Page 72 of Even Robots Die (Even Ever After #3)

Florentine

W e go through the sterilization screen and it feels like my skin has been drenched in alcohol. It’s a weird sensation that makes my skin itch a bit.

I know the birds never took these kinds of precautions when they toyed with Brice in the first place, but everyone in this room cares about him continuing to live at the end of this, so it’s a necessity.

Everything after that happens like I’m a robot. It feels like it lasts hours and all at the same time it’s over before I know it.

When I finally step outside, night has fallen already, and the sky is dotted with stars.

They’re putting the top of Brice’s skull in place and sewing him back up, and I can’t look at that. It was already hard to see him react to all the electrical impulses I sent through his brain. Because yes, he was awake all along and I think that’s worse.

I can’t erase the image of him without his hair, skin, and skull bone out of my head.

I saw them finally put him to sleep right before I left the surgery room, and I know it’s going to help him recover faster, but there is an uneasy feeling in my gut that tells me it’s never going to be the same between us after today.

Not that much has happened so far, but I was starting to get used to his small gestures and his ever present touch. What if all of that disappears when he wakes up?

He’s not here to help me breathe, and I feel it deep inside my heart.

There is a nagging voice in my head telling me that I should have never let myself rely on him, and that now I don’t know how to breathe anymore if he’s not right next to me and that it’s going to end badly.

I don’t know how to shut that voice down, so I let myself slouch against the wall near the entrance of the surgery room.

I can still hear them inside. I have no idea what is going on, but at least I don’t hear any panic or screams that make me think something is going wrong.

The hardest part is over though, so I should let myself rest. Except my brain is trying to come up with everything that can go wrong, even now that the only thing left is to put him back together.

I’ve never been scared for someone like this, not even my own sisters, and that scares me the most.

What has Brice done to me to make me feel this antsy?

I wrap my arms around my knees and put my head on the top of them, looking away from the door of the surgery room.

I hate that room. I hate it even more today because I’m in limbo. I wish I could say it’s because I need the money this experimental surgery will bring me, but I know I’d be lying to myself if I said so.

Did I unexpectedly catch feelings for the big bad bat?

Right on the verge of an open war?

That’s silly of me, and yet that can be the only reason why I’m stressing like hell, sitting on the ground next to Brice’s surgery room.

I’m so fucking screwed.

I wait and wait. Trying not to ask Milton every other minute what time it is and if they’re done inside the room.

I try .

I’m not really good at self-control, especially not in these conditions, and I fail—epically.

I know it’s been exactly twenty-three minutes—and thirty-seven seconds—since I left the room when the first of Marie’s team finally comes out. It takes them all another minute before everyone is out and one of the interns—assistants? Doctors?—starts removing the sterilization screen from the door.

I’m expecting it to take longer than a couple of minutes for it to be dismantled and stored in the box next to me and I don’t even notice that I’ve been on the ground the whole time.

Marie is the last one to come out and she waits until everyone has packed their bags and I’m finally standing up again to address me.

“He’ll wake up in six-to-eight hours with the cocktail of medicine I sent through his blood system.

Try not to jostle him too much in the meantime if you can.

He shouldn’t need any medicine when he wakes up, but if his head is painful I’ve left painkillers on the desk.

I tried not to shave his whole head before opening, we glued some hair on top of his head.

It might itch for a little while, but I’d advise for him to keep his hair that way another couple of hours once he wakes up or there is a risk of tugging on the healing skin while it’s still too fresh and that the scar around his head becomes swollen.

I tried to cut directly on top of the other scar so as not to make an extra one, which means it’ll be sensitive for a little longer.

There is a balm near the painkillers that needs to be applied every other hour for a couple days so that it reduces the scar.

It is only aesthetic, not using it won’t make him heal slower,” she pauses after that last part as if she knows we probably won’t have time to apply the balm over the next few days.

I have to remind myself that she’s human and highly intelligent.

She probably put two and two together when we rushed her here.

She knows and she’s trying to reassure me in her own ways.

“If anything happens while he sleeps, call on my personal holo, not the hospital’s, and I’ll come back as fast I can. I don’t see any reason it would happen, but just in case …” she sighs at my wide eyes .

I think I remember everything she just said, but I could be wrong. I don’t think the little time I slept in Brice’s arms earlier was enough to compensate for the lack of sleep of the past few days.

“I left you a note on the desk with the painkillers and the balm. Everything is on there, my holo number included,” she tells me, and I feel like I can breathe again for the first time since she started explaining everything I need—or don’t need—to do for Brice.

“Thank you,” I tell her, and from the way her eyes are scrutinizing me, she knows my thanks are for more than just the note she left for me.

She grabs her bag from where she dropped it on the ground when she came to talk to me.

“I’ll send him my bill,” she says before walking away.

Before she arrives at the end of the corridor, she stops and turns my way.

“By the way, if someday you decide your abilities can be used for something other than building weapons, give me a call. I’m pretty sure we could cure a lot of mental illnesses with a little change here and there in your programming.”

And then she disappears around the corner and I’m left speechless at Brice’s door.