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“Fallon?” he asked.
I cupped my hand around his briefly—his eyes flaring at the contact. I’d learned he didn’t like unsolicited touches, so I pulled his palm away from my face, severing the connection. “I’m here. Your wound is infected. That’s why you have a high-grade fever right now. I’m going to give you something to help you fight the infection.”
His eyes flared so wide that I could see the whites all the way around. He began shaking his head, his lips pressing into a hard line.
“Orin? Please. These will help.”
He looked at me as if I was asking if he wanted me to put a bullet in his skull. His terror was on every strained line on his face.
“You have to take something. What about an aspirin? That’ll help with the fever.”
Again, he shook his head. If he had the drugs in his cupboard, I didn’t think it was a fear of swallowing the pill that was the issue. There was something more to it.
I licked my lips. “What if you took them? You could take them out of the packaging yourself?”
His eyes suddenly rolled back in his head, and he grew still. I felt so helpless that I wanted to cry. I wasn’t going to force him to take the medicine—that wasn’t what being a nurse was about. Orin had towantto take them, but he couldn’t do that until he was awake again.
So, I did the only thing I could do. I made him comfortable. In the hall cupboard, I found the extra bed sheets. Unfolding one, I draped it over his body, leaving it folded at the waist, then went into the bathroom to wet a rag to put on his brow.
By the time I returned to the bedroom, he had kicked off the sheet in his restlessness. His body was glistening with sweat, his wound pulling the edges of his exposed skin. Folding the cool rag over on itself, I placed it on his brow and tried to soothe him. I didn’t know what would work, so I started to sing a song my mother had sung to me when I was unwell. At first, the song was halting and unsure, but as more and more of the words came back to me, the melody revealed itself. Leaving the rag on his forehead, I started to stroke his shoulder, running my fingers over his tattoos and tracing the lines of the clan wolf.
Orin’s restlessness seemed to settle with each passing second until he was sleeping peacefully. I rose from the edge of the mattress to leave him to sleep, but he reached for me—his fingers and grip surprisingly strong. When I felt eyes on me, I looked at his face.
“Don’t leave …” He couldn’t finish his sentence before he was asleep once more.
His arm dropped, and I stepped away from the bed. I let him rest, retreating from the room and closing the door behind me. In the kitchen, I opened all the cupboards to find out what was in each, then put away the meager groceries he had bought. I wasn’t sure we could survive on protein bars and fruit for long, but it was a start.
Once the counter was clear, I made myself a cup of tea, then realized there was no milk. I remembered passing a small corner store on the way here and wondered whether I could make it back there on my own. The keys along with a few coins were on the counter, and I swiped them up on my way to the door.
Getting into the car, I turned it around so I wouldn’t have to reverse down the drive, then headed back the way we’d come in. Once I was on a sealed road surface again, it was only a few miles before I saw the shop. Pulling up to the curb, I got out and entered the store.
An elderly man was busy stacking shelves, while an equally elderly woman stood at the ready behind the counter. She gave me a smile when I walked past her on the way to the fridges at the back of the store.
“You’re a new face,” she called out, still smiling.
I pulled open the glass door, snagged a bottle of milk, then turned around. “Yeah. Just visiting a friend.”
“Anyone we might know?” she asked, punching the price of the milk into the ancient-looking cash register.
“No, I don’t think so.” I handed over the two Euro coin and placed whatever was left into the small ceramic bowl near my elbow. “Thanks for the milk.”
“No problem, dear. We hope to see you in here again soon.”
By the time I made it back to the cabin, my stomach was growling. I put the milk into the
small fridge, then pulled out one of the frozen meals Orin had bought.
After popping it into the microwave, I hit a couple of buttons and got things started. The hum of the microwave filled the space, and while it heated up my lunch, I went to check on Orin. He was shivering, and I picked up the kicked-off sheet and laid it over the bottom of the bed. His forehead still felt terribly hot against the backs of my fingers, and my gaze slid down to the wound. It was redder than it had been—angrier looking—and I knew the infection was taking hold.
If I couldn’t bring his temperature down and treat the infection, I would have to take him to hospital. Out in the kitchen, the microwavedingedhappily, and I went to retrieve my lunch. Curling up on the couch, I ate straight out of the container, shoveling the food in as soon as I swallowed the last mouthful. It tasted bland, but somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to care.
Once I was done eating, I dumped the container into the trash and washed up my fork. It was a little after one in the afternoon, and I had no idea what to do with myself. There wasn’t a TV that I could see—only a couple of board games and three one-thousand-piece puzzles. I decided on one of the puzzles. It was a pastel-colored, upside-down cityscape that reminded me a little bit of Escher’sRelativity.
I sat at the small, round wooden table, upended the contents of the box, and began.
SIX
ORIN
