Ferus : Book 6 of the Heku Series (61 page)

Chevalier nodded.

“We lost three guards,
Ryder and Jaron are still healing. Jaron remembers the most,” Silas
explained. “When the explosion happened, they all dove onto her and
took the brunt of the roof caving in and the fire from the initial
explosion. What they didn’t expect was that the floor would cave
in, and that’s how they all ended up trapped on top of
her.”

They all looked up again when they heard the
door open. The lead doctor from Emily’s room came in, covered in
blood and looking exhausted.

He sat down, “I’m Dr.
Anderson, Head of the Emergency Department. Which of you is Emily’s
husband?”

“I am,” Chevalier said,
and watched him closely.

“I’ve talked to the fire
department, and I just want to say… she’s lucky, very lucky. I
honestly don’t know how she survived that.”

“How bad is she?”

“Right now she’s stable.
She had two big issues when she got here. The first was a collapsed
lung and the other was crushing syndrome, from having her muscles
with that much weight on it for that long. The minor things are a
laceration to her scalp, that’s where most of the bleeding was
initially, and a back injury.”

Chevalier sunk his head into his hands.

“We’ve re-inflated her
lung, but we’re going to leave the chest tube in for a few days to
let it heal. The crush syndrome is now under control, and she
doesn’t seem to have any long-term renal problems. She has twelve
stitches in her forehead, and an I.V. in her arm and another in her
neck. We’re going to wait and deal with the back problems when
she’s more stable and breathing better.”

“Can I see her?” Chevalier asked.

“Not quite yet, I’m
running EKG’s on her just to check that the crushing syndrome
didn’t affect her heart. I can’t have anyone in there while that’s
done. I’ll send a nurse out as soon as you can come in.”

“She won’t leave the
I.V.’s in, and I’m not so sure about the chest tube,” Kyle told
him.

Dr. Anderson smiled
slightly, “I saw that in her file, so she’s restrained to the
bed.”

It was two hours after the
doctor left that a nurse came in and said that Chevalier could see
Emily, but only him. Mark, Silas, and Kralen left to go back and
help with the arrival of the enemy Elders, while Kyle stayed in the
small waiting room.

Chevalier opened her door
and stepped inside. Aside from a swollen, bruised forehead, and the
mass of gauze taped to her neck, Emily looked like she was
peacefully resting. Her hands were secured to the bed frame with
soft leather restraints, and Chevalier took one of her hands as he
sat down beside her in a chair.

She opened her eyes and looked over at
him.

He smiled,
“Hi.”

She looked around the room and pulled
slightly to free her hands, “Where…”

“You’re in the hospital.”

She frowned and whispered, “Why?”

“Do you remember anything about being in the
farmhouse?”

She shook her head.

“You went to the farmhouse
to get a package… it was a bomb from the V.E.S.,” he explained.
He’d decided earlier that he wouldn’t lie to her about
this.

“Who…” She tried to clear
her throat but could only get enough breath for small words.
“Alone?”

“No, you had four guards
with you, and the farmhouse guard.”

“Ok?”

“Jaron and Ryder are
alive. The other three didn’t make it.”

She pulled again against the restraints.

Chevalier smiled slightly,
“You have too many things holding you together right now. We can’t
take them off.”

***

Chevalier, Kyle, and Dr.
Cook waited in the room while the nurse unhooked Emily from all of
the tubes and I.V.’s. Dr. Anderson was with them going over her
chart.

“Change the bandages over the chest tube
twice a day for a week, that should be enough. Can you remove the
stitches in a week?” he asked Dr. Cook.

Dr. Cook smiled, “Yes, I can manage
that.”

“Bed rest for 4 weeks, I want you off that
back,” Dr. Anderson said to Emily.

“What, no marathons?”

“If you feel like running
a marathon, let me know,” he told her, and grinned. “If she gets
short of breath, call an ambulance immediately, don’t let it
go.”

“Understood,” Dr. Cook
said, and took the prescriptions from Emily’s doctor.

