Richard almost forgot what it felt like to be facedown in gravel, the stinging smell of blood and sweat breaking through the tacky stink of beer. Sharp-edged rocks dig into his chin, and his leg aches, ankle bent at an awkward angle. His face throbs with every pathetic beat of his miserable heart.
“Richard?”
He hears Eugene’s voice before he sees his face, feels Eugene’s fingers on the side of his neck before anything else. Is he checking my pulse? thinks Richard, and he gurgles out a slow, slurred laugh. That sends sparkles of pain through his face and down his body, and the laugh turns into a groan when Eugene ducks into his line of vision.
“Where did the rest go?” Eugene questions, his eyes bright and harried as he tries to get a hand under Richard’s shoulder.
“I don’t know,” Richard says, a twinge of dull irony in his tone. “Got a few good kicks in before running off, though.”
It’s a long, excruciating job, but Eugene slowly gets Richard upright, carefully situating himself as a crutch for Richard’s use. Richard tests his left ankle—sprained, probably, but he can put some weight on it. Humiliation blooms like a headache behind his already tender eyes, but he bites his tongue when his mouth tries to say something mean and ugly to the man picking pebbles out of the split skin of his cheek. It’s clear he’s not going to get very far on his own.
“We were set up,” Richard says, voice whispery and raw in his throat, and there’s a moment where Eugene’s neutral expression flashes hotter, angrier. Then it’s gone, replaced instead by a fuming determination.
