CHAPTER 57
A nother glance back at the staircase, and I frowned. No way it should’ve taken that long. The guy was too much of a neat freak to have to rummage through a car for ten minutes. Or maybe it just felt like ten. Either way, I wasn’t sitting around any longer.
I tied my boots, after having stuffed my bloody foot into my white sock, and hobbled my way back up the staircase. It mostly just stung, anyway. Not like I needed surgery on the thing.
When I reached the top of the stairs, I nearly fell backward on seeing Devryck next to his car.
His body twitched and convulsed, and ignoring my foot, I darted toward him. A sharp sting streaked through my knees as I skidded across to him.
“Devryck! Devryck!” Like last time, I turned him on his side and looked around for something to place under his head.
Jumping to my feet, I noticed his coat lying in the backseat, and I snatched it up. As I attempted to crumple it, I felt a hard object inside, and rummaged through the pocket.
A syringe filled with the purple substance.
Breaths heaving, I stared at it in my hands and looked at him, unconscious and seizing.
I could’ve called emergency, but they might not have gotten there in time.
“Fuck!” I took hold of his trembling arm, studying the map of veins sticking up. “Fucking drug addicts do this shit, Lilia. Just give it to him!”
Using the sleeve of his coat, I tied the fabric around his arm like a pathetic tourniquet.
An emergency kit lay scattered over the passenger seat, and I rifled through it for an alcohol swab.
With trembling hands, I swallowed back the thought that I was too late.
That he’d been seizing too long. That his heart may have long since clocked out.
Panic goaded me as I tore open the alcohol packet and scrubbed it over a vein in his forearm. Breathing hard through my nose, I popped the cap of the syringe and lined the needle to his pulsing vessel, the tip of it bouncing with both of our shaking. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Please.
Through a mist of tears, I pushed the needle, praying I hit the spot, and dispensed the fluid into his arm, as I’d watched him do that night in his office. Seconds ticked by, his body still wracked with tremors.
“C’mon, Devryck, please. Please!” I ran my hand over his damp hairline and choked back a sob.
“You can’t leave. I won’t let you. You hear me?
I won’t let you fucking die. You are my most important thing, and I swear, if you don’t come out of this, I will fucking hunt you down in the afterlife.
” More seconds. “Wake up, Devryck!” I scrambled for my phone, tucked inside my bag that I’d left in the car, but by the time I returned to his side, he’d stopped shaking.
A cold hollow expanded inside my chest as I stared down at him lying so still on the ground. No . “Devryck, wake up. Please.”
He didn’t move. His chest didn’t move. Eyes didn’t flutter. There was nothing but a sickening stillness that tore at my ribs.
Dread stirred in my gut. It slithered up into my chest and wrapped its cold fingers around my heart, squeezing until I couldn’t breathe. I shook my head, falling beside him once more. “No. No !” I punched his chest.
His lips parted for a loud gasp of breath.
Another gasp. And another. Eyes still closed, he rolled his head to the side, and on a terrified wheeze of relief, I zeroed in on his chest, clocking each rise and fall that told me he was breathing.
It was then I noticed the sweat sticking to his face and neck.
With the inner part of my wrist, I felt his forehead and cheek. “Oh, God, you’re burning up.”
I needed to get him somewhere I could administer some water and something to bring down his fever.
My dorm certainly wasn’t an option, and I’d never been to his staff apartment on campus.
The hospital maybe, but what if they did a blood test and found the toxin?
Could he have gotten in trouble for that?
He let out a quiet grunt, but when I lifted his eyelid, his eyes remained staring, pupils constricted. Unconscious.
I shoved my arms under his armpits and lifted his upper half.
The guy was so bulky and heavy, I could hardly manage, but after a few deep breaths, I strained my muscles and turned him just enough to pull him into the backseat of his car.
Awkwardly fumbling to heft him onto the seat, I heaved out of breath with the toil, and shifted his legs over the seat to close him in.
It’d been a few years since I’d driven a car, and as I slid into the driver’s seat, anxiety coiled itself around my nerves.
I fired up the engine and drove back toward Emberwick, which we’d passed on the way.
In the backseat, Devryck groaned and grunted, and when I peeked in the rearview, I caught the shine of sweat thick on his body.
Minutes later, I finally reached the downtown area and pulled into a spot in front of the apothecary I’d visited weeks back.
