Page 122 of Kaine

“Good lord, what happened to you, Sugar? You roll around in a BBQ? You still look a million bucks, though, doncha, you gorgeous thing you.”

Her kindness and familiarity make me burst into tears.

“Oh, Sugar, what’s going on?”

“It’s... It’s Kaine...” I raise a hand pointing to the bay filled with doctors.

“Kaine? Our sexy Mystery Man?”

I nod and her eyes soften and she throws a big, warm arm around my shoulders.

“Well, well, fancy seeing you two together. I heard you were lookin’ for Mr. Handsome, but I didn’t know you found him.”

“He found me, Ruby. He saved me,” I say through hiccups. “So, now you guys have to save him.”

“We’ll do whatever we can, Sugar. Don’t you worry about that. Ruby’s here.”

And I hide myself in her until a doctor finally comes out to see me.

“Are you family?” he asks.

“Yes,” I tell him before I can stop myself.

“Hell yes, she is,” Ruby adds.

The doctor frowns at Ruby, but she stares him down. He takes my hands and pulls me over to the seat in Kaine’s bay. He’s hooked up to oxygen and the heart monitor. I reach out to touch his foot, hoping it will wake him. But it doesn’t.

“He’s inhaled a lot of smoke. We don’t know how long he was in there, but it was long enough to cause some serious damage. The firefighter actually found him under a fallen shelf, so it might also be a combination of smoke and the concussion that has him out. We’re going to take him to get a CT scan now. And then the nurse will bring him back and... well, his hands are pretty burned, he must’ve used them to shield himself from the fire.”

I can’t look. So, I just stand and pat the bed, careful not to hurt him. Murmuring a prayer that, if he gets through this, I will do whatever I must to take care of him for the rest of his days.

***

“Who would do this?”I ask Xavier when he finally shows up at the hospital. He’d stayed at the library helping for the last few hours. Harriet hitched a ride with him to the hospital, bringing a bag of mine with a change of clothes.

I take them from her, grateful for my friend and her instinctive, caring nature.

“We don’t know. It must be tied to the ‘J’ business. It must be,” Xavier tells me, his face streaked with ash, his dark, deep eyes confused.

“People could’ve died. People... could still die,” I stutter.

“He’s not going to die, honey. His body just needs to recover. He’ll come to soon. I’m sure of it. He’s strong and fit,” my friends reassures me.

“And this is the second time he’ll have almost died in a fire.”

Xavier looks down at his shoes, contemplating my words. He sighs and stays calm.

But the revelation slashes through me like a knife dipped in acid, and I suddenly feel an overwhelming sense of anger. I push myself up onto my feet, pacing back and forth across the hallway in front of Kaine’s ER bay. My fists slowly curl into tight, tight balls, my knuckles white when I lift my hand to jab in Xavier’s direction.

“Well, he is NOT going to die on my watch. So, you, you go find whoever did this... and we’re going to make them pay.”

Xavier’s eyes narrow and harden. He glances over at his boss and friend, and bites his lip.

“I’m serious, Xavier. They will not get away with this. I will make them pay for what they did to the library, to the company, to everyone who was hurt today, and to Kaine. And I am going to make it hurt.” My voice starts loud and firm, but by the end, I’m so filled with emotion, the words come out in a stammer, in waves.

Harriet hugs me from behind and wipes a hand under my eyes, catching the tears.

“Shhhh. We will. Don’t you worry, we will.”