by Marie Wathen
I hop down and shut the back doors before jogging over to Waverly’s ambulance. Anna is wrapped up in a thick blanket, stepping into the back and a police officer stands outside asking her questions. Seeing me approach, she waves me inside and I get my first look at Waverly in bright lighting. Dirty from the dungeon prison that she’s been held in for the past two months and thinner from the lack of food and exercise, she looks smaller and weak, but she’s still the most beautiful woman in the world to me.
“Ms. Knight,” the patrolman starts, tucking a small spiral notebook into his front pocket, “I’m going to follow you to the hospital. After the doctor checks you out, do you think I could have a few minutes of your time? I need to gather more information about how well you knew your captor before the abduction?” After peeking over at me, he looks directly into Anna’s brown eyes and a tint of color spreads across his cheeks while he pushes a hand through the hair on the side of his head. He’s fucking flirting with her. After the hell she’s been through, he has some damn nerve.
Before Anna can respond, I insist, “She doesn’t know him like that! Can’t something like digging into her head about the son of a bitch who abducted her and held her prisoner for two damn months wait until after she’s home and feeling better? She could use a break from all of this, don’t you agree?”
He turns toward me again, his eyebrows narrowing and right jaw ticking. “Certainly, it can wait until she feels up to it.” To Anna, he says, “I didn’t mean to imply that you’re under any kind of suspicions based on your prior relationship, but it would help the investigation if you could provide any details about the suspect. I’ll see you at the hospital, Ms. Knight.”
“Of course, Officer Bennett,” Anna replies sweetly. After he leaves, she laughs and says, “Get in here, goofball.” The door shuts behind me and I catch her eye roll. “We’re safe, so your superhero job is over.”
“I’m no hero, but I will always protect you, Anna.” I pull my gaze away from her, shifting it over to Waverly and then repeat my promise, “I will always be around to save both of you.”
***
Anna
Nearly three hours after arriving at the hospital and speaking with several FBI agents, my parents fly through the door of my private room, weeping and praising God for my return. When they received the news about me being located alive and on Willow, they immediately hopped a red-eye flight from Atlanta. Morgan checked on me earlier. Until Waverly’s family cussed him profusely and called security to have him removed from her room, he refused to leave Waverly’s side. We’re both in shock about how much hell went down tonight. Some things were cleared up, but I still want answers as to how all of this could possibly happen. It’s like some horrible B movie come to life and we’re sucked right into the heart of the drama. Poor Breesan hasn’t woken up yet, and they won’t let anyone in to visit while she’s being detoxed.
For what feels like hours, my mother clutches me against her chest, a haven that I have missed for so long, even before my kidnapping. Since I entered high school, our relationship became forced pleasantries and we rarely spent any quality time together. Most of the time they travelled three weeks out of the month and I was left with my dad’s family, or stayed with Breesan. Once I made up my mind about moving to Paris to live with aunt Faith and pursuing my dream, I told them that my decision was made. Mom was completely heartbroken that I was turning down my full-ride scholarship to Stanford. Dad and I fought. It seems that neither is okay with me living on the other side of the world. Even though we hardly see each other now because of their schedules, they are opposed to the roles being reversed with me visiting them a few times a year instead.
After calming her tears, she vows, “We are never letting you out of our sight again.” My father stands at the foot of my hospital bed watching us closely.
My nervousness about seeing them after repeatedly reliving all of my hellish memories is magnified when my father adds, “I plan on locking you in your bedroom and throwing away the damn key, so no one can ever take you from me again.” Dread seeps into my chest, thinking about the place of my childhood torment and I shiver. Feeling me trembling, mom pulls me closer, tucking my head under her chin.
“Oh baby girl, I’m so very grateful to have you back in my arms. I would have died if...” Her words blend into sobs as she rocks us slowly.
“Mom, Dad,” I respond to their demands, pulling out of my mom’s arms and looking between the two of them, “I’m an adult now and you can’t treat me like a little kid anymore.” They start to argue, but I press, “What happened in that hospital garage was a planned attack by some very sick people who were trying to hurt Breesan, not me. I’m safe. And,” Staring straight at my father, I add, “I will never be a prisoner or victim again.”
