In the Hospital

Pain... It left his body sore and shaking. And that smell... It stung his nose and made his closed eyes water. He slowly opened his eyes to see bright lights blurring his vision. A door opened and a nurse stepped inside with a clipboard in her arms. She smiled kindly and her lips moved.

"What?" Hack asked although, he couldn't even hear his own voice. Again, the lips moved... "Sorry? I can't hear what you're saying." The nurse checked his ears.

"Excuse me? Can you help me? Hello?" Hack kept trying to strain his ears until, finally, he could hear a small beep repeating itself, "Wait... I can hear again."

"Oh, good. My name is Rachael. I'm glad to see that you're awake. That blast over in the town really bruised you up and damaged your hearing. Unfortunately, I do not know your name because we couldn't find any ID on you." She paused, obviously waiting for him to speak up.

"Oh, right... Josh Burnes." Hack lied.

"Nice to meet you. Now, you may be feeling some sharp pain in the back of your neck but that's only because some debris from the explosion dug itself there. Also, you've been battered with several bruises as I said before. Other than that, you're all good. We've been wanting to contact your parents but we couldn't find a phone number on your cell phone."

"Have you seen my friend?" Hack asked instead of giving her a phone number.

"The one that was next to you after the explosion? Why, she's right behind that curtain, there. Let me see if she's awake," Rachael threw back the curtain, made some notes on her clipboard, and came back, "She seems to still be unconscious. Can you tell me her name? We couldn't find any ID on her either."

"Yeah... Her name's Destiny Claring."

"Thank you. I will be back in about thirty minutes or an hour to check back up on you two." Rachael left the room. Hack swung his legs over the side of the hospital bed. Pain shot up through his muscles and straight to his chest. He decided not to move any further.

"Dagger?" Hack called out even though the nurse had told him that she was asleep.

"Destiny? Really? Is that the best name you could think of?" She turned around to face him.

"Sorry, it was kind of short notice. And, anyway, you nearly killed both of us! That grenade could have blown one of our heads off!"

"Did you want to be tortured by Base? He could rip your limbs off one by one if he wanted to. I, actually, think we're even. You set something off and got us in the situation, I just got us out of it. By the way, what did you set off?"

"I'll tell you later. Let's just watch some TV right now." Hack grabbed the remote next to his bed but Dagger had already grabbed her own so that she could control the TV.

"How 'bout we watch the news? Perhaps we'll be on it... Or, we'll see what you did." She switched it on to channel 5. It only took a split second before her smug look was replaced by one of horror. The channel showed several bodies; dead and bleeding. A reporter was explaining what had happened only two hours ago... She was explaining what Hack had done.

"You... I can't believe it..." Dagger was speechless.

"Dagger, you don't understand. I found out that one of Base's friends was working there and I thought that by taking him out, it would set him back a bit." Hack tried explaining.

"With a nuke! Are you insane?! You didn't only kill him! You killed half of Spain's population! You're a murderer!"

Hack was about to speak but he decided against it. She still looked at the screen with her mouth hanging open. He turned off the TV but she still stared at the back screen.

"I can see..." An old man across the room stared up at the ceiling. His computer rested closed on his lap. He examined his hand as if he had never seen it before in his life.

"Sir?" Hack studied the man.

"I can see... Thank the Lord, I can see again..." He smiled with care shining in his eyes.

Author's Note

I hope you enjoyed this chapter! There will be more coming soon! Actually, I hope you are enjoying this entire book!!!

Reviews

[Jacques]

DON'T ASK . you know i'm enjoying this book and this was a hit chapter which hit all the rights notes and ticked all the boxes . i'm liking the role reversals of Hack and Dagger and i like how Dagger actually cares about the deaths which i know she's human but opens up more for you as a writer to explore and me as a reader to enjoy . i liked it when she was pretending to be asleep that was funny and im happy to get back on track after I see ..... which was a great chapter and all with it's foreshadowing and mystery but it wasn't as great as this chapter as we got a satisying conclusion at a level of what happened after the explosion . well - written and good chapter