Suckers by Z. Rider

time—really looked at him. His breath caught as sensations came rushing back, noises—the congestion in his chest and the black static in his vision.
    Carey opened his mouth to say something, and Jamie and Moss came charging through the curtain. “Nurse is coming,” Jamie said, and on the heels of his words, the curtain flared.
    “Good morning, Mr. Ferry. How are we feeling?” The nurse clamped something that looked like a bulky clothespin to his finger, and while that did whatever it was supposed to do, she popped a cone onto the end of a thermometer and held it to his ear.
    His headache was gone, he realized. In fact, he felt pretty good for a change. When he said so—cautiously, with last night leaning hard on his thoughts—the nurse said, “That’s what we like to hear. I’ll let the doctor know you’re awake, and we’ll get you something to eat as soon as she clears it. Sound good?”
    “Can I get some water?”
    “Got some right here.” She lifted a pitcher, ice thumping plastic. She filled a cup halfway and handed it to him.
    He downed it in three gulps, the best thing he’d ever tasted.
    Jamie stepped aside to let her out, then they were alone again, the five of them.
    “Any idea what happened?” Carey said.
    Dan shook his head.
    Ray leaned against a wall, his arms crossed, watching him.
    “All right. I’ve still gotta get in touch with the promoter.” Carey ran a hand over the shine of his head, though, instead of reaching for his phone.
    “I don’t want to stay here,” Dan said.
    “Yeah, we don’t want that either. I’m just waiting to see if we have to reschedule the rest of the dates and get you home.”
    He closed his eyes and leaned back, swallowing hard. He did not want to reschedule fucking dates.
    As the curtain rolled back, he turned his head. A woman in a doctor’s coat strode in, her dark hair fraying from what had probably started the shift as a tidy ponytail. A line of blue ink marred the white over her breast pocket. She looked like she’d spent the night popping Adderall.
    “Mr. Ferry,” she said.
    “I wish people would stop calling me that.”
    “I’m Doctor Shue.”
    “I’m Dan, actually.”
    “How are you feeling?” she asked, drawing a penlight out of her pocket.
    “What’s wrong with me?”
    She clicked the light on and shined it in his eyes. “Your blood work looks good, vitals look good. CT scan. How’s your hand?”
    He flexed it. “A little sore. Did I—”
    “Any history of seizures?” She moved to the other eye.
    “No.”
    “Any history of it in the family?”
    “Not that I know of. Did I have a seizure?”
    The flashlight clicked off. “Has this ever happened before?”
    “What? Waking up in the hospital with no idea what’s going on?” He rubbed the blanket, his knuckles itching under the gauze bandage.
    She scanned his chart. “Any history of violent episodes?”
    “No.”
    “Do you remember coming to the hospital?”
    “No.”
    “How about the CT scan?”
    He gave a short, frustrated shake of his head.
    “Well,” she said, “we have a tech who’s not going to forget you anytime soon.”
    He didn’t know what to say.
    She pointed the end of the penlight at his bandaged knuckles. “You popped him a good one in the nose. We had to pull you off and sedate you.”
    Jamie said, “You were trying to bite him,” his eyes wide.
    That was unsettling as fuck. “I totally don’t remember that.”
    “I thought something might show up on the tox screen to explain it,” the doctor said, “but it came back clean. Did you take anything last night?”
    “Not unless you count a few bites of a shitty Hot Pocket.”
    “What about you?” she asked Ray.
    “Me?”
    “I’m just hunting around for an explanation for what you thought you saw.”
    Dan shot his gaze toward Ray. “What’d you see?”
    “Worms in your eyes,” Carey said.
    “What?”
    “Thin little squiggly things.” Ray held up his thumb and finger, pinched close