Annie walked over to Noah now, really looked at him. “How you doing, honey?”
“Sarah’s hurt,” he said. “Hurt bad. There was blood.”
“I know,” she said. “But they’re taking good care of her.”
“Breakfast?”
“No, sweet boy.” Annie gave him a shaky smile. “Sarah won’t be able to get your breakfast tomorrow. Maybe Helen can do that, OK?”
“Or one of us,” King said quietly.
Annie gaped at him, and Noah made an excited sound.
“King can make my breakfast!”
“Oh. Oh, no,” Annie protested. “No, I can’t ask…”
“You don’t have to ask,” King said. “I’ll take care of it, and you stay here with Sarah.”
“But… but you don’t know what to do.”
“Noah can tell me.” King turned to the other man. “Can’t you?”
“I can!” Noah’s face was alight with enthusiasm. “I know what to do!”
“So, there we go,” King said. “I’ll get Noah home and stay overnight, with your permission, Annie. I can get things rolling tomorrow, and since it’s Saturday, I have no commitments. We’ll figure this out, line up some help for you and Noah this week, wait to see how Sarah responds to the drugs.” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “You’ve got enough to worry about right now, so let us take some of the problems from you. OK?”
Stunned, Annie stared at him, at all three of them. The fact that she’d called these men low-lifes who frequented a shithole dive bar came back to her now, and she felt deeply, bitterly ashamed of herself. Unable to utter a single word, she just nodded.
“Alright, then.” King stretched. “Come on, Noah. Pack up your stuff, we’re going home.”
“With you?”
“Yep. With me.” He turned to Jax. “I’ll need to take your truck, man.”
Jax tossed him the keys. “All yours.”
“No motorcycle?” Noah asked, clearly disappointed.
“Not this time,” King told him.
“Next time?”
“That’s up to your Mom,” King said. “But we’re not going to bother her about that right now, OK?”
“OK,” Noah agreed. “We’ll bother her later.”
Everyone managed to smile at that. Even Annie and Jax.
**
Jax was sitting and drinking a cup of bad coffee when King and Noah showed up the next morning. Annie was still sleeping on the sofa, curled up under Jax’s leather jacket, and Mac was down the hall talking to Doctor Inglis. Jax had tried to get some sleep, but he’d failed miserably. Every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was Sarah’s wrecked face, her broken body, and he felt a kind of rage that he hadn’t known in fourteen years.
Jesus Christ… when I get my hands on that fucker, he’s dead.
“Jax, Jax, Jax!”
“Hey, Noah. How was it this morning with King?”
“He’s very good at breakfast. He was perfect.”
“Was he?” Jax grinned at the thought of King pouring juice in to a colorful plastic cup. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“How are things here?” King asked.
“Don’t know.” Jax nodded at Mac’s back. “We’re about to find out.”
“You get any sleep?”
“Some,” Jax said.
“Uh-huh.” King rolled his eyes. “You used to be a better liar, man.”
“Lying is wrong,” Noah informed them. “Sarah says so.”
“Sarah’s right,” King said. “She’s a smart girl, your sister.”
“Yes. Is she coming home today?”
“Not today,” Jax said, making an effort to sound unconcerned. “We’ll talk to the doctor about how she’s doing.”
“Doctor Mac?”
“Both doctors,” Jax said.
Annie stirred on the sofa and turned over. She sat straight up when she saw the men standing there. “What time is it?”
“Just past nine,” Jax said.
“Sarah?”
“No news yet. They’re coming now.”
She got to her feet, straightened her clothing. Mac and Sam Inglis walked over now, and nobody could miss the grave looks on their faces. Jax’s heart tightened in his chest.
Oh, fuck. No, no, no. Please come back to me. Come on, doll, you can do this.
“Hi,” Doctor Inglis said. “Shall we sit?”
“Noah,” Annie said. “You do some puzzles, OK? I’ll be right back.”
Noah nodded and rummaged in his backpack. The rest of them moved down the hall a little way, and Annie sat on the sofa, her legs weak. She had a horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach, and she knew that it was fear. The kind of fear that could either kill her or make her stronger, and unfortunately, at this moment, she was barely breathing.
“Tell us,” she said. “No sugar-coating it.”
“OK,” Sam Inglis paused. “She hasn’t responded to the drugs.”
“At all?” she said.
“No. Not at all.”
“What does that mean?”
“We try new drugs.”
“And then?” Jax said.
“We wait.”
“That’s it?” Annie asked. “Drugs and we wait some more?”
“Annie,” Mac said. “Brain injuries are all about time. Time to heal, time to let things work themselves out.”
“How much time?” she said.
“That part nobody knows.” Mac sighed. “Every single case is unique. I’ve seen thousands of people in Sarah’s current state, and I can’t even give you a guess of what may happen.”
“So – what?” Jax said. “We just sit around here, waiting for her to wake up? Or not?”
“Yes.” Mac held his eyes. “That’s exactly what we do, man.”
“Fuck,” Jax said. “Well, I don’t accept that, OK? If it’s about money, I’ll pay. I’ll pay whatever it costs to get her different treatment. Some fucking wonder drug, maybe. You got one of those, doc?”
