The Bargaining Path

by T. Rudacille

  ***

  After I had freed James and tried to sit him up, he had complained of a severe headache, dizziness, and nausea, so I had laid him back down. For a moment, he turned over on his side, facing away from me, and when I went to aid him, he held his hand back to tell me to stay where I was. Once, he gagged, and I jumped up to grab the trash can in the corner, but he grasped my wrist to stop me from going.

  “I’m fine.” He muttered weakly, “I just can’t get up yet.”

  From behind him, I slid one arm under his neck and laid the other over his arm. After kissing his cheek twice, I nestled my head between his shoulder and jaw, against his neck. I remembered the after-effects of being scratched by the trebestia almost as well as I remembered the actual illness. Because the venom had gone directly into my bloodstream, I had been bed-ridden for days with the actual illness and should have remained in bed while the after-effects worked through my system. James would more than likely begin feeling alright soon, but still, I felt terribly for him.

  “I am going to get you some water, and if you don’t drink it, I am going to beat you.” I kissed his neck and stood up.

  He groaned and brought his knees closer to his chest.

  “I will drink the water only if you turn out the light. It’s murdering me. Oh, God, I’m being murdered by a light…” He moaned again and rubbed his eyes, “I’m dying, Brynna. I know it.”

  “Sweetheart, I sympathize with your plight greatly. Believe me, I do. But you are such a man right now. ‘I’m experiencing discomfort, hold me, heal me, love me!’”

  He laughed and then grimaced.

  “Don’t make me laugh. That’s murdering me, too. I’m being murdered by laughter.”

  “You are not being murdered. You are just a drama queen, as they say.”

  “You’re a drama queen.” He murmured, thinking I could not hear him.

  “What was that?” I snapped at him jokingly.

  “I said ‘you’re beautiful.’” He replied, without missing a beat.

  “You did not, you sad, pathetic man.” I slid my arm under his head and sat him up to help him drink the water I had gotten him.

  “There is ginger in it. That should help settle your stomach. In a few minutes, I will go make you some coffee. That helped my headache tremendously when I was recovering from this same ailment, as Violet can attest.”

  “Coffee and headache relief… I remember that from a long time ago. Don’t you?”

  I smiled, feeling a strange mixture of delight at the memory and painful nostalgia for that time and that place.

  “I do. I remember Dr. Oz coming back with the coffee. I remember scowling at you a great deal.”

  He laughed again, but after just a second, his eyebrows creased and his eyes closed.

  “Sorry. I am so sorry.” I apologized, kissing him quickly.

  “No. It’s okay. I was grimacing not from the headache but from the memories of your scowls. They were scary.”

  “You were scary. I did not trust you as far as I could throw you, as they say, which in those days, before your remarkable muscular gain, was very far. So, I suppose I could trust you.”

  He laughed again, this time more hysterically.

  “I am not even sorry this time. You must try to control yourself. I take no personal responsibility in your pain at all.”

  “I love you.” He told me, after the pain had subsided. “I love you, and as soon as we leave here and find someplace safe, I am going to make sweet, passionate, wild, insane, glorious love to you, because everything that has happened today has convinced me that I can never let you go one day without knowing how much I love you.”

  Before I could reply, he reached up and rested his hand on my cheek.

  “I lived a thousand years without you, a thousand different times, in hundreds of different ways. Most of the time, you had died, and that was the worst, because I saw not only how I would grieve for you but how Penny and Violet would. Other times, we had broken up, you had left to live somewhere else, you had been taken away from me, or you were with him. I tried to tell myself that it wasn’t real, but what I felt was so real. It…” He stopped, “Never mind.”

  “What, honey?” I pressed him.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Just say it.”

  He sighed but finally did say it.

  “It broke me, Brynna. Nothing was ever the same again.”

  I pulled him closer to me and kissed him. When I pulled away, I laid my hand on his cheek and ran my thumb continuously over his stubble.

  “No worries, okay?” I said, and he laughed softly. “Not one. You got it?”

  With great effort, he closed the space between us and kissed me back.

  “Got it.”