“I don’t feel very awake,” he said, blinking hard. “I feel like I got hit by a truck, and I’m still under it.”
He closed his eyes briefly, focusing on his body. His muscles and joints were sore as if he’d just suffered a bad fever. Other than being a bit weak, he felt okay.
“No one noticed a strange woman in the building?” Maverick muttered.
“She had a badge,” Pilar said, her voice sharp. “I should have picked up on it. I thought it was a normal thing to have a runner show up with everyone’s favorite coffee. This is all my fault.”
Maverick opened his eyes, squeezing her hand. “It’s okay. It’s really not your fault.”
“Yes, it is!” she snapped, her face twisting in grief. “It is completely, utterly my fault. I am your bodyguard. This is exactly what I’m supposed to do … protect you!”
“Pilar,” Maverick whispered. He wanted to get up and hold her, but his body wouldn’t obey. She was still holding his hand, but he could feel her pulling away from him as if she was afraid to touch him.
“Maverick,” she shook her head, looking at the floor. She still held his hand tightly like it was a rope connecting her to a safe port. She looked up at him, and her eyes were shimmering.
Maverick had never seen her like this before. She was full of grief and guilt. He’d do anything to make it go away.
She was so confident and powerful that he had never imagined she could break like this. In the reflection of her eyes, he saw his own ruined body, and he knew that she couldn’t forgive herself for this. His chest ached as he considered her pain, knowing there was nothing he could do to heal her heart.
He clung to her hand while tears ran down her cheeks. She kept looking up at him to reassure herself that he was still there, still awake but then looking away at the last minute as if she was ashamed to be here and not worthy of holding his hand.
There was a soft knock at the door, and Maverick was relieved to see a doctor. The man’s face was grim, and Maverick felt a touch of fear. He knew that look, and it could only mean one thing.
Bad news.
“It’s good to see you awake, Mr. Wilcox,” the doctor said, managing to smile as he reached the foot of the bed. “Would you give us a moment, please, Miss Douglas?”
Pilar nodded, wiping her face and standing. She looked down at her hand, where it gripped Maverick’s as if she couldn’t figure out how to let him go. Finally, she touched her lips lightly to his knuckles, put his hand down carefully on the bed, and left.
The doctor waited until she had fully left the room and shut the door before he turned back to Maverick with a grim expression.
Really bad news.
The doctor sighed.
“I’m Doctor Bennings. I’ve been managing you since you came in. How are you feeling, Mr. Wilcox?”
“I’m feeling like you know a lot more than me about what’s going on,” Maverick said. “I’m a doctor, too, you know. Tell me what happened.”
“When you arrived, you were in a state of almost complete cardiac arrest and respiratory failure,” Doctor Bennings said. “Your temperature was too high, and the brain was affected. It took extreme measures to stabilize you.”
“What caused it?” Maverick snapped.
The doctor sighed. “We don’t know. The poison is still in your system. We have subjected your blood to a multitude of tests, and we don’t recognize this poison. It’s not a virus or a neurotoxin. It’s something systemic.”
“That’s amazing.”
The doctor smiled briefly. “Yes, our diagnostician said the same thing. We cannot identify it, nor can we break it down to understand how to make an antidote, although we are trying.”
Maverick was beginning to understand. “You can’t cure me?”
“No, we can’t.” Doctor Bennings looked very serious now. “We have stabilized you, but the poison will keep working on your internal organs. It’s only a matter of time before it kills you. I’m very sorry, Mr. Wilcox.”
Maverick felt as if the world had disappeared from underneath him, leaving him suspended over a deep chasm like a cartoon character afraid to look down.
The second you look down and see your doom, that’s when you fall.
“How long?” he croaked.