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I cringed away from him as he came to my side and rested a fatherly hand on my very damp forehead. The gesture was so kind, so worried that my sickly heart kicked with confusion.
This man was my enemy.
He hurt me.
He made me scream.
Yet...he looked at me with endless love in his gaze and tears of regret welling on his lower lashes. “Aslan...why didn’t you tell me you were getting worse?”
His question made sense, but I couldn’t form a sensical answer.
I’d felt like death ever since I’d arrived here.
I’d forgotten what it felt like to be normal. To have an appetite and power. I had no sex drive, even if I was lucky enough to have dreams of being inside Neri. I couldn’t remember a time when I didn’t exist without palpitations. I was cold all the time and suffered nausea like it was my new baseline.
Hadn’t I always felt this badly?
It hadn’t gotten worse.
I’d just gotten weaker.
“It’s okay,” Cem soothed. “I know you’re not in a state to talk. I’m sorry I’ve been away for a few days. If I’d come to see you sooner, I—”
“You couldn’t have avoided what has to happen,” the doctor said softly. “You know what we must do. The question is do you trust me to do it here or would you prefer moving him to the hospital?”
“No hospitals,” Cem snapped. “You have a full operating studio here that is far better than anything anywhere else. My only question is...are you sure there’s no other way?”
“None. He’s dead if you don’t authorise this.”
A long pause where hot sticky sleep crept over me again. Finally, Cem exhaled hard and said, “Fine. Summon your best team and ensure they all sign the necessary paperwork. You have my blessing to use whatever resources you need.”
“Thank you.” The doctor sounded relieved; I opened my eyes again.
The fever cut through me like a sizzling knife, and my leg ached like a motherfucker. That was the source of all my discomfort. If only it would stop aching and burning, I was sure I’d be okay.
“I...I need some painkillers,” I muttered, my voice barely louder than breath.
“I know.” Cem ran his fingers through my sick-sweaty hair. “I know. And you’ll have them.” Snapping his fingers, Cem ordered, “Dope him up. Knock him out. I don’t want him to suffer a moment longer than necessary.”
“As you wish, efendim.”
A rustle of clothing and a sharp prick in my arm. “Sleep now, Aslan. When you wake...everything will be better.”
I willingly chased the thick happy clouds.
I waited to be sucked down deep.
But then I heard words not meant for me, and my heart screeched to a stop.
“I’ll amputate below the knee. The joint doesn’t look compromised. At least with the joint intact, he’ll find it easier to adapt with a prosthetic.”
What?
No.
No.
Fuck.
NO!
“Do what you must. Save my son.”
Wait.
Don’t.
Don’t cut—
I screamed.
Sleep pounced.
I passed out.
Chapter Forty-Two
*
Aslan
*
(Heart in Lithuanian: Širdis)
*
Six months...
“HOW DOES THAT FEEL?” THE YOUNG doctor with black hair, brown eyes, and empathetic smile asked. Our fourth session together and he damn well knew how it felt.
Foreign.
Wrong.
Not a part of me.
“It’s fine,” I muttered, refusing to look at my leg.
At the stump below my knee.
I didn’t care it’d been four months since I’d gone to sleep screaming and woken up screaming. The first thing I’d done as the anaesthetic wore off was jack-knife up and grab at my left calf...only...there had been no calf.
No foot.
No shin or ankle or toes.
Just nothingness.
I couldn’t comprehend the missingness...the wrongness.
My body still felt as if it had two feet, ten toes, and was equally balanced like nature had designed. I even felt myself grabbing that missing leg. Felt my fingers on non-existent flesh. Felt a scratch that couldn’t be scratched and an ache that couldn’t be soothed. The phantom awareness fed me what my neurons believed still existed all while there was nothing.
Just bandages and pain and a stump where I’d once been whole.
I would never run again. Swim again. Be me again.
I was dead.
Neri believed it.
And now...so did I.
It was too much.
Missing Neri.
Missing myself.
Missing the future we could’ve had and knowing the future I would have to endure.
I snapped.
I sank.
I sank into the depression I’d never been fully free from.
I stopped fighting the black fog and sticky misery.
And I didn’t get back up.
The doctors kept me sedated.
Time passed without my knowledge.
My body healed.
The bandages were changed.
And by the time another month rolled around, I was slowly weaned off whatever drugs they’d pumped into my system, and the nightmares began.
Nightmares of Neri being strapped into that agonising chair.
Neri being sold as a slave.
Neri being raped by me all while my father held a gun to my head to do it.
I stopped sleeping.
I couldn’t bear to close my eyes.
I would rather suffer in a world where I’d been butchered than endure a dreamworld where Neri screamed.