“No,” Mac said quietly. “Sorry.”
“Fuck.” Jax turned and stalked down the hallway. His rage was finally overwhelming him after keeping it in check for hours, and he had to get out, get away. He barreled down the stairs, not interested in waiting for the elevator, and he burst outside. The autumn chill was refreshing and it cleared his head, but that wasn’t a good thing. It made his thoughts sharper, more painful – and that made him more angry.
Jax leaned back against the brick wall next to the ambulance bay, trying to calm his breathing. All he could think about was finding Dave and putting him in a coma. And that would be if the fucker was lucky.
It was all building inside him now, and he gritted his teeth, fighting to contain the roar rising in his chest. The rage got bigger, wider, heavier, and Jax knew it had to go somewhere, and soon.
Without a single conscious thought, he whirled, hauled back, punched the wall. The pain shot down his whole arm, but he didn’t care. He pulled back, punched again. Again. Again. The wall was splattered with red now and people were passing by and commenting, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. He didn’t want to stop.
**
An hour later, Jax came back inside. Mac and King saw him and they blocked his way.
“You OK?” King said, eyeing his bloody, bruised hand.
“Yeah.”
“You want me to take a look at that?” Mac said. “It may be broken.”
“It’s not broken,” Jax said. “Trust me, I know.”
They looked at him, silent and worried. He walked around them, ignoring the questions in their eyes, and sat down next to Noah.
“Hey, how’s it going?” he asked.
“Fine.” Noah looked at him. “You want to see my new baseball cards?”
“Yeah. That sounds good.”
Noah paused and looked at Jax, and for a half-dozen heartbeats, they stared at each other. Jax was amazed to see that Noah was totally present in those few seconds, Noah really saw him and connected with him, and the warmth and compassion in those familiar blue eyes took Jax aback.
“Love Sarah,” Noah said quietly.
“I know you do, man.”
“No,” Noah corrected. “You love Sarah.”
“Yeah.” Jax felt something stinging his eyes, and he was horrified to find that they were tears. “Yeah. I do.”
Chapter Sixteen
The next week passed more slowly than Jax ever thought was possible. The swelling in Sarah’s brain went down, thank God, but it didn’t go down enough. She was still trapped in some nightmare half-world between being awake and asleep; between living and dying; between coming back to him or leaving him forever.
Jax spent as much time as he could at the hospital, and it was time spent sitting in her room, holding her hand, staring at her unmoving face, and waiting. Waiting for her to squeeze his fingers, to flutter an eyelid, to move her head. Anything, anything to show him that she was still in there somewhere, and fighting to get out.
At Mac’s suggestion, Jax talked to Sarah. Whenever Annie or Elise or one of the guys came to see Sarah, they found Jax sitting there, holding her hand and telling her something about his life, his husky voice almost hoarse from talking unceasingly.
Sometimes he read to her, which he actually really liked, and twice a day, he brushed her hair, which he really loved. He turned her to prevent her from developing bed sores, and he did exercises twice a day to slow atrophy in her muscles. He kissed her before leaving her every night; his last thought before finally falling in to a restless sleep was a fervent hope that she’d wake up the next day.
Jax basically handed things at Curves over to Aidan, and he just didn’t give a fuck about any of it beyond that. If the place burned down, he wouldn’t care in the slightest. He ate when he remembered to, he slept when his body was at the point of sheer collapse. He planned all the things he was going to say to Sarah when she finally woke up… beginning with the fact that he loved her. He kept believing, he kept the faith, though it got harder and harder with each passing hour of Sarah’s dreamless sleep.
So he dug in deep, and waited for the miracle that seemed determined not to come.
Not yet. It just hasn’t come yet.
**
Jax arrived at the hospital a bit later than usual. He’d had to drop by his accountant’s office and sign several documents, and as always, it had taken far too long. But this time it wasn’t the accountant’s complicated explanations that had held things up: Jax had simply been unable to focus for longer than one minute at a time.
Annie looked up as Jax walked towards her. Noah grinned at him.
“Jax, Jax, Jax!”
“Hey, Noah.” Jax touched his shoulder gently, and Noah accepted that from him, no problem at all. Since their moment of connection the week before, Jax had become the second person in the world to be able to make physical contact with Noah. “How you doing?”
“Good.” Noah shuffled his baseball cards. “New cards today.”
“Cool, man. You’ll show me later?”
Noah nodded, then repeated under his breath, “Cool, man.”
Annie stood up. “Can I buy you a coffee from the machine?”
Jax paused. That was their code for ‘I have something important to tell you’, and he felt his whole body tighten up. He glanced at Noah, then nodded.
“Yeah, a coffee sounds good. Thanks.”
They walked down the hall to the coffee machine and Annie dug some change out of her waitress uniform pocket. They stared as the murky brown liquid poured in to the flimsy white cup, not speaking yet. Jax wondered how many cups of this sludge he’d had in the past week, and how many more he was going to drink.
Christ Almighty, for the whole rest of my life, coffee that tastes like Styrofoam and burnt grounds is going to bring me right back here, to this time and place. After this, I never drink coin machine coffee. Ever. Again.
