“Oh good, you’re here,” Dr. Mathers interrupted, stepping into the hall to meet them. He took a long hard look at Eva, his expression pained. “I have everything ready. Let’s get her started right away. We haven’t any time to waste.”
Wylie heard that too. It was clear Mathers didn’t like the prognosis based on a quick visual assessment. That was saying a lot, but it still wouldn’t deter Wylie’s belief that Eva would come back to him. She had to.
He stood in the corner of the room and watched as both men went to work on Eva. When Mathers pulled the pillow from beneath the blanket, he held it up and gave Baine and Wylie an odd look, then tossed it aside.
The two men spoke quickly as they moved like a well-oiled machine. Baine might be a vet by trade, but Wylie could see there was a hell of a lot more to him. This was his calling. Helping. Doing. Healing. He’d never been so happy to be in McKenzie Ridge than he was at that moment and that alone felt like hope.
Wylie tried to keep up with what was being done and said, but most of it was over his head. There were obvious things like an IV so they could push fluids because she was dehydrated. Her vitals were taken, and monitors applied to continue tracking them. Her pulse had been weak, and that was a concern. Perhaps the bacteria was spreading faster than anticipated. She was no longer pale, Baine described, but not gray and yellow, indicating something about her liver or maybe kidney function. Wylie couldn’t be sure because it all ran together.
Rather than healing, her old wounds were reopening and spreading. They were angry and clearly infected. Wylie had to wear a mask, and both doctors did the same—even wore face shields and obviously gloves. Mathers mentioned not leaving without proper disinfecting—something about the toxicity, spread, and virility of the contagion. Whatever that meant.
Wylie’s phone pinged. It was a private message from Liam. “I see you got there okay. I blocked all the cameras along your route, including the hospital, and I don’t see any red flags, so I’m turning everything back on. We’re all pulling for Eva. We’re here if you need us.”
Another tear escaped him. Wylie wasn’t an emotional guy, but this had him in pieces. He did need his brothers, but it wasn’t safe for them to come, so he was on his own with this. And he was scared. Maybe for the first time. Being the youngest, he always had someone looking out for him, guiding him, and supporting him. And though all those things still existed, it was from afar, and it felt painfully lonely. Especially because the one person he felt he needed most was fighting for her life.
Guilt settled in. Wylie promised Eva she would be safe with him around. He’d protect her. And now she laid in that bed, barely clinging to life, and there was nothing he could do to protect her. He’d failed her. Or so he thought. At that moment, he began to question everything they’d been through in the previous days, wondering what he could have done differently and how he could have kept her safer.
Maybe he should have contacted his brothers sooner. Perhaps a second team or two could have helped. Maybe instead of running from the fire every time it appeared, he should have run into it. Baine mentioned the cut from Vegas, and Dr. Mathers was currently looking it over, poking at it and taking samples, he’d said. Was that going to be the nail in Eva’s coffin?
If that was the case, it was preventable. They should have left sooner. Or they should have stayed later. Perhaps, he should have stood on her right, not her left so he would have taken the cut instead of her. The internal beating he was inflicting on himself was brewing and building, and there was no stopping it. He owned every bit of this. It was his fault, and he’d spend the rest of his life making it up to her or avenging her…time would tell which.
Wylie hated the sons of bitches who came for her, but he hated himself more for letting it happen. If Eva died, it would be his fault.
“How are you doing over here?” Baine asked, pulling Wylie from his thoughts.
“Oh. Um, okay, I guess.”
Baine nodded and gestured to the chair next to Eva’s bed. “How about you take a seat and rest a bit. It’ll be a while before we know if any of this will work, and we may have to make adjustments as we go along.”
“I’m fine.”
“Wylie. You’ve been standing in this corner holding your bag since we arrived over an hour ago. And I think you’re making Mathers nervous.”
