Chewing on his lower lip, Jackson shook his head. “Every time she gets hot, she feels sick. That’s why she’s got the damp towel over her eyes and forehead. We were hoping that if we kept her cool, she’d get some sleep without getting up to puke every five minutes.”
Copying what Marcus had done, I frowned at how cold she was. There was cool, and then there was cold. “She’s freezing, man. Get the blanket and keep the damp towel on her head to see if it evens each other out. You don’t want her getting too cold. How’s she doing with the fluids?”
Craig made a choking noise from behind his grandmother, getting a glare from her. “She was having problems drinking, so MeeMee here went and picked up some syringes from the shop. She’s been syringing Gatorade and whatever that weird shit is into her, a drop at a time.”
This news alarmed me even more.
“And Parker knows this?”
“Yeah, he’s been coming by to check on her a lot,” Jackson reassured me. “Miss Dahl declined a visit to the hospital, so he’s making house calls.”
At that moment, there was a knock on the door.
“I don’t get it?” Craig mumbled as he moved to open it. “There’s a doorbell right there, and none of you lot use it.”
I winced at how right he was. The doorbell was there for security as well, and I was the turd who’d forgotten to press it even though I’d noticed it when I’d knocked on the door. In my defense, I was slightly distracted by getting to Sadie, but still.
“Yo,” Parker greeted as he came through the door, stopping when he saw me. “And welcome back. Glad to see you’ve gotten your head out of your ass.”
I would’ve said something back, but I was worried by the fact that neither mine nor Parker’s arrivals had woken Sadie up. She didn’t tend to go into a deep sleep, so this wasn’t typical behavior—which I pointed out to him.
Frowning, he joined me looking down at her. “She really needs to go in and get an IV, and some tests run, Elijah. The dehydration was making the pain in the wound on her shin sore again last night, to the point she was crying with it when I came round, but she just won’t go in.”
Dehydration didn’t make wounds suddenly sore, but the dehydrated muscle and tendon that was still healing would hurt more. All of it together made me more certain she needed to go to the hospital for treatment like Parker said. Looking at MeeMee to make sure I was doing the right thing, I was relieved when she nodded.
“Craig, you keep the front door open. Marcus, go and start my truck up,” I instructed, tossing my keys to him. “MeeMee, can you make sure Dobby’s all set up in case she’s away overnight, please? And, Jackson, once that’s all done, could you bring MeeMee to the hospital?”
Everyone jumped into action at the same time as I bent over and picked up my little pixie. Her eyes fluttered open as I put her in my truck and secured the belt around her, but she just scowled at me and fell back to sleep.
With Parker behind me and our brothers behind him, I made my way to the hospital, hoping that it wasn’t anything serious. I’d had stomach bugs and food poisoning before, and they made you feel like shit, but with her being as small as she was, I didn’t want to risk anything by leaving her any longer.
It only took us twenty minutes to get to the hospital Parker worked at, and then it seemed like everyone burst into frantic activity around us. Within ten minutes of our arrival, her paperwork had been filled out, she was in a bed and had been hooked up to machines, and they were putting an IV in one arm while blood was being taken from the other.
On his way past me, I grabbed Parker’s arm. “You make sure she’s okay, man. Nothing happens to her.”
Thumping me on the back a couple of times, he promised, “She’ll be fine. We get sick quickly, but we come back just as quickly. Once we get the results of this and the urine they’re going to take from her in a minute, we’ll know what we need to do to get Sadie back to fighting.” Just as I thought he was finished and was going to leave, he added, “I mean, I couldn’t deprive her of tearing your balls off and feeding them to the ugly cat, could I?”
I couldn’t even argue that I didn’t deserve it. I might not have known the full extent of what was going on, but I deserved anything she chose to dish out to me for leaving the way I did, regardless of my reasons.
Just then, Craig stood up and walked quickly toward the door. “Hell no, if you’re doing that, I’m heading out until it’s safe to come back in.”
Looking over at the bed, I saw a nurse with a tube in her hand, fiddling around under the sheet they’d placed over Sadie. Apparently they were taking the urine sample that way. Knowing she wouldn’t want me to see it, I turned my back to face the wall and started going through all of the ways that I was going to apologize and earn her back.
First on the list was begging on my knees. I figured if I went for something most men would normally put at the end, she’d see I had no shame and that I was being genuine.
So I had a plan of what I was going to do, I just didn’t know when I was going to be able to do it.
Chapter Eleven
Sadie
There was an irritating sensation on my face as a voice said loudly, “If you don’t wake up, Dee, I’ll play Baby Shark on repeat. Did you know there’s an extended version on YouTube?”
Then, a hand grabbed mine, lifted it, and my finger was pushed up my nostril. “Uh oh, you got bogeys on your finger. Better clean it off.”
I was fighting to wake up to stop what I knew was coming, but my eyelids felt like concrete was weighing them down, so I was too late.
The finger that’d just been inserted up my nose was pushed between my lips and past my teeth. “Ew, you dirty girl! Your new name’s going to be booger queen.”
My stomach turned, and it felt like every muscle clamped down at the same time, but I didn’t throw up. That was a good and bad thing because I now had snot in my mouth along with a god awful taste that I’d have been grateful to get rid of in any way possible.
Finally winning, I opened my eyes and glared at the arsehole that had tormented me since he shot out into the world. Instead of greeting my brother after not seeing him for a year, I croaked, “Wanker!”
“Ah, there she is. I’m hurt, you know. You were meant to fall at my feet with tears and joy when I surprised you with my amazing appearance, but instead, you threw up and went to sleep with your head in a random man’s crotch. What the hell’s that all about?”
Squinting to get him into focus, I tried to remember what he was talking about, but my head hurt, my mouth was so dry it felt like my tongue was sticking to my teeth, I ached all over, and it was colder than a witches tit in the room I was in.
Come to think of it, where was I?
“Stop upsetting her, Craig,” my grandma sighed as she moved to stand beside him. “Would you like a sip of water to get the booger out of your mouth?”
Just thinking about it made me feel nauseous, so I nodded at her, too afraid to even open my mouth in case I threw up again. This stomach bug sucked balls. I’d had Norovirus a couple of times and food poisoning, too, thanks to the tosser standing beside me, but this one was the worst of them all.