Winning His War

42

Andrew's POV

The night Jem had finally woken up had turned into a celebration in a matter of minutes. Despite Dev being alone in the room with Jem when it happened, it had taken all of about 15 minutes for everyone in the house to be informed.

It had taken only 30 minutes for everyone outside the house to be notified.

After that it had been a mad dash to the house to see how he was doing. Apparently people left warehouses, ended drug routes early, and even went as far as to postpone important deals just so everyone could make sure Jem was okay.

Of course by the time everyone had got there Jem was unconscious again.

Hell, he had been shot at point blank range with a sawed off shot gun and was already responsive in only two weeks, even after not being the epitome of physically healthy. It was honestly nothing short of a miracle all things considered.

So regardless of the fact that Jem wasn't awake anymore to be apart of the celebrating, at least half of the house was partying outside.

I hadn't bothered going out there but Patrick had claimed that they had bought a grill out there and were having a cook out while people swam in the lake despite it being past midnight.

The energy in the house had been at an al time low ever since Jem went down but with this one spark of hope, all of that was out the window. You could hear the cheers and screams even from back in the hospital.

While the rest of Jem's people were outside, Dev, Barrett, Patrick, and I sat in a circle around his bed. For the first hour or so our eyes had scanned him constantly for any movement; a twitch of a finger, a jerk of his leg, the simple scrunch of his nose.

We found nothing.

"Its normal," a doctor had said when Barrett demanded to know if it was a bad sign. The voice he had used was enough to make the poor man too nervous to look him in the eye. "He's gone through an ordeal. He needs rest."

"He's been resting for two weeks already," Barrett insisted as he began pacing back and forth. His hands were dug into the pockets of his hoodie; no doubt playing with the lighter he thought he was hiding from the rest of us.

He's been a wreck without Jem. He snapped at everyone but Dev. He went out more often and the amount of 'anonymous' fires had been getting worse. His anxiety was starting to get the best of him too. He could manage a good three hours without checking in on Jem before he got restless.

He liked to pretend that he was handling all of this better than Dev but any one with eyes could tell they were at a tie.

"He's been in a coma," the doctor said carefully. "I promise this has been the farthest thing from rest for him. He's exhausted and needs time to build up the strength he's lost. He'll likely be in and out of it for a couple of days. Expect him to be up for only a few minutes before sleeping for the rest of the day, this is completely normal and is expected."

Barrett had clenched his jaw at that as his hands tightened on the lighter in his pocket.

"So basically nothing has changed? He's still on the brink of death."

"Just the fact that the he woke himself up from the coma is a huge relief. I know it's not the results you had been hoping for but this is a good thing. We both know that if he was capable of moving as soon as he woke up he would put himself to work anyway and that's the last thing we need right now. Be thankful we don't have to force him to stay on bed rest at the moment."

Barrett didn't mind saying another word before storming out of the room. He didn't come back until early the next morning. Smoke followed him like it always did now but the crazed look in his eyes were missing, leaving just a blank and miserable expression left in its wake.

The four years I spent getting my degree didn't allow me to ignore him but he only shrugged me off until he disappeared in his room and locked the door behind me.

It wasn't until late the next night I saw him again.