Something Wicked 🏳️‍🌈 (bxb)

23: Sylvia Payne is my Secret Santa

You know? One time in my life I just wanna be eased softly outta unconsciousness by the aroma of good coffee, light jazz in the background, maybe a gentle hand-job.

But my life wasn't like that. As usual, agony dragged me awake. My back throbbed like it had been dipped in lava. What the fuck had happened to me?

A gummy eye opened. I was in a hospital room. A cannula needle was embedded in my hand, I guessed from a morphine drip. My entire upper body was one giant fucking bandage. I seriously needed to stop doing this shit to myself.

My memory came back one crystalline thought at a time, like grains of sand falling through a timer.

Did Dante make it out?

Did Rayan?

The grains of sand became a slow-flowing trickle through my mind.

Fuck. What if Kate Jones hadn't saved Dante from Zaki?

The trickle became a sand dune.

My arms wrapped around nothingness. I'd been cradling a little bundle when I'd passed out. I tossed my head around the tiny hospital room. Where was she?

No crib. No bassinet. No sign of her. Unholy fucking terror gripped at my heart.

"Where's my baby?" Cannula ripped clean outta my arm, I hauled my busted-up self off the bed and threw open the door. I limped along the silent corridor, slamming open doors onto bewildered patients cowering in their beds as I bellowed, "Where's my baby?" in their faces.

Nurses appeared, rushing to and fro to calm patients, their hands raised in appeal with cries of "Amrika Sayid! You must rest!"

"Where's my baby?" The fire exit end of the corridor loomed. I crashed against it in a tearful heap, wailing in Arabic and English like either would help me. "I want my baby!"

I looked up to see a tiny matron with a tie-dye hijab scuttling along the corridor toward me. "Your baby is coming! Rest, Sayid! Rest!"

I swiped my arm across my tears. "Where is she?"

"Will you rest, Sayid?" Matron did not look like she was gonna take shit from bandaged American dudes. She gestured me to get the fuck up then turned on her heels, scribbling in a notebook as I trailed after her back along the corridor. "The doctor is doing checks."

"Is she hurt? Did she get burned? She's six weeks premature. Did I hurt her when I was running? Is she—"

"Sayid! She passed all health tests!" Matron reset my cannula and tucked me tight under my bed sheets like she was folding a burrito. "But you need to rest."

Dread overtook me, and I wrenched at the sheets. "She's not...engineered...is she? Is she normal?"

Matron's face flickered. "We don't know. She's a strong girl, Sayid. I promise."

Didn't matter. Whatever Mira had done to her, my Star was OK. And she was a strong girl! But I really really fucking needed to see her. My tears had dried up but the shakes were taking their sweet time to stop. I asked in the politest and most non-crazy voice I could attempt right then, "Please can I see my baby?"

The door creaked open. My heart leaped into my throat.

Dante stood there cradling a bundle in a blanket. He was OK. And my Star was OK.

He slid her into my arms. My whole body reverberated with relief that she was back with me. My little gusanita looked all snug and rosy. I pecked a kiss to her nose, then pulled Dante onto the bed for an onslaught of kisses to his jaw, his neck, his hands, any skin I could reach. "¡Ay bendito! I was so scared. I thought Zaki had..."