The Other Side of Greed by Lily Zante

Chapter Fifty

BRANDON

My arm hurts. I can’t lift it. Everything hurts. My back and sides feel numb. But I can move my toes. At least it’s something. It must mean that I’m not dead.

“You were injured in the fire. You have first, second and third degrees burns, and you’re suffering the effects of smoke inhalation.”

Something fell on it, something heavy. I didn't even feel the heat inside that furnace. Smoke, the smell, couldn't breathe, couldn't see, but I knew the kids were in there and I wasn’t going to let them down.

I wasn’t going to let them die.

They were crouched on the floor, at the far wall. I screamed out to them, realized that fear had paralyzed them. That’s when I scooped the boy up in my arms and was trying to put the girl’s arm around my waist so that I could somehow drag her out. That’s when Fredrich showed up, and grabbed her.

I remember the desperate urge to survive. To make it out with all of us. We forced our way through the thick wall of smoke, coughing, struggling to breathe, my arm on fire. And then I made it out and collapsed onto a heap on the ground.

I now look around the large clinical looking room and see a doctor looking at her clipboard. “I want to go home,” I announce.

“You're suffering from the effects of smoke inhalation, and you have third degree burns on your shoulder, sir. You’re not going anywhere.”

“I'm not staying here.” I wince as I try to sit up. A sharp pain shoots through my shoulder. My whole body hurts, but the pain in my shoulder is as if someone has hacked a machete through it. Still, I am not staying here. “No.” I pant through the pain, while attempting to turn enough to put my feet on the floor.

“What do you think you're doing?” Kyra stands with a look of displeasure on her face. She has a bottle of water in one hand, and a backpack. “Is he being difficult again, Doctor?”

“I hope you'll have better luck in persuading him. He can’t go home. He’s at an increased risk of infection and he needs to be under observation.”

Kyra lifts the bottle to her lips and takes a gulp before screwing the lid on. “Don’t worry. He's not going anywhere.”

The energy I've been trying to summon in order to turn my body, dissipates. Kyra's stern gaze has torpedoed that idea out of my head.

That’s settled then.

I'm not going anywhere. Kyra sets her backpack down, pulls a chair over from the other side of the room, so that it's facing me, then sits down.

“Leave him to me, Doctor. He'll comply fully.”

Kyra sits down.

She's staying?

“What are you doing?” Just to clarify the situation before I raise my hopes Mount Everest high.

“Keeping an eye on you.”

My hopes start to rise slowly.

'Oh?' is the question I want to ask. Does this mean something? That she has forgiven me? And then I remember. “The children. How are the children?”

“They’re fine. No burns, or injuries, just smoke inhalation. You saved them. You and Fredrich saved their lives.”

I sink back against the bed, then cry out in pain because my shoulder touching the pillow hurts like hell. Kyra's up in a flash.

“What is it? Shall I get the doctor?”

I close my eyes and wimp out. I wish I was brave and could face her, but I have never experienced pain like this before. I breathe through it. Maybe the doctor was right. I can't go home tonight.

“Brad.” She whispers. My eyelids slowly open. It's the sweetest sound I've heard in a while. Her saying my name like that, without anger. Without snarling. “I suppose I should call you Brandon, but it will take some getting used to.”

She can call me what she wants, as long as she talks to me. I want to think that we are back to normal again but I dare not ask for fear of getting shot down.

“It's just my shoulder. It really hurts.”

“The doctor thinks you might need skin grafts.”

I vaguely remember him explaining something to me, but my mind has been dazed.

“He won't know for a few weeks,” she explains.

“I don't care about the skin grafts. I just care that we saved those children.”

Her smile is so deep, it leaps out of her eyes. “You did good, Brad, Brandon.” She goes to touch my arm, then pulls it away. “I don't even know where I can touch you.”

“Do you want to?” I turn my head towards her.

Her throat moves, as if she's swallowing, trying to compose herself. “What you did was heroic.”

“Anyone would have done that.”

“Not anyone. Not many did. Fredrich went in but only after you did.”

My mind pulls out a memory. “You were about to go in there.”

“But you pushed me out of the way and dove in.”

“I was being selfish. I didn't want you to get hurt or die.”

“Stop making it less heroic. You were brave. It takes guts to go into a building on fire.”

“Guts, or stupidity.” I wince as the pain comes back. My shoulder feels as if its burning, and it pulsates in pain. I need more painkillers but I'm too scared to fall asleep now while I have Kyra here, talking to me, like this.

We look at one another, questions floating in the empty space between us. The answers will come later, but there is a softness in her eyes that wasn't there before.

“I need to tell you something,” I say, my heart beginning to thump. Telling the truth is hard but the lies, they come easily—at least they do to a man like me.

“Don’t talk now. Just rest.”

“But I need to tell you.” I want to tell her about Kane, my younger brother, and how we were separated when I was adopted. I want to tell her how the guilt of leaving him, and never looking for him, has haunted me ever since.

I want to tell her that I want to help her company.

But the pain comes again, and I squeeze my eyes shut. When I open them again, a nurse is standing beside Kyra.

“You should try to get some rest,” the nurse tells me.

“I'm not going anywhere,” Kyra adds, moving her chair away so that the nurse can get better access to me.

“Promise?” I take the pills the nurse offers me.

“I promise.”

The nurse leaves us.

“I have so many things I want to—”

“Not now, Brad … Brandon.” She opens up her laptop. “Get some rest. We can talk later.”

“I had a brother ...I have a brother.”

She blinks, her mouth falls open. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

She blinks again.

“Kane. My brother Kane,” I say.

Confusion makes lines criss-cross on her forehead. “But I thought you said ...”

No sibling. That's what I told her. Because the lies, always the lies, they come to me so easily.

“I abandoned him.” A pain shoots through me. It's not my shoulder this time, but the recall of the past. “I gave up on him and forgot all about him. That’s why I have no idea where he is or what happened to him.”

“Brandon.” The word falls from her lips like a dying petal from flower.

“I hate myself for it.” I wince and inhale a breath. It hurts. Everything hurts. It hurts all over. “I—I …” The words, the truth of what I have done, that doesn’t come as easily.

“Don't talk, rest. We have all the time in the world to talk and you can tell me later, Brandon. I'm not going anywhere, but first you must rest and get better.”

She’s not going anywhere, and because it’s Kyra, I know she’s not lying. Her word means something.

I can rest now; now that she is here, but every time I close my eyes the doubt rises like a threatening cobra. I can’t help but remember Neville’s words, and the off the cuff remark he made about setting the factory on fire. That greedy son of a bitch didn't like what I said about not going ahead with my plans for Greenways. I wouldn’t put it past him to do something like that. I stopped him from tampering with Kyra's books. He hates her. I know what desperate men do for money and how greed corrupts. I was one of those men once.

He blames her for me giving up on this. Because he stands to lose a lot of money. Setting fire to the factory would be a way of hurting Kyra, her business, and ultimately me.

Son of a bitch.