several excruciating moments, then receded as I made it upright and stopped moving. I sucked in a breath and held it until I could speak without a ragged edge shaking my voice. "You can't kidnap a doctor. That's the kind of trouble we can't deal with." Monster trouble, yeah. That we could do. Human trouble was to be avoided at all cost. At best, we'd have to leave New York. We had lives here. Niko and Promise had a life. I wasn't going to cost them that.
"It's trouble
I'll
deal with. Lie back down." It was said in a tone that brooked no argument. I argued anyway—go figure.
"No way." It was cold. Our landlord wasn't above skimping on the heat. What landlord was? I grabbed a handful of blanket and pulled it up toward the large bandage on my bare chest. Or rather I tried. My left arm was weak, functional but only barely. They'd said it and I hadn't listened. Muscle damage. Nik's eyes darkened as he watched my slow progress. "No goddamn way," I repeated stubbornly as I finally got the blanket up. "Loman, you have to know a doctor. One who'd keep his mouth shut. You know everyone, right?" The codeine helped with the discomfort, but it didn't do anything for the weariness, the bone-deep exhaustion. I slumped back against the headboard despite myself, taking the blanket with me.
"One would think." He was still pale from his own wounds, but he looked better than he had. The poison was passing out of his system. That was some good news anyway. "I met Hippocrates once. I wouldn't have let him treat a pig. Cross-eyed, fond of the bottle, and desperately searching for a cure for his own personal crotch rot." That breezy, cocky smile he was so very good at faded. "I'm sorry."
Knuckles rested on my forehead and then my jaw. "Give him more Tylenol in an hour." Niko's hand was as icy as the room, as icy as I felt. It didn't take a genius to know that meant I was running a pretty good fever. And codeine, as helpful as it was in other areas, wasn't going to bring it down. "I'll be back," he went on, unbending in his goal. It was easy to translate. Niko was going someplace where he could snatch a doctor. Hospital, probably. And that would be the beginning of the end.
I'd done the same for him once. I'd struggled against that same damn dilemma. Although at the time, I doubt I knew dilemma was even a word. I'd been seven and Niko eleven, back before the Auphe had snatched me and I'd lost two years in their dimension while only two days had passed in ours.
I didn't get sick much when I was a kid…only once in my life that I remembered and it had been Niko who'd taken care of me. I'd have died long before Sophia ever noticed I was ill. Bourbon and whiskey are great for glossing over the annoying events of a parent's daily life. When Niko got sick, it wasn't any different.
What started out as a cold became bronchitis and finally pneumonia. With that came the dilemma. We didn't have insurance, and we didn't have a mother willing to take Nik to the doctor. If you show up at the doctor sick as a dog and without a parent, they notice. They notice enough to get Social Services involved. Maybe foster care would've been better than what we had. It couldn't have been much worse, but there were no guarantees they wouldn't split us up. Niko was old enough to know that and he made sure I knew it too.
We weren't going to be split up. Period.
But when you're seven and the brother who's your whole damn world is too sick to get out of bed, you have to do
something.
Anything. I was too young for kidnapping, but there were other things I could do. We lived in a trailer park then and we had a few elderly neighbors. Old people had medicine, lots of it. But those same old people hated to leave their trailers. Hated it like poison. I'd wanted Nik to tell me what to do, but he was so desperately sick and even more stubborn. He didn't want me doing anything stupid. At seven years old, that was about all I
could
do.
Old people make an exception about leaving
"It's trouble
I'll
deal with. Lie back down." It was said in a tone that brooked no argument. I argued anyway—go figure.
"No way." It was cold. Our landlord wasn't above skimping on the heat. What landlord was? I grabbed a handful of blanket and pulled it up toward the large bandage on my bare chest. Or rather I tried. My left arm was weak, functional but only barely. They'd said it and I hadn't listened. Muscle damage. Nik's eyes darkened as he watched my slow progress. "No goddamn way," I repeated stubbornly as I finally got the blanket up. "Loman, you have to know a doctor. One who'd keep his mouth shut. You know everyone, right?" The codeine helped with the discomfort, but it didn't do anything for the weariness, the bone-deep exhaustion. I slumped back against the headboard despite myself, taking the blanket with me.
"One would think." He was still pale from his own wounds, but he looked better than he had. The poison was passing out of his system. That was some good news anyway. "I met Hippocrates once. I wouldn't have let him treat a pig. Cross-eyed, fond of the bottle, and desperately searching for a cure for his own personal crotch rot." That breezy, cocky smile he was so very good at faded. "I'm sorry."
Knuckles rested on my forehead and then my jaw. "Give him more Tylenol in an hour." Niko's hand was as icy as the room, as icy as I felt. It didn't take a genius to know that meant I was running a pretty good fever. And codeine, as helpful as it was in other areas, wasn't going to bring it down. "I'll be back," he went on, unbending in his goal. It was easy to translate. Niko was going someplace where he could snatch a doctor. Hospital, probably. And that would be the beginning of the end.
I'd done the same for him once. I'd struggled against that same damn dilemma. Although at the time, I doubt I knew dilemma was even a word. I'd been seven and Niko eleven, back before the Auphe had snatched me and I'd lost two years in their dimension while only two days had passed in ours.
I didn't get sick much when I was a kid…only once in my life that I remembered and it had been Niko who'd taken care of me. I'd have died long before Sophia ever noticed I was ill. Bourbon and whiskey are great for glossing over the annoying events of a parent's daily life. When Niko got sick, it wasn't any different.
What started out as a cold became bronchitis and finally pneumonia. With that came the dilemma. We didn't have insurance, and we didn't have a mother willing to take Nik to the doctor. If you show up at the doctor sick as a dog and without a parent, they notice. They notice enough to get Social Services involved. Maybe foster care would've been better than what we had. It couldn't have been much worse, but there were no guarantees they wouldn't split us up. Niko was old enough to know that and he made sure I knew it too.
We weren't going to be split up. Period.
But when you're seven and the brother who's your whole damn world is too sick to get out of bed, you have to do
something.
Anything. I was too young for kidnapping, but there were other things I could do. We lived in a trailer park then and we had a few elderly neighbors. Old people had medicine, lots of it. But those same old people hated to leave their trailers. Hated it like poison. I'd wanted Nik to tell me what to do, but he was so desperately sick and even more stubborn. He didn't want me doing anything stupid. At seven years old, that was about all I
could
do.
Old people make an exception about leaving
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