For some reason, I laughed. I let out a short bark of laughter before giggling behind my hand, not sure if it was exhaustion and stress that caused me to fall in the near-hysterics at the comment, or if it was funny because it was also the truth. Jack also chuckled.
“I wouldn’t be so hard on yourself about not changing the world,” Jack said, smiling gently. “The world is going to go on long after we die anyway. Things will change, and most things will stay the same even though people try to disguise it as change. The best you can do is live your life as fully, yet safely, as possible with the time that you have.”
I smiled at him, wanting to reach forward and hug him, but also too tired and cold to even think about moving.
“I know that we more-or-less fell into your lap,” I said. “But I’m really thankful that it was you it was your barn that we broke into.”
It was Jack’s turn to laugh.
“Really, I should thank you,” he said. “Let’s just say, you’re a breath of fresh air.”
Jack went back into the house and returned with a few heavy quilts and some of his pajamas, saying that he would go into town and buy some clothes for us if he had time, since ours were completely soaked through, torn, and blood covered.
I thanked him over and over again, gratefully taking the pajamas and the pile of blankets.
Jack told us he would check on us early in the morning when he came out to feed the horses and then bid us both good night, even though Mark was still asleep.
I changed into the pajamas, thankful to be out of my damp close. Even though the flannel was a little itchy and the pajamas were clearly one of Jack’s older pair, it was nice to be in some warm clothes. I rifled through the contents of my backpack to see if I could find something to tame my hair, now that we were out of the storm and ran a quick come through my knotted hair.
Then I went over to Mark and gently took his shoulder
“Mark,” I called. His face tightened as he fought to wake up. “Mark, you have to wake up. We have to change you out of the wet clothes.”
Mark could hardly open his eyes and he was only able to open them long enough to turn onto his side before slipping back into unconsciousness. I was torn between letting him sleep and being sure he changed out of his wet clothes, worried that his fever would only get worse.
“Mark!” I said a little more sharply, shaking his shoulder. He lifted his head briefly and then went unconscious yet again.
With an irritated groan I climbed onto the bed and pushed him so he was flat on his back. His shirt was already half off from Jack treating his bullet wounds, so I managed to roll him just a little further in order to pull the shirt and jacket free of his other arm, tossing the clothes to the floor. I felt him shiver, so I grabbed one of the smaller blankets that Jack had left us and gently ran it over his skin, avoiding his large wounds and the scratches on his skin. I tried not to take note of all of the scars I saw, some of which I knew were from the beating he had received when Dana had stolen his voice.
When I was sure that he was dry enough, I found the sweatshirt that Jack had left for him. However, I had to stare at the experiment for a while, trying to figure out how I was going to dress and unconscious person.
Adjusting my position, I grabbed Mark’s uninjured shoulder and began to pull him upright. His face tightened in pain but I persisted, having to use most of my strength to lift the dead weight. He moved his good arm as of trying to push me away, but I easily pushed his hand aside.
“It’s just me,” I assured him, trying to control my exasperated tone. “Just getting you out of the wet clothes.”
Pushing my shoulder against his to keep in the sitting position, I bunched up the sweatshirt and tried to move the arms out of the way before lifting it and pulling it over Mark‘s head, leaving it bunched up around his neck while I grabbed his arm. He moved his arm again and then tried to make a movement of putting on the sweatshirt himself, though his weak hands fell flat to the tiny bed once again. I almost had to laugh, figuring that if there was anyone who would still try to dress himself after severe blood loss because he was too worried about anybody else getting close to him, it would be Mark.
“Quit being such a baby,” I teased. “Just let me help you.”
Taking his wrist, I had to lift his arm high into the air, his elbow getting stuck in the neck of the sweatshirt before I was able to pull it free and get his hand out of the rest of the sleeve. Shuffling behind him, I had to be very careful about moving his second arm, wary of the bullets holes in his body.
He fought a little harder on the second arm, mostly out of pain, but he was also too delirious to put up too much of a struggle against my dressing him.
When I finally won the battle of getting the sweatshirt on him, I nearly dropped him back to the bed, barely catching the back of his head before it hit the pillow so as not to jar him too badly.
“Sorry,” I whispered. I was unable to keep from smiling a little. Mark was always the one taking care of everyone else, and seeing that he even tried not to be a burden after such a horrendous experience made me realize just what an amazing person Mark was.
I was faced with a new challenge trying to get Mark into some dry pants. As I undid his belt buckle and begin to pull the wet garment down, his hands reached forward, trying to swat at me once more. I ground my teeth together, pushing his hands away.
“Stop being so difficult,” I groaned. “You’re going to make your fever worse if you stay in these wet clothes. Just let someone help you for once in your life.”
I already knew it was difficult to pull wet jeans off of my own legs, but pulling them off of someone else was an even greater challenge. His deadweight did not help in the slightest as I tried to lift his legs to free the trapped fabric, shifting back-and-forth between pulling at the ankles and pulling at the waistband until finally they gave free with a sudden jolt and I nearly fell to the floor with a shout.
