Re: Hospital: Sam & Loren & Cris
[The hospital was outmoded, sanitized in attempts at "Southwestern style," toothpaste greens, flakes of pale purple, and a sandy orange near stained tiles. Cris picked up on the year quick enough—there were corkboards outside of each room, white sheets of paper pinned there, laden with the names of the nurses on shift, as well as scrawled shorthand of the date. 2001. Thirteen years ago, he was working UC, but he'd been in enough hospitals to look at the equipment being towed around and know it wasn't right at a glance, sí? He didn't know much about Ocean's 11, other than it was a movie with George Clooney and his friends, so he spent the jaunt to Sam's room, held at a brisk pace of tennis shoes, gleaning as much info as he could from the surroundings.
Luckily, that was something he was good at.
And by the time he bypassed Neil's men at the door, he was able to feel comfortable enough in the setting to pass through it.
Maybe comfort was too strong a word, because the moment he entered that quiet den of machinery pumping, a tray of barely-touched food askew, and someone else there, his skin pricked. He didn't think it was Micah. Maybe he shoulda, but the guys guarding the door, they didn't look shifty, like they'd taken money from a sweaty palm, and they weren't on edge. Plus, they were Neil's. Maybe he didn't like him, but he trusted him to look out for Sam. So, yeah, the guy lying draped over the bar of Sam's bed and spilling over on to her, his fingers slipping through her hair, not Micah. But that didn't make him harmless.
Sam was there (relief), asleep or out, her arms a sad story, capillaries open and coloring her high. She looked bad, and not just because she was hooked to a wall of monitors. There were circles under her closed eyes, her skin on fire. And whoever this was—not a brother, he didn't look like her—was just there. Touching her.
Maybe it wasn't his call to make, but he made it. Sam had enough men grabbing at her without her consent. Cris came forward fast, the ballcap riding high on black hair and his scarf still tight, all of the night's emotions surface, and he wrenched the guy off Sam with one hard jerk, fists balled in the guy's collar and yanking. He wasn't trying to scare the girl in the bed, 'cause waking up, out of it, in the hospital, with two men grappling on the floor wasn't a good way for anyone to wake up, but what choice did he have?
The motions to subdue the other man were automatic, rapid-fire muscle memory, forcing him forward and, if he managed, to the ground with all of his weight and pinning him with a painful dig of knee to his back. And if a gun showed, glinting hard under lights as bright as these, he kicked it away.—His voice was sharp.] Who the hell are you? Huh? [And with alarmed concern:] Mami, you okay?