Chapter Twenty
Helios
I was out of excuses.
She’d had a scan last night and another this morning. We were back in her room, and the doc had cleared her for getting up.
Gingerly shifting in her bed, taking those shallow-ass breaths, she pushed the blanket aside.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, still fucking reeling from the sound of distress she’d made ten minutes ago when a female nurse had taken out her catheter. A fucking catheter. Because that’s how fucked-up she’d been—was. Christ.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, which I highly doubt since you stood there and watched, but I’m no longer hooked up to a bag to pee in.”
Fuck me. “Turned my back, woman.” She knew damn well I hadn’t watched that shit.
“Same difference. Indignity is indignity.” Holding the pillow to her torso, half pushing, half pulling herself into a sitting position, all the color drained from her face.
“Halt.” I was on her in an instant with a hand between her shoulder blades. “Take a breather.”
“I am breathing. That’s the problem.”
My hackles immediately went up. “Let’s get one thing straight. You breathing is never a problem.”
Head dipped, she exhaled slowly. “I know.” Her tone hit the floor. “I’m sorry.”
“New fucking rule.” I waited to see if she’d look up. She didn’t. “No apologizing. Not to me, not for saying it like it is, not for talking about the pain. I know that shit hurts. Also know you went through hell. You’re not going to ever fucking apologize for any of it. You hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“I need the bathroom.”
“Roger that.” I pulled over the wheelchair they’d brought into the room, then squatted in front of her. “Game plan. You listening?”
She nodded.
“Good.” No eye contact, but I took the nod as a win.
“I’m gonna lift you to standing with my hands under your arms. While I’m doing that, hold the pillow tight against those ribs, only putting your weight on your good leg.
Once you’re up, I’ll turn and lower you into the chair.
You need to pause, take a breather at any point, say so. Copy?”
Taking shorter breaths, face pinching up, she started to panic. “Okay.”
I didn’t give her any more time to dwell or tell her that the first time getting up was gonna be a son of a bitch. “Here we go.” Grabbing her under the arms, I gave orders. “Brace those ribs, weight on your right leg.” I lifted her.
She cried out.
Feeling her fucking pain like it was mine, holding her steady, barely containing my rage at the motherfuckers who’d done this to her, I kept my tone in check. “Breathe through that pain.”
“I’m good, I’m good.”
Panting, tears streaming down her face, she wasn’t good.
My jaw fucking ticked. “Ready for the chair?”
“Yes.”
Ignoring the damn hospital gown that didn’t do shit to hide all her bruising, I lowered her.
She exhaled.
I wanted to murder everyone. “Hard part’s over.” It was a fucking lie. We were about to repeat the process so she could take a piss, but I didn’t say that shit. I wheeled her into the bathroom. “Repeat game plan in reverse. Ready?” I reached for her.
“W-wait.”
I froze.
“I…” She took two short breaths. “I can get myself onto the…. I need a moment of privacy.”
I played hardball. “You’re in a hospital. There is no privacy. You can have me help you onto the john, or I can get the nurse.”
A sob broke free, and for the first time, she complained. “I hate this. I really fucking hate this.”
“I’d be worried if you didn’t, Haven.” Fuck, I wanted to wipe those tears off her face.
“Stop calling me that.”
Never. “Come on. One more lift, and I’ll step out while you take a piss.” Before she could protest, I grasped under her arms and got her standing.
“Don’t say that,” she gritted out, her good leg shaking.
“Say what?” Christ, how was I gonna leave her for two seconds, let alone long enough to use the john?
“Oh my God.” She panted. “That last word.”
“Woman.” Christ. “I’ve been to war. There’s absolutely nothing you could do in this bathroom that would shock or offend me, let alone compare to how I found you.
Let that shit go. I’m here. I’m not fucking leaving.
And I’m still gonna be here after you’re sprung from this joint.
Then you’re gonna see a whole damn lot of me, especially while you’re compromised.
So hurry the fuck up and do what you gotta do.
Knock on the door when you’re done.” I stepped back.
“I’m not a woman.” That rough voice she’d had since I’d found her dropped to a whisper. “I’m your sister.”
Every fucking internal alarm, conscious and subconscious, went off like a fucking string of IEDs along the Kabul-Jalalabad Highway in the Valley of Death because I knew what I was gonna say.
I knew it before I opened my damn mouth, but I had no business saying it.
Except I’d already let the cat out of the bag, and I needed to know if she’d heard me.
This wasn’t last night. She wasn’t hopped up on a morphine cocktail, fading out the second I’d said shit.
She was fucking lucid, and I needed her to get what I was saying.
Holding her stare, speaking crystal-fucking-clear, I made damn sure there was no ambiguity. “You were never my sister, and you most definitely are a woman.” All eighteen years of her. Jesus.
On the side of her neck, her pulse jumped. Then that amber-eyed stare took me in like I had two goddamn heads, but she didn’t say shit.
I gave her a reminder. “I’m not saying anything you didn’t already hear last night.”
“Ares is my brother.” Still with the whisper, still with the doe-eyed stare, she played at her innocence, but I wasn’t fucking blind.
I saw the way she looked at me. I also knew how she looked at my brother. “You and Ares have a different relationship than me and you.” Always had. Always would. “Hurry up, then we’ll get you showered.” I started to close the door.
“Helios?”
Fuck me, that plea in her tone got me every goddamn time. “What?”
“We grew up in the same home.”
I let out a half laugh that was one hundred percent void of humor.
“Woman, I’d raised myself long before you moved in, and that house wasn’t a fucking home.
” It’d been a goddamn LZ for two shit people enabling each other in shirking their responsibilities as parents while they played honeymoon for well over a decade.
“It was to me and Ares.”
It hadn’t been shit to Ares except a place to lay his head. My brother was still looking for a fucking home. If she couldn’t see that, I wasn’t clueing her in. “Hurry up. I don’t want you vertical for too long.” This time, I shut the door.