25. Juno
CHAPTER 25
JUNO
Everything that happened after Lucius walked in on me in the kitchen was dream-like. His licking my fingers, the kissing… of lips and elsewhere. When Elijah barged in with a gun, it was just as surreal as the rest—that is, until the gun went off.
As soon as the bang hits my ears, an overdose of adrenaline smashes sanity into my brain. Lucius staggers, grabbing his head, and to my horror, I see that it’s gushing blood as if it were its job.
Gasping, I rush toward him, as does Elijah, who’s managed to scramble to his feet despite sliding in the panna cotta a few times.
“Sir!” His British accent is extra thick. “I shot you!”
That was my initial fear as well, but with the clarity only possible when one is on the verge of a heart attack, I spot bits of broken glass around Lucius.
I dart a glance at the ceiling.
A sconce is missing.
“I think you shot the light fixture,” I yell at Elijah. “That’s what fell on him!”
I kneel next to Lucius, who’s now sitting on the floor and muttering a stream of curses. Graphic, eloquent curses. I take the richness of his vocabulary as a good sign. If he had brain damage, he’d be drooling or something like that.
Amazed that I’m not a whimpering mess, I coo soothingly to Lucius as I gently move his hand away to assess the situation. The bleeding is insane, but there’s no sign of glass sticking out of his head, nor a bullet wound for that matter. Nor do I see any bone or leaking brains.
Elijah is wringing his hands and doing circles around us. “I’m so, so sorry, sir!” He sounds on the verge of crying.
I peer up at him with a frown. “You okay?”
He nearly trips again as he tries to look at Lucius’s bleeding head. “I shot him! Oh, dear Lord, I shot him.”
My frown transforms into a glare. “I mean, is your coccyx bone okay? You did fall on your butt.”
Elijah waves that away. “I knew eating all those biscuits would come in handy one day.”
“Get me alcohol,” I order. “And prepare to take us to the hospital. Quickly.”
Looking grateful to have something to do, Elijah rushes away.
“The hospital?” Lucius presses his hand to the wound again, then looks down at the blood covering his palm. His face turns pale. “How bad is it?”
Pretty bad, at least in my non-medical opinion. “You’re fine,” I say soothingly. “Just a precaution.”
He seems to relax at that, so I jump up and run toward the fridge, intent on finding some ice.
“Stop!” Lucius’s voice strengthens. “You’re going to step on broken glass.”
He’s got a point. There are jar pieces everywhere, and I was dumb enough to come down here barefoot.
“I’ll be careful,” I say, cautiously stepping over a couple of shards before reaching the freezer.
I open it.
The thing is almost empty. The only item inside is a bag of frozen pizza bagels.
I pull those out, just in time to spot Elijah coming back into the room with a bottle of rubbing alcohol and an industrial-sized box of gauze pads.
“An ambulance is on the way,” Elijah says, panting. “Or we can take the limo, which will be ready in two minutes.”
“Bring her shoes before she cuts her feet,” Lucius barks at his poor butler. Then, examining my body with narrowed eyes, he adds, “Also bring her something more substantial to wear.”
How can he be so bossy with an injury like that? Also, who cares what I wear?
Elijah turns to obey the order, but I call out, “Wait! Leave the alcohol. Also, what’s with this?” I wave the pizza bagels and nod at the empty freezer.
“The master eats those on occasion.” Elijah sets the medical supplies on the counter. “They remind him of childhood.”
“Fine. Go. And please get him some clothes too.”
Elijah runs off, and Lucius reminds me to mind the glass as I move around.
Walking carefully, I grab the medical supplies and bring them over to where Lucius is sitting.
“This will sting,” I say as I open the alcohol.
He takes a breath and nods.
I dump a few ounces onto the still-gushing wound. Lucius tenses but maintains a stoic silence as I arrange half the gauze pads in the box around the wound, then press them down with the pizza bagels.
“I figure the cold should prevent swelling,” I say, mostly to myself. “And maybe help with coagulation.”
“I think I’m fine,” Lucius says. “It was just the shock of it.”
The bleeding has stopped, but I don’t dare let go of the pizza bagels.
“Let me check your pupils.” I peer into his eyes.
Hmm. Are the pupils supposed to be dilated or constricted in a concussion situation? In any case, his seem normal, but what do I know? “Are you nauseated?” I ask, since that one is more obvious.
If he is, it’s bad.
He shakes his head and winces.
“Use words,” I say sternly. “Among other things, I need to hear if you’re slurring.” That also wouldn’t be good, I’m pretty sure.
“I’m not nauseated. I also don’t have ringing in my ears,” he states. “And I haven’t lost my sense of smell or taste.”
I frown. “Are those also signs of a concussion?”
“I think so,” he says, but he doesn’t sound too sure.
“This is exactly why we need a doctor.”
Elijah runs into the room, carrying a stock of clothes and shoes.
“Careful,” I tell him. “If you slip again, who’s going to help me carry Lucius to the limo?”