Wylie looked at Dr. Mathers as he assessed data on the machines around Eva, jotting down details on a clipboard. When the doctor looked back at him, he startled.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to,” Wylie apologized, tossing his bag on a nearby cabinet before making his way to the chair Baine offered.
“I know you didn’t. This is a lot to deal with, and I get it. You’re a protector, and this…it’s something you can’t protect her from.”
Wylie’s head whipped in Baine’s direction. “Exactly. I-I can’t—”
Baine held up his hands to interrupt Wylie. “And no one expects you to. Not even Eva. This isn’t something anyone could have guessed or prevented. Whoever you’re dealing with is…bad news.”
“How do you know that?” Wylie cocked his head to one side, his wariness heightened.
“Because of what we’re dealing with. It’s…frightening, actually.”
“Doc, you’re going to have to spit it out and save the extra commentary. I’m running on next to no patience at this point.”
Baine shook his head in agreement. “It’s safe to say she was intentionally infected. It’s a bacteria, as we assumed, and it’s a bad one. This is invasive but slow, to trick the body, think of…stealth mode. That’s how it invades, then it aggressively attacks.”
“And how do we know it was an intentional transfer to her?”
“Because this is a genetically modified bug that has been specifically created as a form of germ warfare. It’s held by the CDC in a vault in the side of a mountain somewhere—along with who knows how many other things just like it—and guarded heavily by Homeland Security with the support of all branches of the military.”
Wylie froze. Their worlds had just collided. The cartel or whoever was after the O’Reillys was after Eva too, and maybe the very cartel they were using somehow. This was a clue. A messy one, but a clue nonetheless. They were after Eva now too and were on the brink of winning this round.
“So if we know what it is and where it came from, we know how to fix it,” Wylie added. “She’s going to be okay.”
“Not exactly. It actually makes this a harder battle on all fronts.” Baine went on. “These types of bacteria and viruses aren’t designed to cure. They’re designed to kill. It’s the future, and it’s rather frightening. They don’t follow up with a cure, or what’s the point.”
“What’s the point? The point is it can get in the wrong hands and be devastating.”
“I agree. It’s in the vault because guys like Mathers said to destroy it and never use it—and others like it. But clearly, the powers that be didn’t listen.”
“Because they already had a plan in place to use it.”
“Perhaps.” Baine tossed up his hands. “Wylie, there is no antidote.”
“So what do we do?”
“Create our own remedy? Pray?” Baine urged. “Oddly enough, Dr. Mathers is familiar with this strain. Not sure if that’s a coincidence or divine intervention, but he knows more about it than most anyone else. Which means we have the best chance we could get anywhere.”
“Okay. Game plan?”
“It’s tricky and requires constant monitoring, but he is developing a mutation of the bacteria that should help eradicate the one killing her. That combined with therapeutics that will break through its microfilm barrier to weaken it, along with a series of potent antibiotics and probiotics to kill it. He’ll be using a machine much like dialysis that removes the toxins and pathogens from blood, like the spleen would, along with transfusing to cleanse the blood…”
Wylie’s eyes went wide. “Jesus.”
“It’s a chance we didn’t have
before. He’s also using a holistic approach to promote healing. It’s a heavy arsenal.”
“And you think it will work?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think, Wy. He’s one of the most highly regarded in his field…so there’s hope.”
“The blood. How do we do that? We can’t just take what we need from the blood bank. I mean, I could probably get Liam to adjust stuff in their system for now to cover the inventory fluctuation but getting in to get it will be the issue.”
“I have it covered,” Baine remarked. “I typed her with that first blood sample at Dr. Mathers’ request and had my own little blood drive last night at your sister’s. She had everyone over for dinner, as far as anyone watching could see, and she and Doc Charles drew matches during dessert. Mathers told me what he needed, and Doc Charles collected it for me.”
Wylie smiled. “My sister? Does she know I’m here?”
“No. None of them know, other than McCain, but he flew Mathers in. They just know that we all needed to chip in and help you guys, and they didn’t ask questions.”
