by Bane, Lucian
“Yes ma’am,” Bo muttered.
“Stop calling me ma’am, do I look like your mother?”
“No ma’am. Oops. Sorry.”
She shook her head and walked off. “Sade, Sleeping Beauty is in the med room waiting if you’re ready.”
Sade grabbed the crutches and got up, hurrying after her.
“Let me know when you’re done?” Bo called.
“I’ll be right back.”
“Is there some kind of wheelchair for me? I’d like to see something besides the same four walls,” he yelled after them. “I don’t like boring books!”
Liberty shook her head as they headed down the hall. “He’s cruising.”
Sade would’ve found that funny except he was too worried about Mercy now. “How long does this take?”
“Only a few minutes. I’ll need your help moving her from the hospital bed to the table, to be safe.”
Thank God. He stood next to the table she lay on and looked around at the room. All this shit they had. She wasn’t kidding about a city in a home. The supply closets scattered here and there were packed. He stroked the top of Mercy’s hand and along her arm while Liberty turned on the machines. When Liberty was ready, Sade stepped into the side room with the window to watch.
****
“So it’s better?” Sade asked.
“Yes, the swelling is nearly all gone,” she said, sounding relieved. She went on to show Sade the results of the scan in medical gibberish before ending with the one thing he was waiting to hear, “So, I think she’s going to be fine.”
He let out half a breath with that. He wanted to hope. But with his track record, it would only worsen the odds. And not hoping… just made him feel like a useless piece of nothing and nobody.
Sade followed Liberty as she navigated the hospital bed back to Mercy’s room “If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay with her.”
“Figured you might want to. Fine with me. You need anything, call for it, don’t try to get it. I need your feet healed. I need all your feet healed,” she muttered pulling the door closed. “Be hell if we all had to run,” she said as the door shut.
The idea struck him with fear. That would be bad, very bad. So much for feeling safe there.
Sade climbed carefully into the bed with Mercy. It took him five minutes to get in a position that he was comfortable and close as he could be without accidentally hurting her. He wanted to pull her to him but wasn’t sure where she was hurt. They’d done a scan of her head and neck and hadn’t found anything. And nothing showed up in the x-rays either but only a couple were done. It seemed the chair and her head took most of the hit on that wall. He let out a shaky breath and stroked her face, putting his mouth to her ear. “Come back to me, Angel.”
Sade fell asleep finally, only to have nightmares that ended with him jerking awake. He realized he was next to Mercy and gasped. Had he hurt her? Fuck, he wasn’t safe to sleep around.
He sat up in the bed for several seconds before making his way to the bathroom. Each room was stocked like a hotel. All except TV’s and electronics. He passed the mirror and stopped but couldn’t bring himself to look at the face in the reflection. Not until Mercy was safe. Until then, he didn’t want to see or know the one responsible for getting her hurt.
Unable to sleep, he went to check on Bo and found him staring at the ceiling. He jerked his gaze to the open door when Sade knocked softly.
“What are you doing up?” Sade asked, making his way to the bed.
He shook his head and looked at the ceiling. “Can’t sleep. Can’t close my eyes.”
“Me either,” Sade said, sitting on the bed. “That was one fucked up ride, huh?”
Bo nodded and looked right. Pain stabbed Sade when his chin trembled and a tear rolled down his cheek. “Sorry bro,” he said trying to sound strong, wiping it off.
“Don’t fucking apologize,” Sade ordered. He realized his tone was way too harsh and took Bo’s hand, staring at it. He’d planned to give him a stern speech about being strong but… he suddenly could only focus on drawing his next breath. “I’m scared too.”
He felt Bo’s gaze on him. “You?” he asked in quiet shock.
He shook his head slowly, hating to voice the words but needing to. “Mercy won’t wake up.”
“I thought you said she was okay?”
The panic in his voice didn’t help and Sade had to turn his face away from him. “I want her to be.”
“Liberty said she was gonna be fine man,” he assured, covering Sade’s hand with his other one. “I know she’ll be fine.”