Leaving him in the car with the windows cracked, I jumped out and dashed into the shop, where the older woman who’d helped me before greeted me with a smile.
The smile faded as she seemed to catch on that something was wrong.
“I need help! My … my … professor. He’s got a fever. He’s burning up pretty bad.”
“Oh, my!” She shuffled around the shop, grabbing various things from the shelves.
My mind was so wired and wound around Devryck’s condition, I didn’t even notice what she’d grabbed.
The two of us dashed out into the parking lot, and she opened the door, sliding into the narrow space between him and the front seats.
“Oh, he is very warm. Very warm.”
I waited outside the car, pacing, biting my nails. I’d always put a lot of faith into holistic medicine, but what if it didn’t work? What if the toxins screwed with the healing properties of the herbs?
She dragged a cool cloth over his brow and left it there, before crawling her way back out of the vehicle. “I’m going to make him some iced black rock tea. It sometimes helped bring my son’s fever down. Just cool him with the cloth. I’ll be right back.”
With a tearful nod, I slid between the seats, as she had, noticing that she’d unbuttoned his shirt and rested his head on his crumpled coat. It took me back to the day in his office, when he’d yelled at me for using it. The thought somehow managed to break through my fear, and I chuckled.
“If you don’t come out of this, I’m burning all of your expensive coats.”
“You’re not … burning … my coats,” he mumbled, and a wheeze of elation shook my muscles.
“Devryck? Open your eyes. I need to see that you’re okay.”
He squinted and grimaced, as he shifted on the seat, but he opened his lids to show those beautiful, fiery eyes. Though his pupils were blown, he seemed to have awareness. Lucidity.
I brushed the hair from his damp forehead and shuddered out a panicked breath. “You scared the shit out of me. What the hell happened back there?”
“The … toxin … stopped working.”
Disappointment loomed like a dark cloud between us. “Why? I thought you figured out how to make it sustainable?”
“I … was wrong.”
“I administered the dose in your coat. Are you mad?”
“Mad … that you … saved my life?”
A frustrated chuckle escaped me. I didn’t want to laugh, damn it. That whole scenario still had me shaking.
“Here,” the woman said, as she passed me a tall glass of black liquid whose surface sparkled as if there were diamonds in it. “Have him drink some of this.”
“What is it?” Devryck asked, his voice delirious.
“It doesn’t matter. You’re drinking it whether you like it, or not. I saved your life, therefore you have to listen to what I tell you.”
“Fuck. You’re going to … hold this over me. Aren’t you?”
“For as long as necessary. Now, drink.” Steadying his arm, I helped him as much as I could, as he scooted himself to a sitting position.
He frowned, as if still in pain, and the sweat still clung to his chest and neck. With an unamused expression, he took the drink from me and sipped it. With a slight raise of his glass, he nodded at the woman. “Thank you.”
“I’ll be back to check on you in a minute, okay?”
“Oh! What’s your name?” I asked, before she walked off.
“Francesca.”
The sound of that name rippled across my heart, and I wondered if she’d been the one to inspire my mother’s alias. “I’m Lilia. Thank you.”
With a wink, she hustled into the store, and I turned back to Professor Bramwell.
“So, what … you can’t feel anymore? Is that why you’ve avoided touching me today?”
Brows lowered, he stared down at his drink. “Perhaps the most vindictive torment was having a brief moment of knowing what you felt like.”
“So, what does this mean?”
“Back to the drawing board.” On a sigh, he took another sip, longer than the last, and handed me the glass. “Not a fan of tea. Not even your disturbing gothic variety.”
Through an uneasy smile, I accepted the glass and stared down at the sparkling fluids.
“It’s black rock. And it’s apparently very hard to come by, so I’m not letting this go to waste.
” I chugged the rest of it, which wasn’t a whole lot, and wiped my mouth on the back of my hand.
Another failure meant that he was at risk again.
That he might’ve died in my arms back at that cove.
I didn’t even want to think about what might’ve happened back there.
“I think it’s pretty good, actually.” Pushing away those somber thoughts, because goddamn it, he’d be fine, I smiled.
“How does it feel to know I just swallowed your spit?” I asked and forced a chuckle, desperate for distraction.
“You’ve swallowed worse.” He groaned and pushed himself forward, toward the passenger door. “Let’s get out of here before she brings more of that shit.”
“Be nice. She’s the reason you’re not having a febrile seizure right now.”