Mark managed to barely open his eyes, though it was clear he was delirious and confused as they continued to roll around in the sockets. His hands were reaching, looking for the dry pajama pants, his fingers finally latching onto the fabric and pulling you closer to him.
“What did I just say?” I grumbled, trying to grab the pants from him. His fingers tightened in the fabric in a weak attempt to keep them away from me. He managed to barely lift one leg as he tried to them on himself.
“I cannot believe you are the stubborn after losing all that blood,” I said, laughing in disbelief.
His eyes slowly slid shut and he faded into a world of unconsciousness. His fingers slipped from the fabric and I was able to quickly get them more than halfway up his legs before he woke up. At that point, I had to contend with swatting his hands away as I pushed his hips up one at a time to get him fully clothed in the dry pajamas.
However, I also had to get the quilt out from underneath him, as it, too, was soaked with rain water. Rolling him back-and-forth on the bed as I tried to shimmy the quilt out from under him was almost comical considering just how weak he was.
But finally, I was able to get him wrapped in a dry blanket after putting him in the dry pajamas. Once I was sure that he was situated and settled, I grabbed a blanket for myself, lying next to him.
“Hey, Mark,“ I muttered, exhaustion evident in my voice, “I know that you probably can’t really hear me right now, or maybe you can but you probably won’t remember this.” I licked my lips, suddenly fighting my heavy eyelids. “You really are all I have left. And I can’t tell you what it means to me that you would do so much to protect me.” My eyes begin the slide shut. “I don’t know what I would do without you. So I need you to promise me something. Promise me that you’re going to recover from this,” I said, my voice becoming quieter and quieter with each word, until I was wondering if I was even speaking aloud or just thinking the words I wanted to tell Mark. “I need you to live. I need you to live for me.”
Chapter Eighty-One
It was diff
icult to wake up the next morning even when I heard the shuffling of someone outside. I was so warm and content in the quilt and exhausted from the previous several days that opening my eyes felt like my eyelids were lifting thousand pounds each.
However, the jiggling of a key in the lock of the door forced my eyes open a little quicker. I turned to look over my shoulder as Jack walked in.
Once he saw that we were both still sleeping, his face became almost comical as he hunched his shoulders and ducked his head, as if staying upright would create more noise.
“Sorry,” he hissed. “Did I wake you?”
Forcing my sore and exhausted body to move, I began to turn over. It was only then that I realized that I, too, was injured and had not done anything to treat my wounds. My legs were stinging from where the broken glass and iron fence had cut me, and my hands were sore along the scabbed cuts in my palms. To try and hide the fact that I was in pain, I stayed rolled up in the quilt, turning to face Jack as I spoke.
“It’s all right,” I said with a nod.
Jack walked in slowly, looking at the paper bag still containing food from the previous night.
“Did he not eat?”
I shook my head. “I couldn’t get him to wake up long enough to eat.”
“How do you think he’s doing?” Jack asked, walking to the bed.
Feeling uncomfortable with laying down while Jack loomed over us, I force myself to sit up, keeping the blanket around my shoulders as I glanced over my shoulder at Mark.
“Well,” I started, “I got him changed into some dry clothes, so that should help with the fever a little bit, I hope.”
“That’s good,” Jack agreed. “But we really should get him up so he can eat something. It’s not like his body is going to produce new blood without nourishment.”
I moved out of the way, trying to free my arms from the quilt to wake Mark, but I hissed in pain when my legs brushed together, causing pain to radiate through me. Jack immediately turned.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I lied. “Just a little sore.”
Jack looked me over suspiciously, clearly not convinced. However, he nodded and motioned to what he had placed on the desk.
“These are some of my sister’s clothes. I’m not sure that they’ll fit. You might be a bit taller than her, but it should at least give you something dry and comfortable to wear until we can find a better solution. I figured I’d wash your clothes at some point today. I don’t know if they’re worth saving, particularly his with the bullet holes, but I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you,” I said.
As Jack began to look over Mark, I went to the clothes, still keeping the quilt around me, not quite ready to leave the cocoon of warmth I had found myself in. I grabbed the jeans and shirt, going toward the bathroom, though the lack of a door forced me to press myself into the corner to change in some privacy. However when I looked down at myself I saw that some of the pajama fabric was stained red from the untreated cuts I had on my body. While most of the stains were around the legs, but there were some blood stains on my right side from a cut I had not even realized I had.
Sparing a quick glance at Jack to make sure that he was preoccupied with treating Marik, I pulled up the side of the pajama shirt and found a long, shallow cut along my ribcage with a scrape just below it. Then, pulling down the pajama pants far enough to see the cuts on my thighs, I noticed that they were much deeper than I initially thought. And even though they had scabbed over in some places, they were still bleeding when I moved.
I pulled up the flannel pants and then turned to Jack just as he was about to say something, also turning to look at me.
“Jack?” I started. “I really hate to ask this, but I also have some cuts and I was wondering if you could help me tend to them.”
I had expected Jack to look exasperated and irritated about asking to do more wound care. However, he seem mortified, instead.
“What? Where?”