“Sweetie,” mom complains, shaking her head disagreeably, but my focus remains locked on my dad, “My heart can’t take another event like what we’ve been through. If something would have happened to my little princess–”
“I get it, mom. I really do, but you have to understand that I wasn’t the target and I am no longer in any danger.”
“I don’t care,” my dad growls angrily, moving around the bed and sitting on my other side. “You are our world, Anna. I want to get my hands on that little bastard and beat the breath out of him for what he has put you and us through.”
“Tox saved me, dad,” I defend crossly, even though I’m still pissed and confused about Mattox’s role in everything that transpired. After Morgan recounted what Cayde told Breesan’s dad about everything that happened in the dungeon with Tox and his father, and how the bastard showed no remorse for possibly killing his son, I know now that he was just as much of a puppet in his father’s sinister plan as I was. And even though it may have been twisted, we had a connection. “He could have left us on that boat, going to some third world country, where they buy and sell sex slaves daily, but he didn’t.” Saying it all out loud, I remember all of the good that he did while he had me locked away in the castle dungeon. More than just food and clothing, Tox provided a way for me to deal with my past, and I don’t even know if he’s alive. According to Officer Bennett, there was a huge puddle of blood and then a trail, which indicated he may have been dragged out. “He rescued me,” I shout, seeing that they aren’t really hearing me, “…and Waverly,” I add quickly. “Then to protect us, Mattox kept us hidden away from his evil father. Waverly would have died if he hadn’t brought the IV. You don’t know,” I sigh. “You will never know what all he did for us. And, he was going to let us go when it was safe.”
“You’re wrong,” dad insists, holding up a hand to halt my rebuttal. “That man is just as much responsible as his parents for what happened to you. I spoke with Agent Black on the flight over and I know exactly what he is, Anna. Trouble with a lengthy criminal history. Your abduction wasn’t the only illicit act of Mattox Andrews. I won’t rest until that son of a bitch is serving a life sentence behind bars. Even then, I may not let you out of my sight.” He wraps thick arms around me, drawing me against his chest. He hasn’t held me like this since I was a child. Adding the events of this crazy night with their demands and my confused feelings for Mattox, I jerk away from him and stand in the middle of the room. In my hospital gown and bare feet, I lose my shit and rage wildly.
“I will never be a prisoner again! I will never be a victim again! I will no longer be silent. I’m not protecting him for another second. I am not a weak and helpless child and he is a monster who will never touch me again. I remember every horrible moment.”
“Calm down, darling. Mattox Andrews will never get close enough to hurt you again,” mom assures, moving toward me with an outstretched hand, leaving my dad sitting on the bed. With a hand covering his mouth, he stares at the speckled tile floor looking despondent and petrified at my unraveling.
“No mom,” I yell, shaking like a leaf and pulling away from her reach. “Not Mattox!”
“What?” With wide eyes, she stamm
ers, “If not Mattox? Then…” She narrows her eyes on me. “Who, Anna?”
Sucking in a deep breath, I glance from my mother to my father, lifting his eyes to meet mine. He shakes his head and then rises, crossing the room to stand between me and mom, looking at her.
“Grace, I refuse to watch this happen to our child. I’m calling Dr. Durant,” he tells my mother, like I’m not even in the room. “She’s clearly suffering from some sort of Stockholm syndrome, defending that lowlife.”
He still doesn’t get it. He refuses to hear me, like always. When I was a child, he suffocated my voice and then snuffed it out completely with Dr. Durant’s help. He administered hypnosis trying to make me forget everything.
I will be heard.
“Stop it, dad,” I protest bitterly, “No more treatment. I will never go through that hell again. You can’t make me forget!”
“Anna, I don’t think now is the time to talk about this.” He grabs my elbow forcefully, guiding back to my gurney. “Rest now, and then tomorrow, we’ll discuss how we are going to deal with everything once you are back on your medication and your emotions have leveled out.”