“How you fucking know, man?”
“Cause she’s Mercy!” he whispered heatedly. “She’s like… God’s own angel dude.”
Sade couldn’t breathe and he covered his face with both hands. “Why would…” he gasped in several gulps of air “…God… do this to her? Why would he let this happen?”
“Aw man,” Bo shook his head. “She loves you. She chose you. Don’t insult that gift with that unworthy bullshit.” He gave a soft laugh. “You deserve her.”
Sade shook his head. “Never.”
“Always,” Bo argued, stubbornly.
Sade jerked at the sound he heard. He took his crutches and hurried to the hallway and looked down, listening. He quickly went into Mercy’s room and froze at seeing her twitching in her sleep.
Fuck. He rushed as fast as he could to her bed and stared at her. The furrow in her brow said she was dreaming and it wasn’t anything good.
He wasn’t sure what to do and then her condition grew more violent. He sat on the bed and shook her shoulder. “Mercy. Mercy wake up.” She whimpered and became more frantic, so Sade took hold of her hand, tapping it hard, ready to snatch her from the nightmare.
She finally woke with a huge gasp, like after being submerged in water too long. She snatched his wrist and pulled him down in a headlock that would put him to sleep in ten seconds.
“Mercy!” he yelled, panic rushing through him. “Mercy, you’re ok! Liberty!” he roared, fighting to move into the lock.
The door banged open. “Oh shit, live wire.”
Mercy screamed, pulling on his head like she changed her mind about choking him. Now she was going to fucking rip it off.
He growled, working his hands up under her arms while she screamed and added iron legs into the assault, slamming her foot into his kidneys.
“Liberty!” he growled.
“I’m hurrying, fucking cheap ass syringes! Sweetheart, wake-up, look around you. I need you to hold her Sade,” Liberty ordered.
“Fucking trying! She’s strong!”
“She’s running on adrenaline, I need you to step it up or I’ll have to hurt her.”
Mercy screamed again, tightening her hold, bringing patches of darkness into his vision. “Fuck!” He worked his body onto the bed, fighting for leverage.
Mercy’s foot stopped jabbing him long enough to kick at Liberty. “Get the fuck away, bitch!” she roared.
“Got you sweetheart.”
“Help me! Help meeee!” Mercy screamed.
Whatever Liberty stuck her with took effect almost immediately, and Sade crawled out of her limbs, shaking and staring at her.
She sat up in bed on her knees, looking around, blinking back the drug taking effect. She looked down and spied the catheter and gasped before the nonstop screaming and wailing erupted again while searching around her in confusion.
Sade held his hand out and she crawled backward on the bed shaking her head. She nearly fell off and Liberty was there to catch her only to have Mercy fight against her with sluggish limbs.
“Mercy!” Sade called. “Wake up, you’re okay!”
Her eyes closed and she mumbled incoherently as Liberty laid her down.
“Get some restraints. In the closet.”
Sade stared at Mercy in confusion.
“Hurry up! Anything, get that bathrobe tie until I can get something better.”
Sade half r
an and brought it to her. “What the fuck?” he whispered, confused.
“She’s just got a bit of post-trauma amnesia, not uncommon with a knock on the head like that.”
Sade watched Mercy kicking weakly around, fighting the drugs as she looked all around still, her survival mode hanging on. “Help,” she kept saying.
“Mercy, it’s me Sade,” he called louder to her. “You’re safe now, you’re safe. Tell her she’s safe,” he yelled to Liberty.
Mercy looked from Liberty to Sade, brows furrowed. Tears suddenly rolled down her cheeks and Sade lost it.
“Tell her she’s okay,” he yelled, slamming his fist into the wall before turning to Liberty.
“You’re not helping, you’re scaring her. Her memory will return, now calm the fuck down, hero.”
Sade limped on his feet, gasping for air, looking at Mercy who was barely conscious now. “How long?” he whispered. “How long before she wakes up and I can talk to her, make her understand?”
