Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“ANGEL” BY CAMYLIO
CHASE
The next few days pass in what I can only describe as the worst kind of torture.
Not because the G-CSF treatment we have to go through is excruciating, but because we watch as Luna gets weaker with each treatment she has to undergo.
By day minus four—four days until the transplant—we have to help her to the bathroom because she can no longer walk on her own.
By day minus three, she has a fever, and we take turns through the night to apply cold compresses, which she cries out at because her skin is now so sensitive.
Day minus two is the worst by far. She can no longer eat, her mouth pain is too severe. We crush ice for her to suck on, trying to get her to sip the protein shakes as well, though Susan hooks her up to a nutrient drip so she doesn’t become too depleted.
We’re all struggling, Luna asleep and Thorn curled up in pain on the spare bed.
There’s a pounding behind my eyes and my muscles ache, plus all three of us are running a low-grade fever and keep shivering.
It’s nothing compared to Luna, but Thorn seems to be experiencing the worst as a low moan falls from his lips.
“T–Thorn?” Luna’s raspy voice calls quietly, and I watch as she struggles to sit up. I rush to her side, ignoring the flare of agony in my own body to help her. “T–Thorn?”
I watch as Thorn blinks his eyes open, the green dull with pain, and a quiet gasp leaves Luna.
“Yeah, baby?” Thorn asks, his voice husky and rough.
“I–I’m s–so s–sorry,” Luna stutters out, her voice thick with the tears that fill her eyes.
“No, baby,” Thorn says, gritting his teeth as he gets up and makes his way over to her bed. He stumbles, but Blade is there to catch him and help him the last few steps. “I’d go through so much worse for you, Moonbeam. I love you.”
“I–I wish you d–didn’t, because t–then you wouldn’t h–have to go t–through this,” she mumbles, the tears falling down her pale cheeks, and as Thorn shuffles to lie next to her, I gently take her chin in my hand and turn her gaze to me.
“This is nothing, Star. We’d all endure hell to keep you with us,” I tell her.
She opens her mouth, but I continue, needing to chase away the guilt from her eyes.
“We didn’t ask to love you. We chose to, freely and wholeheartedly, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
You are our home, Star. Our guiding light.
Our world revolves around you now and for the rest of our lives. ”
I watch as she absorbs my words, more tears falling from her beautiful eyes to trace a path down her sunken cheeks, but I brush them away.
“I–It hurts to watch y–you in p–pain,” she tells me, and my heart gives a jolt, because there’s no mention of the hell she’s experiencing, just worry for us.
“I know, baby,” I say, leaning over so our foreheads are touching. My eyes close and I take a breath in, her vanilla and jasmine scent almost hidden underneath the chemical smell of her treatments. “It kills us to see you hurting like you are.”
Placing a kiss on her dry lips, I encourage her to lie back, Thorn snuggling into her side and Blade covering him so that he’s under the blankets with Luna. Both close their eyes, arms and hands holding each other as they rest, and I look up, catching the eyes of my eldest brother.
“We’ll beat this,” he quietly vows, sitting in the chair we placed on the other side of the bed.
We will, we have to. There is no other choice when it comes to Luna.
The next day is Luna’s rest day, but it’s the day they need to collect our blood for the transplant.
They tried to get us to go into a separate room, but I managed to convince them to bring the collection machines in Luna’s room so that we don’t have to be apart from her for six to eight hours.
I don’t think any of us would have been able to cope with that.
Blade and I stay on our chairs by Luna’s bedside, Thorn in one of the spare beds as they hook us up. Luna is asleep, something that she’s been doing more of as each day passes, which I’m glad for because at least she’s resting.
We’re reminded by a stern Susan that we can’t move our arms, and so I put the call button in easy reach in case we need to get Luna help. It’s not the most pleasant feeling, having the big needles go into both my arms, and I can see my brothers grimace when it’s their turn.
Luna stirs when the nurses leave, blinking her eyes open just as I become hot, and then cold.
“Hey,” she whispers, her voice beyond painful sounding.
“Hey, Star,” I reply, wanting to reach out and touch her, but knowing that I can’t.
“How i–is it?” she asks, her eyes darting to the tubes coming out of my arms.
“It’s okay, nothing I can’t handle, baby,” I tell her, and her muscles relax as her eyes drift closed.
“Good,” she murmurs, sleep already taking over her body.
The rest of the day passes uneventfully, mostly with Luna and Thorn sleeping, Blade clearly calculating the collection volumes and monitoring the machines in that way he has.
I use my laptop, being careful to only move my hands and not my arms. I check our plans for after the transplant, and make sure everything is in place for when we return to The Cottage, our home for the foreseeable future.
The door opens and I glance up, expecting to see the nurse, but Lorelei walks in, her steps hesitant, her eyes darting around the room, landing on Luna, then finding mine.
“Hi, Chase,” she says, hovering by the open doorway, as if she’s afraid to walk in.
“Hello, Lorelei,” I return, my voice devoid of all emotion. I can’t help but be angry at her. She’s Luna’s mother for Christ’s sake, and she’s not been present at all during her treatments.
After a deep inhale, she takes a step inside, closing the door behind her. “How is she?”
“Do you care?” Blade snaps, and she flinches, her blue eyes that same shade as Luna’s filling with tears.
“I’ve not been the best mom recently, but I do still care about Luna.
So much,” she replies in a small voice, Luna not even stirring as Lorelei takes another step forward.
“And I’m so grateful that she has you all.
You’ve all helped her so much, and now…” she trails off as she glances down at the tubes taking my blood away for her daughter. “Thank you.”
“We love her, so this is the least we could do,” I tell her honestly, and she nods her head.
