Page 39 of Drawn Together

“Well, you didn’t do a very good job. I’m going to call a doctor.”

“Don’t even think about it. Leave me alone.”

He left, and I tried to go back to sleep. But a short while later, I heard the buzzer sound, and soon after, someone came into my room. I cursed Sebastian, but at least he had the decency to turn on the bedside lamp instead of the overhead light.

I felt horrible.

“Good evening, Miss Cortés. I’m Dr. Rockwood.”

I gathered all my strength from deep within my soul and pushed myself up to a seated position. The doctor, a man of no more than fifty, stood over me. Behind him—with a worried expression I’d never seen on him before—Sebastian kept his eyes glued to me.

“Your friend told me that you recently got a tattoo, and he thinks it’s infected.”

“He’s not my friend,” was my only response.

The doctor ignored my reply as he rummaged in his kit. He gave me a thermometer and told me to stick it under my arm.

“While we wait, why don’t you turn around so I can get a look at the tattoo?”

I did as he asked and lifted my shirt. The doctor and Sebastian both winced in unison, making my hair stand on end. Then the thermometer started to beep. When the doctor read it and informed us that I had a fever of over 104, I started to feel worried as well.

“That’s a very high fever.”

“Do I have an infection?”

“A whale of an infection, Miss Cortés. You need to start taking antibiotics immediately. And with a fever like that, you should be at the hospital until it passes—a day or so, give or take.”

“What? No way.”

“Marfil, fuck. Do what he says.”

“I don’t want to go to the hospital. My father will find out about it and about the tattoo. Do you want him to kill me? No, there has to be another solution.”

The doctor frowned, accepting the fact he wasn’t going to change my mind. “You want to stay here, fine, but I have to warn you, you have an exhausting night ahead of you.” Turningto Sebastian, he said, “You, too, young man. You’ll need to run her a cool bath.”

Sebastian was furious. I could see it in his eyes and in the way he clenched his jaw, but he nodded along to the doctor’s orders.

“She’s going to need to take this medicine every four hours and apply this cream to the infected area. I’ll come back tomorrow to check on her. But if the fever doesn’t start to go down, you’ll need to take her to the emergency room.”

Sebastian agreed as the doctor handed him the prescriptions.

They left the room, and I wrapped the comforter around myself once again. I was freezing, shivering so hard that my teeth chattered.

I must’ve dozed off, because it was almost an hour later when Sebastian came back with the medication and the antibiotic cream.

“You need to get in the bath, Marfil.”

“No fucking way. That doctor is crazy. I’m freezing. I don’t want to feel even colder.”

“If the fever doesn’t go down, you’re going to have to go to the emergency room. And I’ll gladly drag you down there. So do what the doctor says if you don’t want to make me even more mad than I already am.”

“Mind your own business,” I said, burying my face in the pillow and covering my head with the blankets.

Before I had time to react, he’d lifted me up and was carrying me to the bath. I didn’t have the strength to resist. All I could do was murmur insults at him until we reached the bathroom and he sat me down on the toilet. I looked at the bath, and as soon as my arm touched the water, my skin became covered in goose bumps.

“I’ll die of hypothermia if I get in there.”

“If you won’t get it on your own, I’ll have to throw you in myself.”