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Although I know it only administers one dose every few hours, my thumb squeezes the little button multiple times. The medicine works almost immediately, a warmth spreading through my veins, soothing the worst of the searing pain. There is still an ache, or perhaps just the memory of an ache, present in my thigh, but it's at least tolerable now.
My mind relaxes as much as my body does, and I drift off to sleep with my head off to the side, watching the others sleep wrapped tightly around each other.
Thank the stars we're all alive.
The next time I wake, there is a flurry of activity around me. There are nearly a dozen people moving about the room, setting up various equipment and rolling another large hospital bed into the room.
They position the bed parallel to mine. With so many people milling about between us, I can't get a good view of what is happening.
Six, Lukas, Micah, and Luis are all standing on the other side of the room, next to their makeshift bed. It's a lot like the one we made in the cabin, and that causes a brief flutter in my chest.
It takes me too long to focus on their faces and notice the worried looks. Unsurprisingly, Luis mostly just looks angry.
Six notices that I'm awake and moves through the throng of people to stand by my bedside. She fusses over me, making sure I’m okay, and helps me raise the head of the bed so I am almost sitting.
“What's happening?”
“They're moving Bennet in for recovery,” she says as the other guys come to stand around us.
“Well, that seems like a good thing. Why does everyone look so glum?”
Luis nods his head towards the other bed as some of the staff clear out, “Look at him.”
Bennet is unrecognizable.
They’ve covered his head in a white net that looks to be made of a thick material, maybe plastic, not bandages. His eyes are taped shut. And worst of all, there's a huge tube coming out of his mouth, pulling one side of his mouth down, a white strap holding it in place.
The tube runs into a machine with multiple screens and an opaque blue compartment that makes rhythmic hissing sounds.
The rest of his body is covered in white blankets pulled up to his chin, and it occurs to me that I might not be ready to see whatever is under those blankets.
“Dr. Franks!” Six exclaims in a hushed voice, hurrying over to hug the man. He embraces her with an almost fatherly expression.
Not who I was expecting to see, that's for sure.
“What is Dr. Franks doing here?” I quietly ask Lukas, who is standing closest to me.
“Tony called him in. Apparently Bennet had him on standby in case we needed him for anything, probably only thinking about Six, but when Tony told him that Bennet was in trouble, he dropped everything and chartered his own last-minute flight.”
“No shit.”
The man himself approaches my bedside and holds his hand out for me to shake.
“Mr. Boyd, I'm glad to see you awake and well.” His handshake is firm and warm.
“Thank you for being here, Dr. Franks. I can't tell you how comforting it is to see your face.”
“How are you feeling?”
“I'm alright for now. What's going on with Bennet?” I cut to the chase, not wanting to discuss myself. I might be in pain, but I'm alive and talking. My brother, on the other hand…
“I think he's through the worst of it, but he is in a medically induced coma. We've introduced the medications to bring him out of the coma, but it may take another day or so for him to wake—if he can. It's tough to say how long he'll be on the ventilator after that.”
“What do you mean 'if'?” Micah asks, his eyebrows furrowed in worry.
“A lot has happened in the last twenty-four hours.” He looks unsure for a moment, cutting his eyes towards the several staff members that are still in the room working on various tasks. “We brought Mr. Adley into surgery the moment you all arrived. We had to open him up to look for the source of severe internal bleeding. During the surgery, he went into cardiac arrest…”
Dr. Franks' pause is perhaps more painful than my leg.