“Don’t patronize me,” I argue, pushing away the blanket he pulls over my legs. “I’m going to the police. I will tell them everything about what happened to me when I was a child. I’m pressing charges for child abuse.”
Both of them freeze in place, staring down at me with mouths agape. My mother’s voice is barely a whisper when she finally breaks the thick silence.
“Anna, we never… we would never abuse you.”
Shaking with fear and determination to speak the words into existence, I shake my head and tell her, “Not you.”
Her eyes shift from mine to stare at my father, her chin quivers and tears spills down her face. Shaking her head offensively, she turns back to me and demands, “Your father would never…”
“No.” Reaching in and grabbing every bit of courage I have, I take command of my nerves and my voice and then finally tell her the secret I’ve been hiding for almost fifteen years. “But Uncle Nathan did, when he stayed at our house while babysitting me.”
The room explodes, as if a nuclear bomb is dropped on us, and then my father tears out of the hospital in a bloodlust rage, set out on a warpath to hunt down and murder his older brother.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Morgan
The neurologist speaks with the Collins family while I stand, staring through the glass wall of Neuro-ICU. Because I’m not immediate family and due to the fact that her entire family loathes me, I’m not allowed inside her room. My whole world lies, unconscious in the slightly angled hospital bed with tubes and wires running from her tiny body to machines monitoring her vitals and supplying liquids intravenously. Their hopes are that she is severely dehydrated and this treatment will reverse the effects of the Ryske overdose she suffered nearly two months ago. They’ve been administering the medicine for two days, without any signs of improvement.
According to Anna, Waverly was awake and lucid for a short time in the beginning, but soon after, fatigue and memory loss started erasing the amazing and strong woman that I’ve known for two years. Hope blossoms in my chest when I see a smile stretch across her mother’s face as she gazes down at her daughter. Almost immediately, that sweetness is replaced with a heartbreaking frown, quickly followed by unrelenting tears. Acceptance. Whatever the doctor has told them about her prognosis isn’t good news.
Sam visited me this morning, brokenhearted and barely hanging on. She gave me the details for the funeral arrangements tomorrow, but I can’t leave my sweetness. Marcus isn’t here to support her either, so Mom will just have to proceed without us.
Behind my back, a sharp baritone voice addresses me, “Morgan.”
Refusing to remove my gaze from his sister, I reply without making eye contact, “Ian.”
“Are you looking for another ass whooping?” He asks, chuckling deeply. “Jack isn’t the only brother pissed-off enough to hand your backside to you, you know?”
I sigh. “I’ll tell you, just like I told Jack, Quinn and Sean. I won’t leave her, so do your best.”
Stepping forward to stand beside me, he expunges all of the humor from his voice, “I have no beef with you, Morgan. It may come as a big shock, but I don’t agree with their order to keep you away from Wav.” I twist my head, looking at him. Cutting his eyes at me, he nods toward the glass window and then looks at his sister, “It didn’t take a genius to figure out how deeply her feelings ran. She glowed when she was around you. After your fight, that last night at the club, Jack went off searching for you and I stayed behind with Wav,” he turns around, propping his back against the wall, keeping his eyes on me. “Her heart was shattered and she was mortified by the way you ended things. She loved you, Morgan…deeply. That evening she cried a thousand tears of goodbye. Then when they passed, she resolved that your circles would never accept her, because our family status is beneath yours. Looking at you now and seeing the remorseful way you are watching her, I don’t see you as that man. We can never repay you for rescuing her and bringing her back to us.”
Bristling, I face him and demand, “I don’t deserve pay back. Your family blames me for what’s happened, and I shoulder that responsibility.” Slowly, I shake my head, slump my ass against the wall and then add dismally, “Because they’re right.”
He sighs deeply. “Any other time, I probably would have been on your side, helping you kick Jack’s ass, but after watching that display and knowing how much pain you’ve caused my baby sister, I just can let Wav down. First and foremost, I am her brother and I won’t let you hurt her again.”