“You said you have a wheelchair
somewhere?”

“Yes, we do.”

“An electric one? I don’t want her wheeling
one around.”

“Yes, it’s electric.”

“No stairs?”

Dr. Cook smiled slightly, “No, no
stairs.”

“Don’t believe him, I live
in an eight story palace,” Emily said, and winced when the nurse
pulled the I.V. out of her neck.

Dr. Anderson chuckled, “Good, then have your
servants carry you around.”

“Don’t think they won’t.”

“At least you kept your sense of humor… any
other questions?”

Dr. Cook checked the paperwork and
prescriptions again, “No, I think we’re good.”

“I’ll give you one more
pain medicine before you go. It’s going to be a painful trip until
they can lay you down in bed,” Dr. Anderson told her, and signed
something for the nurse.

“No shots,” Emily said,
and frowned.

“Pills aren’t strong enough, it’s just one
quick shot of morphine.”

“No”

“Ok, ok, I guess we can
just give you an oxycodone,” he said, and nodded to the nurse. She
came back in with two green pills and some apple juice and a
wheelchair.

“I don’t know…” Emily
said, and looked down at them.

“Just take them, Em,” Chevalier sighed.

She hesitated and then downed them both with
the juice.

“Ok then, Emily, follow up
with me in 4 weeks and call if anything changes,” Dr. Anderson
said.

Emily nodded and looked over at the
wheelchair.

“Can I just carry her?” Chevalier asked.

“No, that would put a
curve in her back. We need to keep it as straight as possible. The
brace will help, but let’s not push it.”

Chevalier nodded and
helped Emily sit up. She cried out when she sat up and the pain
shot down into her legs.

“You sure you don’t want a shot?” Dr.
Anderson asked.

“No shots,” she panted.

After twenty minutes of slow moving, they
were all on their way back to Council City in the Humvee.

Emily sighed, “I think out of all of the
injuries I’ve ever had, my back is the one that ticks me off the
most.”

Kyle grinned, “You just don’t like being
waited on.”

“That and so much as blink and it
hurts.”

“That, too.”

“This neck I.V. hurts,
like one of you attacked me in my sleep,” she said, and looked out
the window at the scenery.

Dr. Cook chuckled when her words began to
slur some, “Medicine kicking in?”

“Some,” she said, and
leaned her head back in the car. “My teeth itch.”

“Your teeth itch?” Kyle asked, glancing over
at her.

She sighed and began to relax in the seat as
she fell asleep.

“Are the other Elders still at the palace?”
Kyle asked Chevalier.

“Yes, they’re waiting for me to arrive.”

When Kralen pulled up in
front of the palace, Silas was waiting by the doors with the
wheelchair. They decided to carry her up in it instead of cradling
her, as the doctor warned them about. He wheeled it up and opened
the door.

“Damn, I hate that smell
on her,” Silas said as he locked the wheels on the
chair.

“I hear ya,” Chevalier
told him, and stood by his side. “So how do we get her in the
chair?”

Kyle walked over and looked, “Seems it’d be
faster if you picked her up and just blurred her up there, as
opposed to us trying not to move her.”

“I could make it worse.”

“How many Equites does it
take to lift a Winchester?” Exavior joked from behind
them.

“Shut up, Exavior,”
Chevalier said, without even turning around.

Sotomar stepped up and looked from Emily to
the wheelchair, “What were the exact orders?”

“Not to pick her up or bend her back.”

“So you get under her
arms, I’ll get under her knees, and we’ll lift her that way and set
her down in the chair,” he suggested.

“No, I’ll get her knees,”
Kyle said, and moved Sotomar out of the way.

Sotomar smiled, “Of course.”

Mark cleared his throat,
“We have this. Why don’t you return to the council
chambers?”

“Hint taken,” Exavior
said, and disappeared, followed by Sotomar.

Chevalier gently slid his arm behind her
back, “Lift on 3.”