I walked over and pulled up the shirt to show him the scratch on my rib cage and then motioned to the blood on pajama fabric on my legs.
“Holy shit!” he hissed. “Why did you not mention this sooner? Are you feeling okay? Are you dizzy or feeling weak?”
“I guess a little,” I admitted. “I didn’t really think much of it. I was focused on Mark.”
“Here, sit here,” Jack said, patting the bed.
I did as I was told, waiting for him to gather what he needed from the shelves of veterinary supplies. I glanced at Mark, noticing that his color was already looking better, despite him still being so deeply asleep even with all the noise around him.
Jack quickly set to work on treating my wounds, cleaning them and putting antiseptic on each one, gingerly wrapping the wounds in bandages or gauze, depending on the severity of each wound.
For some reason, I was not embarrassed about him treating the deep cut on my thigh, though he continued to tell me to let him know if I was ever uncomfortable. He seemed far more nervous.
When he was satisfied with the treatment, he grabbed the paper bag that he brought the previous night, and rifled through it, handing me another buttered dinner roll, though it was cold. I ate the roll with less ferocity than the previous night, though my stomach angrily growled for more food.
“I’m pretty sure I have some bacon that I can cook up this morning,” Jack said, musing aloud to himself. “And eggs. Do you like eggs?”
I nodded silently, my mouth is still full.
“Okay,” he started, “I’m going to finish my morning chores and then I’m going to go cook up some bacon and eggs for you and my parents. Then I’m going to run to the store and see if I can get a few things for you.”
“I don’t want you to be in any danger,” I insisted. “I’m sure that there are a lot of Commission officials in this area looking for the Central Angels. You don’t need to buy us anything.”
“It’s okay,” he assured. “I will not buy anything I wouldn’t normally buy.”
“I don’t have any money to pay you back.”
“It’s all right,” Jack assured. “I want to do this for you.” He pointed at the sleeping Mark. “However, when I bring you bacon and eggs, I need you to get him awake and get him to eat.”
“I will force-feed him if I have to,” I assured.
Jack did as he promised and brought us hot bacon and eggs for breakfast. I could not wait for Mark to wake before digging into my own serving, ravenously inhaling the food, certain that it was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted on the planet.
As I was chewing on another buttered roll, I sat on the bed next to Mark and shook him awake, becoming more and more violent with the shaking until finally he opened his eyes and was able to focus his gaze on me.
Even though he could not sit upright without getting dizzy enough to nearly pass out, I made sure he ate, holding the bacon in front of him so he could eat before carefully feeding him eggs on the plastic fork. He also appeared to be very hungry, as he ate without complaint and finished everything that Jack had brought.
He fell asleep once he finished the food and slept for another several hours, opening his eyes when Jack returned later that day.
Mark woke up when Jack asked how everything was going and then helped Jack by cooperating when the cowboy wanted to check the wounds and change the dressings. He was still weak, and had his eyes half-closed through most of the treatment.
“It looks like there’s no infection,” Jack announced, placing new gauze over the bullet wounds. “Does everything feel alright? Is your pain really bad?”
Mark shook his head.
Jack finished tending to the wound and then sat back in the squeaking desk chair and sighed.
“I don’t know what more I can do to help that…” he muttered, nodding to the wound.
Mark shook his head, reaching for the notebook he would have kept in his jacket pocket by habit only to realize that the notebook was not there and he w
as wearing different clothes. He stared down at himself. His look of confusion had me smiling before I could stop myself.
“I had to put you in some dry clothes,” I told him. I leaned over and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen from the desk, handing it to him. He took it quickly and jotted down his question before turning it to me with a horrified expression.
“You changed my clothes?”
“They were soaked through. You had a fever. Of course I changed your clothes,” I laughed. “And you were no help whatsoever, by the way.”
Jack and I were both chuckling at his expression as Mark lowered his hands and stared into the space around him, dumbfounded.
“Also you were unconscious and pushing my hands away the whole time. Now I know that that you are stubborn even while asleep.”
Jack shook his head, smiling, leaning forward and tapping Mark’s arm to get his attention.
“Let’s focus on the bleeding holes in your chest,” he said. “How bad is the pain? Is there anything else I can do to help?”
“My pain is manageable. And I heal fast. You have done more than enough to help.”
“What about food? Are you hungry?”
“I’m alright, thank you.”
Jack nodded, clearly still nervous around Mark. He looked between the both of us before standing.
“I’ll leave you both to rest. It might get kinda hot in here, maybe muggy, too, after that storm. But you can turn the fan on,” he motioned to the fan on the desk. “I’ll bring you some lunch, too.”
Mark slept through most of the day again, which meant that I slept the hours away as well. We both woke to eat and for Jack to check our bandages at night once more. Jack said that he has researched the best foods after severe blood loss and would go grocery shopping for food for us the following day.
Mark was clearly feeling better the next day, since he got up and got dressed in the clothes that Jack had brought for him. Jack was surprised at how fast the bullet holes were healing.
“Is there anything we can do around here to help you?” Mark asked as Jack was bringing us dinner.
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