Annie handed Jax his over-full coffee, trying not to spill it all over both of them. After almost fifteen years of waitressing, her hands were practically made of dragon hide, but burns from hot water still smarted.
“Thanks,” he said, and gingerly took a sip. It was atrocious, as always.
“I want to talk to you about Dave,” Annie said.
Jax leaned back against the wall. He’d spent quite a lot of time thinking about Dave, and he’d been in close contact with a few local cops he knew well. They were keeping him in the loop about the hunt for Dave, but so far, the piece of shit had apparently fallen off the planet. Jax was sure that Daddy had the little fuck safely hidden away in a golf buddy’s country estate in France, or some beach house in Aruba.
“OK,” he said calmly. “What about the fucker?”
Annie didn’t even wince at the bad language. “The cops in New York finally talked to his family.”
“Oh, yeah? That took long enough, huh?”
“Well, Mr. Townsend is a very generous contributor to some local political campaigns, and he’s big in commercial property development. Nobody’s in much of a rush to upset him, I’m guessing, and his lawyers are experts at stalling and delaying.”
“Uh-huh. And what did Mr. Fucker have to say about his darling son?”
“That he hasn’t seen him or heard from him in over a week. I’d say that he’s telling the truth, actually.”
“You would?” Jax stared at her.
“Sure. Notice that he didn’t say that he doesn’t know where his asshole offspring is – just that they haven’t directly communicated. Legally, he’s in the clear so long as Dave stays holed up and doesn’t talk to his family. Dave can, of course, still talk to the lawyers, who are bound by attorney-client privilege, and who can then pass on any information to Daddy. See?”
Jax sighed. “Yeah.”
“Speaking of which… I got a call from the Townsend family lawyer this morning.”
Jax’s gaze sharpened. “Did you now?”
“I did. The guy said that the Townsends wanted to pay for Sarah’s treatment at some exclusive Traumatic Brain Injury Treatment Center.”
“Where?”
“In Germany.”
“Fuck off.”
“My words, exactly.”
“And? What did he say back?”
“Told me to think about it long and hard. Told me that the family wanted to help her – she’s such a sweet girl, you see – and they can afford things I can’t. I’d be foolish to pass up this offer of help.”
Jax paused again. “You feel like it was a bribe? Back off Dave and Sarah gets transferred to some world-class TBI Center?”
“Of course.” Annie stared up at him, furious. “But I’m not playing that game.”
“You sure, Annie?” Jax was gentle now. “This is your daughter we’re talking about, and I don’t think many people would blame you for wanting to get the best for her.”
“You think dancing with the devil who did this to her is what’s best for Sarah?’
“No. I don’t. But she’s not my kid, and it’s not my decision.”
Annie sighed. “No damn way, Jax. No way I let those people anywhere near her. You hear me?”
Thank God. Not that I’d hold it against her, but man, I’d hate every second of Sarah being taken care of by those parasites.
“I hear you.” He shifted on his feet. “Any word from Mac?”
“Not yet.” Annie bit her lip. “He’ll be here in about an hour, he said.”
“OK. So we wait.”
“Yeah.” Annie rubbed her eyes and looked exhausted. “We wait. Some more.”
**
&nbs
p; “I think it’s time to start facing some facts.” Mac’s voice was soft.
Annie and Jax stared at him, silent. Neither one wanted to ask what the hell he was talking about. He looked right back at them, hating what was coming next. He’d been in this exact position hundreds of times, and it just never got easier. The fact that Jax was a friend, and Sarah was Jax’s heart’s blood, only made an impossible situation torturous.
“Sarah’s been in a coma for over a week now,” Mac said. “No responses at all, as you know. Her vitals are strong, though, and that gives me hope, still.”
They nodded.
“I’m not saying it’s time to give up. Not even close. But you do need to understand that by this point, the chances of Sarah waking up without some kind of damage are pretty slim. I mean, it does happen that patients come out of a coma and are almost totally fine… but that’s rare.”
“What kind of damage are we talking about here?” Jax said.
“Physical or psychological, or both.” Mac’s blue eyes were steady. “After more than a week of being under, she’ll probably need some kind of physical therapy to retrain her body to do things. Her sense of balance may be compromised, so she may need help to handle that.” He hesitated. “And there’s a good chance that she’ll have… brain damage. She may – she may be unable to speak, for example.”
Shocked, Annie gave a cry and Jax quickly grabbed her and pulled her to him. “Jesus Christ, man,” he hissed. “You couldn’t break that to us a bit more gently?’
Mac shook his head. “I’m sorry. You need to start preparing yourselves.”
Annie’s body shook with sobs now, and both Mac and Jax were horrified. This whole time, the woman hadn’t cracked, not once. They were sure she cried at home, or in the hospital bathroom, but in front of Noah and with them, she’d never so much as shed a tear. And now here she was, losing it completely.
“Oh, God, Annie.” Jax stroked her hair. “Hold on, hon. Just hold on, OK?”
“I’m – I’m trying.” She buried her face in Jax’s chest, hoping that a bit of his incredible strength might pass to her. “It’s just getting so hard to stay positive.”
“I know.” Jax held her tighter. “I know.”
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