Lucius scoffs. “I’m not going to be carried.”
“You are.”
He shakes his head and grimaces again. “Once you’re dressed, Elijah will help me stand.”
I grab what Elijah brought for me, which is a pair of heels and an oversized hoodie that I packed for the plane ride, in case it got chilly at thirty thousand feet. Or however high supersonic jets go. Needless to say, the hoodie does not go with the heels, but I’m not about to chide the butler, who still seems to be on the verge of crying. He must also be in some kind of shock, given his choices for Lucius—a suit jacket, sweatpants, and hiking boots. No socks.
Okey-dokey. Lucius pulls on the sweatpants and the boots as I hold the pizza bagels to his head. Then I instruct him to hold the bagels, and I turn to Elijah, who’s now just standing there like a statue.
“Help me get him up,” I order, and the butler springs into action, looking pathetically grateful to have me take charge.
Lucius exercises his colorful vocabulary once more as Elijah and I help him to his feet.
“Any vertigo?” I ask when he’s fully vertical.
He starts to shake his head, then remembers to use his words in time. “I’m fine. I don’t need a doctor.”
I point at the puddle of blood on the floor where he was sitting, and he goes pale again, shutting up as I drape one of his arms over my shoulders and Elijah does the same on the other side. Together, the three of us make it out of the mansion and onto the driveway, where the limo already awaits.
“You don’t think we should wait for the ambulance?” Elijah asks, sounding a bit more like himself.
“No,” Lucius says imperiously. Now that we’re away from all the blood, he seems more like his bossy self as well.
“I agree,” I say. “We’ll get there faster this way.”
We get Lucius into the limo, where I order him to lie down on the seat and let me hold the defrosting bagels.
“I’ll make all the arrangements as we drive,” Elijah says.
I nod, and he closes the door as I perch next to Lucius’s head. The limo pulls out, and I overhear Elijah speaking sternly on the phone before the partition goes up.
Some of my adrenaline leaks out. Overcome with a sudden wave of emotion, I stroke Lucius’s arm with my free hand. “How much does it hurt?” I ask softly.
“I’ll be fine,” he says, closing his eyes.
“You’d better be.” A surge of belated terror hits me. “That bullet could’ve struck you instead of the sconce.”
He opens his eyes, his face turning grim as he growls, “It could have hit you . I’ll make Elijah rue the day he?—”
“Don’t. The poor man is already kicking himself.”
Lucius’s nostrils flare. “As he should. At the very least, he’ll never touch a gun again.”
That’s probably a good idea. Lucius has enough money to hire professional bodyguards if he so chooses. There’s no need for an armed butler.
“Do you know where the hospital we’re going to is?” I ask.
“No. Can’t be far, though, or I imagine we’d take the helicopter.”
“What helicopter?”
He shifts his position. “The one I rented for the stay.”
I change which hand is holding the bagels before I get frostbite. “A helicopter? That sounds like a reasonable expense.”
Lucius smiles faintly. “It’s to survey the land I came here to acquire.”
Would he be this good at coming up with retorts if he had a concussion? Knowing him, probably.
I warm my free hand as best as I can with my breath, then lightly massage his shoulder. The hard muscle immediately relaxes under my touch, and the creases on his forehead smooth out, encouraging me to keep going.
Lucius closes his eyes, making me think he’s drifting off, but then he opens them. “Look, Juno…” His voice is gruff. “About what happened before Elijah interrupted. I?—”
“Don’t,” I say, a touch too sharply. If he were to say that was another round of PDA practice, I’d punch him, and then I’d feel super guilty doing that to someone in his condition. “We don’t need to talk about it.”
The creases in his forehead return, and I can tell he wants to push the issue. To my relief, he doesn’t. He just closes his eyes again, and this time, I stroke his chest, trying not to think about how glad I am that there’s no bullet hole in the warm, hard-muscled flesh.
The limo comes to a stop.
The doors open, and Elijah helps me get Lucius out.
When I turn around, I see that we’re near the front doors of a hospital. A man and a woman are waiting for us there. He’s dressed in a suit, and she’s in scrubs.
They introduce themselves, and it turns out that he is the hospital president and she—and I quote—is “the best neurosurgeon in the state of Florida.”
“Call me Dr. Brainiac,” she says with a grin. “That’s what my friends calls me, so why not people who wake me in the middle of the night, right?”
Wasn’t Brainiac a villain in the Superman comics?
“Have a seat,” Dr. Brainiac says, and only then do I notice the wheelchair.
“No,” Lucius says sharply. “I can walk on my own.”
Dr. Brainiac looks up at him skeptically. “You don’t sound like someone with a bullet in his brain.”
Lucius glares at her. “I didn’t get shot.”
Elijah studies his feet. “I might not have been entirely truthful. The bullet hit a ceiling sconce, and that’s what fell on his head. Or a shard of it, at any rate.”
Dr. Brainiac narrows her eyes. “And that’s what entered his brain?”
