Chapter 30
Instead of the hazy gray world of rubble and smoke and fumes, Kane woke up to the clean whites and shiny metals of a hospital room. His chest hurt every time he took a breath. His skin hurt. His back hurt. He lifted his arm; there were scratches all down it. Something rested against his cheeks, leading to his nose, sending a trickle of air into him that was drying out his throat. He put his hand to it.
Cat came into focus, sitting on a hard chair next to his bed. She caught hold of his hand and put it back by his side, where she continued to hold it while she glared at him.
“Hey, Cat,” he said, or tried to say, but the words got stuck in his throat. It felt as though he’d swallowed sand.
“Don’t talk,” she said. Her eyes were suspiciously shiny. “Your vocal chords might be damaged.” Her own voice cracked on the last word; she was twisting the IV in his hand, from holding on to him so hard. “Because,” she went on, her voice getting higher, “because you’re a stupid fucking idiot whose sole purpose in life is to scare the shit out of me!” And she let go of him to hide her face in her hands and burst into loud and uncontrollable weeping.
“Cat,” he whispered, putting out a hand but only able to brush her hair back. She batted him away angrily, but the next second was bent over his chest, her weight pulling on the sensors stuck to him, crying as he hadn’t seen her cry since Robert had died.
At least from there he could hug her, but tears came into his own eyes at leading her to this state. “I’m sorry,” he said, but not much came out except the “s” sound.
“Sorry, he says!” she snapped. “You think I don’t remember? You think I didn’t lose Dad that day too? That we all didn’t?” She was gasping the words out between sobs. “You think you can just play with your life? When you’re needed just as much as he was, you fucking asshole!”
“You’re right,” he said hoarsely. “I’m so sorry, Cat. I’ve been—”
“Will you stop talking?” she interrupted. “You want to lose your voice for good?”
She sat up. It looked as if the storm was over, but it had changed everything.
Cat reached for the box of tissues on his bedside table to mop herself up. With an almighty sniff, she was almost back to herself. She held up a small whiteboard. “You have to write it down.”
Damn, he thought. “I can’t write it all down,” he whispered.
“You think your thoughts are that complicated?” she said grimly, but she might have almost smiled. “Whisper, then.”
They had so many things to say to each other, maybe should have said them years ago, but he couldn’t start there now. “What time is it?” he said instead.
“It’s—” She looked at her watch. “Eight o’clock. You don’t remember coming in?”
He looked away from her, at the dark sky outside. He hoped it was still Saturday. He didn’t remember much after he’d got out of that stairwell, apart from a lot of coughing, and needles and tubes, and—he lifted the front of his gown and looked down at his chest. Crap. He looked like a badly shaved monkey.
Cat did smile now. “Yeah. Well, you try getting sensors through that rug you call chest hair.”
He let his head fall back, felt again for the tube going into his nose. “Oxygen therapy,” Cat explained. She went for a pitcher of water next to the bed. “They said it’ll make your throat dry.” He nodded and happily took a cup from her, but he was too sore to drink much.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, trying to keep his voice as quiet as possible. It was easier to talk this way. “I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.”
“Megan says you were trying to save the world, as usual.” Cat looked away and swallowed. “Although you did save that woman.”
But what she didn’t say hung in the air. “Not the man?” he said.
She didn’t answer for a second, but she squeezed his hand. So he wasn’t surprised when she said, “He’d had a heart attack. You couldn’t have done anything.”
Kane took that in for a moment. He remembered being in the stairwell; his instinct to make the woman stay there with him to help a man he obviously couldn’t help. And he remembered accepting that he was helpless, and that he had made the situation better by admitting that and getting himself and the woman out.
Something loosened in his chest. Enough.
“When can I leave?” he asked after a minute.
“Not for a few days. They’re monitoring your oxygen levels.” She gestured to the clip on his forefinger. “Apparently the lungs can react to chemicals a day or more after exposure, and they don’t know what you were exposed to yet.” She made to stand up. “I’m starving. You want me to get you some shitty little cup of tapioca pudding or something?”
“No,” he said, reaching up for her hand again. “Don’t go yet.”
Cat settled back onto the edge of his bed. “I’m still pissed at you,” she said, but she smiled.
“You’ve always been pissed at me,” he said.