“I’ve left Richard,” she announces, taking another step closer to Luna, and my eyebrows rise to my hairline. “I got the email you sent me, and I, well.” She stops, swallowing hard. “It was wrong, him using her like that. Using me like that.”
“But?” I ask, hearing it in her voice. She looks at Luna, her face softening.
“But then she wouldn’t have met you, and wouldn’t be getting this treatment which may save her, so I guess in that way, I’m glad.
I don’t know.” She heaves a sigh, closing the gap between herself and the bed.
Reaching out, she gently strokes Luna’s foot over the top of the sheet.
“Sometimes out of terrible things, good things come.” She gazes at Luna, and I wait to see what she says next.
“Luna’s dad, he was a mean son of a bitch, one of those charming ones who show their true colours when it’s far too late.
I almost lost her the last time he beat me, I was midway through a pregnancy that he forced on me.
” I take in a sharp breath, realising that she means Luna was a product of rape.
“So I left, and when she came, I fell so deeply in love I knew that regardless of the circumstances of her conception, there was no way I could give her up. That I would fight for her as no one had ever done for me.”
“Does she know?” I ask, and she shakes her head.
“How could I tell her? She feels so much, she’d somehow feel guilty for something she had no part in.
” She brings her fingers to her lips, pressing a kiss onto them and then brushing them back over Luna’s blanket-clad foot.
“I’m staying nearby, call me if you need anything, but if it’s okay, I’d like to come back and visit when she’s up for it? ”
“Of course. I’m sure she’d be glad to see you,” I reply, and she gives me a grateful smile before one final glance at Luna. With another sigh, she turns and leaves the room.
“Shit, that’s fucked up,” Thorn rasps from his bed, and I twist to glance at him.
“You heard?”
“Yeah. Poor Goldie. And Lorelei.” He looks at our sleeping beauty in bed, none the wiser to the bombs that her mom just dropped on us. “I think she should know. She’s never mentioned her dad, but she should know what an asshole he is so she never tries to find him.”
“Agreed,” Blade rumbles, and I look at him to see his face set in a deep frown. “But maybe one day we can pay him a visit.”
There’s that glint of violence in his eyes that I’ve seen peek out over the years. My brother wants to heal the world, but he also isn’t afraid to take out the trash.
“I’ll add it to our list of things to do once this is all over,” I say, not even joking as I open up Notes on my MacBook and add it to my list.
Get Luna better
Take Luna to see the world
Cancel her dad’s membership on earth
“TETHER ME - ACOUSTIC” BY GALLEAUX
LUNA
I wake up full of pain and feeling like shit which has died and then been warmed up only to die again.
“Happy transplant day!” Thorn croons, holding a bunch of balloons and wearing a party hat, the room covered in streamers and more balloons.
I rasp a chuckle, then wince when it hurts my mouth. Fucking sores.
Susan laughs as she walks in. “Someone’s been busy.”
“Only the best for our girl, and it’s a day to celebrate, right?
” Thorn answers. He ties the balloons to the end of my bed, then comes and sits on one side.
He’s looking a bit better, less in pain, and when I find Chase and Blade, I notice the same.
They all look, well, not quite normal but less shitty than they have for the past week.
“Definitely a day to celebrate,” Susan agrees, coming over with what looks like a blood bag. “This is it, your liquid gold,” she tells me, and my brows drop.
“Doesn’t look like much,” I rasp, thinking about all the crap we’ve dealt with just to get to this point and it looks like a normal blood bag.
She laughs. “That’s what they all say.” She sets it up so the blood goes through a central line and that’s it. Huh. “I’ll stay here just to monitor things, but it should only take between thirty and sixty minutes.”
Once she’s done, she takes the chair next to the bed, Thorn getting on next to me and snuggling in that way of his which I love. Blade takes the other chair, Chase on one by the table with his laptop.
There’s something ritualistic, almost sacred, about this moment. The atmosphere is heavy with meaning as we all watch their cells flowing into my body. They are becoming part of me, part of my very DNA, their blood forever in my veins now.
“How many boyfriends does it take to change a lightbulb?” Thorn asks out of the blue, and my eyes widen, flashing to Susan, who just gives me a wink and a smile. I shake my head at him, and his grin grows. “None. They just compliment you in the dark and tell you how beautiful you look!”
I huff a laugh, too tired and sore for much else, but he leans in anyway, placing a chaste kiss on my lips. What feels like only a minute later, the bag is empty and Susan is unhooking it all.
“All done. I’ll leave you to rest but someone will be in and out over the next few hours to check up on you, alright?”
“Thank you, Nurse,” Chase replies, and Susan leaves.
His gaze finds mine. “You’re ours now, Star,” he tells me, his tone unwavering, and my heart thuds inside my chest. “Have been since that first day, though we were too blind to see it.” He gets up, coming to sit next to me on the chair Susan was just in, his warm palm cupping my cheek.
“I don’t belong to anyone,” I whisper, even as I lean into his touch. It’s a lie, I do belong to them, wholeheartedly, but the idea still scares me a little.
“No,” Blade agrees, reaching over Thorn and taking my hand on the other side. “You choose us every day. That’s different than belonging.”
Thorn completes the circle around me. “And we choose you. Cancer and all.”
With their warmth surrounding me, my eyes close, knowing that I’m safe and loved. That I’m chosen.
When I next open them, I find the room dim and Blade sitting beside my bed, saying nothing, his gaze on the machines surrounding me, monitoring every one, every number on the screen. Thorn is asleep next to me, his warmth a comfort, while Chase is on the other bed, having a nap.
Chase would fill this silence with plans and promises, Thorn would chase it away with jokes and stories, but Blade lets it exist between us, and somehow, his silence feels more honest than any words could be.