Aristocrat | ✓

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

     I did not remember much of anything for the next few days. I spent the time behind my closed eyes thinking of the past, and how my present would move forward. Most of the time I was asleep, but when I was awake, I was too tired to lift my eyelids open. Day and night passed by without me knowing much of the difference, and I waited in bed to get better—the cold had indeed spread to my chest and I was coughing up thick mucus. I had a headache, and my jaw hurt from coughing.

     There was sloshing in my chest I couldn't make go away unless I coughed, but if I coughed it would scrap my throat which hurt more.

     One could just say I was extremely uncomfortable.

     "It's bad, but I don't think it's the sort of pneumonia we're scared of," I remember Marie saying to me as she wiped the sweat off my forehead with a rag. "There's white forming in your throat. It could be pneumonia, but it's more of a cold symptom. You've just got a bad fever messing with your tonsils. It's just a very bad bug, but you should be fine in a few weeks, Fredrick said so."

     I did remember Fredrick coming over. He touched my forehead and tended to my wounds as he spoke to Evenus who only hummed in agreement with everything he said.

     "His wound is getting infected. We'll have to let some blood out before it gets worse," he had said as I winced in bed when I tried to move.

     "He's in a lot of pain..." I had heard Lord Evenus trail. "Do we really?"

     "It's that or burning mercury in the future." Fedrick's words had been final, and bloodletting had been performed on my leg wound. I had cried and shook, with only Evenus to hold on to me for comfort.

     My treatment regime was simple: keeping me warm as Fredrick had recommended. Hot drinks, hot food, warm blankets, warm rags—and who could forget, alcohol.

     Lord Evenus would hold me at night, and those were the few moments I was strong enough to open my eyes. My will to look at him and see him was strong.

     Most times he would just sit on the stool beside my bed while giving me a blank look, and in others, he was actively trying to make me better by dabbing my forehead with a warm cloth and helping me drink alcohol.

     Today he roamed around my room in slow steps, before finally sitting beside me when the sunset.

     "You're crying..." I trailed, staring at him in the candlelight. It was late at night, and Lord Evenus was still sitting on the stoop beside my bed. His hands were clasped in front of his face, and he was silent as tears streamed down his face.

     "What am I going to do if you die?" he asked, and my eyes went wide before I turned my head on the pillow. My head hurt, and throat was aching. This was clearly not the time for conversations of the heart like this, but I felt Lord Evenus wanted to do this since, as he put it, I might die.

     "Manfred, you need to answer me," he said, making me turn to face him again. I could see the heartache in his dark eyes. I could see that he was desperately trying to hold himself together for me. A part of me sank at the possibility that he would lock himself up again if I didn't get better.

     If I didn't leave.

     Marie had said Sawyer's death had been hard on him. It was the start of his night terrors even. A part of me was afraid. I didn't want to die and figure out how much he would grieve for me. The mere thought of it broke my heart.

     "You'll bury me," I insisted, watching as Bennett narrowed his eyes at me. "You'll bury me, and you'll bury Sawyer..." I trailed. "Don't give your heart to dead people." I reached out my hand on the bed, silently pleading for him to hold it. He understood this, and took my hand in his, giving it a squeeze as I closed my tired eyelids for the night.