Liberty pulled the covers over her and looked at him. “Let her sleep this off for a couple hours. We’ll know more when I talk to her.”
He rubbed his head with both hands nodding, fighting to be calm. “Okay.”
“We’re going with best-case scenario, I’m warning you now.”
Best-case scenario? What the fuck did that mean, scenario? “How about you tell me what you mean by that, exactly.”
“I’m saying one to four hours and she’ll be fine.”
He didn’t want to even ask worst-case. He wouldn’t.
“I’ll wait till she’s calm and run the tests that will tell us what we’re looking at, the amount of amnesia.”
Sade covered his face with both hands and bent over. “She’ll be fine,” he said before pacing again.
“You need to get off those feet.”
“Fuck my feet,” he muttered, holding his head as he continued pacing like an animal. “Let them fucking bleed.”
Liberty was suddenly blocking his path. “Listen to me,” she whispered pointing to the bed. “She doesn’t need you doing this. She needs you being smart.” She grabbed his upper arms and shook him. “I mean it, buck the fuck up, I’m not going to let you cost this operation. How about you go right now and assure that boy in there that everything’s okay before he screams a lung up.”
Bo had been calling both of them, demanding they tell him what the hell was going on. Sade reluctantly nodded and took the crutches she fetched from the floor. Before leaving the room, he glanced back at Mercy, sleeping peacefully again. His stomach knotted with a thousand fears. He couldn’t handle this. He could handle a lot of things but not fucking this.
Chapter Seven
Sade stared at Liberty from across the small kitchen table. He’d barely managed a wink of sleep. “I need to know what to expect with this.”
She widened her eyes, indicating he was fucked in that department and she was sorry for that, but he’d need to deal with that like a big boy. “It really all depends.”
“I want all the possibilities then, no surprises. What can I expect?”
She sat back and crossed her arms before laying it all out in a monotone voice. “Standard symptoms come with confusion. Feeling dazed, clumsiness, slurred speech, nausea, vomiting. Headache. Balance problems,” she added with slow nods. “Blurred vision.” The list dwindled as she recalled off the top of her head. “Sensitivity to light and noise. Sluggishness, ringing in ears. Behavior or personality changes. And of course, concentration difficulty and memory loss to varying degrees.”
Sade gasped and leaned back in his chair looking at the table. “Wow.”
“She may have only a few of those symptoms. I won’t know until I test her.”
“When?”
“After breakfast I guess. I need to talk to her, help her understand what’s going on so she can help us.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Tell her what happened and what she’s going through and why. Just the basics though, anything more in depth needs to come from you.”
“I think I’ll let you test her before I talk to her, so I at least know what to expect.”
“She could regain everything in a couple hours. She seems healthy and strong.”
“Something tells me healthy and strong doesn’t have a damn thing to do with this.”
“It always does. Look…” her voice lowered while keeping that sharp edge, “…I’m not going to soften the blow but I do need you not losing your shit, remember? And let’s face it, when it comes to her, you are not the most in control individual. I don’t mean that as in insult, just the facts that I’m stuck dealing with in a delicate situation. So, please do your best to keep that in mind while you are dealing with everything.” She made it very clear she meant for him to deal.
He knew all about dealing. Taking a deep breath, he let it out. “I can deal once I figure out what I’m dealing with.” But something said this was different, this wasn’t going to be like the other demons he’d dealt with. This one was new and big. Bigger than anything he’d ever dealt with in fact.
“Did Kane say when he’s coming back? Any word on that?”
She gave a no clue shake of her head with raised brows. “And we need to talk to Bo about this no sleeping nonsense I see he’s up to. He needs rest. No rest isn’t going to help him. I get that he’s having nightmares, I understand that. My thought is, he needs something that puts him beyond the reach of dreamland.”
Sade nodded, knowing she was right. “You’re the doc.”
“You’ll need to talk to him,” she ordered.
“Yeah, sure, whatever.”
