Chapter Thirty

CHAPTER THIRTY

Crow

“Crow…take this…I need you to take this for me.” Cyrus’s voice was soft, broken-sounding as he put something to my lips.

I shook my head.

“Please, Crow…do it for me. I need you to do this for me.”

My eyes fluttered open. Cyrus’s face was flushed, hair a mess, eyes ringed red. He…didn’t look good.

What’s wrong? What happened?

When he didn’t answer, I realized I hadn’t spoken the words.

“Don’t die. I’m scared you’re going to die on me. I don’t know what I would do if I lost you.”

I wouldn’t do that to him, couldn’t. I would do anything in my power to stay here for him, to be here with him. I’d always thought I would live my life alone, but now I had him, and the thought of ever being without him made me feel emptier and lonelier than I’d ever thought possible.

I opened my mouth, and he put two pills on my tongue.

Don’t do it! Don’t take them! You can’t trust him—no!

This is Cyrus. He’s not Chosen. He’s not the children who picked on me. I can trust him.

“That’s it. Here, drink this, baby. Swallow them with this for me.” Cyrus put a straw to my lips, and I swallowed the water. I had done that before, hadn’t I? Taken something he had given me, drinks he’d made me, when I hadn’t done that since I left foster care.

He’s not them.

He is…everything.

The pills went down.

I coughed, chest hurting, lungs trying to squeeze the breath out of me.

“Here. Take this too. I need you to take one more.”

He gave me that one, and I took it as well.

“I got you something to help clear your lungs too.”

Got me? How could he have gotten me anything?

“I’m going to put more ice packs on you, okay?”

I didn’t know if I answered before my world went black again.

*

The next timehe woke me, the scent of menthol clung to the air, filled my nose every time I breathed in. My chest felt like there was something sticky on it, and I was pretty sure it was beneath my nose too.

“I need you to take some more medication for me,” Cyrus pleaded.

The instinct was there again to say no, but…this was Cyrus. He would never hurt me. I could trust him. And if I wanted to get better for him, I needed to take them.

I opened my mouth. He placed them on my tongue and gave me another drink.

Thank you. No one has ever taken care of me before. No one has ever done this.

“Do you need to pee? We’ve just been doing it right here. I can get the container.”

I shook my head. He’d had to help me piss? Shame washed over me. I was supposed to take care of him, not the other way around…but then, that didn’t feel right. It was like some archaic law, something Chosen would have said. Wasn’t the point of loving someone that you took care of each other? That you gave each other what you needed?

“Okay…your fever is going down. I’ve alternated Tylenol and Advil, two doses of each, plus the antibiotic.”

I only remembered half of them. And antibiotics? Where had he gotten those?

“Go back to sleep, Crow. Rest will help you feel better. I’m right here. You’re going to be okay.”

I believed it because Cyrus had said it. I let the darkness take me again.

*

My bladder screamedat me to wake up. The room still smelled like menthol. The sticky stuff was still on my chest. I had no clue how much time had passed but thought it was more than I likely realized.

There was a body beside me in bed. Cyrus.

He had stayed with me, taken care of me, had—

I frowned. How had he gotten the medicine? Had he had some and I hadn’t known?

It was almost dawn. I didn’t need a clock to tell me the time, not when my head was clearer.

My legs were weak, almost giving out on me when I tried to stand. It was a slow trip to the bathroom. How long had I been sick?

I’d thought I was going to die…

I sat down to piss, then had to work up the energy to stand. The trip back to the bed was even slower. I’d been sick before in my life, but nothing like what I’d just experienced. I fell back onto the mattress, and it felt like I’d spent a day hiking rather than just going to the bathroom.

I reached for Cyrus, needing to touch him, to know he was really there. That I was still alive and with him.

My fingers brushed over something tied around his shoulder.

I frowned into the soft, orange glow beginning to sneak into the room, before sleep took me again.

*

“Hey,” Cyrus saidsoftly as my eyes began to flutter open. “I made some soup. Do you think you can drink some of the broth?”

I swiped at my eyes, trying to clear my vision, my head, something. My whole body didn’t ache the way it had before. My chest wasn’t as tight, and I wasn’t cold.

When he was finally clear to me, not blurred around the edges, the first thing I noticed was the sling around his arm, and then the bruise beneath his eye. My heart clenched, my jaw tightened. Someone had…who the fuck had hurt him?

