Iris smirked. “You know her weakness. It’s not fair to use a baby against her like that.”
“I mean, I don’t mind keeping her if you’re not interested,” Ben teased. “I can talk and cuddle a sweet little baby girl at the same time.”
“Fine,” Nyx said, moving to the carrier and scooping Lily into her arms. “I’ll let you fake-bribe me into holding this precious little girl, but I’m onto you, Doc!”
Iris gave Koios’s hand a gentle squeeze before picking up the carrier and following Nyx out of the room.
“Nicely played,” Koios said.
Ben nodded and turned his attention to the monitor. The X-rays glowered back at Koios, a silent threat to his already threadbare temper. He returned his attention to Ben before he lost what little control he had left.
“I’m not trying to give you false hope, Koios. I’m trying to give you a choice.”
“And now you’re using my words against me. You’re on fire today, Doc.”
Ben still refused to look at him. Not that Koios cared.
He didn’t.
At all.
“Will you let me help you?” Ben asked.
“I’m thinking about it.”
And finally, he shocked Ben into turning toward him. “You are?”
“Tell me why this is even an option and what the best-case scenario looks like. I think we both know the worst already.”
Ben nodded. “Okay, so I’ve been doing some research. One of the things I noticed on your X-rays was that you have an anterior pelvic tilt. So your hips are tilted forward.”
“And that matters why?”
“Oh, it matters a lot. That’s what I measured earlier. The distance between your anterior interior iliac spine and your posterior superior iliac spine.”
Koios glanced at the X-rays again. “Speak English.”
“Right. Um, okay, may I touch you?” Ben swallowed hard and met his gaze. Koios hesitated for a moment, and Ben took a step back. “I don’t have?—”
“Yes, show me what you were doing with your weird gadget.”
Ben searched Koios’s gaze for a long minute. He seemed to find whatever it was he sought because he stepped forward, then he knelt on one knee and looked up.
“There’s a lot going on with your back. We knew that. But we can do a lot of work to strengthen your core and give your back additional support.” Ben touched the front of Koios’s hip at the same spot he’d measured earlier, then put his other hand on Koios’s lower back. “A normal range tilt for a man’s pelvis would be in the four to seven percent range. You’re at a thirteen. As a result, you’ve got tight lumbars, erectors, quads, and hip flexors. Your glutes, hamstrings, and lower abs, on the other hand, are weak. That’s something we can address, Koios.”
Koios stared down at Ben’s huge hand on the front of his body. “So correcting my pelvis will help my back?”
“Yes. Absolutely. It won’tfixyour back, but it’ll help with your pain and give you more support. Strengthening your core will give your upper back a break, take some of the load off of it, so to speak. We both know you’re going to have to deal with the additional weight of the wings sooner or later. Why not make it later?”
“I don’t have time to deal with this right now. I am going to find the manticore and make him pay.”
“You don’t have time to ignore this right now,” Ben countered, standing to his full height. He towered over Koios, but somehow didn’t seem to be looking down at him at all. “If you continue to go on like you are, you’ll be in so much pain your brain won’t work the way you’re used to. You’re going to start making mistakes, and youcan’tmake mistakes.”
“I won’t?—”
“Yes,” Ben snapped, “you will. Our brains aren’t built for working under extreme amounts of pain. All I’m asking for is a few hours a day. We’ll do some stretching, some strengthening, and some massage therapy.”
“We?”
