Red in the Blue

Chapter 10

CW: mention of needles in medical setting

I was barely aware of our arrival at New Haven sometime in the early hours of the morning. I heard Elias' door and felt the vehicle shift as he climbed out of it. I didn't open my eyes. My head was thick with hazy pain and exhaustion. My shoulder throbbed, but it dulled next to the ache of the rest of my body. I wasn't sure I'd be able to move. When Elias pulled my door open a moment later, I realized a sound of pain had slipped out of my mouth. I squinted up at him.

"I'm going to get your belt," he said, leaning across me to unbuckle me, his body filling the cab over me but barely touching me. I sagged against his shoulder.

"Lore?" he said, and I realized my eyes had shut. I wrenched them open again. "I'm going to carry you inside."

I tried to cobble together some coherent thought around the resistance that knotted in my chest when he said that, but all I managed—internally or audibly—was, "no."

"Can you walk?"

I tried to get out of the car, but my body didn't move. It felt like wet sand weighed me to the seat. I groaned a little as I tried again to sit up.

"Can I carry you?" He asked again. I sighed, tearing up, so utterly spent, and nodded up at him. He slid his arms under my legs and behind my lower back and lifted. I didn't even have the strength to loop my arms around his neck. My head lolled against his chest, and I let my eyes close again as I felt him mount a few steps and pass through the door he had opened before coming back for me. He moved through a house that, behind my closed lids, was mostly dark, smelled clean, was quiet, and lowered me onto the made bed in the bedroom.

I wanted a shower. I wanted my clothes off. I wanted to remember what it was like not to be too hot and too cold and clammy and stiff and tight and aching and and and. But I couldn't move to do those things on my own, and I couldn't ask Elias. The hoodie though, I couldn't stand on me anymore.

"Can you please help me take my sweatshirt off?"

He hesitated, and I opened my eyes. He helped me to sit up, helped to ease the hoodie off as I raised my arms and bowed my head. He tugged my t-shirt back into place and held me steady while I pushed the covers down, pulling them out of my way at the same time so I could collapse back under the sheets.

"Covers on or off?"

"On, please."

I needed the weight, to feel something holding me. I felt them fall pleasantly over me.

"I'm going to call Cade. I'll be back. But you should sleep."

I made a sound of assent but was already dosing back off.

I slept for hours. It was a jagged, fitful sleep interrupted by the fluctuations of my body temperature and the aches jarred by turning or stretching. The house stayed silent and dark. The door stayed closed.

I kept waiting for daylight, but it never came. Instead, when I was parched and urgently needed to use the bathroom, I heaved myself up into a sitting position and staggered to the bathroom. I gulped water from the sink after I washed my hands and started the walk back to bed. I saw my bags sitting on a bench along the window and riffled through for my phone. There was a soft knock at the door as I clicked the screen on and saw that—shockingly—it was early afternoon.

"Come in," I said as loudly as I could stand to.

Elias opened the door slowly, and filtered light flooded in. I winced and sat hard on the bench next to my things as he stepped inside and pulled the door closed behind him.