“Someone really wants him dead.”
“If they wanted him dead, he would be dead already.”
The two R-Class officers were talking quietly among themselves, but Kayen could still hear them. He was lying in a hospital bed, on a saline drip. Everything was still blurry and painful. He couldn’t really remember much after the Astynom arrived at the old vok’s house. Didn’t catch the guy’s name. Kayen wanted to thank him. But no, he was here. Apparently he’d passed out.
So they brought him straight to the hospital and had his stomach pumped.
“So someone wants him… kidnapped? Out of the picture? What?”
“Investigators are working on that. Or they will be. Whoever blew up that warehouse sparked a much bigger fire. Still not under control.”
“Could be a distraction.”
“Probably is.”
Kayen tried to wriggle his hands. His thoughts were clearing up now. His stomach felt sore. They’d stuck a pipe into him and sucked out part of his stomach, of course he felt sore. He was feeling hungry too, but they probably wouldn’t let him eat anything.
He could see a medic wandering past. The officers had seen the medic too, having nodded her through. They were coming to check on Kayen. He hadn’t noticed at first but he was also hooked up to a heart monitor. The medic fiddled with something on a table nearby, before pulling up a large syringe.
“What’s that?” Kayen muttered.
“Glucose. Your blood sugar is low after the stomach pump. When you are better, I will go through everything with you.”
Kayen didn’t like the look of that needle, so he closed his eyes and turned away. He felt worse now though. More uncertain. Was there something else that was wrong?
The needle didn’t hurt. Maybe it was because Kayen was already in pain. The two officers had gotten up and were now standing over him, opposite the medic. One of them had white skin with blue and grey armour, the other had much darker skin with light grey and green armour. Both of them wore extra Astynom armour, as well as the emblems of the R-Class.
“How are you feeling?” the blue one asked.
“Eugh…” Kayen felt like he had suddenly forgotten how to talk. “Groggy.”
“Makes sense… Someone managed to get every tasteless date-rape drug possible into your drink. Including one meant for very large Temthans.”
“I only went to the bathroom… Ziten said she’d watch my drink…” Kayen grumbled. “Wait, I went to the bathroom… That was when they… why does none of this make any sense?”
The two R-Class looked at each other.
“How much did you have to drink, Kayen?” the grey officer asked.
“I wasn’t drinking. I had a soda.”
“You didn’t have an alcoholic beverage?”
“Ask the bartender. I got a soda. Can I have something to eat? I’m really hungry.”
“No,” the medic interrupted. “Not for another ten hours. Officers, he needs to rest. Once he is off his drip and properly conscious, you can question him properly.”
The two officers nodded.
“Understandable. We’ve got to make sure there’s more security anyway. Got seven other officers out there, so we should all be fine.”
“As long as they stay out of the way, we do not mind.”
“Thank you.” The blue officer turned to Kayen. “Get well soon, Kayen.”
Kayen watched as everyone left the room. For some reason, despite what had just been said, he didn’t feel particularly safe…