Chapter 80 Fear
FEAR
KOEN
Briar’s mouth opens to give me an answer but snaps shut, her eyes darting to something over my shoulder.
I look back to find Liam hauling open the sliding glass, panic written all over his face, Remi in his arms. Briar runs for them.
“What the fuck happened?” I wince after cursing, suddenly aware of little ears.
Remi’s breaths are coming in ragged little gasps that follow each other in quick succession. Her usually pink lips have an unnatural blue tinge to them. I’m by Liam’s side in an instant, looking at Briar, who’s also gone alarmingly pale.
She seems torn between snatching Remi out of Liam’s arms and something else… she starts and stops in various directions, not getting anywhere.
“Oh my god, Koen, did you bring any of her things?” The panicked expression on Briar’s face has me on edge. “Her backpack! Do you have her backpack?” Her blue eyes plead.
“What is it? What’s wrong with her?” The questions flood out of me even as I set into motion, because yes, I grabbed the bag.
Running for my closet, I open the door and look between the bags I grabbed from Briar’s apartment earlier today, but Briar’s hot on my heels.
She reaches for the smallest one, and once she has it, she immediately drops to the floor, tearing through it in her haste to get whatever it is she needs out of it.
Meanwhile, Remi’s choking gasps pull my attention up. Is she getting worse? Liam and I exchange a helpless look as Remi wheezes sharply, her breaths coming fast and shallow. Okay, yes, she’s definitely getting worse…
Below me, Briar curses, resorting to dumping out the contents of the bag on the floor, unable to find what she’s looking for.
I feel useless.
Another wheeze, and I can’t stand it anymore. I stride toward Liam, closing the gap between us in seconds. “Can I have her?” I ask, holding out my arms.
Liam doesn’t hesitate, gently transferring Remi over to me. “Aidan was calling an ambulance, I’m going to go check on that.”
“Okay, thank you.” My brother gives my shoulder a reassuring squeeze before running back outside.
I look back down to find Remi staring up at me with wide eyes full of fear. Her little body is trembling with the effort it’s taking her just to breathe. I feel so fucking helpless. If she needed me to, I’d burn the whole fucking city down for her, but that’s not what she needs right now.
“Hey, hey,” I say as gently as I can, running my fingers through her hair, like I did for her mother that day in the dance studio.
This isn’t a panic attack—something is really, really wrong—but that look of fear in Remi’s eyes softens, even as that horrifying wheeze intensifies, rattling now into her chest.
“Briar?” I call, unable to hide the fear in my voice, while doing my best to keep it from my face, holding Remi’s gaze.
“I got it. It’s here. I have it.” The relief in her voice is palpable, even though I still don’t know what it is. Briar rushes toward us, and I take a seat on the bed so she can better reach Remi, seeing the little L-shaped plastic device in her hands.
An inhaler.
Right, Briar said Remi has asthma, but I never imagined…
“Okay, Remi-roo, you know what to do.” Briar looks down at Remi, and she nods, a serious look on her face. “Deep breaths in,” Briar instructs, releasing the spray, and Remi inhales just as Briar instructed. “And slow breath out.”
The rattle in Remi’s breathing lessens, but doesn’t go away like I was hoping it would.
“One more time.” Briar nods, and I watch them go through the process again. “Asthma,” Briar explains, and I realize she’s finally answering my question from earlier. “She has asthma.”
Another minute passes with both of us monitoring our daughter’s breathing, but she’s still wheezing, though the color has come back slightly in her lips, and that terrifying rattle is gone. “Shouldn’t that have worked better?” I nod to the inhaler Briar’s holding tightly in her hand.
Briar sighs, “She has complicated asthma.” I take my eyes off Remi long enough to see the pain on Briar’s face, the heavy weariness in her eyes.
Voices float in from the hall, and we both sit up straighter.
I’m still holding Remi in my arms when the EMTs step into my bedroom.
