Chapter 49
Chapter Forty-Nine
Ayda
I’m not usually the kind of person who remembers their dreams. The moment I open my eyes, reality seeps in and anything that lingers is eaten with the appearance of the sun.
That morning, curled into Drew, I woke up sweating with my hair plastered to my damp cheek and the lingering nightmares of what we’d been through making my head feel gritty and dirty.
I was so confused. It took a moment for me to realize that the heat wasn’t from my body at all.
It was radiating from the chest below my cheek.
Drew’s body. I wasn’t sure what to make of the situation at first. For a full minute I was convinced that it was just the heat of the day and our bare skin generating too much warmth, which for us wasn’t that unusual.
Eventually, it was the shivers and the twitches that finally alerted me to the fact that something wasn’t right.
“Drew, baby?” I asked quietly, pushing up and away from him.
One look at his body in the fading light and I knew it wasn’t a good situation.
His skin was pale and damp, his dark hair plastered to his forehead, and his eyes were darting around behind the membrane of his eyelids.
Reaching out with a tentative and shaky hand, I brushed the sweat from his face and pushed myself onto my aching knees, ignoring the scream of pain in my body as my palms moved from his clammy cheeks to his forehead.
He was burning up.
“Drew? Wake up!” I pleaded as my hands moved to the sweat covering his chest only to find the angry looking wounds on his body.
He groaned, the sound throaty like he was struggling to breathe, while his body curled in on itself with no obvious instruction from him when my hand barely brushed his abs.
As I watched him struggle, I could feel the panic clutching at the walls of my sanity again, but I shoved it back to the deepest recesses of my mind.
Drew needed me this time, and there was only one thing I could do for him, but he could be damn sure I wouldn’t let him down.
Without further thought, I launched my aching body from the bed, limping and stumbling toward the door, grabbing a stray shirt to cover myself with on the way out.
It took everything in me to stretch my back to pull it down over my head, but I managed before tugging on the door with both hands, forcing it out of the way so I could stumble into the corridor.
There were about five people lingering outside at first glance, but I was in no place to put names to faces even if I knew them well. There was only one person that could help me and I wasn’t even sure I knew what he looked like.
All of them were startled as I appeared, panting in pain and completely frantic about Drew’s condition. Even the walls heaved in a breath as though waiting for me to finally spit the right order of words out.
“Where’s Doc?” I shouted, my volume and tone completely out of my control. The faster my fear and adrenaline pumped through my body, the more limber I became, my own agony pushed aside at the thought of Drew’s pained groans.
“Drew?” Slater asked, pushing past men and bearing down on me. Any other situation and I would have shrunk back, but this was Drew’s health and not even the Reaper himself was going to get past me.
“Where the fuck is the doctor?”
“Here.”
The voice was unfamiliar, but the face was one I recognized as he appeared behind Slater and searched for a way past the human wall of muscle blocking his path.
For the first and, I hoped, the last time in my life, I pushed my shoulder into Slater’s gut to move him aside and let the doctor through.
I, more than anyone, appreciated who and what Drew represented to him, but if he thought for a second he meant any less to me, he needed a reality check.
I’d always loved Drew, but the thought of losing him had done something to me.
It was a trigger to a stronger and more aggressive woman inside of me.
Kneeling in that warehouse, I’d come to the realization that I would die for Drew.
If it meant he got to live, I would die a thousand deaths.
That was the only reason I was able to get Slater away from the door and stop him from entering with one look.
It was the strength and conviction that I’d always had when it came to Tate.
Drew was just as much my family as my brother was, and no one was getting past me until he was ready to see them.
The moment the doctor was inside, I backed up with hobbled steps. My legs weren’t matching my determination, but I managed to shut the door without so much as an argument, even as the doctor flicked on the lights and rushed to Drew’s side.
“God dammit. I told him to stay where he was, but the man is as stubborn as a mule.”
“It was me, wasn’t it?” I asked, dropping my ass to the foot of the bed and resting my hand on his ankle as the doctor threw his jacket into the chair behind him and started rolling up his shirt sleeves. “He wanted to check on me.”
“Don’t blame yourself. No one tells Drew what to do but Drew.” He flashed me a smile as he pressed the stethoscope to his ears and leaned forward. “But it is kinda nice to see him happy.”
“Happy?” I snorted, gripping Drew’s ankle as he kicked out at the cold end of the diaphragm against his chest.
The doctor listened for a while, pushing gently on Drew’s shoulder so he could hear properly. The moment he was finished, he pulled the equipment from his ears and slung it around his neck, peering up at me with a small, reassuring smile.
“Yes, happy. I don’t tend to put words in people’s mouths, but I know what I saw when he got back, and I saw the concern he had for you. These boys worry about one another, it’s true, but worrying about you? That’s big, darlin’.”
“I love him, too,” I said without hesitation, meeting the doctor’s eyes. “Which is exactly why I need you to do your damn best and get him better.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Time had stopped—at least it sure as hell felt like it.
The doctor worked diligently. His nimble hands checked every part of Drew’s body and pushed through the agonizing sounds of his pain without so much as breaking a sweat.
I knew I was probably doing more harm than good, sitting there asking question after question about what he was doing and why, but it was the only way I could get through the torture he seemed to be performing.
Drew was strong, but there was no anaesthetic involved, and he was human.
