Losing Nuka (Litmus Book 1) (23 page)

Lowering the seat backwards into a slight reclined position, I try to go back to sleep, but Brett’s driving is erratic. If this infection doesn’t kill me first, I’m sure his driving will.

He speeds right up to the emergency department, parking diagonally across a pathway. He’s out of his door and at mine in impossible time.

A security guard approaches us looking all high and mighty for someone with a plastic badge. “You can’t park here, mate.”

“Please, just until I get her inside,” Brett says frantically, opening my door.

The guard takes one look at me before his face turns ashen. He helps Brett lift me out of the car and into the ER. “What happened?”

“Biking accident,” Brett says.

Okay, I guess I’ve been in a biking accident.

They lead me to an uncomfortable chair in the waiting room, where I sit wrapped in my blanket while Brett goes to the administration booth.

When he comes back with forms to fill out, the guard asks him to move the car. He hands me the forms and promises to be right back. The guard follows him outside, probably to make sure he actually moves the car.

Left alone, I try to fill in the forms, but I’m shaking and my vision is a blur.

Brett takes ages, and by the time he comes back, he finds me rocking back and forth.

“I’m really not feeling good,” I say.

He laughs a little. “Thanks for the update, Captain Obvious.”

“Shut up.”

He sits in the chair next to me, pulling me in to him so my head rests on his shoulder.

“I couldn’t fill in the paperwork,” I say, gesturing to the clipboard beside me.

Brett reaches over me and takes it in his hand.

“What happened to your arms?” I ask, pointing to the reddened skin on his forearms.

“You have a really high fever, Nuke. Which for you …”

“I burnt you?”

“Totally worth it. I felt you up while you were asleep as a consolation for the burns.”

“Liar.”

He laughs. “Seriously though, I’m fine. You just worry about yourself right now.” He starts filling in the forms with all my information, not even needing to ask me for the details.

“How do you know so much about me?” I ask, watching him write, my head still in the nook of his shoulder.

“I had to do a background check when you first came to us, remember?”

“Oh. And you remembered it all?”

“You going to be okay while I go give them these?” he asks, ignoring my question.

Nodding, I sit up straighter and wrap the blanket around me tighter as he goes to hand the forms in.

He comes back super-fast. “They said it shouldn’t be too long.”

They lie. The minutes tick by, and each sixty seconds seems to get longer and longer.

“I think my fever’s finally breaking,” I say after half an hour of waiting. I throw the blanket off me, suddenly feeling warm. I’m too warm now. My hair is wet with sweat and sticks to my neck and back, only making me feel hotter.

Brett feels my sweaty forehead with the back of his hand. “You’re cold and clammy.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I say as bile rises in my throat. “Can you help me to the bathroom?”

He wraps his arm around me, helping me to stand. As soon as I’m on my feet, I know I’m not going to make it. I lose the contents of my stomach, also bringing up some blood. I’m wobbly as my eyes fill with black spots and the darkness pulls me towards it.

“Well, I’m sure that’ll get their attention,” I hear Brett mutter as I pass out.

***

Coming to, I’m vaguely aware of being in a hospital bed. I have a thingy-ma-bob attached to my finger, my wrist has a new cast—a bright blue one—and my left side, while still painful, is no longer in agony.

“Hey.” Brett’s soothing tone calms the erratic beeping coming from the machine that’s monitoring my heart.

“What happened?”

“A whole lot of medical jargon that I couldn’t follow. You ended up in surgery. You almost died.”

“Died? Like dead, like no longer here?”

He laughs. “Yes, like no longer living, dead.”

“From a fever?”

“It wasn’t just a fever,” a voice comes from the doorway. A man in scrubs and a lab coat walks in, grabbing my chart off the end of my bed. “Your fiancé tells me that you were in a biking accident a few days ago?”

My brow furrows at the fiancé comment.

“That’s not what happened?” the doctor asks.

“No, it is. I came off my bicycle.”

The doctor’s eyes narrow, and Brett hangs his head.

“Motorcycle. Sorry. I don’t know why bicycle came out of my mouth. Maybe I hit my head, too. Did you check that out?”
Great covering, dumbass.

“The family doctor said she cracked a rib and broke her wrist, but said she’d be fine,” Brett says.

“Well, the ribs are broken, not cracked. A fragment of broken rib punctured your spleen, and you’ve been bleeding internally since the accident. We operated, we did everything we could, but in the end, there was too much damage and too much time had passed. We had to remove your spleen completely.”

“I have no spleen? Don’t I need one of those?”

“It shouldn’t affect you too much. However, the spleen plays an important role in fighting off bacteria. Your immune system may suffer, and you may be prone to infections from now on, but that’s worst-case scenario.”

I nod but am silent. What does this mean for a person who is constantly injured?

“Could you, uh, give us a minute?” the doctor asks Brett, gesturing for him to leave the room.

“Sure,” Brett says with uncertainty in his tone. He doesn’t fight it, though. He’ll still hear everything.

Once he’s outside, the doctor turns on me. “How did you really get your injuries?”

I swallow, hard. “Bike accident.”

“Maybe if you had broken your left wrist, I’d believe you. But if you came off your bike, falling on your left side, why is your right wrist broken? Also, who did the original cast? It wasn’t …
wrong
, but it wasn’t exactly neat.”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at.” I try to force myself to keep eye contact with him, but it’s impossible under his fierce scrutiny.

