33. NINEAH
NINEAH
ISAT UPRIGHT IN BED, my heart sprinting, sweat slicking my forehead. The chill I sometimes got when I was staring down a deadline with an incomplete project skated up my spine and triggered my central nervous system.
I couldn’t pinpoint what had woken me. All I registered was an intense fissure of panic, then the quiet stillness of absence.
Reaching over to my left, my fingers caught cool sheets and the vacated space beside me where Abraham had been when I’d fallen asleep.
I glanced at the clock that read three-twenty-one in the morning, and frowned.
I knew more than my fair share of SOF guys who’d taken their deprivation trauma home with them, particularly with regard to sleep, but save for that night in Riga, I didn’t know if Abraham had even gotten a full nights’ rest. I rolled to the edge of the massive California king in the master bedroom and with my toes, felt around for the step stool I’d used to get up here in the first place.
Swiping the T-shirt Abraham had ditched on the floor earlier, I slipped it over my head, even though it swallowed me and the neck was so large, it hung off of one of my shoulders.
I stopped in the bathroom first to pee, then washed my hands and rinsed some mouth wash before venturing into the hall to look for the insomniac who’d ditched me.
Luckily, I didn’t have to search for long. I found Abraham in his study just down the hall.
Unluckily, not in the best conditions.
Slumped miserably to the side in his reclining leather sofa, discomfort twisted his face.
His temples and neck slick with sweat, he breathed laboriously.
Forgetting my earlier irritation, I ran up to him and pressed the back of my palm to his forehead, which was steaming hot.
Abraham didn’t even react. Another bad sign.
“Leave it,” he grumbled, disoriented.
“Are you kidding me? You’re on fire,” I told him. “I need to get your temperature. Where’s the first aid?”
He shook his head. Or tried to. “Not a fever. Overheated. Scar tissue.”
My gaze dropped to his bare chest that was a patchwork quilt of skin grafts and tattoo ink and the remorse swirling around my heart closed in like a vise.
He was overheating because the result of healed burns was destroyed sweat glands.
Still, that didn’t mean a fever wasn’t the source.
The house temp was a controlled sixty eight and the sun was down.
Unless he’d gone for a midnight sprint in a sauna, this was more than heat exhaustion.
“Abraham. First aid. Where is it?” I snapped.
He didn’t answer me, though not because he was being stubborn.
Sprinting from the study, I ran to the nearest bathroom, grabbed several cloths from the basket they were stored in and flipped the faucet on cold.
I ran five rags under the faucet for half a minute, wrung them out and returned to the study.
Eyes closed, breathing through his nose still, he seemed so human in this moment, I might’ve smiled if I wasn’t so fucking terrified.
Folding the cloths, I placed one gently on his forehead, the rest on his chest and arms, my aid training kicking in.
Neck, groin, axillae.
Hydrate. Intravenous, if serious.
Monitor.
Abraham lifted a hand, pointing at something. “Safe. 64…6324.”
I didn’t see a safe in the direction he was pointing. I saw a small rolling bar cart in the corner, holding a few decanted liquids. “We’re going to talk about your password building process later, where’s the safe?”
His hand dropped. “Floor. Under cart.”
I moved in that direction, pushing the cart aside.
Sure enough, there was a small door with a brass ring.
Lowering to my knees, I pulled on it and inside was a basic black safe.
Typing in the numbers, I unlocked the door and opened it.
Inside were three different calibers of pistols, extra mags and ammo, a few stacks of bound cash, vials of what I assumed was medicine, saline bags, four back up inhalers, three epi pens, and a black bag.
I grabbed one of the saline bags, the black bag, and left the rest. Setting it down, I went to the bar cart, moving the decanters to his desk so I could roll the supplies to Abraham.
On the sofa, I ripped it open and found single use packages of everything from syringes, bandages and gauze to tubing and a bunch of color-coded needles.
I pulled out everything I needed, suddenly wishing I’d paid more attention in that emergency triage course I’d taken back when I was first hired.
