Worth a Thousand Words (11 page)

Andy opened the door to his house at the precise moment Adrien’s phone began to ring with the tone he’d programmed in for Devon. He blushed, his face growing hot enough to toast marshmallows over. Markus quirked a perfectly groomed eyebrow at Adrien as the strains of Bonnie Tyler’s song about holding out for a hero rang into the quiet of Andy’s foyer. Adrien grimaced and slid his finger over the screen of his android phone to answer.

A cracking silence filled his ears, and then a careful tapping sound came. Dot-dash-dot… dot-dash-dot… dotdash-dot… dot-dot-dot… what in the hell? Wait, the dottydashy things were confusing, but he knew the rhythm— Adrien’s eyes tried to jump out of his head when he realized what he was listening to. Michael had tried to teach him Morse code one summer, and the only thing Adrien could ever remember was the dot-dash-thingy meant danger and was a cry for help.

Andy, Markus, Benji, Sam, David, Anthony, and “E” were all at his side in a moment. Adrien raised stricken eyes to them.

“What color, Adrien?”
Adrien gulped. “I—it sounds like a Black Sparkle.” Andy and Sam both sucked in a harsh breath.

Andy squeezed out one word. “Who?”
Adrien shivered all over. “I’m pretty sure it’s Michael and Devon both. You all know your assignments. We gotta move fast. This one sounds bad.”

Benji and Markus raced back to Benji’s car to check on the siblings.
Anthony and “E” jumped into Anthony’s GMC Jimmy to check on the parents and then round up the police.
Adrien and Sam glanced over at Andy’s piece of shit Nova, hoping it would get them to Devon’s in time. Andy shot them both dirty looks from under his bright blond bangs.
“I’ll have you know that Michael has been sneaking into the parking lot at the mall nearly every day for two weeks rebuilding this engine. It’s practically new at this point. And don’t you dare tell him I knew.”
Sam chortled. Adrien just shook his head, gesturing at the vehicles doors.
“Okay, Mr. Supermodel with the smexy man on a string… can you unlock the damn car and get it running so we can go save these two big bumblers?”
Andy shot him a panic stricken look and fumbled his keys out of his pocket. Adrien let him drop them on the snow covered sidewalk twice before he lost his patience and snatched them up.
“Get your ass over to the passenger side, Andy. Sam’s driving. He’d not gonna lose his shit worrying like we will, and he always speeds, so we’ll get there fast, possibly with a police escort.”
Andy blinked at Adrien like he’d taken leave of his senses. “What? Get in the damn car. The ring-tone was Devon and the stupid Moses code thing was that crap Michael’s been trying to teach me since freshman year in high school.”
Sam snickered. Adrien turned, smacked the car keys into his brother’s hands and scowled at him. Sam lifted a honey gold eyebrow at his brother.
“What do you want David to do?”
Adrien glanced wildly around, at a complete loss. Andy placed a hand on his arm, speaking in his trademark soft tones.
“David, can you stay here and keep the rest of the party-goers entertained and out of trouble? We’ll call you as soon as we know anything, I promise.”
David nodded, squared his painfully thin shoulders and made his way back into the house, closing the door gently but firmly behind him. He looked back through the little glass window in the center of the door, his unruly mop of curls flopping over his forehead. Andy and Adrien both sighed.
Adrien spoke first. “I can’t imagine—”
Andy cut him off. “I know. He’d just wither up and die. Let’s go get his big brother for him… and your man too. Muscle-bound idiots always think they can handle everything without any help.”
The last sentence tapered off into a muttered growl, but Adrien was close enough to make it all out. He nodded jerkily at his own bratty younger brother. Sam met his gaze for a second before his eyes dropped, and his shoulders sagged. Crap. Adrien didn’t have time to deal with Sam’s angst over his own bad behavior right now. They’d have time to get to all of that later, after they got Michael and Devon out of whatever mess the two idiots were in right now. Adrien rolled his eyes. Save them all from the frailties of Alpha men.

Dieterman shot a syringe full of something into Rose, and the other man went from making covert movements when their former comrade’s back was turned to the same eerie stillness Devon figured he was displaying. Worse yet, Dieterman had tossed Rose down facing the wall, so he couldn’t even observe what was going on with his fellow prisoner as Devon could.

After a few moments, Dieterman seemed convinced that whatever he’d given Rose was taking effect properly, and he left the room. Devon could hear him pottering around in the kitchen, and then in the bathroom. He made several trips, coming back in with Devon’s kitchen shears, several thick towels, a basin of warm water, and finally, his electric hand drill. Dieterman grinned with childish glee as he depressed the switch turning the power to the drill on.

