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“How long?” Minka sets the little device down and whips open the bags she and Archer brought with them. “How long has she been vomiting?”
“Um…” I set Christabelle on the mattress, her pale skin too gray, vomit dried on her chin, and my shirt stained from the acids from her stomach. “Two hours,” I estimate, searching the room for a clock. “About two hours.”
“Shit.”
The little machine beeps, drawing Minka’s attention down. “Her sugars are through the roof, Felix. She’s dying.”
“Dying?” Dumbfounded, I follow the woman with my eyes as she goes about unpacking her bags. But instead of taking out clothes, she presents little IV bags like the ones seen in hospitals. Then medicine. Fluids. “What the fuck do you mean she’s dying? She was fine!”
“Christabelle Cannon is a Type 1 diabetic.” She tears open a package and drops rubber tubing to the bed beside Christabelle’s arm. “She needs insulin with every meal. It’s literally been covered to death in every magazine and newspaper since she was diagnosed as a child. Without insulin, she’ll go into a fricken coma, and if left there long enough, she won’t wake up.”
She pushes a needle into Christabelle’s arm so fucking aggressively, my hands fist and I imagine wrapping them around the throat of the only woman I’ve ever lovedlike a sister.
Like a sister I enjoy flirting with.
But fuck, all that warmth goes out the window when she stabs the woman I want to save.
“You’re being rough!” I grab her wrist and yank her back before she slides a second needle in the opposite arm. “Cool it!”
“I’m saving her damn life. Jesus.” She wrenches herself free of my grip and continues her work. “Hang that bag,” she directs Archer, taking control and making him her nurse.
But his light assistance is still better than what Micah and I do, which is simplywatch.
“She needs potassium, too. When did you take her?”
When I don’t respond, Minka impatiently glances over her shoulder and pins me with a feral sneer. “When, Felix? What day? What time?”
“Um…” My stomach lurches as Archer hangs his bag-o-fluids from one of the bedposts. “Yesterday. Like, thirty hours ago. I took her at about six o’clock.”
“In the evening?” She stabs a needle into Christabelle’s thigh and pushes in the contents of the attached syringe with no care for the fact it might hurt her patient. “Felix? Morning or evening?”
“Evening, why?”
“Because that information helps us guess how long it’s been sinceher last dose of insulin. Assuming she had it with lunch, which would have been her last full meal, she’s been without her medication for fortyhours. Fuck.”
“But she’s rich.”
When Minka turns to step away from the bed, I grab her hand and yank her back until our chests clash. “She’s loaded, Mayet. Andrichdiabetics attach the pumps to their bodies. If she’s diabetic, she’d have the fancy tech keeping her safe.”
“She chooses to inject.” She twists her arm from my hold and crosses back to her bag to take out more supplies. “Ms. Cannon is a swimmer,” she recites, like she’s reading from a file. “State champion back in high school. Made it a hobby during college. Enjoys a daily dip now. She didn’t want the pump because it would make swimming difficult, so she chooses to self-administer with each meal. Do you know nothing about your prisoner?”
“I didn’t read her fuckin bio!” I look back to Christabelle and hate how my stomach flips. “Can you fix it? Is she gonna be okay?”
“Doing my best.” She takes out a second bag and tosses it to Archer, though she keeps hold of the plastic tubing that comes out the bottom. “That rash you mentioned on her stomach is common for diabetics. Her wrists,” she looks to the red lines marking her arm, “are gonna take longer to heal. But the little food she ate was her attempt to stabilize her sugars.”
“So why the fuck didn’t shesayanything?” I clench my fists, my jaw aching because of how tight I hold myself. I’m usually the calm brother. The goofy one. I’m the guy who can cut out a man’s tongue and cleave his hand off without emotion. Without anger. “Why didn’t she speak up?”
“You kidnapped her, Lix. She didn’t trust you.” Archer hangs the second bag and looks to his wife. “What’s the plan?”
“We have to clear the blood of ketones and suppress ketogenesis. Fluid loss during DKA is dangerous, so we need to replace what was lost, while also maintaining serum potassium and avoiding hypoglycemia.”
“I don’t know what that means.” I step in front of Minka when sheattempts to charge to the other side of the bed. But I don’t touch her again. I don’t grab her and add yet another bruise to her body.
“Minka,” I plead. “Doctor. I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t understand what you’re saying. I don’t know how to help, but Idoknow I don’t want her to die. So please—” I swallow the nerves balled mercilessly in my throat. “Please explain this to me.”
Her deep brown eyes bore into mine. Her pulse slamming so I catch the movement in her neck. Her jaw is tight, her temper barely restrained. But she finds kindness. She finds a pocket of compassion buried somewhere in her heart, because she softens her tone as she steps around me and continues to work.
“Hypoglycemia is the opposite to DKA. In DKA, her sugars are too high. Hypo, her sugars are too low. She’s experiencing the former, so we’re trying to bring her levels down, risking the latter, but trying to find that balance without worsening her current dehydration or obliterating the potassium essential for heart and muscle functionality. If we screw up…” She glances over to me and nibbles on her bottom lip, hesitant.