“Twenty gauge,” Abraham said. “The pink one. The skin is tough. Don’t be afraid to apply pressure.”
Jesus.
My fingers shook as I ripped the plastic and removed the correct needle along with the tubing.
Hooking the tube to the bag, I set it back on the cart before twisting on the needle.
I ripped open an alcohol wipe and Abraham rested his heavy forearm on the arm of the sofa.
To my surprise and admiration, his forearm veins were so prominent, this undertaking had immediately gone from terrifying to idiot-proof.
I wiped the inked face of an illustrated rendering of a stone sculpture and grabbed the needle.
Holding a breath, I slid it into his vein, pressed down with the cotton ball, and sealed it with the medical tape.
I tapped the drip chamber twice, then checked Abraham’s throat on both sides.
His skin was uncommonly warm against mine.
Thumbing through the crap in the kit, I found a small temporal thermometer and brought it to his forehead. The digital display read 102.3.
“Fever confirmed,” I murmured. “Sorry to report.”
“This is why I don’t… fucking fly commercial,” he grunted.
“Gotten real uppity in our old age, have we?”
I went to the mini fridge behind the desk and found water and a Gatorade.
I grabbed one of each and brought them back with me.
Uncapping the lid on the Gatorade, I knelt on the sofa and reached across his wide body to bring the bottle to his lips.
Abraham waved me away, grabbing the bottle. “Not an invalid.”
“Nope, just stubborn.”
He drank the entire container in three swallows and I had the water uncapped by the time he was finished. We traded bottles.
“So, walk me through this plan? Lay here and die?” I asked. “Doesn’t sound like very efficient decision-making at the moment, not that I’m judging. God knows I have zero slack in that rope at the moment.”
Abraham’s water paused mid-drink. “I don’t get sick.”
I snorted. “Everyone gets sick.”
“When you’re on as many meds as I am, they call it something else.” He grunted. “Chronically fucked for life, I think is the official medical term.”
I laughed, drawing spit through my nostrils and it burned. I coughed a few times, my cheeks warming when I realized how stupid I was being. “Sorry. I just don’t think I’ve ever heard you make a joke before.”
His mouth twitched at one corner, but didn’t pull up enough to be considered a smile. “Technically, I’m what’s considered immunocompromised. Which means a lot of preventative measures, no extreme temps. I get a fever, that shit’s a bitch to get rid of.”
The dark cloud of contrition rolled in and I sat in my discomfort, feeling guilty for wanting to move the subject away from his service-related injuries.
It was my very own occupational hazard, trusting myself with intimate information because I abused more intel than I protected, but I found myself wanting to protect his vulnerabilities.
Like just allowing him to admit them aloud opened him up to forces meant to do him harm.
At the same time that I wanted more of him, I knew it wasn’t smart. For either of us.
Thankfully, Abraham seemed doze in and out of consciousness and his breathing evened after a while.
I decided to head to the bathroom to get him more cool rags while his body drank in the fluids.
But while I wetted the cloths under the water, I caught my reflection in the mirror and the voice spoke.
The combative one I’d been suppressing since Riga.
You saw it, didn’t you.
I shook my head, ineffectively silencing her.
Looks like you’re not the only one with secrets…
“Shut up,” I whispered, but I couldn’t ignore what I’d seen in that safe anymore than I could make the voices go away.
A Ziploc bag full of flash drives. At least twenty of them.
Dated and labeled. Because in our world, you didn’t prepare for doomsday by collecting bottled water and seeds, you collected currency in the form of allies who either owed you or believed it was in their best interest to remain in your good graces.
However, when either of those failed, you kept insurance.
Not because you ever planned on using it, but because when shit hit the gutter, you couldn’t eat money.
Abraham might’ve loved me. Right now, he might’ve even needed me. But it would be my last mistake if I ever forgot who I was dealing with.
My husband was a man.
But he was the opposite of a fool.
And neither are you.