“I wasn’t myself then,” I explain and he nods, looking down at his shoes. “I want that night back, more than I want my next breath. I want another chance to make things right, and to tell her how special she is and all the amazing things that makes her so damn special and far above anyone who considers themselves high-class. And–” he cuts me off before I can tell him that I love his sister.
“She will never be that girl again, I’m afraid.” Arms crossed over his chest, he bites down on his lip before glancing back up at me. “The treatments aren’t going to bring her back to us. And the only other chance of getting her out of that damn sleep coma is too expensive.”
“I’ll pay for it,” I demand, reaching into my back pocket, fishing out my cell phone. “I can get her moved immediately to the best hospital in the world or I’ll fly in the top doctors and provide all the equipment needed. The best of everything money can buy is at her disposal.” I begin dialing my finance manager and he reaches up, taking my phone away.
“There’s nothing I want more than to accept that offer,” he admits, pushing the end button and then handing my cell back over. “My family is too proud to allow you to pick up the tab with what they consider blood money. They believe you are beneath her.”
“This is bullshit,” I demand angrily.
“I agree.”
“Ian, don’t let their ridiculous and selfish pride keep her from getting better. Take the money, please.”
Shaking his head disagreeably and facing the square room, filled with his family and the only woman I have ever love, Ian maintains, “Not from you, Morgan. Never from a Walker.”
“Motherfucker,” I grunt, turning around and pacing down the hallway, wanting to knock the hell out of somebody. God-willing, a stubborn-ass Collins will greet me at the elevators. Disbelievingly, I mumble to myself, “They will allow her to suffer in that state of nothingness because of me?”
Halfway down the Intensive Care Unit corridor, loud voices grumble behind me. One heavy accented voice, saturated with pure hatred, elevates above all the others. Liam, Waverly’s middle brother roars, “Stick that pity-payment straight up it, you son of a bitch.” The two elderly nurses’ at the front desk gasp and several visitors stop what they’re doing to see who he’s cursing.
On the edge of spiraling into a self-induce mise
ry, I toss back at him imploringly, “Please, don’t let her die, Liam.” Immediately, his guilty eyes fall to the floor.
Riding the elevator down, I pray hard, begging God for a miracle that I know I don’t deserve. But if it’s for Waverly, maybe He’ll grant it. Reaching the second level, I turn the corner leading down to the east wing and then slam my fist against the stucco-covered wall. No matter what I do or how hard I try, I’ve already lost her.
I bite back all of the curse words that I want to scream at Him for allowing this to happen to her and for taking her away from me. Truly though, it wasn’t God that did this. I’m responsible for walking away from her. I’m the man that ran away from not only family commitments, but I’m the jackass that didn’t know how important she was to me and then I kicked her while she was down. I said unforgivable things, biter spiteful words that will come flooding in the moment her eyes open. She will hate me. Appropriately so.
Pain rips through me viciously, but not because of the self-inflicted injury to my stupid-ass hand. A searing ache wells up deep inside my chest, filling my lungs and churning through my gut. Losing Waverly for good is like losing my future. I want her, only her. There isn’t a more faultless woman for a big-ass fuck-up like me, but her brother’s are right, she is too good for me. And I must say a final farewell to our relationship.
Smudging away the wetness under my lashes, I shake my head and dry my hands on my jeans, forcing myself to get it together. There’s only one person who can help me, help Waverly. Breesan would do anything to ensure Waverly gets the best healthcare possible and I need for her to hear my plans out. But first, Breesan needs to wake up. Unfortunately, the dosage of Ryske that her uncle gave her is doing a nasty little number on my sweet friend. The doctors are forcing her to remain in a drug induced coma, until they can flush all of the toxins out of her system while transfusing her blood with the antidote. Max recovered the vial that Declan tossed onto the castle balcony, and had the ingredients analyzed. Because he has been working with scientist for the past five years, they believe they have the right combination of drugs to counter the effects. However, this process is slow, because they don’t want to damage her kidneys or liver by administering it too quickly. Yesterday, her doctor’s reported that if all went well last night, they will bring her out of the drug stupor today. Pushing open the door of her private room, I wonder if God’s going to show up and answer this prayer. I really need Breesan right now.