They made pretty good time, considering the remote location of the cabin.
Briar answers questions while two EMTs converge on Remi and me, listening to her breathing and taking her oxygen levels.
“Alright, Dad, I’m going to put this mask on her just like this.” The female EMT slips a small plastic mask around Remi’s face, adjusting it until it fits snug. “Oxygen,” she informs me. “That should help until we get to the hospital.”
Out of the corner of my eye— I feel more than see—Briar’s gaze snap to me at the word hospital. She’s well-acquainted with my thoughts on the place. I hate the way she looks uneasily between me and the EMT.
“No.” My grip tightens around the little girl in my arms when the male EMT pushes the gurney in our direction, and everyone stiffens when I stand. “I’ll carry her out.”
The ride to the hospital goes by in a blur. After carrying her out to the ambulance, I handed her back over to Briar but climbed in immediately after them, refusing to let either one of them out of my sight for a second.
The albuterol from the inhaler and the oxygen from the EMTs have stabilized Remi, but she’s far too pale and still wheezing.
She’s stable, but not out of the woods yet.
The local hospital isn’t equipped for the kind of treatment Remi needs, and the decision is made to transport her straight to Boston Children’s.
I listen closely as Briar updates the EMTs with our daughter’s medical history. My body only growing more tense when I learn about the frequent hospitalizations and the monthly injections.
Upon arrival at the hospital, Briar and Remi sit atop a gurney together, disappearing behind a set of double doors. I go to follow but pull up short when I suddenly find a stout, but stern, nurse in my path. I go to circle around her, but she moves with me, holding up her arms.
“Sir, Sir.” The nurse addresses me more sternly the second time when I ignore her, bravely pressing a palm to my chest to hold me back. “It’s family only past this point.”
“That’s my daughter,” I growl, spending extra effort to slide the nurse as gently as possible to the side, instead of shoving her like I want to, and proceeding through the damn doors.
The doctor is already in the room by the time I catch up with them, and I slip in as quietly as I can. Remi is still on Briar’s lap, but they’re on a hospital bed now. She sees me looking and gives me a little wave.
I wave back.
“So, have you given any more thought to what we discussed last time?”
I cock my head in confusion when, instead of answering the doctor’s question, Briar looks at me. There’s uncertainty on her face. “I—um,” she stumbles, “I don’t—”
“What did you discuss last time?” I ask, anxious to know what has Briar tongue-tied all of a sudden.
The doctor’s gaze slides to mine. “I’m sorry, I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure…” She sizes me up. “I’m Doctor Haven, Remi’s pulmonologist,” she says curtly, “and you are?”
“Koen O’Rourke. What did you discuss last time?” I reiterate. The anxious look on Briar’s face is stressing me the fuck out.
Surprise shines on Doctor Haven’s face; she recognizes the name. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize—-” She doesn’t finish her sentence, instead looking to Briar for confirmation before continuing.
Briar nods, reluctantly.
“There’s a new drug on the market. An injectable, but it’s given yearly instead of monthly, with a much higher success rate at minimizing and preventing these types of attacks altogether.”
“Do it.” I push off the wall I’ve been leaning on, rising to my full height and crossing my arms while eyeing Briar with confusion.
The two nurses in the room each take a step back, and Doctor Haven rolls back her shoulders, gripping tightly to her laptop.
“If she’s such an excellent candidate, what are you waiting for?
Give her the drug.” There’s a tension emanating from everyone in the room.
I’m missing something, and it’s starting to piss me off.
“Well, it’s very expensive, and we do require the payment up front in order to proceed.” She lifts her chin, but catching a glimpse of the ire in my eye, she loses a bit of bravado.
“You have a medication that will make my daughter’s life infinitely better, and you’re withholding it until you get the cash?” Doctor Haven's eyes widen, and she gulps, shifting uncomfortably. “Am I understanding that correctly?” I ask, well aware of the intensity of my gaze on her.
