The 18th Floor

Chapter Sixty

LUCIENS POV

I started to make us dinner whilst Cyrene took a shower, insisting it's just a light headache and a nap will help. She's asleep on the sofa now with Atticus at her feet, as I continue to prep the rest of meal, my eyes glancing up every so often to her, remembering the time she first fell asleep on it and how far we've come since then.

Sometimes I still can't believe she's here and that she's real. That after so many years we met again and she's so much more than she appeared. And she's mine.

I set the table up for us and call over to her, but she doesn't stir.

"Cyrene, love, come on let's eat something", I say as I approach her and bend down to kiss her forehead. Fucking hell, she's burning up even more.

"Cyrene, darling", I say again panic filling me slightly. She mumbles something but I can't understand.

"Say it again", I say, now crouched in front of her next to the sofa, my hands cupping her face.

"It hurts", she rasps out.

"What hurts?"

"It all hurts", she says with no energy to explain further. Fuck, this is bad.

Before she moved in, she had told me that the extent of her injuries extend further than just paralysis. How it can have a knock-on effect on the rest of her body. How her lungs may not work as well, how her legs and back may constantly feel like they're in pain, how even sitting down or laying down for long periods of times is hard for her. It broke my heart to heart. To hear how she's in pain nearly every breathing minute and there's nothing I can do for her.

I kiss her forehead again, not caring if she's infectious, only caring about how I wish I could take her pain. I quickly go over to the kitchen and get a towel to wet and put over her head. As I lay it down, I notice she's started to shiver despite the thick blanket on top.

"Cyrene, this isn't good. We need to go to the doctors."

"No", she whispers out.

"No? Cyrene, darling, we need to get you better."

"No hospitals", she says almost in tears. No hospitals. It's a feeling known all too well. A place where we go to get help to make someone, we love better and then leave without.

I run my hands through my hair muttering to myself.

I go to riffle through the medical cabinet for any more painkillers or something to bring her temperature down. She's still drifting in and out of sleep as I hold her up in my lap to take some more pills, bringing them and the water to her lips as she musters a slither of energy to take them in.

I run my hand through her hair which is now drenched in sweat, her breathing laboured and the coughs becoming more regular.

"Cyrene, please let me take you to A&E", I beg and she shakes her head in her shivering body, panic rising in my chest as her head rests on my lap. I run my hand down her back, slowly peeling her long sleeve top off of her and leaving her in her pyjama bottoms and a vest.

I tie her hair back, not as neat as she does every morning, but enough so that it's not sticking to her face and wet body. I brought a few more wet towels and run them along the surface of her body, trying desperately to cool her down. She winces every time it touches her burning skin and causing me to hold my breath every time.

I lift up her vest gently to place one on her back, gently draping it over the faint scars that mark her skin. My heart broke the first time I saw them clearly, the lines running down her spine and across her back from hip to hip. From the accident and the countless operations that followed. They've vanished over the years but a small bump in the skin remains and I run my fingers along the lines, wishing I could give her some reprieve. I kiss them as I've done countless times we've made love, reminding her of how beautiful she is and then go to kiss her hands. The insides that have formed hard callouses and sometimes blisters from pushing her chair. Her coughing pulls me out of the trace of me marvelling at her beauty.

Then she coughs up blood.

"Fuck this shit", I say and scoop her up in my arms, her breathing coming in harder and strained. I take my phone and the car keys from the table and head out to the car parked out front. I gently lay her down across the back seats.

"You're going to be ok, don't worry. You'll be fine", I say to her over a kiss, assuring myself as much as her. She's so out of it I don't know if she can even hear me or is aware of what's happening.

I get into the driver seat and start driving, dialling her dad.

"Hey", I say and my breathing must show something's not right because he asks me straight away what's wrong. I summarise the situation.

"She has a suppressed immune system, Lucien. You should have taken her sooner", he says.

"I'm on my way to A&E right now", I say over the speaker, suddenly feeling the parental guilt. "She didn't want to go", I say quietly.

I hear him sigh, "I know. I'm leaving now, I'll meet you at the hospital." We hang up the phone.

I look back over to her at the red lights that seem to stop me more than usual and start praying to whoever is listening that she'll be fine. At the sound of her every whimper and cough I feel my body seize up.

"Hold on Cyrene, nearly there."

I park up in the hospital and rush over to the back seats, opening the door to hold her burning body close to my chest in my arms.

"Fuck Cyrene" I say at the heat she's radiating and start running to the entrance. Her dad's already here and I see his face go through the emotions he's spent the last 6 years dealing with.

"I called her doctor, he's already waiting come on", he says as he plants a kiss on her forehead, Cyrene still tightly in my arms and leads me down a corridor that doesn't seem to end.