“Geez, Sarge, this is great. It’ll go a lot faster than the hand drill I had to use on myself.”
Devon closed his eyes for a second feeling deeply grateful he could do so. He opened them back up though when he heard the shears start snicking open and closed. Dieterman grunted, squatting down to cut Rose’s hair close to his face. Devon winced inside. Sure, he’d wanted Rose to cut his hair, but even when he was the guy’s squad leader he’d never have forced him to do so.
After a moment, Dieterman growled in frustration. “Well, damn. I’m gonna have to put you up on the bed with Sarge. Don’t go getting all uppity, though, Rose, and thinking you’re as good as him. Nobody’s as good as the Sarge. I’m just using you to show him I know what I’m doing. Then we’ll go home, and you can stay here and do whatever you were doing before. Plus, I gotta practice with the new drill. No offense, but I’d rather make a mistake on you than on the Sarge, you know?”
He hefted Rose up onto the bed, seeming completely uncaring that he laid the heavily drugged man half in the spot where Devon had vomited earlier. Devon watched in silent horror as Dieterman soaped up the side of Michael’s head and started to shave. Dieterman moved with careful precision to thoroughly bare the area just above Rose’s left temple. His hands remained as steady as when he was their second combat medic and until the chiming of the doorbell startled him, he didn’t even nick Rose.
The hot copper scent and the vivid sight of bright red blood running down the side of Rose’s face changed something for Dieterman. He whimpered, beginning to rock back and forth lightly. Trailing his fingers in the thin trails of red he started to mutter.
“Open, open, open the head up to let him breathe. Open, open, open it up to let him breathe. Open, open, open it up to let him breathe.” He turned panicked eyes on Devon. “Sarge, he’s not getting air.”
The doorbell pealed again.
Devon prayed that whoever it was would just leave before Dieterman thought to drag them into this mess. He stared at Rose, praying that Dieterman was talking about his brain not getting enough oxygen. Unable to shift to watch Rose’s chest for rising and falling, Devon strained his ears for breath sounds. Ah, there. Yes, Rose was breathing—shallow and slow—but still breathing.
The doorbell pealed a third time.
Dieterman sprang up off the bed, turning an overly bright smile on Devon. “Expecting company, Sarge?”
Then the man bounded out the bedroom door. Devon strained to hear him pattering through the living room area, and then the faint squeak of the front door opening. The next sound nearly stopped his heart.
“Hi, I’m Devon’s boyfriend, Adrien. I’m afraid you’re going to have to let me in so I can check for myself—I’m sure I left my tiara here, and I really need it for the party tonight—”
There was a trio of dismayed shouts, the heavy thudding noise of a door slamming shut, the sound of lightly running feet overlaid with staccato pounding from multiple fists rapping on the front door, and then—
“Oh, oh crap-doodly!” Adrien’s distinctive light tenor rang out just outside Devon’s bedroom door. Those soul searing noises were followed by a horrific wet, thudding crash as the sound of something shattering reached Devon’s ears immediately followed by a high, bitten off scream. For a moment, nothing else moved in the other room. Devon strained desperately, but nothing moved. Then Adrien’s voice came again, thin and strained sounding.
“No, I don’t think you should pull it out. Not unless you actually want to kill me, Mr. Dieterman. Do you have a first name? I feel like I’m talking to someone’s father when I have to say Mister, you know?”
A racking, wet cough sounded, and then Dieterman mumbled something. Adrien’s voice came back.
“Really? Ronald? Oooh, who did you piss off? You must have gotten teased so much in school. S’okay. I know what that’s like. No, really. I mean, look at me—little, queer as a three dollar bill and clumsier than all three of the Stooges rolled into one package right?”
Dieterman muttered again. Adrien moaned, and for a moment total silence.
“Would you mind very much calling for an ambulance? I’ll talk to them if you don’t want to. I—no, really? Michael was one too. He said you guys were all trained to help out little guys like me.” Adrien laughed, and the laugh turned into another wet cough. “Please Ronald. I know the nicest lady who works there. I promise she’ll bring her dog, too. Please call the ambulance. No, that’s okay. Sure. Just hand me the phone… and come away from the window. Well, if the police get here first, they don’t know you’re just trying to help, do they? They might make an unfixable mistake. Just. Um. Sit here next to me. Maybe you ought to put some pressure on that huh?”
Little electronic beeps sounded, and then Adrien’s voice again. “Hi. I need a few ambulances. Um. 306 Walnut. Ah, one PTSD case, one puncture wounds—no, he didn’t stab me. I was running and fell—no—Ronald— talk—I—
More wet coughs.
Silence.
A tiny squawking noise, and then Dieterman’s voice rumbling more clearly. “Yes. Yes, ma’am. Two drugged with Rohypnol. Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am. Yes, applying pressure. No, I think he just fainted from the pain. He’s kinda a little guy. No ma’am, I promised to stay right here with him, but the door’s not locked. No, ma’am. I’ll wait. Do you suppose the police could wait to shoot me until the paramedics get here to help the little guy? No, ma’am. Sorry. No, not joking. Well, it looks bad and they might get the wrong idea. Okay. Please ask them. Okay.”
Silence and then Devon heard the sound of sirens, finally sirens. Devon closed his eyes and stopped fighting the drug, sliding seamlessly into the dark place behind his eyes.

