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A burning sensation scorches my back.
I try to roll over, but the most I can do is reach for my cell phone on the side table as my nerves fire with pain.
I’ve been riddled with bullets, taken shrapnel, and fallen in a helicopter to the brine below, but this is different. This is from the inside out. Tapping into my training, I go through my list of symptoms to detect what it could be.
It’s then I notice the sticky web in the shadowy corner of the room and remember the exterminator had to reschedule the other day.
I punch a text to Lally.
Me: I’ve been bit.
Lally: By a dog?
Me: Much worse.
Lally: Was that an autocorrect? That’s my schtick, remember? Or are you getting me back for last night, pretending that I’d turned my ankle? It was obvious you wanted to go to the cottages and the party was at my place. I’m sorry for fibbing. FYI: If I ever start replacing common words with jungle animals, you know I’m lying. Monkey cheese sounds awful. But my poker face is not ??
Pain, racing through my legs, seemingly snapping at every previous wound I’ve ever had makes the words on the screen blur.
Me: Spider.
My entire body burns as if with a fever—island fever, treasure fever, Lally fever.
My thoughts slip in and out of focus as a cool cloth presses against my forehead. For a moment, I can think clearly.
I was a Navy pilot, became a special forces operative, and led covert missions. I ruined my previous relationships, if they could even be called that, because I was afraid of what it would do to the woman if something happened to me.
Now, retired, I thought I’d be spared from that worry, but I lost Sean to PTSD and depression, to a cocktail of medications. What if that happened to me? What if I’m not strong enough? What if I break Lally from this side?
I push her hand away, moaning in pain, but relief comes too because I’ve made my decision. I dodged the bullet by not asking her to marry me last night.
I just have to get through this, purge this poison from my body, and then it’s wheels up.
But the pain is so much. I toss and turn.
She tends to me, her voice soft and soothing. Her touch even more so.
But I resist.
I’ve seen action. Combat action. Dogfights in the air. This is a Nerf gun fight.
But then the heavy artillery takes aim. Only, I’m firing on myself.
It’s through this fog of agony that I realize I’ve told Lally I love her.
That I asked her to marry me.
Lally
CHAPTER 19
Nothing to see here. Not me freaking out because Magnus, in his spider bite venomous fit of agony, told me he loves me and said he wants to make me his wife. And to check his pants pocket if I didn’t believe him.
To be clear, they were on the floor next to his bed, where tangled in the sheets, he withstood the nerve pain from the spider’s venom.
When I got the text earlier this morning, I calmly assessed the situation. Made some calls to confirm the path of treatment.
He’s not a candidate for antivenin. However, I’ve taken the prescribed comfort measures. Unfortunately, they don’t do a lot to ease the tremors and sweating. It’s just one of those things that has to run its course.
