cut. And you always do the right thing.”