Phoenix’s Fire (The Ruins Of Men #2)

Chapter 79

Seventy-Nine

Meri

T hey needed help. The mayor said that, but Brielle was convinced I was too fragile to do anything but sit around and wait for this baby to come. But I had taken Lessa's advice and made friends with the dog. That would make it easier for me to visit with Ayla, except she was going to be gone during all of this.

When the meeting ended, people began clustering together in groups. I wasn't sure where we were supposed to go, but my friends all turned to face each other again, making me think we weren't moving. Unfortunately, standing made my back so sore, but the last thing I would do was complain about it.

"So," Ayla's sister said, "Lessa and Meri are staying at... Your place, Lessa?"

"I think so," Lessa said.

"Do you want to help at the daycare?" I asked.

She tilted her head. "Do you?"

"I could," I offered.

"It would be a chance to see what children are really like," Jeera pointed out. "Plus if you take a later shift over there, most of them will be sleeping."

"Coming through!" a man bellowed.

I looked up to see Rymar, Ayla's yellow friend. He had Naomi, the doctor, with him. When he'd called out, a few people had moved, giving him a clear path to us, and the moment Naomi saw me, she smiled.

"Meri!" she beamed. "You're looking good."

"I feel good," I promised.

So Naomi looked over at Ayla. "And I swear you get more muscles every time I see you."

Which made Ayla smile bigger than I'd ever seen before. "I have to hunt every night so Holly can eat."

"Mm," Naomi said, bending to pet the dog. "How's the pretty girl, huh?"

And that made the dog's tail wag excitedly, proving Ayla right. Okay, watching people just reach in without fear of the dog's teeth made her a lot less terrifying, but I'd probably still hesitate. I also knew I'd get over it if I just tried.

And I wanted to. After this battle, I was going to talk to Ayla about my baby. I missed seeing her, but I'd been the one making it hard for us to spend time together. I didn't want her to think I hated her, but trying to explain all the choices I'd been given? It was overwhelming.

But there was one thing I was sure of. "Naomi?" I asked. "Can I help at the hospital? If I do that, then Lessa won't have to sit around with me, and I know how to heal."

"She does," Drozel said, stepping in behind me to clasp my shoulder gently. "She wrapped my tail for me, and unlike most of the nurses..." He gave Jeera a pointed look. "Meri doesn't hurt when she does it."

"You wouldn't have that problem if you kept Moles away from your tail," Jeera teased.

Drozel groaned, the deep sound rather intimidating. "I was busy trying not to get shot."

"But you did get shot," Omden pointed out. "So we call that failure."

Drozel just tossed up his hands, then froze. Slowly, his head turned to look at me. "Sorry, Meri. I didn't mean to flail around you. I know that's probably intimidating."

"I'm getting used to it, sir," I assured him.

Which made him lean in. "Just Drozel."

"He's trying not to be a brute," Omden explained. "We messed up with Ayla."

"You slapped her," Kanik said.

"I thought she was hysterical!" Omden insisted. "I was trying to snap her out of it."

"I was convinced you were going to eat me!" Ayla told him. "You know, because the Moles said you would."

"Fucking Moles," Lessa said.

But none of that had anything to do with me, so I slipped across the circle of conversation to Naomi's side. As the rest continued talking about something I knew nothing about, I reached up to touch her arm, getting Naomi's attention.

"I really can help."

She turned to face me. "During the afternoon, we'll likely have a lot of minor injuries. Broken bones from children trying to play in places they shouldn't, accidents from getting into hiding places, and things like that. But when the militia comes back, there could be a lot of injuries all at once."

I nodded. "When the hunters returned, they all came at once. We had to triage who was the most injured, then get them to the proper healer. Ayla was good with arrows, and Mrs. Worthington was good with bleeding. Things like that. I can also sew minor injuries, and I know how to wrap a wound. "

"I was worried about her getting stung," Brielle said, joining our conversation. "If someone's hurt badly enough, they could sting her by accident."

"And some of these Dragons are carried to us only partially conscious," Naomi said.

"I believe that," I assured her, "But Ayla's going to fight, and Saveah is going to watch the children, and I really don't want to do that." I glanced back, checking to see if Ayla was paying attention. She wasn't, so I told Naomi, "I want to make my own decision about if I'm keeping this baby, not feel like it's the right thing to do, or expected, or anything like that."

"We talked to her about adoption," Brielle explained. "Well, about everything, but most of the options don't apply anymore."

Naomi was simply watching me. I almost felt like she was judging me. Once, her eyes jumped over to where the rest were still talking, but they returned to me only a second later.

"Do you heal as well as Ayla?"

"No, ma'am," I said. "Ayla's stitches are smaller and better than mine. I'm good at bandaging, though. She knows all the organs in the body, where I don't, but I do know what's bad and what can wait. I know triage, and how to get supplies, and when a healer is too tired and needs to be replaced."

"You'll be safer with Lessa," Brielle insisted.

Which made me huff in frustration. "I am tired of being safe, and useless, and coddled! I am sick of making everyone stop what they are doing to help me. In the compound, I was expected to do it all on my own, and I did! I changed my clothes to fit my belly. I checked my own body to make sure the child was moving. I also cleaned, and washed, and took care of a husband! I'm not useless, Brielle. I'm not weak, or feeble, or a burden to my friends, and you are a friend. I might not be able to kill like Ayla does, and I really don't want to be forced to watch the babies!"

