"Nothing to me besides an admirably creative death threat." Nicky's mouth quirked in the start of a smile but he suppressed it, maybe understanding Neil would punch him for it. "I don't know how your conversation with Andrew went, but it didn't end well. Rumor has it you paid a busboy a hundred bucks to knock you out. Way to cut our night short."

Neil didn't remember that, and the gaps in his memory left him cold all over.

"Drink up," Nicky said. "You'll need all the water you can get today. Crackers'll dehydrate you like no one's business."

Neil answered by upending his glass onto the floor.

"That's mature," Aaron said.

Neil threw the glass at him. Aaron smacked it away and let it shatter on the ground.

Nicky sighed. "Don't say I didn't warn you. You can have the shower first, okay? By the time you're out Andrew will be back and you can ask him about last night."

Nicky guided Neil to the bathroom. He started to say something else, but Neil shut the door in his face and locked it. Neil took advantage of the privacy to seethe, giving himself a full thirty seconds to silently rage over last night's stupidity. Then he balled it up and shoved it deep. Anger wasn't going to help him right now, and it wouldn't erase whatever did or didn't happen last night.

Neil checked his head in the mirror and found a sizeable lump near his left ear. He felt it out with careful fingers, then drank handfuls of water from the sink. When the buzzing in his head died a little and his throat wasn't burning quite so bad he took stock of the room. There was a pile of new clothes on the closed toilet lid. The shower was stocked, and a clean towel hung from a hook on the back of the door. A window between the mirror and the shower had white translucent glass to block the outside world.

Right now, the window was the only thing that really mattered. Nicky wanted Neil to wait for Andrew, but Neil couldn't stick around that long. There was no way he was getting in the car with them for the long ride back to Palmetto. He'd get the answers and explanations he needed, but not in unfamiliar territory with all of them against him.