Highway Butcher – Chapter Nine

NOT EDITED

Chapter Nine

3:17 PM; LOS ANGELES TRAUMA CENTER, CARE ROOM SEVEN

Too much pain. Noises too loud. Lights too bright.

Bo squeezed his eyes shut with a groan. The hand that immediately found his was too warm to be Bridget’s and probably not clammy enough to be David’s. The slight perfumey smell was familiar but… distant. It felt like… home?

“Mom?” he asked, eyes still shut and his voice a little rough.

“Hey, baby,” Renee whispered. “Welcome back to the waking world.”

“Could you…? Do the lights dim?”

“Of course, sweetheart. Can you get the lights, Denz?”

Bo heard some shuffling. “How’s that for you, squirt?”

Bo cracked open an eye. “So much better,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

Denzel sat down on the edge of the bed, opposite the side Renee’s chair was pulled up to. “How’re you feeling, kiddo?”

“I-I’m okay. You don’t have to worry.”

“Honey, you were stabbed three times and had your spleen removed. We have to worry,” Renee said.

Splenectomy. That’s… to be expected, I suppose.

She brushed his hair away from his forehead. “How’s your pain?”

“I’m okay.”

“Bo.” Denzel squeezed his shoulder. “Are you in pain?”

Bo looked back and forth between them. It felt so absurdly stupid that he felt so on edge. So… threatened. He felt like a cornered prey animal, being stared down by his predators. But they weren’t predators. They weren’t attackers. They were his loving and adoring parents who had continued to put up with all of the bullshit he had subjected them to since they adopted him.

But he felt… threatened.

Bo swallowed before forcing a clear of his throat, hoping it would do something to jumpstart the logical part of his brain. “I-I could use… a bit of pain, umm, adjustment. Umm, I guess?”

“Do you wanna press the morphine thing over there for him, Denz?” Renee asked.

Denzel leaned over to press something on the wall. “Okay, you let us know how you feel in a few, okay?”

Bo nodded. He turned back to his mother. “When can I leave?”

“As long as there are no complications, the doctor expects sometime in about two days.”

He shook his head. “I want out tonight.”

“Honey, we can’t do that.”

“No, I-I can. I j-just have to sign the release. Th-the medical… thingy. It, umm, it’s just a legal thing. I can sign it. And then I can go. Right?”

“No, baby. No medical legal thingy. You need to be here.”

Bo lifted his free hand to scratch the back of his neck. Jupiter, he was undeniably antsy. “I can take care of myself. I don’t need them to do it for me.”

“Bo, you need to be in the hospital while they take care of you and make sure everything is going well and healing okay.” Renee smoothed a hand over his hair. “You just had an open abdominal surgery and an organ removed. You’re already at an increased risk of infection. If you’re outside of a hospital—”

“Way more sick and infected people are inside of this hospital than I will ever come into contact with i-if I just—”

“If you sign out against their advice, you will be coming home with one of us,” Renee interrupted. “So you can choose where you’d rather be.”

“I-I’ll go with Dad. Just get me out of here.”

Renee patted his hand before releasing it. “Denz, a word, please? In the hall?”

Denzel offered a little smile and pushed himself to his feet. “Back in a few, squirt.”

Bo watched them leave the room. Waited for the door to close. His gaze dropped to the IV in the back of his hand. He peeled at the tape, eyes darting between the door and his hand. He’d just about gotten to removing the tubing from his vein when a hand came down on top of both of his.

Bo’s eyes snapped up to the face the offensive hand belonged to. The freckled bastard from the alley. The beeping on the monitor skipped before speeding up a little. “Who the—? Where? Where the fuck did you come from?”

One corner of his mouth lifted. Not menacing. Almost… comforting? “Bathroom. I’ve heard a lot of talk about how much you hate hospitals. Wasn’t expecting you to be such an immediate flight risk, though.”

Bo smacked his hand away, but it came right back, covering the IV so he couldn’t pull it out. “Who are you?”