Kyle nodded and on 3, both lifted gently and
sat her down in the chair. She groaned slightly but didn’t fully
wake up.

“Ok, up to bed and then
we’ll do it again?” Chevalier asked, and lifted Emily and the
chair.

“Sure,” Kyle said, and
followed them up.

After they moved her to
the bed, Dr. Cook checked her over and nodded, “She’ll be asleep
for a while. Go ahead down, I’ll wait here.”

Chevalier nodded and
walked down with Kyle to the council chambers. They each took their
seat, and then turned to the enemy Elders.

“How is she?” William asked.

“She’ll be ok. All that’s
left of her injuries is a bad back, but had she been alone in that
house, she wouldn’t be alive,” Chevalier told them
angrily.

“We had a package delivered for her that
same day, though they wouldn’t leave it with us because she wasn’t
there to sign.”

“As did we,” Sotomar said.
“It seems as though they were quite adamant on finding
her.”

Chevalier glanced over at Frederick, “You’re
the new Elder?”

He grinned, “Yes.”

“As I said, it was by sheer luck that her
guards saw what was coming and risked their own lives to protect
her, we may not always be that lucky.”

Zohn nodded, “The last
time they had her, she was badly beaten and almost froze to death.
This is getting too common.”

“Seems lax on the part of the Equites that
they keep getting her,” Exavior told them.

Chevalier growled, “It is
not lax on our part. She’s free to do what she wants and it keeps
getting her into trouble.”

Exavior just grinned.

“We could threaten to kill
Cody and Larry if they don’t stop,” Sotomar suggested.

“I think they would gladly
die for the cause and would probably agree to be killed for it,”
Quinn told them.

“So how do we do it? How
do we get them off our backs without risking exposure?” Valle Elder
Ryan asked.

“That’s what we’re here to
decide. Even before the alliance happened, it was well understood
that the safety and protection of the only Winchester fell to all
factions, and it’s now that we have to act,” Zohn told
them.

“The only way would be
complete annihilation,” Frederick said, and turned to
William.

“But how to do it without exposing the
heku,” William told him.

“800 of them were just
found as victims of a… what did they call it… cult suicide. We
might be able to get away with that façade,” Encala Elder Aaron
said.

“You might think that
would have deterred them, but it only made them stronger,”
Chevalier said.

“Turn her, make her strong enough that their
attacks won’t hurt her,” Exavior suggested.

Chevalier growled deeply.

“No, that’s out of the question,” Sotomar
said angrily. “Do not even suggest that… it’s part of our
agreement.”

“I know that, but it still seems logical and
always has.”

“No,” William said
bluntly.

“Fine,” Exavior said.
“Then turn all the V.E.S. one at a time… teach them to hate
themselves.”

“Would you stop with the
turning ideas?” Valle Elder Ryan snapped.

“We could call a meeting with the V.E.S.
leaders and see if we can come to an understanding,” Dustin
suggested.

“The V.E.S. has hated us since the first
Winchesters, they aren’t going to compromise,” Kyle told him.

“We can get rid of some of them by
implicating them in the attack on Emily, put the pressure back on
them,” Encala Elder Aaron said.

“That would get rid of a few, but every time
they end up in the news… their membership goes up,” Kyle
replied.

“We have to outnumber
them,” Quinn said, deep in thought. “Would it be possible to
control every one of them and return them to their pre-V.E.S. lives
with no hatred anymore?”

“We’re talking thousands,”
Zohn said, but nodded slightly. “We do outnumber them.”

“As soon as we control the
first 100, they will begin recruiting,” Sotomar said.

“But still… that idea has
merit,” William told him. “If we combined forces and set a date…
even if only 2-300 were left, it would drastically hurt their
chances of rebuilding.”

“Do we know of all of the V.E.S. locations?
That could take years to find,” Frederick brought up.

“Silas?” Chevalier called
out. They waited until the Commander came in.

“Yes, Elder?”

“When you were on Emily’s computer, you said
that she tracks everything the V.E.S. does that’s logged,
correct?”