CHAPTER FIVE
Agony
I didn’t want them all watching me take the injections. It was difficult enough for me to maintain my cool when it was only Uncle Dane and me.
“Look.” I cleared my throat. “I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but this is hard enough. Okay? I cry through it, even though I don’t want to. About every tenth time, I pass out at the end or I throw up. It’s embarrassing. I don’t want to be babied. I don’t want to be petted. If you can’t sit here and let me do this without making it about your feelings about it, then please know enough to excuse yourself from the room.”
Judge nodded once. “I won’t make this worse on you Di. I promise.”
“What are we not making worse?” Damian poked his head around the corner.
“Di’s having her needle injections because the doctors don’t want her to go into the surgery without the medicine fresh. So she is having it now.”
Damian sucked in his breath. “Ooh, needles. No thank you. I’m going to stay far away. Unless you need me, Diana. Sterling woke up. He’s flying again. Says to thank you for the nap.”
I actually appreciated his honesty. His dislike of needles wasn’t going to make things easier on me. “Go, please, and I’m, um, glad Sterling slept for an hour.”
“Watching Damian puke might make for a great distraction.” Judge raised his eyebrows, and I groaned.
As gently as I could manage, I kicked him in the shin. “No joking. Not when he’s doing the needles.”
Damian bent over to kiss me on the cheek before he exited the room. Judge took two steps back and eventually sat in a chair on the other side of the room. Sterling beeped in through the intercom.
“What’s this I hear about our girl needing to have needles?”
Cash shook his head. “Keep the ship steady.” He disconnected the comm.
I wondered if Sterling was going to take the cut-off from Cash. Or was he going to storm into the room in the middle of the procedure? Cash seemed unconcerned, his focus entirely on me.
He stroked a hand down the side of my cheek. “Boo, there is still time for us to do this in the machine. You don’t have to be awake.”
“Two problems Dane had with that. It’s apparently more art than science. The machine doesn’t get it right. We need your eyes on it. The other thing is that I hate to be knocked out. I spent a huge amount of time unconscious in a medically induced stasis to stop the infection. I don’t want to be out if I don’t have to be. Keep me awake. I can manage it.”
Cash nodded once. “Got it.”
He took a step back. “This is more Lewis’ deal than mine. Tomorrow I run the show; today I assist.”
Lewis raised his eyebrows, his mouth quirking slightly. “Great, I love being the guy with the needles.”
I extended my arm. “Do it.”
Lewis didn’t poke hard enough at first. Little dabs. I knew he wasn’t going to break the skin well enough with that little bit of pressure. Dane had started out the same way. He’d had to learn, and so would Lewis.
“Harder. It’s not working. You can see that, and so can I.” Lewis raised his eyes to look at my gaze. Whatever he thought, he hid away. This was professional Lewis. The guy who had shined a light in my eye and asked me if I had headaches after Damian had almost killed me. He got the job done.
His eyes always defied definition to me. They were huge, dark, and illustrative of someone who had lived through pain and come out the other side.
I could, and did, get lost in his gaze all the time.
He nodded once. “You tell me when I’ve got the right amount of pressure then.”
“Okay.” By the universe, I hated this so much. “My skin changes color pretty quickly. The pink returns for a second before it lessens again. But it’s better than nothing.”
Cash rubbed my back, and I pushed him off with my other elbow. The last thing I needed was softening. “I appreciate the sentiment, but now is not the time.”
“After tomorrow, you’ll be pinker all the time.”
He walked slightly to my side, and I caught his gaze. He wasn’t upset I’d shoved him off, which was good because I didn’t have it in me to play nice right now. Sometimes in life I got to be selfish. Judge kept his gaze fully on the floor, trying not to involve himself at all. I was glad for his sense on this subject. Snapping at Judge would be like kicking a small animal. I couldn’t stand the idea.
Lewis pressed the needle in harder. And then harder again. He finally hit the right amount, and I nodded to him, biting down on my lip. I hadn’t minded silently crying when it had been my uncle administering my weekly punishment. But I knew it would cause Lewis pain to see me in so much discomfort.
“She was right. See how much pinker it’s getting?”
I closed my eyes. Lewis could talk medicine to Cash all he wanted. I didn’t want to listen. Concentrating on not crying, on not wincing, on keeping my face relaxed was all I could manage to do. Listening moved beyond my abilities.
