The Rise Of The Forgotten King.

Chapter 5

I was twenty miles out when the adrenaline finally ebbed and the pain in my left shoulder turned into a screaming red animal trying to chew its way out. He had gone clean through the meat just below my collarbone and with the amount of blood I was losing, I could tell it was quite deep.

I took the next turn and followed the blue H signs until I saw the glowing green cross of the all night pharmacy. I pulled up around the back so the car wasn’t on the cameras. Then I grabbed a black hoodie from the duffel to throw over the plate carrier and walked in like a civilian who just happened to be covered in someone else’s blood.

The bell above the door jingled and the moment I stepped in limping, the conversation inside died like someone hit a mute button.

An old woman who was at the counter grabbed her little girl’s hand and damn near ran out leaving the goods unpaid for and a guy in the candy aisle took one look at me and decided he didn’t need chips tonight. The only one who didn’t move was the pharmacist behind the counter. He was in his mid-fifties wearing a gray ponytail and his sleeve tattoos peeked from the white coat.

He looked up and smiled.

“Long time no see, Ethan.” His voice carried just enough for the empty store. I walked straight to the counter and dropped a hundred-dollar bill next to the register.

“Looks like Ghost is back in the business.”

“I’m not back in any fucking business,” I said. “They took my brother and I’m getting him back. That’s the only job I’ve got.”

His smile vanished and he studied me for a long moment, as if reading something under my skin. “Little Noah? Jesus Christ, man.”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Leo. You still got ears in the organization. What’d you hear?”

He glanced at the door, then back at me. “I swear, Ethan, I only hear what happens on these six blocks and nobody’s talking about Noah. If they were, I’d have said something the moment you walked in.”

I studied his face, every twitch, every tiny shift. I couldn’t read any lies in it. Leo never hid well, not from me.

He reached under the counter and came up with a brown paper bag already packed with a bottle of methylated spirit, suturing kit, gauze, tape, and a handful of antibiotic capsules.

“Sit your ass down,” he said, nodding toward the stool. “Let me close that for you.”

“I’ve got it.” I scooped the bag. “But I need your restroom.”

“Still stubborn, huh?” he asked as he buzzed me through the security door. “One day that pride is going to cost you more than a bullet.”

The hallway hummed with the low vibration of old pipes, and for a moment I felt every year of the life I’d lived wrong. The bathroom was bright and smelled like bleach. I locked the door and peeled off the hoodie and the shirt under it. I hadn't seen the man in the mirror in a very long time. His eyes looked dead, hollowed out by choices he never wanted to make. And the hole in the shoulder looked like a mess.

I twisted the cap off the methylated spirit and took a long gulp straight from the bottle to dull the edge, then poured the rest over the wound. The pain hit like a white-hot spike, and I bit down on the sleeve of the hoodie so hard it nearly tore, but the groan still escaped. My knees buckled and I caught the sink before I went down.

Breathe, Ethan. Breathe.

The world seemed to tilt, the corners darkening, and for the first time in years I felt fear crawl along my spine. Every tug of the needle was agony, and every heartbeat was a reminder that failure was closer than I liked to admit. My hand shook uncontrollably, sweat stinging my eyes. For a moment, I imagined collapsing onto the tile and never waking up—Noah gone, me broken. But I couldn’t let that happen.

Blood and alcohol mixed into a pink smear on the tile. I threaded the needle while shaking, knotted it, stitched it. Each tug felt like dragging barbed wire through raw meat, and when it was done I looked like Frankenstein’s patchwork doll. The pain made me gasp, but I kept going, forcing myself to count breaths until the shaking stopped. This was just another mission. Just another obstacle. I would survive it like I did the others.

I cleaned the floor with half a roll of paper towels, stuffed everything into the trash, and pulled on a clean black T-shirt from the duffel. The new shirt stuck to the fresh sutures almost immediately, warm and damp.

When I walked back out, Leo was waiting, arms folded. He studied me for a long second, his eyes sharp beneath the gray ponytail. “You know,” he said softly, “you’re the only guy I ever met who could walk out of a warehouse fire in ’09 with half your lungs collapsed and still talk shit the whole way home. Nobody forgets that, Ethan.”

Those words had an effect on me, settling somewhere between pride and pain, but I didn’t reply. That memory was a tether to a version of myself I’d buried, and now it pulled me forward instead of holding me back.

“There’s a bring him alive bounty big enough to retire on with your picture attached to it. You should be careful,” he said.

“So why aren't you making a move?”

“I like my kneecaps where they are,” he said. “Besides, some of us remember who carried us out of that warehouse fire. Loyalty doesn’t die that easy.”

I nodded and tapped the counter twice. “If you hear anything about Noah, the old number still works. You ring it the second you do.”

“Copy that.”

I was at the door when his voice called from behind.

“Ghost?”

I looked back.

“Come back alive.”

I nodded once and walked out into the cold night.

The shoulder throbbed but the bleeding had stopped. I got back in the car, started the engine, and drove toward the only name left on my list that might

still say something to me.

Time to turn the hunters into the hunted.