“Samantha?” I hear a familiar voice scream through all the fog and pain. “Hang on, Sam.” It continues to speak but I can’t place it.
Then it all just fades away.
*****
SLADE
I sit in my mom’s kitchen next to Josh as my mom and Micah stand in front of us talking about the trip she had to go on this morning. I can tell he’s still pissed at Holly. She had a six o’clock flight out this morning with her mother and father for two days. Her going on this trip means I have to wait two fucking days before I can get any info on Jeremy that I need from her work.
“Where’s Samantha, dear?” my mother asks. “She didn’t respond to my text.”
I want to ignore her, but it’s like the third time she’s asked. I go to say ‘she’s sick’ or some lame ass excuse when my phone vibrates. Parker flashes across my screen. I press ignore.
Josh’s phone instantly rings.
“What’s up?” he asks casually.
I hear voices rise as if they are screaming.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down man. I can’t understand you,” he says as he stands up and takes a few steps away from his chair. He places one finger over his other ear to hear him better.
I hear what sounds like Parker rattle off a few things then I hear him yell ‘Sam’. I fist my hands on the table. Can’t he stay out of my fucking business? What’s he gonna do? Tell Josh I’m ignoring my wife? It’s not like Josh and Courtney have never had a fight.
“You have to slow down,” Josh says harshly. “I can’t hear a fucking thing! What is that noise? Sirens.” He answers his own question.
“He supposed to be working,” Micah adds.
I hear Parker yell a little bit more before all the noise stops together. Josh stands with his back to us as he slowly lowers his phone down to his side.
I look up to Josh as he turns around. His face is pale, and he looks to be in shock. His eyes lock on mine as he speaks. “We have to go.”
I shake my head and look away. I pick up my beer before answering. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Slade...” He swallows, and I see his eyes start to tear up. “It’s Sam…” He clears his throat.
“What’s wrong with her?” I ask starting to worry. Was she worse than Parker thought? He said she had been sick today.
“She’s been in an accident,” he says softly.
I shove my chair back and stand “What kind of accident?” I demand.
He runs his hand through his long hair and shakes his head letting out a breath. “I don’t know. He was hard to understand. All I know is that Sam was in the Chevy truck and someone hit her. Parker was in the ambulance with her on the way to the hospital.”
“Oh my God,” my mother cries before placing a hand over her mouth. “Is she alright?” she begs.
Josh looks from my mother to me, and I feel my heart sink.
She’s not alright.
*****
I rush through the hospital door in a daze. Looking every which way trying to figure out where the fuck I need to go.
I hear Josh come in behind me. “Where the fuck do I go?” I turn to look at him. He was the one who spoke with Parker. I know nothing.
He doesn’t speak to me as he walks past me, and I follow after him. We walk through another set of double doors to the right of us when I hear Parker’s voice speaking harshly to someone.
“I told you to get a doctor,” he snaps.
“I’m well qualified to make that assumption,” I hear a woman’s voice say before I round the corner and see Parker and a nurse in blue scrubs facing each other.
“Assumption isn’t good enough. Get a goddamn doctor,” he screams in her face.
“What’s going on?” I ask approaching them. “Where is she?” I start to look around the hallway.
The petite redheaded nurse turns to me and starts to speak when Parker interrupts her. “Go change a bed pan, sweetheart,” he says dismissively.
Her head snaps to look at him, and she narrows her eyes before spinning around and taking off. “What’s going on?” I repeat. “Where is my wife?” I demand this time.
Parker takes a step toward me, and that’s when I finally notice his uniform. My body goes cold, and my breath catches in my throat. His dark blue uniform is covered in dark red blood. More than a human could lose and still survive.
“Angel,” I choke out. “Is she…?”
“We don’t know anything yet,” he says softly holding up his blood stained hands.
“I need to see her,” I say spinning around looking for the nurse to give me directions to my wife.
“She’s in surgery, Slade.” He places a hand on my arm.
Surgery? “For what? What’s wrong with her?” I shout starting to panic.
He shuffles from foot to foot.
I run a hand over my hair. “What happened?” I choke on my words. “What were you even doing with her?” He had just been up at my work earlier today pissing me off. When had he been with her?
He goes to answer but is cut off when I hear a gasp come from behind me. I spin around to see Courtney almost crumble to the floor when her eyes land on Parker’s shirt. “No,” she starts to scream. “No.” Tears run down her face, and she covers her mouth with a shaky hand.
Josh grabs a hold of her and tries to get her over to the chairs that align the wall. I look up to see my mom and dad enter the hospital as well with Micah right behind them as he speaks quickly on his cell. I’m guessing he’s talking to Holly. They have about the same reaction of Courtney except my father is able to get a hold of my mother a lot easier.
I turn back to face the only person who can give me any answers. “Did you get the call?” I know cops get called to crashes all the time.
He shakes his head. “I was following her.”
I pause for a second then repeat his words. “Following her? Why?”
“I went to your house to see her.” I don’t know why but his words make me furious.
