“Sharper. Pressure behind my eye.”
Dr. Whitcomb remained calm.
“Reid, get him into a dark room. Use the breakthrough medication exactly as prescribed, give him water, and observe him closely. Retrieving traumatic memory can activate the nervous system with extraordinary intensity, including sensations of pain stored with the event.”
“Could this be another bleed?”
“His current symptoms do not strongly indicate one, but I cannot rule out a complication over the phone. If the pain increases, if he vomits repeatedly, becomes confused, develops weakness, loses consciousness, has unequal pupils, or cannot be woken normally, take him to emergency care immediately.”
“I will.”
“Noah, do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Are you refusing the hospital because you are afraid, or because you believe the symptoms are already improving?”
He thought about it.
“Both.”
“Honest. Reid will monitor you. If any warning sign appears, you will not argue about going in.”
Noah looked at me.
“I won’t.”
“I want an update in two hours.”
“You’ll have one,” I said.
“And remove the trigger. Do not play the song again to test the memory.”
“I had no intention of doing that.”
Noah’s fist tightened in my shirt.
Dr. Whitcomb heard the change in his breathing.
“One more instruction. Do not force the memory into sequence today. Trauma often returns in fragments because fragments are all the mind can tolerate at one time. Let what arrived be enough.”
Noah closed his eye again.
“Okay.”
The call ended.
I slid the phone into my pocket.
“I’m carrying you upstairs.”
He did not argue.
That frightened me almost as much as the scream.
I put one arm behind his back and the other beneath his knees.
Noah leaned into my chest, his face turned away from the workshop lights.
