Page 26 of Claim

Lennon dipped lower to soften his voice.

“So you’ve got a big fucking job on your hands, mate. And it ain’t standing up in court or getting him off some charge. It’s making him believe he’s not someone people are better off losing. And if you can do that…” He took a deep breath. “…he might just come out of this alive.”

Chapter six

Razor

Ghost was hurt worse.

I could have taken some satisfaction in that. Couldn’t though. Cause it meant I waited longer to be seen to.

And so there I fucking was, sat cuffed in a holding room while they patched him up first, him getting priority treatment for being the bigger spectacle, while I had a guard on the door. It wasn’t exactly a win. Cause I had nothing to do but sit, letting the pain settle in layers and the realisation of what that had all cost me rushing over me in waves.

Eventually the door opened, and I was hauled to my feet, walked down to medical, cuffs still on, chain drawn short so my shoulders were forced forwards. Every step sent a sharp, needling reminder through my ribs. I kept my breathing shallow. Counted it.

In. Out.

Pain was information. Noise was weakness.

Medical smelt of disinfectant and trapped heat.

“Sit.” The nurse pointed at a plastic chair. No back. No give.

I lowered myself down on it anyway, locking my jaw as pain flared bright and vicious along my side. I didn’t make a sound, though. No need for that to travel back to the wing.

The nurse flipped through a clipboard, tapping her pen on it. Middle-aged. Worn thin. Then she glanced up. “Name and number.”

I gave them.

“What happened?”

“Altercation.”

She took inventory. Swollen eye. Split lip. Blood drying dark over my knuckles. And how my right shoulder sat a fraction wrong. “Hit your head?”

“Only on the other bloke’s.”

“Lose consciousness?”

“No.”

She gave a hum of disbelief, but she pulled on gloves anyway and pressed her fingers into my ribs. The breath punched out of me before I could stop it.

“Bruised,” she decided. “Maybe cracked. We don’t X-ray unless you’re struggling to breathe.”

“I’m not.”

She cleaned the cut above my brow with saline. Steri-strips slapped on as if sealing a parcel, not a face.

“And the shoulder?”

I rolled it. Once. Something slipped and pain spiked, sharp and ugly.

“Strain,” she said. “Don’t aggravate it.”

I nearly laughed. As if I controlled that. Concrete bed. Narrow corridors. Men who tested boundaries for sport. But she didn’t care. She wrapped a thin bandage around my torso, tight enough to irritate, useless for anything else, then dropped two tablets into a paper cup.

“Paracetamol. That’s all.”