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She could have asked about this earlier—she’d wanted to. But part of it had been pride. She’d wanted him to tell her himself. And the other part? That was being afraid of his answer. The reasons why he wanted to go back. She didn’t need to hear that she just wasn’t enough for him to consider staying.
Duc flinched. ‘You think I’m running away? And you think all this came on a plate?’ He flung out his hands. ‘I got this because my parents are dead, Viv. Not because I chose it.’ He was mad and he couldn’t hide it.
But Viv didn’t back down, she was too riled up. She leaned towards him. ‘Well, you should. You should choose it. You should want it. Because I do.’
The words came out of nowhere from a place deep inside her and they both stopped talking and stared at each other for a few silent seconds.
Duc reached up and touched her shoulder. ‘You want to stay?’ His touch seemed to still her trembling body.
Panic gripped her. She’d said that out loud. She hadn’t meant to, and Duc was looking at her in the strangest way...
‘No,’ she shot back quickly, trying to find a way to retreat. ‘Of course not.’
‘You do.’ He shook his head. ‘Admit it. You like it here. You want to stay.’
It felt as if her throat was closing over. No words would come out. She felt exposed. As if he could see inside her. She didn’t like that—she wasn’t ready for it.
Her head was pounding again. She stood up and walked over to the cupboard to find some more paracetamol. Duc followed her. ‘We need to talk about this.’
‘No,’ she said determinedly. ‘We don’t. What difference does it make anyway? You want to leave. I want to stay. What’s there to talk about?’
She popped some paracetamol from the foil and grabbed some water. Duc’s eyes went to the medicine. ‘What’s wrong?’
She shook her head. She didn’t want to discuss this with him either. But before she had a chance to respond his brow furrowed. ‘Who said I was going back to surgery? I might have made a few queries, but I haven’t decided that.’
She was starting to see spots in front of her eyes. ‘If you’re not going back, why ask the question?’
Her stomach cramped as a wave of nausea swept over her. All of a sudden she knew she needed to lie down. Maybe if she did, this headache would go away.
Duc glanced at her, a worried expression on his face as he moved closer. He sighed. ‘I was keeping my options open. But the longer I stay here, the more I realise what I can do. You’re right, there’s a world of opportunity here. It’s just taken me a while to see it. I was so set on being a surgeon that I didn’t really take the time to consider other options. But now...’ He let his voice tail off.
He blurred. Either that or he moved a supersonic speed. Or maybe he didn’t. She was going to be sick. The tiny spots that had appeared at the edges of her vision threatened to take over.
Then all of a sudden everything went black.
The last thing she felt was Duc’s arms around her as the world slipped away.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘WHAT ON EARTH HAPPENED?’
Joe met him in the corridor as he carried the collapsed Viv in his arms over to the hospital. His arms were starting to shake as Joe took part of the weight and they carried her over to a trolley.
‘She had a headache. She felt sick, then she just went.’
He was as confused as Joe, trying to put the pieces together.
Joe moved straight into doctor mode—he wasn’t blinded by the emotion that encompassed Duc.
‘Let me check her over.’ He turned, giving Duc a look that told him he expected him to leave the room, as one of the nurses rushed in to assist.
‘Viv!’ She gave a strangled little cry as she realised who it was, and her reaction made Duc aware of just how much the staff here loved Viv.
He took a few steps out to the corridor, staring down the hallway. The irony. Joe’s wife was in a room just up the hall and officially Joe shouldn’t treat her. Now Viv was in this room, and Duc knew deep down that the same rules should apply.
Joe shouted out to him, ‘Go and check back in the bungalow and see if you find any clues. Any medications. Anything that could cause this.’
Duc shivered. Did Joe think this was deliberate? No way. He ran back across the grass to the bungalow, throwing open the door to Viv’s room and looking around. There was nothing. Nothing to give him cause for concern. He tripped over a pile of pyjamas on the floor and bent down to pick them up, and then he froze. They were damp. Just a little. But the temperature in here was warm, meaning they had much damper when they’d been taken off.
Had Viv had a temperature last night? Sweats? Why hadn’t she mentioned it? She’d just got up and gone straight to work this morning.
Something sparked in his brain. Those paracetamol had been sitting out earlier. It was he who had put them back in the cupboard while making breakfast. She’d either had a temperature last night or a headache.
