“Why the fuck would I do that? Huh? She doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“She was upset and scared about Noah, and you were both wiped out after driving around all night, and she’d had Kane throttling her just a few hours earlier,” Aidan pointed out. “Not the best set of circumstances to make important decisions, really.”
“Well, she made the decision, and she hasn’t called me, you may have noticed. Which tells me that she’s perfectly happy with the decision.” He blinked. “That she made.”
“You drunk?” Mac said. “You’re talking in circles.”
“Fuck off.”
Mac sighed. “I’m getting really tired of being told to fuck off.”
“Well, if you’d just go and do it already, then I could stop.” Jax got to his feet. “OK, I’m going down the hall. I want a whiskey shot on the bar when I get back.”
“Jax,” King said. “Don’t do this, man.”
“You mean let Raylene suck me off?”
The other men flinched.
“You don’t want to be with anyone but Sarah, and you know it,” Mac said. “Go home, sober up, call her tomorrow.”
“You are unbelievable, Mac.” Jax swayed on his feet and glared at him.
“Why?” Mac said.
“I clearly recall when I came here after my first date with Sarah, you told me that I didn’t do dating and I for-damn-sure didn’t do exclusive and you assumed that I had fucked Sarah and when I said that I hadn’t you then assumed that I was here to fuck someone else. Remember all of that?”
“Yeah,” Mac said. “But –”
“But nothing. You all told me in your own ways that I wasn’t up for anything with her. This is all I’m good for in the end, right? Getting sucked and fucked in the back rooms?” He scowled. “I’d think you’d be fucking thrilled to see me get back to who I really am.”
“Jax –”
“Nope, gotta go. I have someone waiting for me.”
He staggered down the hallway to the crash rooms and saw one of the doors was half-open. Sure enough, Raylene was in there. He slammed the door behind him and her eyes flashed.
“You got some pent-up tension there, Jax?”
“You could say that.”
“How do you want to relieve it?” she said.
“Come over here,” he said roughly. “Down on your knees.”
She came eagerly, and he undid his belt buckle, unzipped his jeans. She reached for his cock, looked a bit surprised when she saw his complete lack of arousal.
She tipped her head back. “You need some help?”
Jax closed his eyes. The thought of anyone but Sarah touching him made him feel physically sick. God, he missed her, everything about her, but he couldn’t be with her. And in this moment, that hard, bleak truth snapped his heart clean in half. He stood there and knew that he was totally, completely, utterly, fucking heartbroken.
“Raylene.” His voice was gentler than she’d ever heard it, and she gazed at him in confusion. “I’m sorry, hon. I can’t do this, OK?” He reached down, helped her to her feet.
She stood there, bewildered. “You – what?”
Jax did his pants up again. “I – I’m in love, and even though I’m not with her, I just can’t do this.”
“Are you serious?” Her blue eyes were incredulous.
“Yeah.”
“You fucking dickhead,” she snapped. “Get me down on my knees and then reject me? Really?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Fuck off.” She wrenched the door open and stormed out.
Jax shook his head at himself in the mirror, went back to the bar. The guys watched him closely as he approached. Aidan had set the shot on the bar, but Jax ignored it.
“Some coffee, Aidan. Please.”
“Coming right up, boss,” Aidan said, the relief evident in his voice.
“So,” Mac said. “If I say that we just saw Raylene fly on out of here like a bat out of hell, will you tell me to fuck off?”
“Nope.” Jax sat down heavily on a stool.
Mac studied the other man’s face. “Couldn’t go through with it?”
“Nope.”
Mac paused, then spoke quietly. “You miss Sarah?”
“Like hell, man. Like – like I don’t have air.”
“So what are you going to do?” King said.
Jax sighed. “Drink my coffee. Sober up. Go home. Call her tomorrow and see how she’s doing.”
“And if she doesn’t want to get back with you?”