I grab a hold of his uniform and slam his back against the wall. “What the fuck were you doing over at my house for the second time today?”
“Really?” he growls placing his face in front of mine. “I went over there to check on her. I told you, she was sick, but you didn’t seem to care. Someone needed to check on her.”
“That’s not your fucking job,” I spit out.
“Where the fuck were you?” he yells.
“What I do is none of your fucking business,” I shout.
He tries to shove me off but I just push him into the wall harder. He takes a deep breath and his light brown eyes stare into mine. “Let me tell you what your business is,” he grounds out. “Your wife!” he hollers. “You know the one you’ve been ignoring since yesterday? You should be thanking me for being there today. I was the one who screamed her name while trying to keep her conscious. I was the one scared to death that my best friend was going to lose his wife and child while she lay lifeless in the middle of a fucking street. Where in the fuck were you, Slade? What in the fuck did you do besides ignore her all day?” His voice rises with every sentence, and he’s spitting the words at me.
By now everyone is staring at us and Courtney’s cries have grown louder with the details but I can’t seem to focus on anything. My head is spinning and my ears are ringing. Lifeless body lying in the street? Lose my wife and child?
“Slade?” Parker asks more with concern than hatred as he places his hands on my shoulders.
What do I do? One of my best friends just told me he saved my wife’s life when I wasn’t there for her. And what do I do?
I hit him. I hit him with all the anger I have. I don’t deserve her. I don’t deserve him as a friend.
I reach out and stabilize him before he falls to the floor. He looks up at me wide-eyed—shocked that after what he confessed I hit him instead of hugged him.
Then his eyes narrow on me.
A hand hits my chest hard pushing me back into the oppo
site wall. My dad stands between us and glares at me. “Control yourself!” he demands.
I spin around and see a tray full of medical supplies. I shove it over. The sound of them hitting the floor covers Courtney’s cries but it also attracts the attention of others. So I turn around and walk back out the front doors of the hospital. Two arms grab me from behind. I’m shoved into the outside wall of the hospital and Parker is in my face. “Now is not the time to get arrested. Do you understand me?”
“Parker?” my father yells from behind him. He pulls away and takes a step back.
I look down to my white button up dress shirt, now covered in my wife’s blood. My legs give out, and I slide down to the cool ground and pull my knees up to my chest.
“What the fuck happened?” My voice shakes as much as my body does.
Parker stands over me as he looks out over the parking lot. “I went over to check on her,” he repeats. “She was a total mess.” He swallows. “She…” He pauses and I see him close his eyes tightly before he opens them and continues. “She said she had gone to see Jax.”
“What?” I choke on the word. “When…why?” Words are lost on me.
“She went sometime today. He told her that someone was after you. Someone wanted to hurt you. She said she called and texted you to try to warn you but you wouldn’t answer.”
I place my forehead against my knees. This whole time she was trying to warn me, and I was ignoring her because of what I found out about Jeremy. How could I have been so careless? Please forgive me, Angel.
“She said you were going to leave her. I reassured her everything would be okay. That you guys just needed to talk.” He pauses for a few seconds. “Work was slow so I told her to get in my car. That I was gonna take her over to your parents for you two to talk. After several minutes she agreed to go but she wanted to drive. She said she didn’t want to be out late and that she was already tired.” His voice is quiet, and I have a feeling he’s blaming himself for what happened.
“I was right behind her. I saw the entire thing. I couldn’t do anything but watch.” His voice cracks. “You have to believe me, I tried to do everything I could.”
Tears run down my face and I try to swallow the lump in my throat. He tried to do everything he could? Does that mean he knows she’s not going to make it?
“What about the car that hit her?” my father asks trying to take Parker’s eyes off of me as I cry. “Are they here as well?”
Parker shakes his head looking down at his feet. “After it hit her, it veered off and hit something else.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t see what it hit. I just know that it caught on fire, and they didn’t make it,” he adds quietly.
I can’t even imagine what those family members are going through right now. I’m a fucking wreck just thinking about losing her.
I hear the sliding glass doors open to the hospital and then my mother comes running out. “A nurse is looking for you Slade.”
I take off once again
*****
I sit quietly in the waiting room with everyone as we wait for her to get out of surgery. I have been updated twice so far. The first time I was told that she had internal bleeding due to blunt force trauma. They had to put her on ventilator, and that she has a chest tube due to a collapsed lung. They said that once she is out of surgery they will keep her sedated for eight to twelve hours in order for her body to rest.
I rock back and forth as I go over the last couple of days. Everything has been perfect, and I fucked it all up. I still hate that she kept what happened with Jeremy from me but I hate how I reacted more. I should have never treated her that way. To the point where she thought I was going to leave her. She’s pregnant for fuck’s sake, she’s probably been scared to death. Parker did say that she was sick. Plus she went and saw Jax. What would make her do that?
I stand quickly when I see the same nurse in blue scrubs from earlier approaching me. “It shouldn’t be much longer before we move your wife up to the ICU. If you guys want to head up to the twelfth floor, the receptionist will tell you where to wait for her,” she says nicely.