Adrien woke to the sight of Sam’s sweaty, pallid face hovering over him. Sam, for once, did not have an iPad or iPhone in his hand, so Adrien felt fairly certain whatever passed between them right now would stay between them. He paused for a moment to take stock. Despite the feeling that someone with a really shitty sense of humor was writing the script for his life right now, and his having recently acquired more holes than a pin cushion at a tailor’s convention. Sucking in a shallow breath, he tried to keep his questions to a single utterance.

Sam frowned darkly at him. “Don’t talk idiot. You got stabbed twice in the chest by that freaking lunatic.”
Adrien shook his head as fiercely as he could manage, pulling at his mask. Sam pushed his hands back down. “No—fell.”
A snort sounded to his left. Sam looked up, a startled and exasperated expression on his face. “Oh, crap, that really could be what happened. My brother is seriously the clumsiest guy on the planet.”
Adrien reached for his mask again. Sam smacked at his hands, but Adrien fended him off. “Andy? Devon? Michael?”
Sam grabbed both his hands, shoving the oxygen mask completely back onto his face. “They are all fine, idiot. It’s you we’re worried about.”
Something pinched at Adrien’s elbow, and he glanced down to find a light-skinned black paramedic with startling blue-grey eyes attaching a bag of fluid to the end of the tubing he’d just stuck in Adrien’s arm.
Adrien smiled. “Thanks.”
The guy blinked, and then a tiny smile crept across his face. “You’re welcome. Now, for the love of god, listen to your brother and please be quiet. I’ve got a bet on with the guys in the other rig that I can go two straight months without losing a patient, and I’d hate for you to break my winning streak.”
Adrien started to laugh, and then coughed painfully instead. He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to breathe shallowly through the white-hot pain.
The gurney jolted, and Adrien’s vision went white. “Oh fuck.”
Sam turned shocked eyes on him, but before Adrien could think up an appropriately snarky thing to say, the ambulance rocked to a stop. The rear doors were yanked open and Adrien’s gurney pulled quickly out. The shockwave of pain through his body plunged Adrien right back down into another white-out of the world. Adrien’s vision came back online when they were rolling his gurney rapidly along inside the hospital. They paused just outside a set of double doors. One man moved to hold Sam back, while another came from the other side of the doors to aid in moving Adrien’s gurney rapidly along. He heard snatches of conversation.
A man with a long face, kind brown eyes and glasses leaned over him. “Son, we need to operate on your lung. We’re gonna put you under, and you won’t wake up until sometime tomorrow, probably.”
Adrien pulled his mask off. “Accident. Tell-ppolice. A-ac-a-accident.”
The doctor’s eyes widened. He gestured behind him as he spoke. “I’ll do that son. You rest easy.”
There was another face above him then, looking down at him—chocolate brown skin, eyes like liquid black licorice and snowy white hair. She smiled at him, attaching a syringe to his I.V. tubing. Something cool and sleepy slid into his veins. Everything turned sideways, and Adrien’s last thought was to wonder where Devon was.

Devon woke, woozy and nauseated, to find himself in a bed with thick plastic rails at the sides, and Carlos Jimenez—Adrien’s stepdad—seated at his bedside. He eyed the man warily as he tried to make sense of where he was. Lying in an uncomfortable bed with side-rails and breathing in a faintly antiseptic smell which barely covered the pervasive scent of illness—ah—he could only be in a hospital.