She reaches for the knob and opens the door.
FOURTEEN
The room is stuffy and dim, since the windows are closed and the blinds are pulled shut.
In the bed lies Jonas. He’s on his back, eyes closed, mouth slightly open. His face is red and swollen, his forehead wet from sweat, and his breath comes in tiny, wet thrusts. One leg is protruding from under the blanket. A neat bandage is wrapped around Jonas’s skin at the place where Allan scratched him. The skin surrounding the bandage is fiery red.
Selina just stands there for a moment, searching for the courage to step closer, when a totally unexpected voice says: “Hi?”
Selina jumps and spins around, staring at the woman sitting on a chair in the corner with a magazine. She’s around Ulla’s age with the first signs of grey in her bangs.
“Oh, I’m … I’m so sorry,” Selina mutters, swallowing in an effort to force her heart back down her throat. “I didn’t see you.”
“That’s okay,” the woman says, getting up and offering Selina her hand. “I’m not sure we’ve met. I’m Pennie, Jonas’s mom. Are you Selina?”
“Ehm, yes, I am,” Selina says with surprise, shaking the woman’s hand. “How did you …?”
Pennie nods towards the bed. “Jonas told me you were there when the accident happened. You were the one he was going to see, weren’t you?”
“Uhm, I … to be honest, I’m not sure.”
“I think so. It was something about you forgetting your purse in his car.”
“Oh, right!”
Pennie smiles. “He wanted to give it back to you. I still think it’s in his car, actually. You can get it back tomorrow if you swing by.”
Selina nods and rubs her arm. “Thank you. Listen, is it okay for me to be here?”
“Of course, dear! The doctor said nothing about no visitors. He just told me to let Jonas sleep off the fever.”
Selina looks at Jonas and steps a little closer. She can feel the heat coming of him, it’s almost like vapor rising from his skin. It’s surprisingly painful to see him like this. She has naively been telling herself all the way out here that Jonas was just an acquaintance, someone she happened to give a casual kiss last night, and nothing more. But hearing Jonas’s mom tell her that he had come to give her back her purse once he realized she had forgotten about it, somehow changed the way she now looks at him. She might have only known him for a couple of months, since that night Krista introduced them to each other, and although she had an inkling right from the beginning that Jonas had a crush on her, she didn’t really find him to be her type, so she has been ignoring his attempts at getting closer.
Until last night.
“Are you his girlfriend?” Jonas’s mom asks, as though she read Selina’s mind.
“Uhm, no,” she mutters. “We’re just friends.”
“Hmm,” Pennie just says, a tiny, knowing smile at the corner of her mouth.
Selina clears her throat and quickly changes the subject. “Why does he have a fever? I mean, what caused it?”
“The doctor said it’s probably just from the shock. But he might also have some mild infection, because of the wounds on his leg, so they’re running some tests just to be sure, and they put him on antibiotics.”
“Did they say anything about when they’ll have the results of the tests?”
Pennie squeezes her arm. “Don’t worry about him, dear. He’ll soon be on his feet again. My Jonas is a strong boy. He’s always been.”
Selina struggles to smile back. “I’m just … scared for him.”
“There’s no need to be. The doctor said nothing serious is wrong with him.”
“What about the scratch marks?”
“They’ve been disinfected, and …” Pennie frowns as she looks down at her son’s leg. “Goodness, he’s really turning red.” She walks around the bed and puts her hand on Jonas’s leg. “My God, he’s burning up. I felt him just ten minutes ago and he was fine.”
Jonas gives off a grunt. It sounds like his breathing is becoming more and more troubled. Selina feels her heart beat faster, as she looks at Pennie, who just stares at her son’s face.
“Do you think we ought to call someone?” Selina asks finally.
Pennie nods without taking her eyes off her son. “Will you stay here with him?”
“Sure.”
Jonas’s mom leaves the room, leaving the door ajar.
Selina goes to the bed and carefully lifts up the bandage. The scratches are scarlet, oozing and swollen. The skin around them has taken on a sickly greenish hue. Selina lets out a whimper of despair. She has kept a small secret hope up until this point that Jonas perhaps was not infected after all. That hope dies in this moment.
Then Jonas suddenly begins twitching all over. It looks like tiny cramps going through his limbs. His neck is bent violently backwards, causing him almost to lift himself into a bridge, his clenched teeth are bared in a silent sneer and the veins pop out on both sides of his throat like thick cords. Still, he doesn’t wake up, and Selina realizes he’s way beyond waking.
She backs away, both hands in front of her mouth. No, no, no! Not now! Not already …
FIFTEEN
Do something!
Selina has been standing there, staring at the bed, for what feels like an eternity spanning a few seconds, when the thought comes through. Jonas’s tremors have almost passed, and he has once again sunk back down onto his back.
“Jonas?” she croaks. “Can you hear me?”
No reaction whatsoever.
She tries shaking him gently. Not as much as a flicker of an eyelid. His breathing is a lot more shallow now. He looks like someone in a coma.
It’s a matter of minutes …
Selina goes to the door to lock it but finds no lock. She looks around the room for something to bar the door with, but finds nothing heavy enough.
Need to get him out of here.
But how? She can’t lift Jonas,