“If your fiancé had anything to do with your injuries, you can tell us. You’ll be safe here. We can get the police—”

“No,” I say a little too quickly. “I mean, you’re wrong about him. It was my mother who told me not to come to the hospital because she thought I really was fine. Our family doctor said so. My fiancé didn’t do this.” Fiancé sounds weird rolling off my tongue. “When I was thrown from the bike, I slid a pretty long way, and I ended up slamming into a car on the side of the road. I put my arm up to stop the impact, but that was stupid, because it was crushed when it rammed into the car.”

He looks at me sceptically, but I think he buys it. “You’ll need to stay at least a couple of days to recover, plus you’ll need a few weeks rest once you’re discharged.”

I nod. “Can’t do much with a broken wrist anyway, right?”

“I’ll come and check on you on my rounds tomorrow,” he says before turning on his heel and walking out.

“Thank you,” I call after him.

A smile finds my face when Brett reappears in the doorway. “Why does everybody assume I’m the one beating you up?” He returns my smile as he approaches, kissing my forehead before sitting in the chair next to my bed.

“Why does the doctor think you’re my fiancé?”

“They wouldn’t tell me anything otherwise.”

“Oh. Does Cade know yet?”

“Uh … yeah.”

“Are we in trouble?”

“That’s what you’re worried about? You almost died, and you’re worried about what she thinks?”

I shrug and then scold myself as pain shoots through me.

“Once I told her that you definitely would’ve died had I not brought you in, she kind of went silent. She knows I made the right call.”

“But she didn’t get in her car and come see if I was okay,” I say more to myself than Brett.

“She’s not that kind of mother, Nuke. You should know that by now.”

“Yeah, I know. What about Sasha?”

“I only spoke to Cade, but I’m assuming the fact Sasha isn’t here means she wasn’t told. She’d be here if she knew. She loves you.”

“She does?”

“I overheard her saying to Drake that the only good thing that came from being Cade’s daughter was being related to you.”

“I kind of feel the same way right now,” I mutter, wallowing in self-pity over my failing relationship with my birth mother.

“You still have hope Cade will accept you, don’t you? That she will want to bond with you?” He’s asking a question, but it comes out more like he’s stating a fact.

I shake my head. “I think I realised a while ago that’s not going to happen … but … I still want her to be proud of me. Is that stupid?”

“Not stupid at all. Unrealistic maybe, but not stupid,” he says, grabbing hold of my hand.

There’s a commotion outside the room before we hear, “Where is that silly girl?”

Silver.

“Nanna, I told you not to come,” Brett says, getting up to hug her hello in the doorway. Paddy trails in behind her.

“What are you—”

She comes closer to my bed. “You didn’t think I’d not come visit you, now did you?” She leans in, kissing my cheek. “What have you done to yourself?”

Brett and I glance at each other. “Just a nasty bike accident,” he says to his nanna, the lie thick with guilt. I’ve noticed he can’t lie to her as well as he can to everyone else.

“Right. Bike accident,” she says knowingly. I don’t think Brett gives her as much credit as she deserves.

“I’ll be fine,” I say with a weak smile.

“You still look hot, Nuka. Even with the bruising,” Paddy says, making my smile grow.

“Patrick Michael Finley, that is no way to talk to a lady,” Silver scolds. “But he has a point. You’re still gorgeous. Imagine what the kids would look like if you and Brett—”

“Nanna!” Brett yells.

“I know, I know. Just friends,” she says, holding her hands up in surrender while winking at me. An uncontrollable giggle escapes me. “Seriously, you’d think he’d be used to my teasing by now.”

It’s true. Every Sunday we go over to her house for lunch, she always comments about the two of us being good together.

It’s taken a while, but I’m finally realising she’s completely right. Brett saved my life yesterday. He’d never gone against Cade and Jonas before, but he chose me. He chose to protect me over any consequence they’d throw at him.

“Brett, dear,” Silver says. “Could you take Paddy down to the cafeteria? We haven’t had the chance to eat today.”

Brett narrows his eyes but does as his nanna tells him. “Uh, okay. Come on, Paddy.”

“I’m glad you’re okay, Nuka,” Paddy says before following Brett out the door.

Silver cocks her head to the side and sighs at me.

“What’s that look for?” I ask.

“You need to put yourself and Brett out of your damn misery and tell him how you feel.”

“W-what?”

“Don’t give me that naïve ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about’ pout.” She smiles as she waves her finger in my face exaggeratedly.

Yeah, okay, she’s got me there.
“But you don’t know the full story—”

“The best friend, right?”

“Wha—he … how …”

“Brett told me about the other boy, but you can’t deny there’s something between you two. I’ve watched you for months now. You’ve been getting closer every time I see you. Your faces light up around each other. I understand you’re confused about what you feel towards this other boy, but where is he while you’re lying in this hospital bed?”

“He doesn’t know … I can’t …”

“You can’t tell him because of who your employers are, right?” Silver says in a knowing way.

I nod.

“You and Brett live in the same world. I’ve never seen Brett this happy and you’re not even together. I just know in my heart that you belong with him. Even if you don’t know it yet.”

I’m speechless.

“I’ll leave you to think about what I’ve said. Rest up, pretty girl.” She walks out, leaving me with nothing to do but think about her words.

Brett and I
have
been getting closer lately. I’ve been aware of it happening but have had no desire to stop it. It’s gone way beyond having a crush. It’s gone way beyond wanting to date him. I want to
be with
him.

When Brett returns twenty minutes later, he almost looks worried. “Please tell me she didn’t give you the same speech she just gave me?”

I giggle. “Probably.”

Carefully and slowly so I’m not in too much pain, I scoot over, rolling onto my right side to make room for him on my bed. He raises an eyebrow but gives in relatively easy. He takes his shoes off and lies down beside me, one arm under his head holding it up, the other by his side, careful not to touch me.