He dashed back across the grass, stopping at the door of the examination room. ‘Paracetamol,’ he said quickly to Joe. ‘She’s been taking them since the middle of the night. She said she had a headache just before she collapsed but I think she’s had a temperature too as she changed in the middle of the night.’
Joe looked up, his face grave. He was at the far side of Viv. But before he got a chance to speak one of the nurses rushed down from Lien’s room. ‘Lien said to check her over. She said at the accident scene a few weeks ago Viv rushed out to help wearing just her short-sleeved scrubs. Could she have been bitten by a mosquito? Lien thinks she remembers seeing her scratching a few times.’
They all exchanged glances and Duc felt sick to his stomach. He’d been there too and hadn’t even considered the dangers for Viv. They’d all been too focused on the accident. Had he noticed her scratching since then?
‘But I always remind her about wearing repellent. She’s good at it.’
‘Has she been shaking at all?’
Duc felt cold. The list of symptoms were forming in his head. ‘She was trembling earlier.’
Joe pulled a face. ‘There’s a mosquito bite here. Right around the back of her upper arm. Impossible for her to see properly, but still somewhere she could scratch.’
He gave some instructions to the nurse. ‘Get me some blood bottles and a cannula I need some ACT and a glucose drip.’
Duc couldn’t help himself. ‘Let me help.’
Joe looked up. ‘No.’
‘If it was Lien, would you take no for an answer?’
Joe paused for just a second, then waved his hand. ‘You draw up the drugs while I take the bloods.’
Duc was shaking his head as he drew up the broad-spectrum antibiotic. ‘How can it be malaria? It’s supposed to be virtually eradicated in city areas. She’s been taking her medication. I don’t get it—I just don’t get it.’ He couldn’t stop the frustration bubbling inside him.
‘Virtually eradicated,’ said Joe carefully. ‘Not completely. And we have to treat what we see.’ He finished inserting the cannula and attached the glucose drip. ‘What I do see is an infected mosquito bite. Maybe she missed a dose of her medication. Maybe she’s part of the ten per cent it isn’t completely effective for.’
As Viv gave a few twitches on the bed, Joe kept his voice steady and calm. ‘I think we have signs of cerebral oedema. You know how we need to treat this. We can’t waste time fighting about it. Time is too important.’
A chill spread over Duc’s body. He knew Joe was right, but he hated him right now for saying the words out loud. Duc couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a fatal malaria case—but he’d spent the last few years in the US.
He’d brought her here. He’d asked her to come. She would never have set foot in Hanoi if it hadn’t been for him. This was all his fault. If anything happened to
Viv, he would never forgive himself.
Her onset had seemed quick. She could have been bitten up to two weeks ago, but her actual symptoms only seemed to have been emerging over the last day or so. Just how virulent was this parasite?
‘What’s her blood sugar?’
Joe looked up as he pulled up a chair to the bed and turned a chart around.
Duc gulped. It was low. Malaria caused hypoglycaemia. The glucose drip should bring it up, but if she still remained unconscious once her blood sugar was corrected it meant that cerebral malaria had taken hold—and that could be fatal.
He handed over the other drugs to Joe, who started to administer them slowly. If Joe noticed his shaking hands he didn’t say anything.
Maybe he should go and spend time with Lien while Joe was here, but the truth was he just couldn’t leave Viv’s side.
Joe caught his gaze. It was almost like he could read his mind. ‘Lien’s sleeping right now. The vomiting has really taken it out of her. She needs some rest.’
Duc nodded, his hand reaching across the sheet to intertwine with Viv’s. She was deathly pale. It was amazing. The whole time Viv had been here her skin had seemed kind of sun-kissed. But maybe it just seemed that way because she was normally so full of life. Right now, she was paler than he’d ever known her.
His eyes fixed on the thin gold chain around her neck leading to the butterfly pendant. The one he’d bought. The one she always wore.
Her hand twitched in his. He was back on his feet in an instant.
Then her arm twitched, then her whole body started convulsing. Duc pulled her over onto her side, trying his best to get her into the recovery position. Ron appeared at the door and took one look, sizing up the scene in seconds.
‘What drugs do you need?’ he asked Joe.
