Page 8 of Property of Mercury

“Does your asshole burn talking all that shit, cousin?” Orion asks, keeping his childish comebacks coming.

“Do you see my foot, O?” I probe.

“Sure do,” he replies, glancing down at my foot.

“Know what size I wear?” I continue.

“Gigantor size,” he responds, snickering.

“I’m a fourteen, think I could fit it up your ass? Wanna keep talking and find out?”

“Not my kink, brother,” Orion remarks, scrunching up his nose.

I reach for him, intent on strangling him but Gemini jumps up from his chair and puts himself between us. “He’s egging you on, Merc, and you’re letting him. You know his love language is prankster.”

“More like professional jackass,” I mutter, stepping back and putting some distance between us. Changing topics, I ask, “How’s Skippy doing? Any change?”

“She’s still in a coma and they aren’t ready to pull her out of it yet. Her brain is still showing signs of swelling,” Orion answers, turning his head to the side so we can’t see his reaction to my question.

“She’s strong, she’ll pull herself out of it,” I say, not wanting to rile him up more than he already is.

“She is,” he agrees, nodding his head. “But she’s human and the damage she survived was substantial. They’re worried she may have some permanent delays.”

“Delays, how?” I probe.

“Developmental,” he murmurs. “They’re preparing me for her to need to relearn all of the basics again as if she’s starting from scratch.”

“Sutton’s not taking it well,” Gemini adds. “Between Jeffries and his bullshit, and now Skippy’s situation, she’s barely talking, doesn’t sleep and I have to force food down her throat. It’s why y’all haven’t seen much of her because she’s either holed up in her office working or at the hospital providing additional physical therapy the therapist showed her. Something’s gotta give, brothers, because I’m beyond worried about her right now.”

“When you’re not with her, I am,” Pisces reminds him. “I won’t let anything happen to her, Gem.”

“I know you won’t, but that doesn’t make this situation any easier for me,” Gemini acknowledges. “How often do you have to remind her to eat, to rest, to take a damn breath?”

“Not as often as I did in the beginning. She’s coming around. Slowly, but surely,” Pisces promises.

“I think when Skippy is settled, Sutton will too,” I say.

“When are they moving her to rehab?” Midas inquires.

“Not until the swelling has gone down and they’ve weaned her from the medication that’s keeping her comatose,” Orion replies.

“Wouldn’t it be better to get her someplace where she’ll have a routine?” Midas continues asking his questions, which has me hiding a smile because I know what he’s doing. He’s managed to diffuse my anger and redirect Orion. All I can say is well done, because I no longer want to throttle my own flesh and blood.

“According to the professionals, she’s in the best place she could be right now. If there’s an emergency or a setback, she has a neurologist there as well as her surgeon,” Orion explains.

“Why couldn’t one of us have chosen to go into healthcare?” I ask, my head thrown back as I look at the ceiling. “That way, we’d understand a helluva lot more than we do and wouldn’t have to rely on internet searches to fill in the blanks.”

“Yeah, well, considering none of us were all that great with math or science, and I point to the time we threw the fetal pigs away before they could be dissected, I think the medical world is breathing a sigh of relief that we’re who we are,” Gemini says, chuckling. “I mean, who the fuck thought it was funny to set up grills with those nasty, formaldehyde filled piglets on them? The whole commons area smelled for fucking months!”

“Wasn’t me,” Pisces and Orion say in unison.

Raising my brow, I look at Gemini and add, “And it wasn’t us, so… who else could it have been?”

“Nobody with a sense of smell,” Gemini counters. “But that does raise the question of who could’ve done it.”

“The only other person as appalled as we were was…” I clamp my mouth shut and turn toward Gemini, both of our eyes widen as we come to the same conclusion.

“Couldn’t be,” Gemini muses. “She was scared of her own shadow back then, remember? There’s no fucking way she would’ve done something so deliberate especially since the likelihood of getting caught was so substantial.”