Cyborg Nation by Kaitlyn O'Connor (english readers TXT) 📗

bath. Unfortunately, the first few times she ‘got up’ the most she could manage was to sit up for a few minutes and at that she had to have help. That was enough of a chore that she contented herself, at first, with the pleasure of being able to actually sit up to eat. By the end of the first day, though, she’d gotten to the point that she could sit up without being helped upright and stay upright for a long while before she had to lie down again.

Since it looked like that bath she wanted was another day or so down the road, she convinced Gabriel to find something to hold enough sea water for her to dabble in until she felt a little cleaner. The sea water wasn’t nearly as pleasant for bathing as fresh water, she discovered. She felt almost as sticky and uncomfortable when she’d finished as she had before she started. Overall she felt better, though, and she thought she must look at least a little better.

She couldn’t get to her legs. She couldn’t bend over enough to reach and she couldn’t bring her legs up close enough to grab them. Toward bed time, though, she finally bullied Gideon into removing the splint they’d made so that she could examine the break to see what progress there’d been in healing. The wound where the bone had torn through the skin had completely closed, she discovered with happy surprise, and the fresh pink skin was already lightening.

Gideon surprised her by bringing water and bathing her legs for her and for the first night since she’d been hurt, she was not only able to cuddle without a lot of physical discomfort, she could cuddle without worrying that she stank. She decided the next morning that she was ready to tackle getting up. If she’d had a bed to sleep in she might actually have been able to accomplish that by herself—probably not—but she might have. Getting up from a supine position to a standing position when she could only bend one leg wasn’t possible, not as weak as she still was. She’d managed to get on her hands and one knee before she realized that, though, and by the time she looked around for help, she discovered everyone had disappeared.

She lay down to rest from the effort and wait for somebody to reappear.

And she waited.

Finally, realizing they must be fully occupied elsewhere and that she couldn’t just call for help without the danger of the trogs hearing her, she looked around the cavern for something to use to help her get up. Spying a stone roughly the height of a chair, she decided to see if she could lift herself onto it and then get to her feet. The challenge was getting to the stone to start with. She hadn’t realized when she started just how far away it was in terms of strength. She had to stop and rest about halfway, and then, when she’d dragged herself the rest of the way, she had to rest again before she could start trying to figure out how she was going to lift her ass from the floor to the top.

Gideon, she discovered, had returned at some point—discovered it when she began fighting to get up on the rock.

“What are you doing?” he demanded, striding to stand over her and glare at her.

She was too tired to have much energy for anger but she sent him a look of resentment anyway. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

He studied her a moment and then the rock. “Trying to climb onto the rock. I see this. I just do not understand why you want to sit on it. The floor is more smooth.”

Bronte let out an irritated huff. “I don’t want to sit on the rock. I want to get up. I can’t stand up without help, though.”

His expression hardened. “You are injured. You need to rest.”

He meant well, Bronte decided. He just didn’t understand that just resting wasn’t going to help her get better. “If I don’t get up and try, I’m not going to get stronger. I’ll get weaker.”

He looked unsettled by that comment, and then suspicious. “This is not only because you do not like for me to help you ‘go’?”

Bronte reddened. “No,” she said testily. “It’s because I’m a doctor and I know that I have to work to get better.”

He still didn’t look as if he believed her but he finally knelt, looked her over for a moment as if trying to decide how to get her on her feet without hurting her and finally caught her beneath her arms. Relieved she wasn’t going to have to try to put rock climbing to the test, Bronte placed her hands on his shoulders and pushed up with her good leg as he lifted her. She thought for several moments after she stood that she was going to faint.

“I knew you should not try this,” Gideon said angrily. “You are too stubborn for your own good.”

“No,” Bronte said faintly. “Well, I guess I am a little stubborn, but I meant this isn’t stubbornness. And it is a bad sign to feel so lightheaded, but it means I should’ve been trying to get up before, not that I shouldn’t be trying now.”

His expression said he didn’t believe her but obviously there was just enough doubt in his mind that he was willing to go along with her determination.

“Now I need to walk a little,” she said once the dizziness had passed. Tightening her hand on his arm, she took a step and dragged the leg she couldn’t bend. He walked beside her, supporting more of her weight, probably, than she was while she struggled to take a dozen steps. His expression was taut when she finally asked him to help her down.

“Now you will be ill again,” he said tightly when she lay limply on the floor, fighting for breath at the little bit of exertion.

“Now