Dane had long since given up trying to speak to me while he worked. I tried to listen to the sounds in the room. The buzzing of machines, the way Judge shifted in his chair, the way space moved beneath us. I counted in my head. Over and over again. Lewis would pull out the needle administering the medicine and put it back in another place.
Maybe others would go numb; for me pain amplified. My fingers on both hands buzzed. I floated through the assault of discomfort. I could hide from this happening, somewhere in the back of my head where I always went when things got too hard.
“Hey.” Lewis shook me slightly, and I forced my eyes open. “Your blood pressure is rising.” The machine he’d hooked up to my other arm must have told him. “Want a break?”
“Keep going. Just get it done.” I closed my eyes again. I was going to have to re-find that space, that place where I could hide from the pain since Lewis had wrenched me out of it. I clenched my teeth. It didn’t want to come.
And now time dragged. His best-laid intentions had really screwed this up.
Tears pooled in my closed lids. There wasn’t going to be a thing I could do about the crying now. I opened my eyes and let the tears fall, even as I forced myself to stay silent. Every poke of the needle was like a drill in my arm. A million stings. A trillion electrical jolts by an unsecured wire.
Cash touched my back again, and I didn’t have the wherewithal to stop him. After a moment, I didn’t mind his gentle strokes. Just one circle after another. He didn’t get fancy or press too hard. At least it gave me something else to think about.
I dared to look down at my hand. Lewis wasn’t nearly done, and I hadn’t expected him to be. Dane took a long time to complete the task, and he’d had years to practice doing it.
Lewis, Cash, and my uncle had studied medicine on different sides of the universe, and yet they had very similar techniques. Some things appeared standard regardless of location, it would seem. Or maybe I was making things up because I couldn’t think at all.
Judge rose and crossed the room. He was silent and steady, not the jerky, jumpy version of him I was used to. He took my hand in his but didn’t otherwise speak.
Time moved. Only not as quickly as I might have liked.
Eventually, as it always did, the torture ended. Lewis set the needle down on the tray next to him.
“Steady hands, my brother.” Cash complimented Lewis but didn’t stop the circles on my back.
Lewis raised his eyes to meet mine. Lines creased by his eyes. I still couldn’t think. My whole body burned. He pulled me into his arms and held me tight. I lost it. The sobs I’d managed to force down into little tears tore through me. I heard him suck in his breath, and I knew he was trying not to cry, too.
“I’m sorry.” He kissed a stream of tears on my cheeks. “I’m so sorry that hurt so much.”
I still couldn’t manage speech. Clinging to him while my body blazed was the best I could manage.
“That looked awful.” I didn’t know whom Judge spoke to.
I guessed this was one of those one-in-ten times because I fainted, right into Lewis’ arms.
It was fortunately not a long blackout. None of them tried to move me, and I didn’t hear them yelling in panicky voices when I opened my eyes. I was right where I’d been.
“She’s back.” Cash touched the back of my head, gently. “You are so tough, Boo. That looked like hell.”
I didn’t want to speak. My tongue was thick. Silence came with pain for me, it always had. My anger at the universe had fled the night before and with it my ability to push through my body’s need to shut down.
Eventually, Lewis pulled back to kiss me lightly on the lips. “Not talking?”
I hated that I couldn’t answer. I’d warned them about this problem I had. I’d never faced it the entire time I was on Orion, and thanks to being really angry, I hadn’t had an episode in the last two years. This was something different.
My tongue wouldn’t look swollen, but I couldn’t use it just the same.
Lewis was going to blame himself for this. I pressed my head down on his shoulder. He smelled like home to me, sweet and clean. My hand burned, and I didn’t even care. Why had this happened? I’d had the same procedure done every Monday since I’d awoken from the coma.
He tapped my chin so I’d look at him. “I’m sorry I hurt you so much. I should have found another way.”
If there was another way, I didn’t know what it was and neither had my uncle. Lewis smoothed my hair out of my eyes. He was so gentle. Until I got my voice back, he was going to make himself sick.
I reached out to cup his cheek, feeling the whiskers there.
He cleared his throat. “Do you want that hot bath with Judge now?”
The last thing I wanted was more heat. My body flamed enough to fuel the whole ship. I took Judge’s hand back in mine and squeezed it, even as I got off the table where I’d been sitting. I picked up the tablet and typed my answer.
I’m too hot.
I showed them all the answer. Judge read it and then set the tablet back down. “You don’t feel warm.”
“It’s nerve pain,” Cash filled in. “I’m going to give her a shot for it, slight blocker. It’ll help. She has surgery tomorrow, so I can’t give her too much.”