“I doubt it,” I chime in. “There’s a gash there, but it doesn’t look that deep.”
She eyes me like I’m the only reasonable person here. “So why am I here?”
I nod at Elijah. “He made the arrangements.”
“It’s his head,” Elijah says, sounding defensive. “Had it been his chest, I would’ve gotten the best cardiologist.”
“By that logic, you need to see a proctologist about your fall,” Lucius deadpans.
Elijah rubs his behind with a thoughtful expression.
“Fine. Whatever,” Dr. Brainiac says. “We’re here. Go ahead and take a seat.”
Lucius looks at the wheelchair the way I would at a camel eating a cactus. “Like I said, my legs work just fine.”
“Men and their egos,” Dr. Brainiac mutters under her breath. She gestures at the president. “It’s his hospital policy.”
The president looks resolute. “Even if you had a papercut emergency, you’d enter in that chair.”
With an exasperated sigh, Lucius sits his butt down, like a Roman emperor on his throne.
“Can I push?” Elijah asks.
“Sure,” Lucius says. “Just you watch where you’re going this time.”
Mean, but not unreasonably so, all things considered.
When we reach the elevator, the president leaves us in the hands of Dr. Brainiac, and she takes us to a room that looks more like a five-star hotel suite than a hospital room. The only clue to this being a medical establishment is all the scary equipment.
Must be some sort of VIP room. Between this, the neurosurgeon, and the president, I wonder if Elijah committed Lucius to buying this hospital a new wing.
“You can have a seat there,” the doctor says to Lucius and points at the comfiest-looking patient chair ever. “You two can take the couch,” she tells me and Elijah. Then she grins again as she notices the bagels. “Some patients bring comfort blankets, but I say comfort food is more practical.”
Lucius doesn’t look amused in the slightest as he hands the semi-defrosted bag to the doc, who tosses it onto a nearby table. She then puts on gloves, removes the gauze pads, and peers at the wound. “Like snitches, you’ll need some stitches.”
Saguaro help us. Dr. Brainiac clearly wants to switch her career from neurosurgeon to comedian. Lucius does not look entertained.
Ignoring his glower, she walks over to the table and picks up a pair of tweezers and a tube of cream.
“This is a topical anesthetic,” she says. “You want me to use it?”
“No,” Lucius says grimly.
“I had a feeling you’d say that. Suit yourself. This will not hurt me one bit.”
With that, she sticks the tweezers into the wound.
I feel a strong urge to cut a bitch, but Lucius bears the pain stoically, so I calm myself down.
Looking triumphant, Dr. Brainiac pulls out a tiny shard of glass and shows it to everyone. “If only all surgery were this easy.”
Damn. That was there all this time?
She then grabs some iodine and applies it liberally around the wound, at which point I stop looking because seeing the stitching might just cause me to get violent… or faint.
“That’s it,” Dr. Brainiac says after all of a minute. “Now drink this.”
When I look back, Lucius’s head is covered in bandages, making him look like a mummy, and he’s sipping apple juice from a kiddie box.
Elijah stands up. “What do you mean? What if he’s got a concussion?”
“Given how little swelling there is around the cut, the impact wasn’t bad. Nor is he showing a single symptom of a concussion. The sugar in the juice should help him recover after the little bit of blood loss.”
“But shouldn’t you run some tests?” Elijah demands.
She shrugs. “In my professional opinion, this is a case of an ouchie boo-boo. My prescription would be to eat those bagels in the morning. But if you want to waste your time on tests, I can order some.”
Lucius rises to his feet, looking much steadier than before. The juice has clearly worked its magic. “If the neurosurgeon thinks I’m fine, I’m fucking fine.”
Dr. Brainiac flashes him her signature grin. “Make that a neurosurgeon who doesn’t want her malpractice insurance to go up. Or one who doesn’t wish to read the following article in the gossip columns: Doctor’s negligence kills billionaire .”
“In that case, thank you very much, doctor,” Elijah says stiffly.
“You’re welcome,” she says. “If you ever do get your brain damaged, or have a tumor you need removed, give me a call.”
Elijah pales. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Once again, apologies for waking you up in the middle of the night.”
She shrugs again. “My bank account would say, ‘It’s been a pleasure.’”
Without further ado, Lucius strides out of the room, and we hurry after him.
Once inside the limo, Lucius yawns and closes his eyes.
What a great idea. I close mine too—and must drift off, because a second later Elijah is rousing me.
“You okay?” I ask Lucius when we enter the mansion and Elijah scurries away to deal with the kitchen mess.
“Yeah,” he replies wearily as we stop in front of the staircase leading up to the bedrooms. “Just need some sleep.”
What I feel like saying is, “And I want to watch you sleep,” but instead I go with the much less creepy, “Me too.”
He kisses me gently on the cheek. “Thanks for fussing over me on the way to the hospital. It really helped.”
With that bombshell, he goes up the stairs, leaving me standing there with my palm pressed against my cheek and my mind spinning with all sorts of questions.