Billionaire, I Am Not Your Wife! novel Chapter 61

Chapter 56: The Fever Dreams

Cameron’s POV

The observation window became my entire world for forty-eight hours.

Frank had been right about the critical monitoring period-the first two days after taking on the experimental treatment were when a patient’s body either accepted what had been done to it or rejected it violently.

I’d read the documents that he’d given me, studied the statistics, understood logistically what we were watching for.

Understanding it intellectually did nothing to prepare me for watching my sister fight for her life through a reinforcer glass keeping me away from her.

The fever started six hours after the infusion ended.

I watched her temperature climb on the monitors-98.6, then 99.4, then 101.2, climbing steadily despite the ice packs the nurses kept rotating, despite the cooling blankets they’d wrapped around her, trying to get her temperature back to normal..this was normal, it was listed but seeing it happen real life was another source of pain.

By midnight of the first night, she was at 103.8 and delirious, thrashing against the restraints they’d had to use to keep her from pulling out her lines.

“This is normal,” Frank kept saying, appearing every few hours to check her vitals, but mainly, to reassure me with words that was beginning to sound hollow as the hours went by.

“Her body is mounting an immune response. This is actually what we want to see-evidence that her system is engaging with the treatment.”

“She looks like she’s dying,” I said flatly, watching through the glass as two nurses worked to get her still enough to take a blood draw.

“She’s not dying. She’s fighting.” Frank put a hand on my shoulder. “I know it doesn’t look like it, but trust me-I’ve seen this before. The fever is her immune system going to war with the cancer cells. It’s brutal but it’s working.”

My parents arrived around 2 AM, despite my instructions to stay home and rest. They didn’t need to be here for this stage and I wanted to keep the worse from them but My parents were as stubborn as miles which was where we had gotten it from.

My mother took one look at Sedona through the glass and had to sit down, what she saw having shook her than she expected.

“This is normal?” she asked, her voice thin, filled with fear as she gripped my hand as an anchor.

“Cameron, she looks-”

“I know what she looks like. Frank says it’s expected.”

“Expected doesn’t mean it’s not terrifying to see her like that.”

She wasn’t wrong about that.

We settled into a vigil-my parents in chairs I’d dragged from the waiting area, me standing by the window because I couldn’t make myself sit down, couldn’t make myself look away for more than a few seconds at a time.

Rachel and Enzo came by in the morning, Enzo taking Molly home after she started to fuss, Rachel staying to sit with my mother.

The fever continued climbing. 104.2. 104.7. 105.1.

And then: “Nick. Where’s Nick? I need to check on Nick.”

I was on my feet immediately, pressed against the glass. “Sedona-”

But she couldn’t hear me at all. I doubt she was aware of the surroundings around her.

She was somewhere else entirely, somewhere in the past where Nick still needed her,

“He has soccer practice,” she mumbled, her hand moving restlessly on the blanket like she was reaching for something.

“Can’t miss soccer practice. Catherine will take him but I need to pack his inhaler. Has to have his inhaler or he can’t breathe-”

“Someone should be with her,” my mother said, standing, trying to get inside the room.

“Cameron, she’s calling for her son. She shouldn’t be alone-”

“It’s not safe,” Frank-said. He appeared at some point, summoned by the change in Sedona’s vitals as he stopped Jennifer shaking his head as he led her away from the door as he continued speaking.

“The fever makes her unpredictable. She could pull out lines, could hurt herself without meaning to-”

“She’s crying,” I said, because she was indeed crying as I could see the tears rolling down her cheeks with no sign of stopping. “She’s crying and calling for her son and you’re telling me she has to do it alone?”