Chapter 4 - Midnight Tremors
At two o'clock in the morning, the rain hit the estate with full force, rattling the heavy glass panes of the master bedroom.
Riley was sleeping on the small cot set up in the adjoining room—a requirement for night shifts when Jonah’s spasms were particularly severe.
A sharp, metallic clatter woke her instantly.
She sat up, kicked off her blanket, and sprinted into Jonah’s bedroom.
The bedside lamp was knocked over on the nightstand, its shade crooked. Jonah was sitting up in bed, panting heavily, his shirt drenched in cold sweat. His arms were shaking violently—not just his fingers, but his entire upper body was caught in a severe, terrifying autonomic dysreflexia spasm, a dangerous spike in blood pressure triggered by spinal injuries.
His face was pale, his lips slightly blue, his eyes wide with unadulterated panic.
"Jonah!" Riley shouted, rushing to his side.
She didn't grab her medical bag first. She immediately grabbed his shoulders, supporting his torso to keep him upright—sitting him up was the fastest way to drop the dangerous blood pressure.
"Breathe," Riley ordered, her hands pressing firmly against his chest and back, feeling the rapid, violent thud of his racing heart. "Jonah, look at me. Look at my eyes!"
Jonah couldn't speak. His teeth were chattering, his fingers clutching desperately at her scrub top, his fingernails digging into the fabric. He was a man accustomed to fighting enemies with guns, knives, and money, but against his own short-circuiting nervous system, he was utterly defenseless.
"I’ve got you," Riley whispered, her chaotic, sarcastic persona instantly melting away, replaced by the deep, fierce instinct of a trained healer. "I've got you, Jonah. You're safe. You're in your room. Sit up. Let the pressure drop."
She reached out with one hand, grabbed the blood pressure cuff from the nightstand, and wrapped it around his left arm, pumping it up quickly.
"Two hundred over one-twenty," she read off the dial. "Okay. High, but manageable. Check your catheter... okay, no blockage. It's just a muscle spasm spike."
She wrapped her arms around his broad chest, pulling his heavy, trembling upper body tightly against her own. She rested her chin near his collarbone, swaying slightly back and forth, feeling the hot heat radiating from his sweat-slicked skin.
"Breathe with me," she whispered gently into his hair. "In for four... out for four. Come on, big guy. Show those nerves who's boss."
For ten terrifying minutes, they stayed like that in the dim light of the crooked lamp. Jonah’s head rested heavily against Riley’s shoulder, his hands gripping her waist as his breathing gradually slowed down. The violent trembling eased into a small tremor, and finally stopped altogether.
The cuff reading dropped back to safe levels: one-thirty over eighty-five.
Jonah let out a long, shuddering breath. He didn't move away. He remained leaning against her, smelling the cheap vanilla shampoo she used and the faint scent of rain clinging to her skin.
"I hate this," Jonah choked out, his voice broken, raw, and completely stripped of his mob boss facade. "I hate this fucking body."
Riley didn't offer a platitude. She didn't tell him it would get better, or that he was brave for enduring it.
She simply tightened her grip around his shoulders, resting her forehead against his temples.
May you like
"I know," Riley whispered softly into the dark. "It sucks. It's unfair, it's terrible, and it sucks. But you survived tonight, Mercer. You survived."
Jonah closed his eyes. For the first time in six months, sitting in the dark surrounded by the wreckage of his former life, held tightly by a girl who was thirty-two minutes late to her interview, Jonah Mercer didn't feel entirely alone.