My whole body shuddered. He wanted to give me a shot? Was he out of his mind?
Lewis groaned, obviously reading mine. “You won’t feel this one. It’s the hyper spray. No needles. Add a pain killer to it, too, Cash.”
“On it.”
Lewis was right. When Cash pressed the medicine into my skin, I felt nothing at all.
Cash set down his tools. “It’ll take a few minutes.”
The awkward silence in the room was a new phenomenon for me with these guys. I needed to say something. The tablet would have to do for now. I picked it back up.
Lewis, this isn’t your fault. I think it’s been threatening for years and it finally hit. I’m sorry.
He shook his head as he read. “Don’t you dare apologize. This isn’t your fault. It’s mine.”
Cash groaned. “You know what? I don’t want to let her go yet. The painkiller I gave her? She might have a reaction to it—”
Lewis interrupted him. “That’s highly unlikely. It’s a very well tolerated second class—”
Cash didn’t let him finish. “I’m going to go make sure all the tools are ready for tomorrow. Come on, Judge. I need your help.”
Judge looked between us. “Okay. See you in a bit, you two.”
Lewis put his hands on his hips. “Right, if Cash wants me to watch you, I’ll watch you. Might as well get comfortable. Come sit on the cot-bed-thingy in here.”
I couldn’t blame him for not having a better name for the contraption built for sleeping in the medical bay. It fell somewhere in between the description of a cot and a bed. In neither case did it come across as particularly comfortable. A gray scratchy blanket covered some gray scratchy sheets to go with a white cotton pillow.
Lewis patted the sleeping area, and I sat down on it. A few beeps on his tablet and I was fairly certain he’d instructed the computer to monitor my vitals from the bed instead of the med table. I lay back on the pillow. What kind of reaction did Cash expect me to have?
Lewis stood over me, looking at his tablet and then back at me. “You seem okay. Physically. Your heart rate is up. That’s fairly standard for pain.”
I didn’t want a list of all my vitals. Instead, I patted the bed next to me. It took a second for him to reason out what I wanted. Or maybe he just paused. Lewis finally scooted onto the uncomfortable bed next to me.
“Maybe we didn’t have to do this to you. I wanted an abundance of caution, and now I’ve caused you so much pain you’ve slid into this zone, and it’s all my fault.”
I picked up the tablet again. It’s not your fault. Are you going to make me write it again and again?
He shook his head. “No. I mean, it is my fault, but you don’t have to write it over and over. Or type it, as the case may be.”
Leave it to Lewis to get caught in the details. I’d love to have been able to speak right then if for no other reason than to sufficiently groan while I rolled my eyes at him.
“Doll, do you think you’d let me give you a physical examination? Like, let me look at your vocal cords and your tongue?”
I’d had the same tests done a million times. I opened my mouth. If I could have said ah, I would have done so. Lewis’ eyes widened. “Oh, I didn’t necessarily mean it had to be this very second.”
He sat up and pulled a device out of his back pocket. I should have known Lewis would always be prepared to shine a light down someone’s throat. A few minutes later, he put it away.
“It all looks fine in there, as I imagine you know.” His scowl told me how much he’d have preferred to find a problem he could easily fix. I might have liked it, too. A quick fix and this would all stop. But since I’d been old enough to understand what this was, I’d known it was never really going to go away. I was glitchy.
Lewis lay back, tugging me slightly on top of him. He stared at the ceiling, the worry lines by his eyes even more pronounced. With my good hand, I stroked my hand over his chest. I’d missed this—the quiet, contemplative moments with him—and it was too bad I couldn’t tell him. I supposed I could type it, but I didn’t want to move.
He exhaled loudly. “Sleep if you want. The painkiller will hit you when you’re out, and you’ll wake feeling better. What kind of relief did Uncle Dane give you when he did it?”
I sighed. I didn’t want to answer questions, even if they were valid and important. I typed my response into his tablet. I never asked for pain medicine. I never went silent. This is just me being overwhelmed. Maybe I’m finally feeling safe so I lost it. I don’t know. Mostly, I tried to get out of there so I could get back to my room and shut out the world. He can be easily distracted.
“So you suffered?” He groaned. “I hate that.”
I didn’t want to do this anymore. Read something to me.
I handed him the tablet, and he stared at it for a second as though he wasn’t sure what to do with it. “Out loud? Anything in particular?”
Whatever you’re reading, read it to me.
Lewis laughed, which was a nice sound. “You might regret that.”
