Page 6 of Return By Fire

“Who are you?”

“Who are you?” the voice retorts.

“A friend. A close one.”

My eyes skate over to where my baby sister is stirring beneath the sterile white sheets encasing her bruised and battered body. “Right now, she is napping.”

“Can you wake her? It’s important.”

“So is Maris’s rest.”

That’s when the man spews, “Look, I don’t know who the fuck you are, but my sister’s about to have a baby, and you’re cockblocking the godmother from being on the phone.”

I’m about to jump down the man’s throat for being a self-absorbed dick when Maris moans. Forgetting I’m not on mute, I race over to her side. “Sunshine, are you okay?”

“Hurts.” Her words are understandable but still slurry from the combination of anesthesia and pain meds.

“Do you want more meds?”

Her head bobs up. I breathe a sigh of relief mixed with fury over the asshat who landed my sister in this condition. “Okay. Here goes.”

Pressing the button, I could tell you almost the exact moment the medication sweeps through her system. All the tense muscles in her body relax. That’s when Maris spies the phone I’m holding and mimics my ringtone by singing the “Lumberjack Song” off-key. Despite the circumstances, I can’t help the bark of laughter at her drug induced antics. Maybe, just maybe, despite everything, she’ll be fine. “No, it’s not the guys.” I refer to my four best friends who worked with me until the end of last summer at the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show.

“Kara?” She struggles through the haze her pain medication wants to pull her under to name her best friend.

“No. Some jack wad named Dean, He—”

I barely get his name out when she struggles to sit up straight in bed. An agonizing groan leaves her. Her eyes, relaxed a few moments ago, are wild, frantic. “Give!” She reaches for the phone with a hand that has four wires attached to it.

“Are you crazy? I was about to hang up.” I lift the phone to do just that when I feel my nuts being grabbed.

Then twisted.

In the most lucid voice I’ve heard since the life-threatening car wreck that almost took her from us two days ago, she threatens, “I will rip off your balls.”

“Maris,” I cajole even as her shaking hand threatens all my future hard-ons. “Be reasonable. Let me tell the guy to call you back.”

“Give. Me.”

I’m afraid if I don’t, she’ll never rest, which she so desperately needs to do. Her eyes droop with fatigue and pain, so I gander she won’t be on the phone long. “How about I put it on speaker? Just for a minute?”

The drugs must have really kicked in because she mumbled, “Mmm, ’kay.”

I flip over the phone and put it on speaker just in time to hear a woman’s scream. At the same time the hair raises on my arms, Maris’s eyes pop back open. Her voice is exuberant when she exclaims, “Kara!”

Kara? Maris’s best friend just made a sound that would wake the dead. That’s when I hear Kara snap through the phone, “I don’t know if I can do it, Dean.”

“Shh. You can do anything. I’m right here. So is Maris. Right?”

My head is spinning with possibilities as Maris slaps the bed, reaching for the phone blindly.

I place it by her head so maybe she, herself, will relax.

It seems to work when Maris settles and whispers. “I’m here. Not going anywhere.”

Kara lets out an enormous sigh that makes this Dean guy chuckle, and Maris’s lips curve in the tiniest way. Kara moans, “Why did no one warn me it would be this painful?”

Maris mumbles, “You’re stronger than a lion.”

---