Eventually, the doctor called Harry in to help him, but he spent most of his time trying to stop my reactions to Drew’s pain. His arms became bars around my waist as I struggled and held me up when I’d exhausted myself physically and emotionally.
Drew’s injuries were worse than anyone had anticipated. He’d lost a lot of blood, but like Harry told me repetitively, “He has heart, Ayda. He’s a fighter. There ain’t no way that kid’s ready to give up yet.”
The doctor stayed for a while, just like Harry did, but he left sometime in the early hours of the morning when he said Drew’s heart rate and blood pressure were stable and he was on the mend.
Harry was brave enough to try and convince me to go to another room and sleep but realized, probably too late, that it would have been easier to try and move a mountain.
So he finally left to get some sleep, leaving me alone with Drew again.
“You stubborn ass,” I whispered, slipping into the chair next to the bed that the doctor had been using.
I picked up Drew’s hand and brought it to my forehead.
I shouldn’t have been okay with his healthcare being performed in my little private room, but the privacy was something I was embracing.
My room, my rules, and I suspected that was the only reason people like Slater and Jedd were pacing the floor outside to splinters.
“When are you going to realize that I need you?” I asked quietly, the moisture filling my eyes slowly.
“You bring me into this amazing world of yours, tell me that you love me, and you make me happier than I’ve ever been before, and then you don’t take care of yourself?
That’s not acceptable, Drew. I’m selfish enough to admit that I need you.
Just remember this: the next time you try and take care of me first when you’re this fucking hurt, I am going to kick your ass. Broken ribs or not.”
Blowing all the air from my lungs, I could feel the energy start to seep from my body, the adrenaline finally giving way to pain and exhaustion.
Unfortunately, there was no sleeping—not when he was unconscious and in as much pain as he was.
So the only option I had was to rest my head on his hand and hope that he came to soon.
I woke with a start, the tickle on my hair making me sit up quickly, which was immediately followed by a groan of regret as pain shot through my body in places I wasn’t entirely sure belonged to me.
It took a while to process anything, but the moment my mind went to Drew, my eyes followed the train of thought and landed on those beautiful blue-green eyes of his.
I’m not sure where I managed to find the restraint to not jump on him with a scream of happiness, but I pulled it off, only for the emotions to cumulate instead.
Bowing my head to hide the tears, I placed my lips on the back of his hand and pressed my eyes together in a silent thank you to any deity that was willing to listen.
I had so much to say to him, but none of it would come to my lips.
The only thing I could even begin to form were those three little words over and over again.
They started as a whisper and played on repeat until I felt his hand twitch against mine.
“I love you.”
He stared down at me, neither one of us aware of the passage of time as he slowly blinked over and over again and tried to find some strength to make a sound.
The moment his lips twitched up into a slow, lazy smirk, I knew he was back in that room with me the way I needed him to be.
“I love you,” he mouthed, closing his eyes again.
There was nothing I wanted more in the world than to climb into that bed beside him and just hold him against me and never let go. I needed to feel his body against mine, and not in a sexual sense, but just to know he was there, that his body temperature was safe and that he was breathing normally.
“You ever walk away from a doctor when you’re that hurt again, I swear to God, Drew Tucker, I’ll have them castrate you while you’re out,” I whispered against the back of his hand. “And if you scare me like that again, I’ll be the fucker with the scissors.”
Drew let his head roll to the side, his half smile never leaving his lips until he attempted to open his eyes to look up at me again. He struggled to take in a big breath, holding it high in his chest until a small groan came unstuck from the back of his throat.
“I thought you might need a little more drama in your life. It’s been quiet around here lately.”
“Not funny.” I sniffled with a half laugh. Using the back of my free hand, I swept the tears away from under my eyes and gave him a watery smile. “You scared me, Drew, and you know I hate to cry.”
“I hate to see you cry,” he whispered.
There was no restraint anymore. I was on my feet in a grunt of pain and had my lips pressed as gently against his as I could manage.
I could feel the swelling on his mouth, along his jaw where I cupped his face, as well as the split as I swept my tongue against his lips, but trying to stop was like asking me not to breathe.
It was only when he hissed that I eased back, pressing my lips against his a couple of times before our foreheads came together. “Please don’t do that again. I’m not sure my heart can take it.”
“I don’t know what happened. I feel like I’ve been hit by a train.” Drew tried to lift his hand, the effort clearly too much for him as his arm fell against me, only allowing his fingers to graze the side of my thigh. “Tell me you’re okay.”
“I’m fine—a couple of aches and pains, some scratches on my back, which will heal, and this,” I said, holding up my finger. “It will heal fine, though. Deeks set it while I was out and I didn’t feel a thing. You, on the other hand? Your body went into shock because you neglected your injuries.”
“You sound like Doc.”
“I just spent hours with him while he tried to keep you with me.”
“I wasn’t going anywhere.” He paused, trying again to lift his hand and this time succeeding. When he wrapped his fingers limply around my forearm and tried to pull me even closer, I gravitated towards him without thought. “I promise. I meant what I said to you.”
The pull on my arm was even more demanding as I looked up at him, and with a small smile and a roll of my eyes, I climbed up on the bed next to him, careful to avoid the areas that the doctor said would be most tender.
“Tell me again,” I whispered, my body settling next to his, my breath washing over his naked shoulder. I was being needy, but it was just the two of us, and I didn’t mind him knowing how much I needed him, because as long as he was fighting, I would be, too.