“Not one of Kathy’s supposed ‘people’, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Freckles jerked the thumb of his free hand toward the door. “Those people out there? They love the hell out of you. They just want to know you’re safe and cared for. You’ll get both of those things here.”

“I don’t want those things here,” Bo said through his teeth. “Unhand me, or I’ll scream.”

Freckles watched him for a moment before lifting his hand. “That’s okay. I’ll go.” He nodded toward the door as it opened. He leaned down just enough to whisper, “Just needed to keep you here long enough for the nurse to come in with a sedative.”

“Bastard,” Bo whispered back.

Freckles smiled. “I’ll be seeing you, Mister Austen. When you’re released by the doctor, not against him.”

6:01 PM; WEST LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT, CHIEF OF POLICE JAMAL PITMAN’S OFFICE

Jamal’s door was already open just a crack when David pushed it open the rest of the way. Bo’s suited stalker sat in front of Jamal’s desk. David slammed the door, drawing all eyes to him, some a bit more deer-in-headlights than others. “Are you fucking kidding me? Do you know how unbelievably fucking paranoid Bo is because you have this fucker stalking him?” David asked.

Jamal simply watched him for a moment. Gauging. He cleared his throat. “This is Jensen. I hired him to… bodyguard Bo from afar.”

“Well, he’s a real shit one.”

“He lost track of Bo after the little stunt you helped him pull. Sound familiar?” Jamal asked. “And his job is to protect Bo from himself. Kid’s alive, isn’t he?”

“Fuck off.”

Jamal snorted. “Like I haven’t heard that before,” he muttered, taking a sip of his coffee. “Your bestie tried to rip the IV out of his hand and escape the hospital pretty much the very moment he was awake and left alone for half a second. My boy here stopped him. He had to be sedated again. It’s the only reason he’s safe in a hospital and not wandering the streets with a fresh surgical wound. Wouldn’t you say that’s a good thing, David?”

“He hadn’t left that hotel in a month because of you. Because you had someone stalking him. Because you had him fearing for his Goddamn life. You think I’m just gonna brush that off because you pretend it’s for his own good?”

“No. I don’t expect you to brush anything off. You never have. You never will.” Jamal gestured between them with his mug. “Dallas and I actually came up with the idea together. The bodyguard thing.”

“Fuck Dallas. He’s a fucking serial killer.”

“Mm. And Bo’s best friend.”

“Was. Y’know, before the serial killing thing.”

“I actually believe it was the running away with Katherine thing that put the final nail in that coffin,” Jamal corrected. “And you know just as well as I do that Bo would drop anything for Dallas if the situation presented itself. There is no ‘was’ to his loyalty to that man. So… I’m siding with Dallas on this one.”

“You know I’m going to tell him, right?”

Jamal chuckled. “Quinn, there isn’t a single plane of existence in which I allow you to tell Bo about the hired bodyguard situation.”

“You’ll have to kill me.”

Bo’s stalker, Jensen, looked almost horrified, but he didn’t speak. Just sat there. A bit pale and a lot paralyzed. Jamal, on the other hand, laughed again. A good hearty one, this time. “No, David. All I have to do is put a bodyguard on you and make sure that you’re never anywhere near Bo ever again. Do you know how long I kept him away from Dallas? Kept Dallas away from him? Years, David. Actual, literal years. I have no problem cutting you off from him if it’s in his best interest.”

“Who the fuck are you to decide what’s in Bo’s best interest? You are the reason he’s like this! You’re the reason he almost let that fucker kill him! And now you think you know what’s best for him?”

Franklin cleared his throat before Jamal could try to help any further. “Mister Austen’s mother is aware of… the situation. She has agreed that it’s the best thing for Bo right now. I know you love him, Mister Quinn, but he is in a very, very dangerous place. This is what’s best for him.”