“How?” I bit out before coughs racked my body again, throat and chest burning.

“Hey, it’s fine. I’m okay. Settle down. The last thing you need is to work yourself up.” Cyrus held a cup out to me again, and I took long pulls, swallowing down the cold water, which helped soothe my scratchy throat.

I opened my mouth, but for the first time, Cyrus said, “Don’t talk yet. I don’t want you to get agitated.”

I rolled my eyes, though I knew he was right.

“You were so sick, Crow. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if you were even getting enough air. There was no medication or way to check your oxygen saturation… I called Melody. She got the things I needed, then drove up as far as she could get. I took the snowmobile and met her.”

He took… He could have gotten hurt. He did get hurt. What if he’d gotten lost? He would have frozen to death, and it would have been my fault. “No. Don’t…” Fuck. The one time I wanted to speak, and I couldn’t. “You shouldn’t have.”

“I had to. If I didn’t go, you could have died, Crow.”

“Not. Worth. Your. Life.”

“It is to me!” he shouted, surprising me, then sighed. “I don’t want to fight. I did what I had to do, and I’m okay. Melody turned on her location so I could find her. I did the same to find my way back to you. And it worked. I was finally able to break your fever. The humidifier helped you breathe better. Your oxygen wasn’t bad, but you sounded terrible. I was… I was so scared. I can’t lose you.” He dropped his chin to his chest.

Guilt flooded me, making my skin tighten worse than any sickness could. “Won’t.”

“You can’t promise me that.”

“Hurt.” I cupped his face, brushed my thumb beneath his eye.

“I wrecked your snowmobile. I’m so sorry. I had to leave it. I didn’t know what else to do. I know those are expensive. I’ll do my best to pay you back, but—”

“Shh.” How could he think I would care about that? I didn’t care about anything but him.

“Risked…your life…for me.”

He looked up, nuzzled his cheek into my palm the way he so often did. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Crow. I have nothing without you. I am nothing without you.”

I shook my head. “No. You’re everything.” I closed my eyes, breathed, and wished I could smell him rather than the menthol in the air. “I have nothing without you… I am nothing without you,” I returned the words Cyrus had just given me.

He climbed into bed with me, and my arms immediately twined around him. “I was so scared, Crow.”

“Sorry.”

“We can’t do this again. We have to have medicine up here. You have to take it. You need to see a doctor when the snow lets up.”

My body froze against him.

“We have to take care of ourselves if we’re going to be up this mountain for months at a time…for each other.”

I sighed, touched the bruise on his face that I now knew was from the goggles he wore on the machine. He’d been through so much…for me. If he hadn’t been here, I would have died. “You saved me.”

His chin wobbled, eyes pooling. It took me a moment to realize mine were doing the same, that I was close to crying because this man loved me and risked his life for me.

“That’s because I love you.” Cyrus sat up, reached to the nightstand, where I noticed a bowl. “I plan to keep taking care of you until you’re well. Anytime you need me, for the rest of my life, I’ll take care of you.” He lifted the spoon from the bowl, broth from his soup there.

It went against all my instincts, everything about who I was, to allow someone to feed me, to give me food they made. To let myself depend on someone that much and to trust them, but this wasn’t just anyone. He was my world, and there was nothing I wouldn’t give him.

I opened my mouth…and let him feed me.

One spoonful after another after another, Cyrus fed me. And when I was done, I took medicine from his hand and a drink from the cup he had provided.

He curled into me, my arm around him, holding him, foreheads close as we lay on our sides, looking at each other.

“They put things in my food. Kids. In foster care.”

Cyrus’s face softened, eyes sad and loving. “Oh, Crow. I’m so sorry. I would never—”

“I know,” I cut him off, knowing I needed to get this out, that he deserved more. “Chosen…he sedated us sometimes. He did the day he…” The day he killed her. “He gave us other things too, as punishment—to make us sick or vomit. When…with Hillary, I couldn’t…but the pills he gave me made me get hard.”

“Why…why would he do that?”

Who knew. There were a million possibilities. He was evil. The power went to his head. None of that mattered, though, because he was gone, locked away, and now I had Cyrus.

“So tired,” was all I managed to say.

“Go to sleep. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

I smiled, believing him.