“Feels like my insides are being torn apart,” Ty groaned.
When they hit the lobby, it was relatively empty, but two of the young bellhops soon took notice of them.
“Does he need help?” one of them asked Zane as they came toward them.
“We’re going to the hospital,” Zane said, taking a lot of Ty’s weight onto himself as Ty bent in pain. “We need a cab or the hotel shuttle.”
One of them turned to jog for the entryway and hail a cab.
“Too many hurricanes?” the younger man asked with a knowing smile.
“Bad gris-gris,” Ty muttered to him. The man hopped away from him as if he’d said he had the plague.
“It’s just food poisoning,” Zane insisted.
Ty growled, pulling away from Zane and Nick to stand on his own and pace several steps. He held to his side. He couldn’t seem to stay still. He would stalk back and forth and then curl as pain overtook him, then start the whole thing again.
In a matter of minutes, the hotel’s courtesy shuttle was pulling up outside and they were on their way to the hospital. Ty rocked in the backseat, fumbling with the little red bag he’d snatched from Zane’s hand as he tried to get it open.
“Give me that,” Zane said, taking it out of Ty’s hand and putting it in his pocket. “Let’s not scare the locals any more than we have to until we find out what’s wrong.” When the van pulled up to the emergency entrance, he climbed out of the van and reached back in to help Ty out.
Ty gripped his hand hard and practically fell out of the van. Someone called to them, asking if he needed a wheelchair. Ty nodded wordlessly. It seemed he wasn’t going another step.
“I know what it is, Zane,” he gasped. He looked up at Zane, and Zane could have sworn that he was smiling. “Fucking kidney stone.”
Zane groaned and covered his face with his hands for a moment, ashamed to be relieved by Ty’s self-diagnosis. “And you know this from experience, I take it?”
Ty practically fell into the wheelchair that was brought to him, and he leaned over and began the incessant rocking again. “Last time was like the most pain I’ve ever been in . . . in my life,” he told Zane haltingly. His eyes were watering; he was very nearly in tears. He was smiling, though.
Zane leaned over and put one hand on each of the arms of the wheelchair so he could look Ty in the eyes. “Considering I know what sort of injuries you’ve had, that doesn’t make me feel better. At all.” He stood up and gestured for the orderly to push Ty inside.
“At least it won’t kill me,” Ty replied as he was pushed away.
Ty stared at the ceiling tile and the block of light above him. The nurse had put something he couldn’t pronounce into the IV in his arm about two minutes ago, and the space-time continuum had opened up shortly thereafter. His ears buzzed, his eyes wouldn’t blink, he couldn’t feel his extremities, and there was a low sound in the distance that might have been his own breathing.
But he no longer hurt.
The lady who’d taken his insurance information had promised to go retrieve Zane, and Ty was simply reminding himself to continue breathing until he got there.
“Hey, how are you doing?” It was Zane, finally. Nick and Digger were with him, looking more bemused than worried.
Ty turned his head slowly, his eyes focusing on Zane with what he could only consider utter contentment. “Better,” he managed to answer. “Kidney stone.”
“Yeah, somebody’s stoned,” Digger said with a laugh.
Zane stopped at the bedside, hands in his pockets. “Did they give you something for the pain?”
“Oh yeah,” Ty practically crooned. He shifted on the narrow hospital bed, pulling the blankets around him to ward off the chill caused by the saline being pumped into him. There was still discomfort all through his lower half, but it was dull enough that he didn’t care. He had even welcomed the catheter they put in because it had been less painful than what he’d been going through. “They took a CT and said it should pass soon.” He held out his hand. “Can I have the bag?”
“What bag?” Digger asked. He and Nick still hung back by the door.
Zane looked reluctant to hand it over as he pulled it out of his pocket, pinched between two fingers.
“Oh, son of a bitch,” Digger said, and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he dug around in a pocket.
Nick held out one hand, and Digger slapped a twenty dollar bill onto his palm. “Never bet against the crazy hoodoo ex,” Nick said as he folded the money into his own pocket.
“You’re both ass**les,” Ty told them.
Zane turned to look at them, and he was still glaring when he met Ty’s eyes again. He held the bag up. “Don’t scare the doctors with this voodoo stuff, huh?” he said after too long of a pause. “I don’t want you hurting.”
“What are you talking about?” Ty asked as he took the bag with clumsy fingers.
Zane motioned to the bag. “This superstition stuff. The doctors might take you seriously and kick you out of here. That nurse has voodoo dolls at her station out there.” He sounded a little unnerved, which was unusual.
“Voodoo dolls are usually used for good things, you know,” Ty said. He frowned as his fingers began working on the string of the bag. “It’s a religion, Zane. Nothing sinister.”
“Sure.”
Digger grunted. “You sound like a skeptic.”
“I am a skeptic,” Zane confirmed.
“Well,” Ty murmured as he tried to find a more comfortable position. He settled on instructing Zane to lift the head of his bed so he could recline and still inspect the gris-gris bag without too much discomfort. “You might think it’s just fairy-tale stuff, but this is serious. Serious business.”
Zane frowned. “So what is that thing?”
“It’s gris-gris,” Ty answered slowly. He was probably slurring, but as far as he knew he was still making sense.
“Yes, dear, we got that part,” Nick said. He and Digger came closer, and Digger sat on the end of Ty’s bed, jarring it. Ty didn’t care.
Zane nodded, glancing at the others again. “You asked specifically about the color,” Zane prompted.
Ty gazed up at him, wishing he had the ability to convince Zane to take him seriously. He knew Nick, and probably Zane, thought all of it was stupid. A least Digger believed.
“He’s so f**king stoned,” Digger said, laughing as he patted Ty’s leg.