He wasn’t wrong. Lewis had always been fixated with Earth, and hearing about the Holy Roman Empire wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind. Still, I liked the sound of his voice. Eventually, I started to drift. Somewhere in the back of my consciousness, I realized the painkillers had hit me and probably the nerve-blocking medicine too. My hand felt lighter and stopped burning. I dared to move it and rolled over until I could fit in the crook of his arm with my bad hand flung over his chest.
He kissed my forehead and kept reading. I heard something about borders before everything kind of drifted away.
I should have remembered that painkillers always gave me really odd dreams. In this one, I was running for my life, although I wasn’t entirely sure for what. I knew if whatever creature trying to catch me managed to reach me, I’d be in deep, deep trouble.
Ahead, Judge called for me, gesticulating for me hurry and get to him. My feet wouldn’t move quickly enough, and eventually he rounded a bend where I couldn’t find him. I came to an abrupt halt and nearly tripped over Damian, who sat on the ground, stretched out in front of me.
I jolted awake before I would have face-planted on the ground.
The medical bay was quiet except for the sound of Lewis snoring next to me. The tablet was on his chest. His eyes were closed, his mouth open. My sweet love snored like a buzz saw; he always did after a little while of being asleep. At first, I’d worn ear buds to not hear him, but after several months on Orion, I’d hardly noticed anymore. The way it sounded when he breathed told me he was there with me in the room, and I loved the feeling.
I sweated profusely. Maybe Cash had been right to have me watched on the painkiller. I didn’t feel right.
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. So frustrating to need help and not be able to cry out for it. Instead, I gently shook Lewis. His eyes flew open, and he came instantly alert, sitting up a second later.
“Doll? You okay?”
I shook my head no. With shaking hands, I grabbed the tablet. Not feeling right. Sweating. Shaking.
His eyebrows rose, and he grabbed the tablet from me. The screen changed, and it was my vitals in front of him. “You’re hungry. Low blood sugar. When was the last time you ate?”
He scooted around me. Truth was, I couldn’t remember. It might have been days. Lewis shoved a protein bar in front of my face.
“Here. Please eat.” He unwrapped the bar, and with shaking hands, I took a bite. It tasted funny, but then protein bars always did. They were more for substance than taste. Lewis smoothed the hair off my forehead. “You didn’t sleep very long, which I’m going to blame on the not eating. How’s the arm feel?”
I shrugged. Better but never great. I finished chewing the bar before I sat back on the bed. I didn’t feel better; I was sluggish and irritated. Lewis checked out my vitals and nodded again. “You’ll feel better soon.”
Would I? Was it possible I’d never feel better again? The guys were back, and I was silent. Why did I have to go and screw everything up just as I got everything I wanted?
I rolled over onto my stomach. Lewis didn’t need to watch me have a freak out. He’d seen enough of me crying earlier when he’d administered the needles.
“Hey,” Lewis scooted next to me on the bed. “What’s this? Pain bad?”
I didn’t pick my head up from the pillow. Tears wracked through my body, but I didn’t make a sound. Lewis was determined to not leave me alone, which shouldn’t have surprised me and maybe that’s what I wanted. I didn’t even know. I hadn’t been this lost since I’d first woken from the coma.
He rolled me over. “I hate this.”
I tugged at the tablet; soon I would give up with it. Communicating this slowly was an extra amount of frustration. Better to shut up until it all came back.
I’ve not been the same since stasis. You guys should probably have known before you took me back. I don’t know if it’s the Infection. Maybe it did something to my brain.
He kissed my cheek, tugging me against him tighter than before. “Maybe you’ve been through hell. So have we. And we’re all going to have to figure out what the new normal is. I don’t care. You’re mine. That’s forever.”
I couldn’t speak to him, so I kissed him instead. He closed his eyes and kissed me back, gentle, easygoing kisses meant to comfort, not to lead to anything. Unless I took it that way. I wanted to, but the idea of sex when I couldn’t speak didn’t sound appealing. At least not at the moment. My body wasn’t sure it agreed with my mind. Lewis made me hot; he always had.
I loved how gently he held me and how I always felt like I had his undivided attention. He made me laugh with his dry wit. His heart was huge.
“I love you, Diana. My darling. My love.” He whispered things to me as he kissed me, and although I could feel the hardness of his erection between us, he seemed content to simply kiss me.
I put my hand over his heart. I hoped he understood what I meant with the gesture.
Because I loved him so completely I didn’t know what I’d do if anything ever happened to him.