"And you don't want to sit and relax while everyone else is helping," Naomi said.

"But - " Brielle tried.

Naomi just lifted a hand. "Bri, I know you're trying to help her, but Meri's a smart woman. You also didn't see Ayla after that first battle. She didn't panic, she didn't lash out, and she certainly didn't wilt from the horrors that were shoved into her face." Naomi smiled at me. "My only concern is that you women don't understand your own limits because you were never allowed to set them."

"That's what I'm saying," Brielle insisted. "Naomi, she's high-risk."

"Less now than when she came to us," Naomi said. "So Meri, can you make me a promise and keep it?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "I would think that depends on the promise."

Naomi nodded at that. "If I let you help in the hospital, will you be happy sitting behind a desk, triaging patients and sending their paperwork to the doctor that will be treating them? Not healing them yourself, but taking a task off their shoulders so our nurses can focus on their jobs?"

I nodded. "Yes! I could do that. "

"And if you get tired," she said, "you will take breaks. If you have any complications, you'll tell me, right?"

"I can promise that," I assured her. "But I'm trying to understand who I am and who I want to be. It's not easy to do while sitting on a chair and simply thinking. I need to see it. To do it."

Naomi nodded. "That makes sense."

"Jeera!" Brielle yelled. "Your mother's going to let Meri volunteer at the hospital!"

"What?" Jeera asked, pulling away to join us.

But that brought Ayla as well. "Meri's good in the infirmary," she said. "She was always calm and sensible."

"Was she now?" Naomi asked, smiling at me.

Jeera just groaned. "Mom. She's got to be full-term by now."

"And she's going to sit at a desk," Naomi said. "Meri promised she'd be okay with that."

"I don't want to help with the babies," I explained, hoping Ayla wouldn't think that was horrible of me.

But Ayla nodded. "I wouldn't want to either. I mean, my niece and nephew are fine, but it's different with a lot of them."

"Yeah," I said, hoping that was good enough. "And I'm trying to find myself."

"You always liked healing," Ayla said.

"But not as much as you," I admitted.

But Ayla made a noise like she didn't agree. "You liked it differently. I liked that I could pull out the arrows and tell the men what to do. You liked that you could help people. And you're good at it, Meri. You always knew when we needed more sutures, or when to bring clamps to the healers. Plus your bandages never slipped off!"

Her words made me stand a little taller. "Really?"

Ayla nodded. "Oh, yeah. And here, they have lots of different types of doctors and nurses. It's the same thing, isn't it? You did one part of healing. I did a different one. I could never wrap a bandage as good as you, so I don't think 'better' really works."

I sighed, relieved to know I hadn't been completely useless. "I don't know what I like, and there's just so many options. A lot of them, I can't do because I'm pregnant, and everyone wants me to sit around and do nothing."

"But you're sewing," Ayla reminded me. "That does both. I could only clean the house, and half the time they wouldn't let me do that."

"I don't like it," Brielle said.

"It's not your choice," Jeera told her. "She's not risking the baby or herself. And while she's not immune to venom yet, Meri knows about it. We told her, Bri. She'll be fine, and you can't smother her to death."

"We tell women to take it easy at the end of their pregnancy, though," Brielle pointed out.

"And she'll be at a hospital," Jeera said. "I'm going to be out in the field, and Lessa doesn't know shit about any symptoms she could have, so the way I see it, the hospital's a good place for her. Plus, you're being overprotective, baby."

Which made Brielle chuckle and look away. "Sorry."

"She'll be fine," Naomi told those two. "Won't you, Meri?"

"I'll be very careful," I promised. "But then Lessa can help someone else."

"Because it's horrible to feel like you're putting everyone out," Ayla told the women. "It makes us want to prove ourselves more. Meri's too nice to yell the way I did."

"You didn't exactly yell," Jeera told her.

"Either way," Naomi said, "we do need volunteers, and Ayla proved their healing is basically the same as nursing. These women also know field medicine, which means having Meri in the front when the wounded come in could be lifesaving."

Those words made my mouth part, but my lips were also curling. I wasn't sure if I wanted to gasp or smile, because I wasn't sure what field medicine was, but it sounded good. It sounded capable . Combined with the nice things Ayla had just said, all of this was making me feel a lot less useless.

Gideon had made me stop healing when we'd been married. He'd said it was a waste of time, so I'd almost convinced myself of the same, but I had liked it. I liked being able to make people feel better. I was good at caring for them.

But my husband had told me I should only care for him. I'd believed I should worry about caring for this child, but what if there was another option? What if Ayla was right and I was good at this? Not the part she did, but the part I did.

My eyes dropped down to the massive belly hanging in front of me, and I wanted to sigh. Gideon had tried to remove everything about me that had made me who I was. I'd let him, and now I couldn't stop what he'd done.

But I could finally make my own decisions. That was why I'd needed to come here, to Lorsa. Callah had been right. Ayla would save me. Maybe not my life, but there was more to me than just eating and breathing. I was a whole person. I was more than a wife or a mother.

And I was starting to finally believe that.