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Dr. Williams liked to talk while he worked. “What about Ivan? He doesn’t look so good. I’m not sure I believe him that he can last until she gets well enough to work her magic on him. Do you have any other way for me to look at him without him killing me?”
I felt Sephie squeeze my hand faintly. When she did, the memory of Misha recording her playing the piano came into my head. I knew Sephie put it there. Even unconscious, she was still trying to help Ivan. “I have one idea that might work. He’s generally okay with minor stuff. If it’s something that would require anesthesia on a normal person, that’s where the real problem is. She’s the only one that’s ever been able to calm him like she does.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. What’s your idea, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“She plays piano. She’s incredibly talented. Ivan gets stuck in his memories when he has to go to the hospital. He’ll wake up fighting like he did with you regularly. It’s a waking nightmare for him. In his mind, he’s back in his past, fighting for his life. In reality, he’s fighting us and we’re just trying to keep him from hurting himself or someone else. She can break him out of it, but it means she can’t sleep while he sleeps. One of the guys recorded her playing the piano and that’s enough to keep him from getting sucked back into his nightmare. He knows she’s close by as long as he can hear her playing,” I said.
Dr. Williams had continued to take x-rays of Sephie’s entire body while I was talking. He stopped briefly to look at me. “That’s incredible.” He motioned toward Sephie. “I need to turn her onto her side,” he said, indicating for me to help him. Her body was covered in bruises already. When he saw her back, he gasped. “Holy shit,” he said, looking to me again.
“Her uncle,” I said.
“Fuuuuuuck,” he half-whispered as he continued taking x-rays.
Once he was done, he let me know what needed to happen next. “Her left shoulder is definitely completely dislocated. Her humerus is also fractured. She has five broken ribs and one of them has punctured her left lung. It’s difficult to tell from the x-ray, but she does have some blood in her lung and air is escaping into her thoracic cavity. Fortunately, her right lung looks fine. Unfortunately, she’s going to need to stay in the hospital for a few days to make sure her lung doesn’t collapse. She’ll need a chest tube to help give the air a place to go, so her lungs can re-expand, and oxygen to help her breathe easier. She’s going to be in a lot of pain for a day or two,” he said.
“Pain meds knock her completely out and make it so she can’t eat for days at a time,” I said. “The last time she got seriously hurt, she took ibuprofen. When she got those scars on her back, she said she just took ibuprofen then too.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. We couldn’t believe it either, but apparently that shit works for her,” I said, smiling at her. I still had a hold of her hand, not wanting to be apart from her.
We left the x-ray room and went to a surgery room, so they could fix her arm. “We’re going to need to sedate her to fix her shoulder. That’s going to be painful if she’s awake. I’ll let the anesthesiologist know about her reaction to normal pain meds. Redheads really do react differently to drugs than everyone else. That’s a real thing,” he said.
It took them a while to put her shoulder back and set her arm. She would have to wear a cast for a few weeks while her bone healed. They put a chest tube in, which made her breathing quieter. She’d been on oxygen since we got to the hospital, but I could still hear her wheezing. Once the chest tube was in, she started to breathe quietly again. My own anxiety started to calm down once she started to breathe quieter too.
We went to a room once they were done. “I’ve sent a nurse down to get the other guys. I’d like to take a look at Ivan, if that’s possible. He looked rough before,” Dr. Williams said.
Once the guys walked into the room, they all looked exceptionally worried. I said, in Russian, “She’s okay. She’s going to have to stay here a few days, but she’s okay.” I looked to Misha, then to Ivan. “Misha, do you have the recordings of her playing on your phone still? The doctor wants to look at Ivan, but Sephie won’t be awake for a while. They had to sedate her to fix her shoulder, so it might be a couple days before she wakes up. You should get looked at before that, Ivan,” I said.
“Yeah, Boss, I have them. Do you think that’ll work?” Misha asked Ivan.
“It’s worth a shot, I guess, but it’s probably best if you guys are there, just in case,” Ivan said. He was visibly nervous.
“I’m not leaving her. Do you four think you can handle him if it gets bad?” I asked.
“We’ll make it work,” Viktor said. “You don’t need to leave her.”
I looked at the doctor. “Ivan will go with you, but they’re going as well, just in case they need to hold him down. We have the recording of her playing, so hopefully that will help keep him calm enough. Let’s just pray you don’t need to do anything invasive on him,” I said, in English.
“You ain’t never lied. Follow me, gentlemen,” he said, walking out of the room and leaving me alone with Sephie.
I leaned over her, kissing her forehead. “I’m so sorry, solnishko. Once again, you were never meant to get hurt. I’m so proud of you though. I heard you with Armando. You got the information we needed out of him. You continuously surprise me with your intelligence. It’s more than that though. You’re street-smart as well. This business. It takes a certain level of cunning. It takes most people a lifetime to figure it out and you just come by it naturally. You’re just amazing, Persephone. You make me want to work harder every single day to make sure I’m worthy of your love.” I grabbed her hand as I sat next to the bed to watch over her. I felt the faintest squeeze on my fingers. I picked her hand up, kissing the back of it. “Sleep, love. I’ll be right here the whole time.”
It took a little over an hour before Ivan and the other guys came back to Sephie’s room. He had a few sets of stitches in various places, but nothing major. I raised an eyebrow, curious how it went. Misha looked proud of himself. “The recording was enough that the doctor could check him over thoroughly. He didn’t break anything. Just some stitches,” he said.
They had put Sephie in a double room, with strict orders that no one else was to be placed in that room. The doctor was trying to give us an extra bed, since he knew we were all going to stay with her. I appreciated it. Ivan stretched out on the other bed. He looked exhausted. We all looked exhausted. We were quiet for a few minutes, then curiosity got the better of us.
“We know Armando was a part of it, but did you find out about anyone else?” Viktor asked.
“Sal was there the first night. Or first morning. To be honest, I have no idea what day it is. They took my watch, so time was meaningless while we were in that room. How long did it take you guys to find us?” Ivan asked. He had a bit of a grin on his face when he asked, like there was a joke we weren’t privy to that he was thinking about.
“From the time they grabbed you until the time we got to you, it was right around thirty hours,” Viktor said.
Ivan chuckled. “She’s gonna be so mad and so impressed at the same time.” We all looked to him for further explanation. “That was one of her first questions. How long it would take you guys to find us. I said no longer than a day and half. She said three days. She was worried when they found her tracker and pitched it. She didn’t know you’d be able to track us with the earpieces. I may have neglected to tell her that,” he said, his devious grin on his face.
Andrei snapped his fingers and pointed at Ivan. “Rude.”
“You guys heard her. That’s how she was the entire time. Hell, she shot the guy that grabbed her off the bike in the face. She had them all worried anytime they talked to her.” He looked at me. “Did you see her eyes this time?”
