The Sigma Asset 🏳️‍🌈 (bxb)║AMBYS WINNER 2022

54: Confessions

Standing in a dark hospital room at one in the morning, my nostrils didn't feel the burn of the dirty-clean air. My eyes didn't sting with the glare of the bluish strip-lighting above the bed. My insides didn't roll with hospital nausea. My whole body was dead and dry inside, like a shell on a beach.

Sofi crashed into a worn armchair set back from the bed, gesturing to the guarding officer to stand behind her before hunching over her pink notebook. Charlotte tiptoed after her, settling on one of a pair of plastic chairs that had been set by the bed, where Will lay as a twisted lump shrouded by sheets. From my position by the door, nothing of him was visible.

Charlotte fumbled under the bedsheets, pulling out an olive-brown hand and pressing it to her cheek with a whimper. The lump in the bed didn't stir at first. Then, another hand slowly curled around the blanket, a morphine drip attached. Was he in terrible pain? Was he permanently injured?

The piano strings that linked our hearts began to pull, almost wrenching me toward his bed. He needed me. I clung to the door handle behind my back, gripping until the metal bit into my fingers. I was seconds away from running to him, wrapping him up in all my love, promising him that he'd be OK. But he wasn't mine anymore. He'd never been mine. It hadn't been real.

Charlotte helped turn Will's body in the bed, soft curls peeking from under the sheets as she settled him higher against the pillows. The piano strings pulled taut, making my heart beat demisemiquavers. I gripped the door handle harder.

"Are you in pain?" Charlotte waited long seconds with no answer from Will, before leaning back in her chair. "When's the doctor going to check for nerve damage?" Perhaps Will was too zoned-out from the morphine to talk to her. "What happened at the apartment?"

Sofi read aloud from her pink book. "Mr Graz's statement said that he was in the apartment's living room, and that someone shot open the front door's lock and entered the apartment. We've identified him as Angus McAllister. He shot at Graz, who was wounded in the pelvis. Arturo Torrente appeared at the door and shot at McAllister. Graz ran to a bedroom while the two attackers fought. McAllister died of blood loss at the scene. Torrente died from his gunshot wounds on arrival at the hospital."

Was that how Cal was to die? Shot unceremoniously by el Nube while in the middle of a job? I'd expected Cal to go on forever, his quiet brand of death dealt to enemies, dissenters and escapees for years to come, honing Sigma each time into a sharper, more precise blade. For all I hated him, that Cal could have let himself be taken so easily rankled. By far the most cautious and thorough of Sigma's managers, there was no way that Cal had blundered into an assassination. He'd almost certainly been killed as part of a dedicated plan. But why had he wanted to hurt Will? And how had el Nube found Cal?

Charlotte murmured on into Will's ear. "I'll pay your bail tomorrow morning. You made just the one statement to the police?" Will didn't stir, probably too doped-up to register Charlotte's questions.

"He did, relating to both the attack on him, and to the smuggling. Officer Oviedo was the charging officer," said Sofi, motioning to the guard next to her. "That was just after eleven. I'll send the transcript to your office if you're interested."

"What are the charges?" Charlotte whispered into the sheets. Again, the lump in the bed was completely still.

Sofi sighed, as if bothered by the extra work of answering for Will. "Smuggling contraband materials, aiding and abetting criminal activity, resisting arrest. Further charges of other illegal activity may come as we corroborate with other individuals currently in police custody."

"Is that true, Will?"

"It's pointless trying to talk to him tonight. Try tomorrow morning when he's off the morphine." Sofi snapped her pink book closed and stood.