He thought: He had gotten it all wrong.
His body no longer worked the way it wanted to. He had read that a man with a gunshot wound--a simple one, perhaps a slug going through the fleshy part of the thigh, missing everything vital--could die from the systemic shock alone. He had always ignored that, thinking his heroes could survive anything.
He could survive anything.
Sobel lay face-down in a pile of leaves, the smell of decaying vegetation rich in his nostrils. The ground was cold and damp, the chill seeping through his flannel shirt and the knees of his jeans. His feet were twisted awkwardly, but he felt no pain there, nothing except the throbbing in his arm, trapped beneath him like a wounded animal.
It was beginning to rain, big fat droplets landing intermittently. Water was sliding off his face, reminding him that he was alive, that he had to take action.
He didn't want to sit up.
But he had to. Go back up the road, flag someone down. The car was dead now, and he'd called 911 from his cell, although he hadn't had time to tell them the location. He'd left the connection open--they could triangulate, right? He'd seen that in a Harrison Ford movie--but he wasn't sure it would do any good.
Nothing would do any good.
The rain had stopped suddenly, as if its only duty had been to rouse him. Being unconscious--semi-conscious, stunned, shocked, whatever the term was (and he was usually so good with terms)--had probably saved his life. He'd heard the footsteps around him, felt the boot in his side, nudging him, but he hadn't reacted. Couldn't react. And so he'd been left for dead.
He rolled on his good side, felt his arm flop against his stomach, and the agony, so sharp that the world went white for a moment. The first man's shove had sent him over the embankment, down the hill--he remembered soaring, swearing, thinking of Sarah, alone up there with them--and then the ground rushing toward him. He put his arms out to brace himself, to break the fall, underestimating both his own weight and the speed he'd been dropping. He'd heard the snap--snaps--three at least--and then the pain that blotted out the urgency, the fear, the anger.
He thought of pushing himself up, imagined climbing the embankment like Jackson Ross, his fictional alter ego, and saving Sarah. Jackson would have rolled on his good side immediately, would have used the broken limb to pull himself up the hill despite the pain.
)
