I heard hushed voices as I walked in, but they went silent as Kirsten heard me coming. “In here,” she called from the bathroom.
Our bathroom was small—and not particularly clean—but Hayne, Kirsten, and Matthias had all managed to cram inside. Hayne leaned against the counter, while Kirsten and Matthias crouched in front of the tub. They’d taken off the shower curtain, and I could see Jesse lying inside, covered in a mound of ice. He was facing away from the door, but as I squeezed into the room and rushed to his side, it struck me that he looked . . . dead. His eyes were closed, and I couldn’t tell if his chest was moving. Someone had stripped him down to his boxer shorts—I could see the red color glinting through the ice—and his sickly yellow, bare skin only heightened the appearance of death.
“I felt the spell break,” I blurted. “Is he—” Matthias was feeling for a pulse at Jesse’s neck. I held my breath.
“He’s alive,” Matthias announced, after what felt like an eternity. “Good. But he’s not out of the woods yet.”
“What do you need?” I demanded.
Matthias raised his eyebrows at me, but didn’t comment on my sharp tone. “A bed or cot. We need to set up a saline IV.”
“When will he wake up?”
Matthias shook his head. “That, I don’t know. I’ve never seen a fever induced by magic before. If it caused brain damage, he may not wake up at all, or he may have lost any number of functions. Or”—he shrugged—“he may be fine as soon as we get him rehydrated. But right now, the dehydration has its own threats. Let’s move him.”
I had a thousand more questions—would a werewolf bite fix brain damage?—but I swallowed them and went to pull back the covers on my bed, grateful I’d changed the sheets a few days before. I laid down a clean towel, and watched anxiously as Hayne and Matthias hauled Jesse out of the tub and got him positioned on the right side of the bed.
Hayne then retreated to the living room to make more space, and Kirsten and Molly hovered in the hall. I couldn’t take my eyes off Jesse.
“Why is he shivering?” I cried out. “His lips are blue!”
“It’s the ice,” Matthias explained, his eyes focused on getting an IV needle into Jesse’s arm. There was curiosity and a little interest in his voice. “It shouldn’t be affecting him so much. When a regular fever breaks, it goes down slowly.”
When the IV was inserted and taped down, Matthias took an instrument out of his jacket pocket and sort of swiped it across Jesse’s forehead, studying the results. “Ninety-three degrees,” he announced. “Mild hypothermia already. Interesting.”
I really don’t know why it happened in that particular moment, but suddenly I burst into tears. Great, hiccupping sobs erupted out of me while I stood there. Kirsten and Matthias stared at me in shock, and Matthias, who rarely had a hair out of place, sputtered, “He’s going to live, for Christ’s sake. It’s very mild.”
But I just kept bawling, and as if that weren’t enough, I suddenly realized that I was about to puke.
I ran into the bathroom and started heaving, while in the other room I was dimly aware of Molly telling the others that I was still getting over the flu, that I’d had a really hard day with no sleep and not much food. Or something like that. I wasn’t really listening.
Then Molly was there, in the bathroom, handing me toilet paper to wipe my face and helping me get to the sink, where she gave me a bottle of Listerine. Somehow, even as I rinsed out my mouth, I was still crying.
“You okay?” she asked quietly. I just shook my head. Molly gave me a sympathetic smile. “Look on the bright side. At least you’re not pregnant.”
I let out another choked sob, which I think she took as a laugh.
“Come on,” she said, putting an arm around my waist. I let her steer us back into my bedroom, which was now empty except for Jesse, who had an IV drip in his right arm. Matthias had even set up what looked like an extendable IV tree on the side of the bed. Jesse’s color was a little better, but his lips still had a bluish tint. I could hear low voices in the living room.
“Matthias said we just have to wait and see about the brain damage,” Molly said softly. She pulled back the covers on the empty side of the bed. “Get in,” she ordered.
I just looked at her, completely overwhelmed. “I know, you have to find Shadow and face the music with Dashiell, but you can’t do any of that if you can’t stand up,” she said, not unreasonably. “And you need to be with Jesse right now. It’s only a little after midnight. You can sleep for a couple of hours before you go see Dashiell. I’ll call him and buy you some time.”
She was right, but I still shifted my weight from side to side, looking at Jesse. “I’m afraid,” I whispered.
“Afraid of hurting him, or afraid to touch him?” Molly asked in an amused voice. I gave her a startled look, and she rolled her eyes at me. “Just get in, Scarlett. God knows he needs the warmth.”
Guilt lanced through me again, and I crawled onto the bed next to Jesse. “You wanna, you know, take off some of your clothes?” she suggested, but I just shot her a glare. Molly gave me a little have it your way shrug and departed, closing the door behind her.
Despite all the insane things that were happening around me, I suddenly felt like an awkward teenager. Jesse and I been friends for years. We had once gone out on a date and even kissed a couple of times, but we’d never shared a bed, especially when one of us was nearly naked. Cautiously, I put my hand on his arm. I was still flushed from all the crying and vomiting, and I was startled by how cool his skin felt. It was scary.
“Jesse?” There was no response. I shook the arm gently, and said a little louder, “Jesse.”
Nothing.
Oh, God. What if he didn’t wake up? What if he really had suffered brain damage? I’d come so close to losing him, and I still could.
Forgetting my awkwardness, I scooted closer to him. He was so cold. I moved his arm and nestled into his chest, pulling the blankets close around us. I tried to think warm thoughts.
And then, despite the whirlwind of madness that still swirled around us, I drifted to sleep.
Chapter 16
Jesse woke up slowly.
He first became aware of a woman’s body pressed against him in an unfamiliar dark room. The only light came from a crack in the doorway, creating a limited stripe of visibility that just showed him sheets and a cloud of long, dark hair. It was disorienting. Had he had a one-night stand? He hadn’t done anything like that in years. On the other hand, he did feel sort of hungover . . .
Jesse caught the familiar smell of Scarlett’s shampoo, and felt something sticking out of his right hand, and—wait . . .
Scarlett was pressed against him? And was he . . . naked? Jesse shifted a little. Okay, almost naked.
Then it all began to come back to him. Shadow. The twisted slumber.
He had seen her dead.
Panic struck him for a second, but he carefully curled his hand to brush the dark hair away from her face. She was deeply asleep, one arm thrown across him, her slow, regular breathing warming the skin on his chest.
For a long moment, Jesse just lay there, fighting the tears of relief that threatened to overwhelm him. She was alive. She was okay.
And so was he. The twisted slumber had felt so real while he was in it, but now it had no more power than a bad nightmare. Trying not to move too much, he flexed his right hand and felt the sticky tape and the tube connected to it. An IV. That made sense, if he’d been dehydrated.
Low voices were coming from the hallway.
“Matthias checked on them a few minutes ago,” said a familiar voice. Kirsten, the witch leader.
“What did he say?” This was Molly.
“Jesse’s recovering well—much faster than he would from normal dehydration, which lends weight to the idea that the hex was boosting the condition. But they’re both still out.” Her voice turned wry. “Matthias said he’s half-wondering if Scarlett should be getting saline fluids as well.”
“She’ll be fine. She just needs rest.”
“Yes, well, Dashiell has called three times in the last hour. We’ll have to wake her up soon.”