She mumbles something about policy, but I wave her off.
“How much?”
“I—uh—” Doctor Haven fumbles with the laptop in her hand, sensing my growing irritation with every second passing. “The estimate for the injection alone is $10,700, and then—” I don’t hear anything else she says after that. A quiet realization spreads through me when I hear that number.
That very specific number.
My eyes slide to Briar, but she’s staring at the floor. Remi’s watching me with a little smile on her face, not a fan of Doctor Haven, it would seem.
“It doesn’t matter,” I cut off the doctor’s whole spiel. “I’ll take care of it, just give it to her now.”
The room is a flurry of activity as the hospital staff set Remi up for her injection, and people are in and out, continuing to monitor her breathing and oxygen levels.
I learn Remi is not a big fan of needles.
They have to hold her down, and it takes everything in me not to fight every one of those nurses when I hear her screams.
Remi has to stay at the hospital for a couple of hours to monitor her progress, but she should be able to go home tonight. She falls asleep in Briar’s arms not long after she gets her injection, exhausted from all the excitement.
Briar and I sit in silence. There’s a lot that needs to be said, but now is not the time.
My phone rings and I pull it out to answer quickly, not wanting to wake Remi up.
“Giovanni’s surfaced,” is all I hear on the other end of the call.
“I’m on my way,” making eye contact with Briar as I speak the words before I hang up the phone.
“I've gotta go.” I see a flash of hurt in her blue eyes, and it’s almost enough to make me sit back down. Almost. I was ready to burn the world to the ground a couple of hours ago, but right now, I’m willing to settle for a very small piece of Italy.
“Have someone call me if anything changes,” I tell her.
Briar’s face is carefully blank again, mask back in place when she nods absently toward me, pretending not to care if I stay or go.
“I’ll be back,” I promise both of them, hovering by the door for another second, before stepping out into the hall where I find Liam, Aidan, Mac, and Jace, all guarding the door to the hospital room.
Their towering forms—and pissed-off expressions—seem to be keeping everyone who doesn’t need to be in this particular hallway out of it, seeing as it’s dead quiet.
I spy Rory, too, nearly hidden behind Aidan where she’s curled up in a chair reading a book.
“Rory, could you stay with Briar while I’m gone? I don’t want her to be alone.” She nods and stands, reaching out to squeeze my hand before disappearing into the room.
My eyes connect with Liam, and with a slight nod of my head, he follows me a few feet down the hall. I lower my voice. “Briar says she showed up at Last Call when she first found out she was pregnant… that she was going to tell me—about Remi,” I swallow hard, “and that you were there...”
Liam’s eyebrows knit together in confusion, and I can see him thinking, though he looks doubtful.
“When was this?”
“It would have been a couple of weeks after the bar first opened.”
He thinks about it for a minute.
“During the day?”
I just shrug, because I didn’t get any details.
“I don’t think—wait!” His eyes widen. “Yes, two girls came in once, during the day, one blonde and one with dark hair. But they didn’t stay long… actually they left right after I came up, but they were—” I lift my brows, waiting for him to finish. “They were talking to Uncle Seamus.”
My jaw clenches, and I rub my temples. Suddenly, Briar’s story that I had a fiancée when we met holds a lot more merit.
Seamus and my father had been doing just about anything possible to push me and the Quinn girl together around that time. They wanted to secure a much-needed alliance with Ireland, but I couldn’t be talked into it.
“Thanks, Liam.” I clasp him on the back, and he nods before I turn to address the rest of the guys in the hall. “Mac and Jace, you’re with me. Aidan and Liam—”
They both nod. Aidan leans back against the wall, and Liam drops back onto a doctor’s stool he stole from somewhere, parked right next to Remi’s door.
“Do everything I wouldn’t,” Liam bites out venomously, which isn’t saying much, seeing as there is very little Liam wouldn’t do.
“And more,” I promise.