“I don’t know.” Jax sipped his coffee and grimaced. Aidan had made it strong tonight. Then again, he probably needed it. “I’ll be her friend, I guess, if she’ll have me. I can call her once in a while, check in. Make sure she and her family are all OK, and be there if she needs some help.”
“You’d be happy with just that?”
“No.” Jax shrugged. “But it’s better than what I’ve got right now. Which is fucking nothing.”
Just then, Jax’s cell phone rang, and when he saw Sarah’s number flashing up, he almost fell off the bar stool in shock. Mac, King and Aidan watched in astonishment as Jax fumbled and bumbled, trying to answer without losing his cool.
“Sarah?”
“Jax, Jax, Jax!”
He paused. “Noah?”
“Help, Jax!”
He got up and stood very still, suddenly afraid without knowing why. “Where’s Sarah?”
There was silence at the other end. His heart stopped and he sobered up immediately.
“Noah?”
“Hurt.”
Jax gripped the phone tighter. “Sarah’s hurt?”
At his words, the other men froze too, their eyes locked on him.
“Sarah’s hurt. Blood.” Another pause. “Dave.”
Jax turned to Aidan. “Call an ambulance to 571 Mariposa Street.”
Without a word, Aidan nodded and reached for the bar phone.
Now Jax found his feet under his shaking legs, and he shot out the door to his truck. He heard the guys behind him, but he didn’t turn to look at them.
“Noah, I’m coming right now. OK?”
“OK, Jax.”
“Where are you, man?”
“Closet. Sarah said hide.”
“Is Dave still there?”
“Yes. Screaming. Sarah’s hurt bad.”
Waves of real, cold fear began to wash over Jax, and he threw his keys to Mac as they raced across the parking lot. He’d barely slammed the passenger-side door shut when Mac gunned the engine and took off, King following on his bike.
“Noah?” Jax was trying very hard to not frighten the other man worse than he already was. “I need you to stay in the closet. You don’t move. Stay on the phone with me.”
“OK, Jax. You coming?”
“I’m coming, man. You just hold on.”
Both of you.
**
For the rest of his life, Jax would never forget the sight that greeted him when he burst in to Sarah’s house that night.
My dear sweet God. So much blood.
The whole room had been overturned, the furniture wrecked. There was broken glass everywhere, and the walls were covered with blood splatter.
But all Jax could see was the body on the floor, crumpled and broken. If he hadn’t seen those glorious red curls, those lush curves that he’d memorized with his hands and heart, he’d never have known who it was – her face was unrecognizable. Sick, weak, scared to death, he fell to his knees next to her.
“Sarah. Baby, can you hear me?” He reached to touch her hair.
“Back up, Jax.” Mac shoved him with one hand. “Don’t touch her. I mean, at all.”
“Why not?”
“Because I think this is bad, man.�
�� Mac’s eyes were frightened, and more than the blood and bruises, that told Jax that Sarah was in big trouble. “Really bad. Don’t lay a finger on her yet.”
“What?”
Mac carefully lifted one of Sarah’s eyelids without moving her head even one inch. “Fuck.”
“Fuck what?” Jax ground out. “Mac?”
“I need you to go and find Noah, OK? When the ambulance gets here, we’re going to have to haul ass. You get me?”
Jax stared at him.
“Jax. Go.” King’s deep rumble seemed to pierce through his shock, and Jax got to his feet.
“Yeah. Yeah, OK.” He tried to get himself together. “I’ll get Noah sorted.”
“Hurry,” Mac said. “We’ve got no time.”
Jax nodded, took a calming breath. He had no idea what state Noah was in, and it wasn’t going to help anything for Jax to be freaked out and harsh. He walked down the hallway to the bedrooms, paused outside Noah’s room.
“Noah?” He kept his voice low. “It’s Jax. I’m here.”
He heard movement, then the closet door swung open. Noah’s red head stuck out. “Jax, Jax, Jax!”
“It’s me.” He walked in to the room, no more than a foot. “Are you OK?”
