Page 98 of Fighting Spirit

There’s a long pause. “Can it wait?” Trevor’s voice is muffled, as if he’s speaking from under the comforter.

“Nope.”

“Rowan, what are you doing?” I whisper-yell. He ignores me as he cracks open the door to Trevor’s room.

“You decent?”

“What’s going on?” Trevor whines. I peer into the room and see the sliver of light illuminating his sprawled form, the comforter bunched up over his head, his feet exposed. “I’m asleep.”

“Not anymore, Ruth’s sick.”

“Okay?” he says as he slowly drags the covers away from his face, shooting me a confused frown.

“You need to tell me what you put in the lasagna,” says Rowan

“Rowan, seriously, he can tell us in the morning. Just let him sleep.”

“Yeah,” Trevor chimes in with a mumble. “Let me sleep.”

Rowan ignores the both of us. “She’s having a reaction to something from dinner.”

Trevor sits up as I try again to pull Rowan away from the door. “Ro, it’s fine. There’s nothing we can do about it anyway.”

“Are you okay?” Trevor frowns at me, looking a little more alert.

“Yes-”

“No.”

Rowan and I reply at the same time. Trevor’s eyes dart between us, his mouth open in confusion.

“Rowan, let’s just go back to bed. This isn’t helping anything.” I try again to pull his big frame out of Trevor’s doorway.

“If we know what it was, then we can fix it.” Rowan frowns.

“What are you talking about?” My forehead falls against his shoulder in exasperation. “I wasn’t bitten by a rattlesnake. We can’t extract the venom from a wheat grain and create an antidote.” I can hear Trevor snickering from where he’s sat on the edge of his bed.

“Well, what do we do about it?”

“Nothing, I’ll just feel shitty for a while. It’s no big deal.” I shrug, even as another bout of pain makes me grimace.

Rowan turns toward me, running a big hand up my arm until he’s cupping the side of my neck. “It’s a very big deal. If you’re not feeling good, then I’m gonna do something about it.”

“There’s nothing you can do.”

His jaw clenches, and a low grumble makes its way from his chest as he drops his forehead to mine. “I can’t have you hurting.”

“Do I need to be here for this?” Trevor asks.

“No, go check the dinner ingredients,” Rowan commands without looking up, his eyes still boring into mine. “Figure out what you poisoned my girl with.”

“I used wheat-free pasta! That’s why it was so weird!” Trevor shouts indignantly.

“He didn’t poison me,” I whisper as he shuffles past.

“He fed you, and now you’re sick,” Rowan grumbles. “He’s on my shit list.”

“He didn’t do it on purpose.”

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