Chapter 132: Playing the Dead 2

Damon’s POV

The ride to the university hospital took fifteen minutes. The paramedic in the back was busy checking our IV lines, monitoring the beeping heart screens, and shining lights into our pupils. I stayed completely limp, letting my eyes flutter aimlessly whenever the medic touched my face, perfectly mimicking a comatose patient.

When we finally arrived at the emergency bay, the chaos only intensified.

We were wheeled through the sliding glass doors into a private trauma observation wing, and clean hospital blankets were thrown over our dirty clothes.

After thirty minutes of poking, prodding, and hooking us up to saline drips, the medical staff finally stepped out of the room, leaving the door slightly ajar.

The room was quiet, except for the dull beeping of the heart monitors.

I kept my eyes closed, listening closely.

A few feet away from my bed, I heard the faint rustle of bedsheets.

Noah stirred. He let out a low, raspy groan, slowly blinking his eyes open. He rubbed his forehead with his uninjured hand, putting on a brilliant, Oscar-worthy performance of a concussed victim slowly dragging himself back into the waking world.

I waited about ten seconds, letting him establish the scene, before I dramatically groaned out loud, rolling my head on the thin hospital pillow and fluttering my eyelashes open.

"Ugh... my head..." I muttered, squinting against the bright fluorescent lights.

"Quiet," Noah whispered sharply under his breath, barely moving his lips.

I glanced toward the corner of the room.

My heart instantly skipped a beat.

Sitting right beside the foot of Noah’s bed, leaning back in a hard plastic visitor’s chair with his arms crossed over his chest, was a middle-aged police detective. He was wearing a rumpled grey suit, an official badge clipped to his belt, and a pair of dark, sharp eyes that were staring directly through the two of us with absolute, venomous skepticism.

He didn’t look like a cop who bought our little victim routine for a single second.

"Glad to see you boys finally decided to join the living," the detective said, his voice deep, gravelly, and entirely devoid of sympathy.

He pulled a small notepad and a pen from his breast pocket, tapping the plastic casing against his knee.

"Detective Harris, Major Crimes," the man introduced himself flatly, leaning forward until his shadow fell over the edge of Noah’s mattress. "You two took quite a beating out there at the Jenson expansion site. Mind telling me what the hell the star captain and the star assistant captain of the university hockey team were doing in an abandoned construction zone before the championship?"

I opened my mouth to speak, but panic froze my throat. I didn’t know what lie Noah had prepared. I didn’t know what story he wanted to feed the police, and if I opened my mouth and contradicted him, we were completely screwed.

I shut my mouth, turning my head to let Noah handle the talking.

Noah blinked slowly, his face looking tired, pale, and perfectly innocent.

"We were lured there, Detective," Noah said, his voice sounding weak, raspy, and remarkably steady. "I received a phone call from someone claiming my younger brother was in danger. When Damon and I arrived at the location to look for him, a group of men ambushed us from behind. They had weapons. We tried to defend ourselves, but they overwhelmed us. I don’t remember much after that."

Detective Harris stared at Noah for a long, heavy moment. His pen didn’t touch the paper once.

A cold, mocking sneer slowly pulled at the corner of the detective’s lips.

"Lured there?" Harris repeated, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "Ambushed from behind? Overwhelmed?"

The detective leaned in closer, his dark eyes narrowing into cold slits.

"That’s a very neat, very convenient little story, Miller," Harris said, his voice dropping into a harsh, threatening whisper. "The only problem is, it smells like absolute bullshit. I’ve been working homicides in this city for twenty years. I know what an ambush looks like, and I know what a slaughter looks like."

Noah didn’t flinch. "I’m telling you what happened."

"Are you?" Harris challenged, standing up from his chair. The metal legs scraped loudly against the linoleum floor. "Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you two went on a targeted hunting trip. Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to have my officers separate you two right now. I’m going to put you in different rooms, and I’m going to make you both write out detailed, minute-by-minute official statements."

Harris tapped his pen hard against the metal railing of Noah’s bed.

"And if your stories don’t match down to the exact second," Harris growled, glaring between the two of us, "I’m putting both of you in handcuffs and charging you with felony murder and conspiracy before the sun comes up tomorrow."

My chest tightened until I could barely breathe. Felony murder? My hands gripped the hospital sheets, cold sweat breaking out across my neck. I couldn’t hold my tongue anymore.

"Where is Micah?" I interrupted, cutting through the heavy tension, my voice sharp and demanding. "Where is the other boy who was brought in with us?!"

Detective Harris turned his cold gaze onto me, his face twisting in annoyance.

He jerked his thumb carelessly toward the heavy blue privacy curtain dividing the far side of the room.

"Relax, Silver. The kid is right behind that curtain," Harris said dismissively. "He’s still out cold from a blunt trauma strike to the cervical spine. The doctors are running a CT scan on his head right now."

Hearing that Micah was safe and just on the other side of the fabric made a massive wave of relief wash over my chest, but the detective didn’t give me time to breathe.

Harris whipped back around, leaning directly over Noah, his face contorting into an ugly, furious scowl as he slammed his open palm against the bedside table!

BANG!

"Now finish the damn statement, boy!" Harris yelled, his voice echoing off the hospital walls. "Stop playing the innocent victim! Because four college boys were found dead at that construction site... and somehow, every single drop of their blood was found splattered all over your body!"

I stared at Noah’s stained hands, my stomach dropping into a bottomless, icy pit of sheer horror.

Four dead.

I leaned back against the pillows, my breath catching dead in my throat as the magnitude of the nightmare hit me.

"Fuck."