“OK.”
“Listen to me now, alright? We need to take Sarah to the hospital.”
“Sarah’s hurt.”
“Yes. She is.”
“Bad.” Noah got to his feet and Jax saw that he was in his pyjamas “There’s blood.”
“Yes.” Jax’s voice caught in his throat. “She’s hurt bad, and there’s blood.”
“Dave.”
“I know.”
The two men stared at each other across the room.
“So, you need to come with me,” Jax said. “To the hospital.”
“I know.”
“That means you need to get dressed, and pack up your backpack, right?”
“Right.”
“So, I want you to find all your stuff for your backpack… your puzzles, and pencils, and baseball cards. What else?”
“Juice. In a juicebox, not a bottle.”
“OK, yeah. Today’s Friday… what juice do you drink today?”
“Grape.”
“OK, good. I’ll get your grape juicebox and bring it here. I want you to stay in this room until I come and get you. You understand me, man?”
“Yes.”
“Get dressed and pack as quick as you can, Noah. We’ve got to go fast.”
“Sarah’s hurt really bad.”
“Yes.” Jax felt real fear moving in his chest now, dark and choking. “Yes, she is.”
Chapter Fifteen
Jax looked up when he heard the running footsteps. Then Annie came around the corner, pale and panting for breath. Her uniform was crumpled and stained with what looked like coffee and ketchup. She looked like hell.
“Jax!”
He glanced at Noah. King and Mac had been sitting with him for the past thirty minutes, looking at his baseball cards. They’d been playing some game where the guys asked Noah stats about different players, and Noah was happier and more engaged than Jax had ever seen him. But when he heard the panic in Annie’s voice, Noah looked tense again.
Jax got to his feet, met Sarah’s mother. He took her elbow gently.
“Let’s go talk over here, OK?” he said quietly. “Away from Noah?”
She looked at her son, blinked at Mac and King.
Jesus Christ, who the hell are these guys, and why are they all monster-sized? Also, how many tattoos do they have between the three of them?
“OK.” She lowered her voice, struggling to stay calm.
Jax walked her to the end of the hallway, sat her down. She stared at him, terrified of what was coming.
“How is she?”
“Not good.” Those green eyes were blazing with fury. “Dave beat her bad, Annie.”
“How bad?”
“That I don’t know. The doctor should be out soon. What I do know is that he didn’t rape her – though he seems to have given it one hell of a try.”
“She fought him off?”
“Maybe. Or maybe he panicked when she passed out.” Jax took a deep breath. “Annie, you need to prepare yourself. Her face is… is awful. You can’t even tell it’s her.”
She closed her eyes as a wave of dizziness passed over her. Jax grabbed her elbow again.
“Hey,” he said. “You OK? You want to lie down?”
“No, I’m fine.” Annie looked down the hallway. “How’s Noah?”
“He was there, but I don’t think he saw too much. Sarah told him to hide in his closet, and he had the smarts to grab her cell and call me. He knows something happened to her, but he doesn’t seem to really get it.”
“He does get it.”
“You think?”
“If Sarah’s hurt, he knows it. He always does, even if he has a hard time expressing it fully.” She glanced at him. “You know that, Jax.”
Jax sighed. “Yeah, you’re right… that weird twin thing, huh? Goddammit.”
Annie reached out to him now, touched his hand. “You OK?”
Startled, he looked down at her, and for the first time, he saw Sarah looking back at him from her mother’s face. They had the same eyes, he was surprised to discover, and those sweet eyes were now gazing at him with concern. He flashed to Sarah lying on his chest after making love, her face so loving and warm. A tightness suddenly moved up his throat, and he swallowed hard. Not trusting himself to speak, he just nodded.
“Thank you for being there, Jax. For taking care of both of my children.”
“You’re welcome.” He saw a man in a white coat talking to Mac, and he shot to his feet. “That’s the doctor.”
