Cyborg Nation Kaitlyn O'Connor (books to get back into reading TXT) 📖

She ignored it as long as she could, but it seemed acknowledging it to begin with had only focused her mind on her discomfort until it couldn’t be ignored anymore.

This was where the patient was presented with a bedpan and expected to forget they’d ever had anything like privacy … or dignity.

She thought she’d rather die.

It was stupid, of course. The chances were they wouldn’t think anything at all about it, but it was how she felt about it that was bothering her. Finally, unable to bear it any longer, she watched until she managed to catch Gabriel’s eye and motioned him over.

“I have to go,” she said uncomfortably when he knelt beside her.

He looked at her curiously for a moment and finally lifted his hand to her forehead. It took her a moment to figure out he thought she might be delirious. “We will go soon,” he said finally, almost soothingly.

She must have a fever, but she was certainly not that feverish. “No. I mean … I have to relieve myself,” she said urgently, embarrassed to even have to ask for help.

Comprehension hit him and he looked around. “I will find something.”

Bronte grabbed his wrist before he could rise. “Take me into the woods just a little ways,” she said pleadingly. “I can manage.”

He frowned. “No, you can not.”

“Please?”

He looked torn. “Gideon would lob my head from my shoulders if I were to do anything that foolish, risked harming you for no reason at all. And I would let him because I would deserve it.”

Her chin wobbled. “Well, I don’t need to go then.”

“You should not be embarrassed....”

“Maybe I shouldn’t, but I am!” she said testily. “Never mind. I’m fine. Really.”

He didn’t look convinced but he rose and left.

She should’ve known he’d rat on her, she thought angrily when she saw him stop to speak to Gideon. Gideon lifted his head, stared at her a long moment and then strode purposefully across the clearing. She pulled the blanket over her head.

He snatched it down and looked at her. He did not look amused. “You are not being at all reasonable.”

She set her jaw, but it occurred to her after a moment that he’d said they would leave near dark anyway. “We’re leaving soon anyway, aren’t we? I don’t see that it’s all that unreasonable to ask for a little privacy to … uh … you know, when we’d be going soon anyway. And then we could just go ahead and leave. And that would be better, right? To go a little sooner?”

He frowned, but thoughtfully.

“I feel up to it,” she added.

He gave her a look that told her he didn’t believe that for a moment. Finally, he nodded, though—a clear indication of how anxious he was to move, she thought, not that she’d so easily talked him in to it. “We will gather up what we mean to take, and then I will allow them to go a little ahead and help you.”

Bronte stared at his back in dismay as he rose decisively and left. Irritation quickly replaced it. The thick skulled thing! As if she wanted him to watch her any more than the other two, she fumed! She was not going to be able to perform with an audience!

Her anger lasted until he picked her up. As carefully as he’d positioned his arms before he lifted her, she nearly passed out. In fact, the pain that went through her was such that for several moments she wasn’t certain if she would throw up or pass out first and she was still in the grips of both when they cleared their campsite and Gideon stopped, lowering her carefully to the ground. She fought a round with the pain, nausea and dizziness.

“I need to sit up,” she managed to say when she finally caught her breath.

“You can not do that now.”

She struggled for breath. “I can’t … do what I need to without using my stomach muscles either.” She looked up at him pleadingly. “Please, Gideon.”

He stared down at her angrily for several moments but finally knelt and helped her to sit far enough upright to brace herself on her elbows. She had to leave it at that. She couldn’t sit up any straighter and she felt like she was going to pass out as it was. “Now, go away,” she said when she’d fought off the faint.

“No,” he said implacably and resolutely turned his back, folding his arms over his chest.

She glared at the back of his head for a moment but discovered she just didn’t have the energy to fight him any more. Holding her blanket up as a shield, she coaxed her bladder into cooperating. Fortunately, she was able to escape the run off, but the entire incident was humiliating and exhausting besides. By the time Gideon had wrapped her in her blanket again and picked her up, she was nauseated, faint, embarrassed, and tearful.

He glanced at her in frowning inquiry several times when she kept sniffing and finally, she looped her arms around his neck and dropped her head onto his hard shoulder to hide her face. “I hate being sick,” she muttered childishly.

His arms tightened around her fractionally. “You will be well soon.”

She doubted that. She felt like she’d have to die to feel better.

She was almost sorry her determination to have a little privacy had prompted her to bully them into letting her have her way. As carefully as Gideon carried her, every step he took jarred her and caused her more pain. Her leg was splinted and he supported it the best he could, she knew, but even the slight jarring from his stride was agony and that paled by comparison to the pain in her abdomen. She was sorry she hadn’t passed out before.

She began to recite a litany in her head to try to keep from groaning out loud--Just a little further. Just a little further …. Just kill me now. Just kill me now….

The sudden scream that tore