“Is she still doing okay?” I pray to God that he saves her. If I could, I would take her place. I would do anything to keep her from having to go through this.
She nods once and then responds, “She’s stable.”
I asked about our baby earlier, and they said that they were monitoring the baby and it is doing well for now. The fact that she’s not very far along is a good thing, because in some cases where the mother is farther along, a woman’s body will automatically sacrifice the baby in order to save the mother.
It was still going to be a long road to recovery, but at least she got through surgery with no complications.
We all get up and make our way up to the twelfth floor. When we were told everything went well, and she was going to be sedated for at least eight hours, I tried to send Courtney home. But she just ended up crying harder, refusing to leave the hospital until she could see her best friend.
At some point, Tate finally arrived. I guess Parker had already called him before I had. He was a couple hours out of town but made it back in half the time.
Micah keeps checking his watch. He had called Holly as soon as we had been told the news of her accident, and she caught the next plane home to be here for her best friend. I couldn’t help but be jealous as he apologized to her for how he reacted to him finding out about Jeremy.
I wish I had been that forgiving. I wish I could have been the man I promised her that I would be in front of our friends and family. Instead I was hotheaded and a piece of shit to her. The same way I’ve always been.
I make my way to the desk and tell them my name along with hers. We are then shown to a new area where we can sit.
I take a seat, and Tate comes to sit beside me.
I clear my tight throat. “Has anyone called Missy?” I ask looking up. She’s the only one besides Holly who isn’t here.
“I tried. She wouldn’t answer,” Tate says so only I can hear.
Courtney nods her head as tears run down her face. “She’s on her way,” she sobs as Josh wraps his arms around her.
I just nod my head to her. My head drops down, and I run a hand through my messy hair. I think back to the first time I ever heard Angel’s voice. How much she had affected me before I ever even saw that beautiful face.
“Hi. I’m, uh, looking for Slade.” The sweetest sounding voice that I have ever heard comes from the other end of the line. My body instantly reacts, making my already hard cock jerk.
“That’s him…me. I mean, this is he.” Fuck, what’s wrong with me? I clear my throat, since I can’t seem to speak properly, and continue to stand in the dark, waiting to hear what she has to say.
“Hi, Slade. My name is Samantha Hall. I’m so sorry to be calling you this late…early. Your brother, Micah, said you could help me.”
Help her? I haven’t been any help to her. All I’ve done since then is hurt her. It started out as instant attraction. I wanted her. Needed her sexually. Then I ended up falling in love with her. Needed more than her body. I needed her to give me everything she had to offer. And now it looks like she’s giving her life for my stupidity.
“It’s not your fault you know,” Tate interrupts my thoughts.
“Yes it is,” I mumble. It goes back to the beginning. If she wouldn’t have fallen in love with me she would have gone down a very different road. One that didn’t lead her to this hospital.
“Mr. Long?” My head snaps up when I hear my name.
“Yes?”
“You may see your wife now,” a nurse says getting my attention. I stand quickly and wipe my sweaty palms on my dress slacks, before I walk over to her desk. She points me to an alcove-like room that is open to a central region. The staff sits at a big circular area in order to view all patients while in ICU.
The area is busy with RNs, physicians, nurse aides, and other staff.
I make my way over to he
r small room and pull back the curtain. A nurse in light yellow scrubs looks up at me from a machine.
“Hello,” she says in a kind voice. “I’m Vicki, you’re wife’s nurse.” She motions down to the chart in her hand. “I’m just going to write down a few things and then I will leave you two alone.”
I nod once before my eyes land on my wife laying in a hospital bed once again. But this time is different. I take a step toward her, and my heart stops. I have physical pain in my chest as if someone just stabbed me with an ice pick. She has tubes and wires running to machines that are on both sides of her bed and hanging on the wall behind her head. She looks so frail and lifeless. I instantly have that vision of how we found her when Jax had taken her but this time she looks worse. Bruises and cuts dot her beautiful face. Her eyes are swollen, and she has a white bandage wrapped around the top of her forehead. She doesn’t look anywhere near like herself. Her usually tan skin is white as if drained from all color.
“Is she in any pain?” My voice cracks, and I feel my legs start to shake.
“Here,” the nurse says coming around to me. She scoots a chair closer to the bed and gestures for me to sit.
I run a hand over my face as I try to swallow the lump in my throat. I shakily grab a hold of the chair and sit down.
“No,” she says getting my attention. “She’s heavily sedated and on a continuous infusion of pain medication. We’re watching her closely, to control any pain and anxiety.”
I go to grab a hold of her hand, and I see that her wrists are tied down to the bed. “Why…” I go to ask, but she answers before I can.
“She has been restrained for her own protection. Prevent her from pulling the tube out without knowing it,” she says referring to the ventilator.
“Why does she have a bandage around her head?” I ask.
“She had a head laceration that required ten stitches,” she informs me.
I take in a shaky breath. “What is the possibility of brain damage?” I ask as tears fill my eyes.
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