I snorted. “Isn’t that your personal nightmare?”
“Oh, it is, but foryourhealth, I would endure it.” He huffed out a long-suffering sigh.
Freddy acted like dealing with newbies was the worst thing around, but I knew that, deep down, he loved it. If he hadn’t become an EMT, I could have totally seen him becoming a teacher, maybe even a professor of medicine.
Throughout the day, I managed to distract myself with work. Helping patients, stocking the rig, it all helped distance me from the symptoms. Between taking care of a six-year-old with a broken leg and elderly patients with heart issues, I was able to divert myself from the hollow feeling deep in my gut.
Every now and again, I had to stop myself and pull up the collar of my shirt to ensure that my bond mark was invisible. Mentally, I made a note to figure out a better way to hide it.
But all in all, the day was manageable. I didn’t want to go on like this, but I felt like I’d made it through the worst of it.
By the time Freddy dropped me back at the depot, I was optimistic that I would be able to get over this separation sickness just fine.
“Girl, it’s been weeks, and you’re still sick,” Freddy said with concern, handing me a cup of coffee, which I gladly inhaled.
“I know. This bug just won’t leave me alone,” I grumbled.
It wasn't a bug; I still wasn't going to admit that to him, and both of those things were causing a damn problem.
After several days, the symptoms were starting to grind on me. At first, I could power through them. It was just an inconvenience, and I had to get through it to continue living my life the way I always had.
Now, it was starting to wear on me.
“You need to see a doctor. Maybe get some strong antibiotics.”
“No, I just need to power through,” I whined.
Seeing a doctor was the last thing I wanted to do. Not just because I wasn't particularly fond of seeing them outside ofwork, but because it would mean confronting the reality of my situation.
Denial, population: me.
Freddy laughed. “I know you make a crap patient, but you’ve got to. Your night out was like what, two weeks ago? What if you got a nasty infection from an unsanitary surface?”
He shuddered dramatically, and I rolled my eyes at him. But, unfortunately, I couldn’t deny that I’d been feeling like shit for some time now, and…
It was getting worse.
Slowly but surely, the separation symptoms weren’t improving but gnawing on me more and more. Everything I’d read said it would get better in time, so why was I feelingworseby the day?
Deep down, a small part of me knew that seeing a doctor would be for the best, but hiding my head in the sand felt like the more comfortable option.
Getting a medical opinion would mean facing the stupid mistake I made, telling someone what was going on, and having to look dead in the face that I was bonded to an alpha I wasn’t going to see—ever again.
My muscles tensed, my jaw actually cracking. The visceral hatred I felt toward Preston was overpowering.
I was so inexplicably mad at him for biting me, even though I had bitten him as well. Worse, despite that rage, I still wanted him. Everything in my body demanded to see him again, to hold him, to smell him, to keep him close.
And to feel him inside me again, finally easing this ache.
My omega instincts wanted him desperately, even though my mind revolted at the idea. Usually, I was far more in touch with my omega instincts. To be so at odds with them was jarring, to say the least.
Sitting in the silent rig, not looking at Freddy, I was fighting against my very nature, and my nature was winning.
If I didn't find a solution soon, I would go crawling on my hands and knees to that goddamn convict camp and beg for even a speck of time with the degenerate criminal I’d accidentally bonded.
The radio crackled to life. “Freddy! You’re needed on this,” a sweet, familiar voice said over the speaker.
Lucy was a dispatcher we had worked with many times. I had never actually met her in person, but I had spoken to her many, many times.