Insufficient

Chapter Fourteen

I'm sorry in advance. 

TW

Massimo's POV

When I woke up, Jules was still fast asleep, right where I had left her. Which was lying on top of me.

After she dozed off while I was doing her hair, I was able to get it up into two pigtails, and then plait each one. Seeing as that was just about the only thing I knew how to do. I added a little bit of purple washaway hairspray, and let it be.

I smiled lightly to myself as I looked at Jules. She was still the same, in more ways than she knows. The look she gives when she thinks you've done something stupid, the way that she cocks her head to the side when she doesn't understand something. The way that she scrunched up her nose when she's concentrating on something.

But there was so much that had changed about her also. The way that she no longer likes to be touched. How, at times, she hugs herself around her ribcage, as though she's protecting something. How she always seems to be on high alert.

I've tried to write that off as her just being in a strange place, with people that she wasn't truly comfortable around. I'm not going to lie, that hurts, but no one can expect her to come in here and immediately feel at home with people she hasn't seen in almost a decade.

I just can't help but have a bad feeling about something. Like she keeps up a constant wall between us and herself. As though she's hiding something.

My attention was brought back to the little on top of me when she let out a small little whine, shifted the best she could, shifted again, then got really still.

That's when she started fighting.

It's like she couldn't breath, you heard her gasping for breath, coughing a deep, painful cough.
Her arms and legs started violently thrashing, as though she wanted to get away from something, all while she made that awful wheezing sound.

I wrapped my arms tight around her, binding her to me as I took my legs and trapped hers, so that she couldn't hurt anyone, herself.

She continued to thrash around, and I called for dad who came running into the room with Grandpa and Nonna.

Justin, who had unfortunately been on the other end of the couch and had received one of Juliana's vicious kicks to the head, was up and looking around, dazed as ever.

All the commotion had woken up Elijah, who saw Jules in distress and immediately went into doctor mode, telling Justin to get out of the room, and got everyone besides me to back away.

"When did this start?" Elijah asked me as he checked Juliana's pulse. With her thrashing, dad had to come help hold her still so Elijah could get an honest reading.

"It just started. Happened out of nowhere, she turned over, and all of a sudden, this." I explained and Elijah nodded.

"Sit her up, now. She can't breathe. There could be fluid in her lungs." Elijah leaned over and helped me to flip Juliana rightside up, and lean her against me in a sitting position. It wasn't hard seeing as she had stopped thrashing after about a minute.

I held her upright for a minute and her entire body tensed, horrible wet coughs wracking her body before she went completely limp.

"We need to get her to Med-Bay before anything else can happen. Try to carry her in an upright position, I'm going to see how soon Sanya can get here." Elijah said, and I realised I hadn't even looked at the time yet. If Sanya wasn't here then it must still be early. She normally starts and ends her shifts at 10.