“Are you… feeling even better?” I managed to whisper.
“I am.”
Lord, he could toss a dog a bone here. “Back to normal?”
There was a brief pause. “I’ve regained a significant amount of my energy and… everything else.”
Everything else?
My heart started pounding even harder. Reality settling in. I knew what was going to happen. We both did. They were going to come for him. There was a reason he was here.
But I didn’t want to be left behind. I didn’t….
If I could have mustered up a tear or two, I would have, but I knew what I was doing. At least, I understood why I had to do what was necessary. “Hey?”
“Shut up and rest,” he grumbled, pretty half-assed.
“But—”
His sigh was long and clear. “Whatever energy you’re about to waste, save it.”
Did he sound less grouchy or was the fever messing with my ears?
I squeezed my eyes closed as my head swam, and I tried out his name with my lips and tongue. “Alexander?”
“Yeah?”
I rubbed my face. “I think you need to—”
The Defender groaned. “Don’t bother finishing that sentence. I’m already regretting telling you my name.”
This butthole. “I regret opening my door. I guess we’re even,” I told him quietly, joking. Mostly.
And I thought… I thought I imagined it… but I didn’t.
The crazy bastard huffed. A little. But it was pretty damn close to a chuckle.
* * *
It was the warm touch on my face that was my silent alarm clock.
But it was the sight of a big palm retreating that had me flinching.
I opened my mouth to make a sound, to say a word, but everything crusted in my throat and dried out before I could even squeak.
Alexander’sface moved into my line of sight. The line was back between his eyebrows, his mouth flat. “Your fever is higher.”
No surprise. My brain felt like it was going to explode. I shivered and tried to find the words, pushing them through lips that felt too dry. “If something happens to me… I hope every person in this building gets a paper cut on their tongue. I’m going to poltergeist them, don’t try and talk me out of it.”
He ignored me. “You need water.”
I did need water, some antibiotics too. I needed to move. I knew I needed to. When my grandma had gotten sick, her not wanting to move around had been the source of a lot of our arguments, if you could call them that.
“Get up, Gracie.”
I had no energy, but I needed water… and movement… and food, even if I didn’t want it.
It took a second for me to get to my side and then another few seconds to pull my hands and knees under me before pushing up onto them. For a split second, I thought about trying to stand but realized almost immediately that wasn’t going to happen.
