My eyes fall shut and I grimace from the pain. My whole body hurts.
“I think it’s time to call a doctor.” Eliza looks me over with a mixture of worry and disgust on her face.
“I’m calling your sister.” Lucas takes the washcloth from me and flips it over to the cool side.
“She might be at work,” I say, teeth chattering. These fucking chills are awful. My body hurts enough as it is, and adding in the nonstop shivering makes everything hurt that much more. “I’ll text her.”
“Get her phone,” Lucas tells Eliza.
My phone is still in my purse, and the feather is still hidden in there. “I’ll get it.”
“No.” Lucas puts one hand on my shoulder, keeping me from getting up. “You’re not going anywhere, Callie.”
I try to give him a pointed look but end up coughing and choking on my own mucus. I don’t realize Eliza left the room until she returns with my phone. I send Abby a text, asking if she’s at work today, and then lay back down. Just sitting up for a few minutes was exhausting.
“Can I do anything to help you feel better?” Lucas asks.
“My back hurts,” I say, voice muffled from my face being smashed into my pillow. Lucas starts to massage my back right away, and if I weren’t coughing so much, I’d fall asleep.
My phone dings with a text, and Lucas hands it to me. It’s a text from Abby, and I have to squint my eyes to be able to read it. Everything is kind of fuzzy.
Abby: Yeah, I am. What’s up?
Me: I think I’m sick.
Abby: What’s wrong?
Lucas, looking at the phone, takes it from my hands and calls my sister. “She doesn’t think she’s sick, she knows she is,” he tells Abby. “She’s had a hundred-and-three fever all day and has a terrible cough.” He pauses, listening to what Abby is saying. “I agree. Tell her that because your sister is as stubborn as she is incredible.”
Lucas hands me the phone. “I’m fine, right?”
“A fever that high is dangerous, Cal. You need to come in right away so we can get it down. You’re probably dehydrated too.”
There’s no use arguing. I feel awful and I know I’m not going to be able to beat this on my own. “Okay.”
“We’re pretty busy in here today, but I’ll do my best to come to you as soon as I can. Text me when you’re checked into the ER.”
“I will. I’ll see you in a little bit.”
“Love you, Callie.”
“Love you, too.” I end the call and need Lucas’s help to get up, go to the bathroom, and put on leggings and a t-shirt. He carries me into his car, and Binx shadows in with me, shifting into a black cat and settling on my lap. He’s warm when he’s in cat-form, and his body heat feels wonderful.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you can’t take cats into hospitals.” Lucas pulls out of the parking space.
“I’ll say he’s my emotional support cat.” I grit my teeth before swallowing, knowing it’s going to hurt my throat.
“Don’t you need paperwork to prove that?”
“He can go unnoticed, trust me.”
Lucas grips the steering wheel tight with one hand and keeps his other on my thigh. My eyes flutter shut, and my body continues to shake the whole way to the hospital. Lucas parks and gets out, zooming around to my side.
“I can walk,” I protest when he picks me up.
“You look like you’re going to pass out.”
“I feel like it too.” I let my head fall against him. “Don’t go too fast,” I say and hate the words coming out of my mouth. I don’t want anyone giving Lucas shit for being a vampire. Not now when I need him most.
Because I feel awful and I’m still terrified of hospitals.
Lucas sets me down near registration, and I text Abby once I fill out all the paperwork. Lucas offers to take it to the desk for me, and I put my head in my hands, coughing hard again.
“You’ll be better soon,” he tells me, taking a seat next to me. I shift my weight in the uncomfortable chair and take his hand.
“Thanks for coming with me.”
“You don’t have to thank me, Callie. You’re mine, and we go through shit together.”
A door opens and a nurse calls my name. That was fast. Too fast.
“Did you—?” I start but get cut off from all the coughing. Lucas wraps his arm around me and doesn’t answer, which alone is a dead giveaway he held the people at the registration desk spellbound to make them get me in right away.
The nurse eyes Lucas and her cheeks flush. He has that effect on women without even trying. He’s incredibly good-looking, but the ancientness surrounding him is alluring. Even if you don’t know he’s a vampire, you feel its pull, making you want to find out more, ignoring the little voice in the back of your head telling you he’s dangerous and you should stay away.
Which makes him even more appealing.
The nurse takes my vitals and writes down my symptoms, and then leaves, saying the doctor will be in shortly. Binx shadows in as soon as the nurse leaves, settling on the hard foam bed. He curls up in my arms, purring. Lucas paces back and forth in the little room.
“I’m going to be fine,” I tell him. The pacing is getting annoying. “Sit down with me?”
He comes to the side of the exam bed. “You will be fine. You have to be.”
“People get sick. It’s not a big deal.”
“It feels like it to me.” He crouches down and takes my hand. “I can fight demons with you. Kill vampires who try to hurt you. But this…I’m helpless and it’s making me realize how precarious things are. If I lose you…” He trails off, eyes heavy with emotion. “I can’t. And I won’t.”
“You won’t,” I promise him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He kisses my fingers and stands, rubbing my back until Abby comes in.
“You brought Binx?” She closes the door behind her and goes over to the computer.
“He brought himself.”
She looks over my chart and then gets up. “You still have a really high fever, Cal. Can you sit up?”
“I think so,” I say with a cough, feeling like my body is about to give out. She puts her stethoscope in her ears and listens to my chest on both sides.
“Normally, I’d order an x-ray to confirm, but you have pneumonia, Callie. Your lungs are full of crackles, and here...” She puts the stethoscope over my lower ribs and tells me to deeply inhale, which hurts like a bitch. “I’m hearing rubbing.”
“What does that mean?” Lucas asks, pacing again. He’s so tall that it only takes a few strides to cross the room.
“Pleurisy.”
“Is it serious?”
“Not usually. With treatment it typically clears up pretty fast.” She listens to my lungs again and goes back to the computer.
“Are you sure I have pneumonia?” I lean back against the bed.
“Yeah. You sound awful. I want to admit you and get you started on IV meds.”
“But I was fine yesterday. Like, completely fine. People don’t just wake up with pneumonia, do they?”
“No, not typically.” Abby looks up from whatever she’s typing. “You were probably sick and didn’t realize it. It happens sometimes or we’re just so used to functioning worn out we don’t even notice we have a cold.”
“I don’t get colds very often,” I say between coughs. “I’d notice if I had one. I wasn’t sick, right, Lucas?”
“She was perfectly healthy. Sick people have more white blood cells and it gives the blood a different taste. Callie’s blood tasted perfectly delicious yesterday.”
Abby is really trying, but that might be too much for her. “You never got sick when we were kids.” She looks back at the computer and quickly types something. “I’m going to order you some blood work and will start you off on with an IV. That fever is my main concern right now. You’ve taken Advil and it did nothing?”
“It didn’t even lessen my headache.” I bring my arms in around my body, shivering. Abby opens a cabinet above the desk and pulls out a thin white sheet.
“It’s not much, but you can’t be bundling up with a fever that high.” She drapes it over me. “Do you have any allergies to antibiotics?”
“I’ve never taken them.”
“Never?” Abby asks skeptically. “Do you have witch-medicine you need instead?”
“Witches are human,” I remind her, turning my head away to cough. “And for as long as I remember, I’ve never taken them.”
“Are you okay with getting blood drawn today?”
I’m not, but I feel so awful I don’t argue. I just nod and wrap the thin sheet tighter around my shoulders. I never knew being sick felt this bad. Abby start saying something else about the nurse coming in and doing my IV, but her voice is lost in a sea of echoes. Binx stands and meows, and Lucas zooms over, saying my name over and over. I want to answer him, really, I do.