“I don’t mind telling him, hell I don’t mind giving it without his cooperation, but I’d like him to trust me. That’ll happen faster if I’m not force-feeding him shit that leads to his worst fears.”
“I got you.”
“Good. And I need to bathe him, he stinks. I’m taking him to the whirlpool after I test Mercy. I let him get out of his last bath, but I have to take care of his feet before he gets an infection. I’d let you do it but you really need to stay off your fucking feet more than you have. At this rate, you’ll be healed never. And that is unacceptable.” The word soldier hung unspoken in the air, loud and clear.
“Yes ma’am,” he muttered, hating the limitation his injuries put on him.
“And we have one wheelchair in this outfit and one set of crutches. You guys will need to share. I’ll work on a makeshift pair of crutches.”
It was the least of his concerns, but he remembered to nod his appreciation. “You deal with Mercy, I’ll go deal with Bo. Can you bring more reading material to him? He’s not happy with his selection.”
“Well pretty boy needs to deal too, this isn’t the fucking Ritz. I’ll bring him paper and pencils, he can get creative. I brought the wheelchair to his room but told him under no conditions is he to walk on those feet without me there to help. You better let him know I mean it. If he crosses me, he’ll find himself bed-bound. Literally.”
“Got it.” Sade grabbed the crutches and turned to go.
“And it’s not Alzheimer’s,” she called as he left. “Don’t make this worse than it is.”
Sade didn’t even go near Mercy’s door as he headed to Bo’s room, knocking before entering.
“Come in.” Bo’s tone said why bother knocking, it’s not like I can do anything that would require it. It was only day four at the Batcave and already Bo was showing signs of cabin fever. It was hardly the contributing factor to his problems, but it was something Sade could blame it on. All of them could.
“Long time no see,” Sade muttered.
“How’s Mercy?” he asked right off. It was surely the wrong foot to start off on.
“We’ll know more after Liberty bathes you.”
His eyes rolled hard in his head as he groaned and muttered, “Jesus Christ.”
“She’s a medic.”
“She’s scary!” Bo hissed.
&
nbsp; Sade welcomed the distraction from his problems. “I’m sure she’ll be gentle with you.”
“Very funny man, verrrry funny.”
Sade let his chuckle go. “You might as well enjoy it, it’s all the fun you’ll be having for a while.”
“Did you talk to her about finding something besides these books?” he shrilled quietly like she might hear him.
“Yep. She’s bringing you some paper and pencil so you can get creative.”
An exasperated huff blasted from him. “Are you kidding? Paper and pencils? They still have those? Who the fuck uses that? There’s got to be a TV around here, some kind of video console? Man, I’m a Legend on HR, I could be working on my rank while laid up!”
Sade could only shake his lowered head and grin. But at the same time, he loved that Bo cared about those things, those childhood thrills. Even though he was technically not a child, he deserved that kind of life even now. “I’ll dig around and see what I can find.”
He let out a huge sigh, laying his head back. “So what about Mercy,” he said, like he needed something else to think about. “What she’s got?”
It was Sade’s turn to sigh, not wanting to think about it. He ran down the brutal symptoms that could come with PTA until Bo gasped, “God stop! You’re freaking me the fuck out!”
“Yeah,” Sade barely managed.
“Well… isn’t there like… shit you can do to help? Her remember?”
He attempted a shrug and found the feat nearly unmanageable. “Whatever I can do, I’ll do it, you know that.”
“Yeah I know,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’ll help you think of things, we’ll have her back to her old self in no time.”
Sade froze at the sound of Mercy’s voice raising.
“Uh-oh,” Bo said, hearing it too.
They listened in the silence for more, but nothing came. Liberty was on the scene. “Can you imagine,” Bo whispered. “Those two going at it?”
No he couldn’t, nor did he want to. They sat in silence for a while and a knock preceded the call, “Bath time pretty boy.”
“Fuck,” Bo hissed, bolting forward. “Tell her you’ll do it!”
“I’m on Mercy duty, sorry.”
“Come on, man! Please, really.”