“Steel!”
His heart stopped at the shout of his name, the panic in it immense. Abby was standing in the doorway of the clubhouse, her long twin braids outlining her face on either side. “It’s Jenna! She’s relapsing!”
Jenna blinked.She was so tired, but everything hurt. Like a hundred tiny needles were being jabbed over and over again into her spine. She tried to swipe them away, but her hand wouldn’t move. And her other hand? Had she lost it? She couldn’t feel it.
She heard her name being called. It was soloud!She needed him to stop shouting so she could sleep. Shapes moved in front of her. She blinked again, but nothing came into focus. What was happening?
“Jen, look at me, baby.”
She knew that voice. It was softer now, gentler. “Jack,” she groaned out, but her tongue wasn’t working right. It sounded more like “Aack”.
“I’m here, baby. I’m here.”
She felt immense relief. Jack was here and everything was going to be okay.
“Jen, I need you to listen to me. You’re having a relapse.”
A relapse? Shit, that explained why things were so out of focus and her spine felt like there was a swarm of bees attacking it. The last time she’d had a flare-up like this had been when she’d fallen in the shower nine months ago. She’d been doing so well and managing her symptoms.
Her chin started to quake as tears pooled in her eyes. She tried to remember what her doctor had told her to do to help herself, but it was all jumbled. Like someone had taken a kitchen mixer to her thoughts. Unfortunately, the one thing she did remember was that confusion was common during a flare-up. While that didn’t help her, it did calm her to know that this was somewhat normal.
“Jen, baby, Tessa and Bear aren’t here. They took Scar to Jasmine’s clinic.”
Jenna gasped. Scar! He’d fallen through the ice. Everything had been so chaotic, and Jenna had tried to keep the kids calm and stay out of the way, but all she’d wanted to do was help. Her back spasmed like the bees had turned into hornets.
“Easy, easy, baby. Scar’s okay. He’s hurt, but he’s okay. Tally’s with him and they’re just going as an extra precaution. You know how he is with people and hospitals. He’s fine, baby. Please breathe. Deep breath and let it out slowly.”
Jenna’s body listened to Jack as if on instinct. She took a shaky breath in and gradually let it out. Again and again, until the hornets stopped their attack and the bees returned. She could handle bees.
“We have options, baby. I’m going to call your doctor regardless, but do you want to go see him or wait this out? We have the anti-inflammatory he gave us. Paige thinks there is still a chance this is another pseudo-exacerbation, and if we can bring your stress down, we might be able to halt the progression.”
So many big words. She was just so tired, and the energy to think and make decisions was too much. Tears started to flow down her cheeks. There were certain qualifiers to know if an episode was a flare-up, but she couldn’t remember what they were. Something about time, both the length of the attack and how soon after her last attack.
She just wanted to sleep! But she felt even too tired to do that. Frustration and fear warred inside her, a cyclone of dread. She was trying to be so strong, to put on a brave face, but this disease, her own body, would eventually kill her. Take her away from Jack and their kids and her grandson, their club family. She hadn’t talked to her parents in over thirty-five years, and her sister Caroline had disappeared nearly as long ago.
What would become of her family once she was gone? And Jack? He didn’t deserve this. The slow progression of the disease, the never ending worry ofwhen,while at the same time knowing that it wasn’t today. That was half the battle, the terror. She almost would have preferred a quicker death, one that she didn’t see coming. But at least this way, she got to say her goodbyes. She got to take advantage of time and treasure every moment, to make them count. She hated the idea of decline, that when she did go, she wouldn’t beher.
What soothed her was knowing that, no matter what, she would have Jack beside her, holding her, comforting her. He would never let her go. He’d promised, sworn to her when they were only fifteen years old, that it would be them until the end.
Neither one ever imagined the end would come so soon and that eternity was no longer a possibility for them. Maybe if she was twenty years younger when they’d caught the disease, but she was only a couple years shy of sixty. Now, it would be a miracle if she made the milestone.
Jenna blinked, trying to get her eyes to focus on one thing. She couldn’t see his face, but she knew his silhouette. She’d know him anywhere. Lifting her arm, her limb kept jumping like it was a too-hyper puppy as she tried to find him. Jack met her halfway, grabbing her hand midair. She felt his lips against her palm, the scrape of his trimmed beard as he pressed her hand to the side of his face. Her hand wouldn’t stop shaking.
“You want me to make the decision?” Though he phrased it like a question, they both knew it wasn’t.
Jenna nodded. She trusted him, knew he’d make the right choice for her. Her life was entirely in his hands. It always had been, from the moment she’d seen him through that bookstore display window, she’d been his.
The weight of not having to make a decision eased her. Jack had been to every doctor’s appointment with her, every exam. He likely knew more about MS than she did from the extensive independent research he’d done over the past year too. Her body was too out of sync to sleep, even though that’s what she wanted more than anything to be able to do. But she was able to drift, to find solace. He’d make the right decision, not just for her, but forthem.
And that relief eased her enough that the bees finally started to calm.
CHAPTER 4
Between Uncle Scar’s ‘accident’ and Aunt Jenna’s ‘scary moment’, it took a lot to get the kids calmed down. Bulldog and Abby’s house was generally the club kid meeting place. It was the biggest, and they could include Cassie, Bulldog and Abby’s oldest, in activities. Cassie was agoraphobic, meaning she had a fear of leaving her house. On good days, she could journey to Bree’s house or even the clubhouse, but her good days were becoming further and further apart. Most kids had ended up staying at Uncle Bulldog’s last night for an impromptu slumber party. Ollie, worried for Jenna, had not stayed overnight, though he was there now to help with breakfast.
Keys, who repeatedly said he was no scientist, spent the remainder of the night and into the early morning outside with his club brothers as they worked to discover how the ice had cracked. The result was chilling.
“Salt,” Keys said the next morning.