“With agents all over town and the investigation, they know something is going down.”
“As I said before, everyone wants to help. You have a support system here, so use it.”
Wylie nodded. “I owe you, Baine. I owe all of you.”
“You and your brothers have done a lot for the people here, and I have no doubt you’d do the same for me.”
Teary, Wylie said, “If you ever need anything, I better be the first person you call, every single time.”
“I’ll remember that the next time I have to deliver a breech calf and need someone to stick their arm up…”
“Can I interrupt for a moment?” Dr. Mathers stammered from the other side of Eva’s bed. “I’d like to provide an update before I go next door and look at more blood samples so we can see what’s going on from the inside.”
“Of course,” Wylie agreed.
“I have her all set up. She’s tolerated the initial cocktail, which is encouraging. You always have to worry about allergic reactions and push back from strains like this. We don’t want to kill it too slowly and give it time to build its own resistance, but we also don’t want to go too fast and cause a Herx reaction in Ms. Valdez from the bacterial die off. So far, we’ve been lucky.”
“This is a good thing,” Baine said to Wylie.
Dr. Mathers agreed. “A very good thing. I’d like to keep things as they are at the moment while we hydrate her a bit more. Then we’ll titrate up and push harder on the cocktail about every two hours or so as long as she continues to tolerate it.”
“I can manage that,” Baine chimed in. “You do what you need to in the lab. I’ll get you if we run into trouble.”
“Very good,” Dr. Mathers nodded. “This bug is designed to be quite resistant, but knowing that going in means we’re a bit smarter and have a head start. We aren’t out of the woods yet, but I’m also not giving up. Eva has a chance, and to be honest…it’s mostly up to us. She’ll let us know if her body can handle this.”
“Okay. Sounds like a lot of hurry up and wait?” Wylie asked, his eyes fixed on Eva.
“For lack of a better term.”
Wylie turned to Mathers. “What do we do in the meantime?”
“We can pray,” Mathers deadpanned and left the room.
24
It had been a few days of highs and extreme lows. Baine and Mathers had been rotating in and out of Eva’s room, tag-teaming the responsibilities of keeping her alive while Wylie…prayed.
None of them had left the private wing of the hospital since arriving, not even to eat. Baine thought of everything when planning this, including a cooler full of cold cuts, protein bars, and whatever else he’d tucked in there. The man was a godsend. Wylie believed that.
Though Eva wasn’t awake, she was still with them. Still fighting. And that was all any of them could ask for. Her fever spiked multiple times to the point they were cooling her with ice packs and cool wet rags. She obviously couldn’t eat or drink, but one of the IV bags was keeping her sustained.
Wylie wasn’t sure at what point Eva had become his whole life, but it had happened somewhere along the way. He knew that now because imagining a life without her was only a half a life. Even at their worst, they were always looking out for one another, claiming obligation, but really it was out of something more. Something personal. Something infinite.
He’d been stubborn—he realized that now—when he’d denied having feelings for her. He’d wasted time because he’d let his past dictate his future, and now his future looked bleak. Wylie prayed. Both docs had said to, and he was a faithful man, so he did just that. He prayed like he’d never prayed before.
It wasn’t a simple clasp your hands together and spout a dear God moment. It was more than that. It was raw. It was ugly. It was getting down on his knees in tearful prayer when he shouted to the heavens and begged. He’d even offered himself in exchange for her. Wylie wasn’t sure where Eva stood, relationship-wise, but he believed she had a far better chance at a life without him than he would without her. The trade seemed simple.
But his prayers were ignored, and Eva ignored him too. He begged her to wake up. Begged her to fight, begged her to come back to him. He had no idea what desperate was or what it looked like until he looked in the small mirror above the sink in her hospital room, and it stared back at him.
