“So he’ll be here soon?” he asked, allowing her to take his arm.

Although she didn’t respond, didn’t make any attempt to reassure him, he clung to the promise she’d already given him—he’s on his way—as the blood pressure cuff tightened around his bicep.

“I think you’re going to make it,” she said as she recorded the reading on his chart and tore off the cuff.

He hadn’t realized there’d been any question about his survival, not since he’d learned several hours ago that Officers Cadiz and Perez had finally stepped in to break up the fight, before Lester could thrust that shiv into his heart. He hadn’t been raped or stabbed, but the doctor had him on so much medication he’d been drifting in and out of consciousness all day without much interaction with anyone, other than to plead with medical staff who happened to be in the room when he was awake to get Amarok.

“When will he be here?” he asked, pressing her again.

She sighed as she rolled up the blood pressure cuff. “You just don’t give up, do you?”

“I can save Evelyn!” he insisted.

“Only about every other word you say makes any sense to me. Tell you what.” She stuck the cuff back in its holder. “I’ll bring you a piece of paper and a pen.” She lifted a hand. “I know you’re not supposed to have a pen, but I’m going to come back for it before I leave.”

“You can trust me,” he insisted.

She rolled her eyes. “I never would. But in your current condition, I can’t imagine you could be too dangerous. You’d fall over if you even tried to stand. As a matter of fact, it won’t be easy for you to write, but at least you can get across what it is you’re dying to tell the sergeant. Maybe then you can relax. You’re not doing yourself any favors by fighting sleep, you know. You took quite a beating.”

He hated to think what life was going to be like once he was put back into general population—if he’d suffer a second attack. At a minimum, he’d be whispered about.

But he’d get even, with the inmates who attacked him and the COs who allowed it to happen.

Telling himself he’d worry about all of that later, when he was recovered, he fell back on the pillow. The nurse was right. It wouldn’t be easy to use a pen in his condition. He was so weak. And he had so many tubes going in and out of him. But at least he wouldn’t have to force his eyelids open every time someone walked into the room or worry that he might miss the sergeant. “Okay.”

He fought the drag of sleep, which threatened to pull him back under, as he waited for the nurse to return.

Just when he was summoning the energy to start yelling, because he thought either she’d forgotten him or she didn’t care enough to follow through, she walked back into the room.