Chapter 55
55
TEGAN
I don’t feel good.
That’s the first thought I have when I wake up in the morning. I don’t feel good. Something is very wrong.
My head feels funny. It feels like I am in a fish tank, looking out at the world through several feet of water. And I can’t stop shaking. My whole body is trembling. I haven’t felt good since my car slammed into that tree, but this is a whole other level of awful. On the plus side, though, the pain in my left leg seems to have subsided.
I place a hand on my belly, feeling for Tuna. At first, I feel nothing. But then I feel just the tiniest of little kicks. It’s weak though. It’s not the soccer star kicks she was giving a week or two ago. It’s obvious that whatever is affecting me is also affecting my baby.
What is wrong with me?
I roll my head to the side, and to my horror, Simon Lamar is standing next to the bed. I jolt in surprise. What is he doing here? He’s wearing a suit, and he has his arms folded across his chest, a smirk on his lips. He’s holding a leather briefcase, and as he stands over me, he flicks it open and pulls out a sheaf of papers.
You should have taken my offer while you could. Now you’re screwed. Again.
Then he takes a lighter out of his pocket—the same one that Jackson had gifted me—and holds the flame to the papers in his hand. They catch fire immediately, going up in a blaze of smoke.
I open my mouth to scream, but before I can, he vanishes. Instead of Simon, there’s just a dark shadow on the side of my bed.
Oh God, I’m hallucinating.
I try to shift in the bed in an attempt to get comfortable, which is hard given that I can’t stop shaking. I feel cold and hot all at once. It’s a very strange sensation. I want to have something to drink, but I also feel like I would throw up if I tried to drink anything.
As I shift, I notice the pain in my left ankle is not nearly as bad as it was before. And then it hits me that I’m not feeling much of anything in that leg, pain or otherwise.
This is not good.
I look down at my left foot, which is still in the boot, since I wouldn’t let Polly take it off. Now I wish I had let her. I try to wiggle the toes of my left foot. Are they moving? I don’t think they are.
Something is really wrong.
“Polly!” I try to yell out, although my voice comes out in a hoarse whisper.
I pull the blankets up to my neck, but then I feel too hot and I push them down again. I can’t seem to get comfortable. My temperature is all screwy. In the back of my head, I recognize that I’m really sick, yet I can’t push away the fog enough to get as panicked as I probably should be.
After what feels like an eternity, the door to the basement creaks open. Polly’s boisterous voice echoes down the stairs. “Good morning!”
Through the cloud in my head, I recall our conversation last night. I made one last attempt to bargain with her so that she would get me to a hospital. She told me she would do it. I hope she meant it.
“Tegan?” She stops at the foot of my hospital bed, staring down at me. “Are you okay?”
I open my mouth, but no sound comes out. Instead, I just shake my head.
She rounds the side of the bed and places an ice-cold hand on my forehead. Her eyes widen. “You’re burning up.”
“I…I am?” I croak.
Her gaze rakes down the length of the bed and comes to a stop when she gets to the end, where my boot is sticking out of the covers. She walks right over there while I feebly attempt to protest. She places one hand on either side of my black fur-lined boot. And she pulls— hard —until it pops off.
I expected it to hurt, and when it doesn’t, that’s the most terrifying thing of all.
Right away, I can see how swollen and red my left calf is. Then she peels off my sock, and I let out a gasp. My foot is extremely swollen and dark red, practically purple. My foot is bent to the right at a frightening angle, and there is an open wound on the exposed side. Even from the other side of the bed, I can see thick, yellow fluid leaking out of the wound.
“This is infected,” Polly says, her voice flat.
Yeah, no kidding.
“Hospital,” I manage. “You…you promised.”
She stares down at my foot, her lips pursed together. “You need antibiotics.”
Right. I do. I need to go to the hospital and get antibiotics. “Hospital” is all I can eke out.
She’s quiet for a moment. “Right. Hospital.”
Oh, thank God.
Polly looks down at my foot for another minute, then she turns around and goes back upstairs without another word. I hope she’s calling 911 right now. Because if she doesn’t, I’m not going to make it out of here alive. And neither will my baby.