David laughed, raking a hand through his hair. God, he sounded crazed. That was the laugh of a crazy man. Jensen could definitely see it. But if Jamal or Franklin could, they didn’t seem bothered. “Don’t talk to me like I don’t know the state of his fucking mind. Like I wasn’t there when they pumped his fucking stomach and admitted him to the psych ward on a suicide hold after Kathy and Dallas were brought in.” That brought something to Jamal’s face. “Yeah, for all of your stalking, you didn’t know that one, did you? I found him. I rushed him to the ER. I dragged him into the fucking lobby and screamed for help until they took him. I brought the bottle of pills so they could see how many he took and figure out what they needed to do about it. I held his hand while they sedated him and pumped his stomach a-and until they took him away in a wheelchair and locked him up in psych. I was the one visiting him as often as they’d let me. You do not know shit about what is best for Bo. You don’t fucking know anything.”

“That… is indeed new information for me.” Jamal cleared his throat. “I can see this has riled you up a little too entirely.”

“Riled me up,” David echoed. “You have no fucking idea, Pitman.”

Jamal closed his eyes, pressing a finger into his temple. “David, I am… doing my best here. I know this is an emotionally charged situation. I know you love Bo. I know you have been through a lot together. Now I know you’ve been through even more together than I ever knew. But I just…” He sighed, opening his eyes to meet David’s much angrier ones. “Jensen is no longer going to be ‘stalking’ Bo. Since you helped entrap him, he’s officially going to make contact and attempt to become an actual part of Bo’s life. No more stalking. No more following or tailing. None of it. He will be with Bo… as a friend. A friend who isn’t associated with… with me. He doesn’t have anyone in his life who isn’t connected to me, a-and I need you to let him have Jensen as a person who is not connected to me, or I do not think we have a chance of making it to through the next six months with him alive at the other end.”

“What’s the end goal?” David asked through his teeth.

“Once Bo trusts Jensen, he will be trying to get Bo to seek professional help. He needs far more help than a case or work or a hobby can ever give him.”

“I’ve already tried that.”

“Yes. As have I. And Detective Decker. And Dallas. And his parents. But all of those people… know me. Or work for me. Or used to work for me. As far as he knows, Jensen doesn’t, and that’s something I think he desperately needs. But if you go tell him that Jensen works for me, everything will be shot. Please, David, I am quite genuinely begging you to see the larger picture here so I don’t have to force you out of his life. Please.”

“You… you think there’s any ‘plane of existence’ where this plan helps him?”

“Yes,” Jamal said, his voice soft. “And I believe it’s this plane. But since you continue to barge into my office like you own the place, I’m going to need your cooperation on it.”

David scratched the side of his head before simply tugging on the hair there. “Wh-what if it doesn’t work?”

“I’ll commit him against his will. I want that to be the absolute last option. But if it comes down to it… I’ll do it. And I’ll make sure he knows it was just me, so the betrayal and hatred doesn’t ooze out onto the rest of you. But it’s the final option. Jensen… Jensen being a random person, an unbiased party, who doesn’t know Bo and doesn’t know me or you or Bridget or his parents or Dallas or Katherine… It is the best plan I can conjure up, David. There are no shady, ulterior motives. I just need Jensen t-to…” Jamal laughed, scrubbing a hand across his jaw. “I just need Jensen to save our boy, is all. And I need you to be okay with that.”

David couldn’t help the groan that rumbled in his throat as he sank to the floor, back pressed to the door. “ ‘Kay,” he whispered. “I-I won’t tell him.”

“Thank you, David.”

“Mmhmm.” David drew his knees to his chest before dropping his forehead to them. “If he does anything to hurt Bo—”

“I’ll be the first to take care of him if he hurts Bo. You have my word on that.”

“I’m literally right here,” Jensen whispered.

“That’s the point,” Franklin whispered back.

“Then… then you have my silence,” David said, even though the horrific twisting and churning in his gut begged him to reconsider. If there was a chance Jamal’s asinine plan would help Bo, David would give it a shot. He wasn’t sure Bo would make it to the end of the year if he didn’t.

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