They hurried down the hallway, and the doctor met them halfway. Mac came with him, but King stayed with Noah. Jax glanced over to see that they were now laying the baseball cards on the coffee table, in some kind of complicated pattern or system.
“Annie Matthews?” the doctor said.
“Yes.”
“I’m Doctor Sam Inglis.”
“How’s Sarah?”
“Mrs. Matthews, it’s very bad news. Do you want to sit down?”
“No.” Annie was damned if she’d hear about the end of the world while sitting on her ass. If Sarah was dead, she was going to stand and face that from the word go. “Tell me, please.”
“She has a very serious head injury, I’m afraid, and it’s caused her brain to swell. This swelling is pushing down on Sarah’s brain stem, specifically on her RAS – the Reticular Activating System.”
Jax and Annie stared at him, clueless, but Mac sighed.
“What does that mean?” Annie asked Mac and Sam. “What’s a rectangular whats-it system?”
“The RAS is responsible for awareness in the brain,” Mac said. “When it’s compromised or damaged, a person is rendered unconscious. And when it’s being pushed on – like when a person’s brain is severely swollen – then the person can’t wake up.”
Jax and Annie blinked.
“I still don’t understand,” Annie said. “Sarah can’t wake up?”
“Sarah’s in a coma,” Sam Inglis said. “And as long as the RAS is being pressed down on this much, she’ll stay in a coma.”
Annie gasped.
“OK,” Jax said, his own voice sounding very far away to his ears. “So how do you deal with the swelling?”
“Drugs,” Sam said. “Drugs will sometimes reduce the swelling, which then relieves the pressure on the RAS.”
“What do you mean ‘sometimes’?” Annie said. “Drugs don’t always work?”
“No, Annie.” Mac’s voice was gentle. “They don’t always work… it depends how badly her brain has been damaged b
y the beating. The more damage inflicted, the worse the swelling, and the harder it is to control. And from what I saw when I checked her eyes, Sarah’s brain has been pretty badly damaged.”
“I – I still don’t understand,” Annie repeated. “Are you telling me that she’s not going to wake up? That she’s going to die?”
“I’m telling you that the swelling is bad,” Sam Inglis said. “And that Sarah won’t be able to wake up until it goes down. I’m not able to say anything more right now. We need to watch her for the next twelve hours, and see if she’s reacting well to the drugs.” His brown eyes were kind behind his glasses. “We’ll know more tomorrow.”
“But… but…” Annie stuttered. “I can’t… I don’t…”
“Hey.” Mac put his arm around her shoulders, and she found herself leaning in to his warmth and solidity. “Look, we’ll go get you something hot to drink, and I’ll sit with you and explain it all again. You’ll ask me whatever you want, and I’ll answer what I can. OK?”
She stared up at him. “You’re the one who’s a doctor?”
“Yep.” Mac grinned. “Doctor Shane MacIntyre, at your service.”
She took in his long blond hair, his muscles, his tattoos. “What kind of doctor are you?”
“Oh, Doctor MacIntyre is one of the best consulting neurologists in the state,” Doctor Inglis said. “Believe me, ma’am, if you have any questions about how the brain works, this is the man to ask.”
Annie was thunderstruck. “A neurologist?”
“I know, right?” Jax produced a grin of his own at the look on her face. “He’s as brainy as hell – and yes, that was an intentional pun.”
Annie managed a small laugh. “Good Lord, boys… you’re all just full of surprises, aren’t you?”
“We try to be,” Mac said. “Now, let’s get you sitting down and we can talk. Yeah?”
“Yes.” She sighed. “Thank you, Doctor MacIntyre.”
“Mac.”
“Mac.”
“Mac!” Noah echoed.
“Yeah, man,” Mac said. “How you doing?”
“King’s smart,” Noah told them.
“Is he?” Annie said.
“Yeah. He remembers numbers. Lots of numbers.”
King shrugged. “Baseball’s my thing, Noah.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
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