Desperate. Broken. Guilt-ridden. And lonely. He missed her, which was another shocking realization because how did you miss someone you didn’t know you cared for so deeply until they were literally hanging in the balance between here and the hereafter? It didn’t make sense to him. What had he done to borrow this trouble and earn this torture because that was what this was…torture.
Wylie vowed to God in that very moment—because he was suddenly a religious man—that he’d bury his past where it belonged and only live in the now with and for the woman who held his heart and completed his soul. She needed to survive. They needed to survive.
“You love her, don’t you?”
Wylie pulled his weapon, aiming at the door where the voice came. It was dark in the room, dimly lit by the monitors only, and the man speaking to him stood just out of view in the shadows. Wylie didn’t even wipe his tearstained face because it didn’t matter. Protecting her was what mattered.
“What? Are you pretending you still don’t love her?”
Wylie slowly rose to his feet. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“You got separated from the pack. Out here alone.”
“Because I didn’t know who to trust!” Wylie raged.
“You’ve always known who to trust. I think it was more about you wanting to do what you wanted to do. And that’s okay. But you know you can trust your brothers.”
“I’ll always trust my brothers. It’s the rest…”
“You don’t mean that, Wylie. Shit, that hurts, man. Seeing as how I saved your ass more times than I can count.”
“Saved my ass?”
“From New Mexico to Vegas, baby. I like your place here. Is it new?”
Wylie started to relax. “That was you?”
“Me and my long gun, Betty, mostly.”
Wylie holstered his weapon. “Jesus, Mercy.”
Mercy stepped out of the shadows and met his friend in an embrace. “I’ve been on your tail since the minute your ass left me at the first safe house.”
“I wondered why the guys didn’t say shit.”
Mercy laughed until he stood at the foot of Eva’s bed, and his expression faded to one of despair. “They knew I had you. Your girl here almost caught me.”
“That first night on the deck?”
“Eva looked right at me, man. Like she was on me—I felt that glare. She’s scary, man. I thought she had me.” Mercy laughed.
Wylie laughed. He knew the look.
“It gets cold out in those woods at night,” Mercy went on. “Of all the places you could hav
e gone.”
“Why’d you follow me? You should be with the team. It’s your ranch.”
“Correction, it’s my father’s ranch. And because you never leave a brother behind, I had your back.”
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t. I was running blind out there with all this shit coming from all directions.”
Mercy nodded and took a chair next to Wylie when he sat. “You can’t go off the grid like that, man. The team is clean. We all got you. We got Eva too. We would have come for her and got her out of there.”
“We would have been a day late,” Wylie said. “We were already too far behind this shit. I couldn’t leave her out there, and I couldn’t risk the team.”
“I get it, man. Everyone knows what’s going down, and they’re all taking her hit pretty hard. We all are. It feels like we failed her,” Mercy murmured.
Wylie nodded, his emotions springing again. “I think we did too. I know she fled, but still. Why didn’t she come to us when she was attacked—come to me?”
“The same reason you didn’t tell me you were leaving to find her and didn’t even tell your brothers,” Mercy said.
“I know, Merce. If I could go back and do this all different… Treat her different…
“You know what they say, Wy. Hindsight is twenty-twenty. Don’t beat yourself up too badly. We all do stupid shit and wish we hadn’t. The truth is, if you had the chance to do it all over again, you wouldn’t necessarily get it right then, either. It’s just life, bro.”
“I just wasted so much time. Time she and I could have had together.”
“Yeah, you two seem to really like that time together.” Mercy laughed.
Wylie turned to him with a look of disgust. “You fucking watched?”
Mercy returned an equally disgusted expression. “One, you were the one fucking all the time, not me. Two, I turned around, but only out of respect for Eva. You’re like a giant sasquatch in mating season. Nobody wants to see that shit…except maybe Eva since she’s clearly into sasquatch.”
Brother's Keeper V: Wylie (the complete series BOX SET): NEW RELEASE + Series Box SET included! Page 131