The clock stopped ticking and the two bombs simply sat there looking harmless. Malichai had one moment of euphoria and then pain engulfed him, spread through him, twisting his insides into shards of glass and spewing his guts onto the floor as darkness overtook him.19There was the continuous sound of machines beeping in the background. Muted noises that became louder and more persistent until Malichai had little choice but to try and pry his eyes open. For some reason, his eyelids refused to lift. Maybe he was just too damned tired. He was aware of smells. He recognized he was in a hospital, he certainly had been in them enough times. He wasn’t in pain. Had he been brought in wounded and fallen asleep? That wouldn’t be the first time either.
He tried to assess what was going on while he worked on his sticky eyelids. Memories refused to return to him no matter how hard he reached for them. The world seemed far away at first, but the machines and the persistent beeping annoyed him, refusing to allow him to return to sleep.
“Malichai.”
His name. He heard that clearly. Was there a trace of anxiety in his brother’s voice? That was Ezekiel calling out to him. When Zeke called, you always answered. Malichai redoubled his efforts to pry his eyelids open, a little ashamed to be caught sleeping on the job. He managed to open them slightly, mere slits so he could peer around the room.
He was in bed, hooked up to machines, IVs running up his arms to bags of fluids and even blood. What had happened? He forced his gaze to move around the room. Amaryllis’s face swam into view. She looked as if she’d been crying. Mordichai was close to her. Rubin and Diego taking her back. Right between them was . . . Nonny. His heart jerked hard. He heard the answering acceleration of a machine. Nonny was there. The machine didn’t stop the rapid-fire heartbeat.
Malichai’s gaze settled on Ezekiel’s face. He was close, right near Malichai’s head, ready to block him from the sight of the others. From Amaryllis. This wasn’t good. This couldn’t be good. He couldn’t lift his eyelids any farther. Now he didn’t even want to, but he looked at his older brother. Zeke was everything. Father. Brother. Commanding officer. Malichai would follow him into hell. Right now, he needed his father. Ezekiel didn’t let him down.
“I’d like to have the room, if you all don’t mind,” Ezekiel said quietly, which was his way. “Malichai is waking up and I’ll need a few minutes to talk to him alone.”
“Of course,” Mordichai said, before anyone else could say anything.
He took Amaryllis by the hand. Rubin gently put his arm around Nonny. They were careful with the woman. Gentle. Reverent even. The men escorted the two women out of the room, leaving only Ezekiel with Malichai. Now Malichai’s heart beat so hard he feared it would explode.
His brother slipped his arm around his chest. “Do you want to try to sit?”
“Just tell me.” He knew. He couldn’t feel, but he knew. Nonny was there and she wouldn’t have come all the way from her beloved swamp at her age if the news wasn’t bad—if it wasn’t the worst.
God. He felt the burn of tears welling up behind his eyes, choking him in his throat so he could barely breathe, and Ezekiel hadn’t said a word.
“They had to take the leg, Malichai. Whatever was causing the bone to disintegrate was creeping higher and higher, almost like a fungus, and there was no stopping it. When you stepped down on it getting out of the van and ran toward the center, the bone itself shattered like glass. It was impossible to repair.”
That arm was steady, the way Ezekiel was steady. Always there for Malichai and his brothers. Always would be, no matter how bad things got, and they’d gotten bad. They’d been worse, but not for Malichai. This was his personal nightmare, and then there was Amaryllis. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—ask her to share this with him.
He wouldn’t have cried like a baby in front of the others. He would have been stoic, and not made a single sound, but this was Ezekiel and he just wrapped his arms around his older brother, buried his face in his neck and let his heart shatter. Let his emotions spill like his guts out on his brother’s broad shoulders. He sobbed like a baby and didn’t even care that he did.
Ezekiel held him tight, never once admonishing him to stop. He simply held him and let him cry, let him mourn his lost leg. When he finally subsided, and Malichai had no idea how long that took, Zeke handed him something to blow his nose with and then pulled up a chair beside the bed.