Dedicated Ink

by Rose, Ranae

  The pain dug deeper, past a merely physical level and into a deep place in her chest that was more heart than flesh and bone. “You have to find him and his co-workers and get more information. Call me as soon as you find out what’s going on – I’ll be waiting.”

  She wanted – needed – to get out of bed and hurry down to the emergency department herself, but she wasn’t delusional – her contractions were crippling. “Go, Natalie! I need you to do this.”

  “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

  “Call mom. I’ll have her.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Natalie nodded, signaled for a nurse and left Abby alone.

  * * * * *

  It wasn’t even midnight yet, but it felt much later. Abby wasn’t ready to push, and already, the hospital bed was uncomfortable.

  “Ice chips?” Her mother stood by the side of the bed, her normally bright blue eyes shadowed by obvious anxiety.

  Abby shook her head. She hated to worry her mom, but she had no energy to spare for an act. She was caught in the throes of labor, and even more excruciating was knowing that Sam was somewhere on another floor being treated for knife wounds.

  Natalie was faithfully waiting with Cohen and the other officer who’d brought Sam into the emergency room. Every few seconds, Abby glanced at her phone, willing it to light up, willing Natalie to call with good news.

  Long minutes – they seemed more like hours – dragged by with no one saying a word. The ice chips in the Styrofoam cup Abby’s mother held shifted and rattled as they melted.

  “It’s almost time,” the nurse standing by the bedside monitor said. “The doctor is on his way.”

  Abby had had an epidural an hour ago. Her mother had held her hand as the anesthesiologist had sent the long needle into her back. Her pain had eased significantly since then, which allowed her to devote most of her thoughts to Sam.

  Thinking about him and the babies she was about to deliver made her head spin – it was all too much at once. And there was nothing she could do about that. The twins were coming and it looked like Sam wouldn’t – couldn’t – be there for the birth.

  A tear formed in the corner of one eye, but she blinked it away. As long as Sam’s wounds turned out to be something he’d recover fully from, there was no reason to cry. Not in light of the reasons she could have had.

  Cold sweat dampened her forehead as she tried to imagine what had happened at the theater: an assault in the dark, a knife-wielding lowlife – maybe one Sam had run into on the job – with a grudge against cops, against her cop… Blood all over the dark blue t-shirt and gunmetal grey jacket he’d worn to the movies. A rushed trip to the emergency room, a blood transfusion, possibly a surgery… The same imagination that allowed her to create art provided brilliant, terrifying imagery.

  “Try to relax,” the nurse said. “You’ll need all your energy soon enough.”

  Abby bit back a sharp response – literally – and tasted a coppery hint of blood. It sharpened her imaginings and sent her heart plunging.

  She said nothing as a now-familiar tightening crept over her abdomen, turning her belly hard. Seconds into the contraction, her doctor walked into the room.

  He examined her and told her that she’d begin pushing when the next contraction came.

  She nodded, trying to summon the excitement she’d imagined she’d feel at this moment. It wouldn’t come, and the realization sent a few more tears stinging and pressing against the backs of her eyes. Blinking them back, she waited.

  Her mother gripped one of her hands.

  “It’s time,” the nurse watching the monitor said.

  A contraction seized Abby, though she couldn’t feel much of it, thanks to her epidural.

  She pushed and the room became more crowded as two more doctors entered – a pediatrician for each baby, a second nurse explained.

  Seeing the doctors standing there ready to examine the twins made the babies’ arrival seem more imminent, more real. She couldn’t deny that this was happening, really happening, without Sam.

  The door swung open again, gaping on its hinges. Another nurse entered, but Abby hardly noticed her hurrying along in Sam’s shadow.

  “Sam?” Bitter-sweet disbelief coursed through her as she tried and failed to sit up.

  “I’m here.” He hurried across the room, wearing jeans and nothing but bandages above the waist. His skin was clean, but dark red spots marked where blood had dripped onto his pants.

  Abby’s heart sped, thumping against her ribs. When Sam closed a hand around one of hers, relief sent her sinking deeper against the pillows with a sigh. “Should you be here – are you finished with your treatment?”

  “I’m not going to miss this for anything, and the transfusion is done.”

  A piece of gauze taped to the crook of his left elbow evidenced his claim.

  “Are you okay?” He didn’t seem to be using his right arm, and it looked swollen beneath the bandage that had been wrapped around it.

  He nodded as he squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry about me. Are you – how do you feel? Are the babies…”

  “She needs to focus on her labor,” the OB doctor said. “She’s very close to giving birth. When the next contraction hits, you need to support her quietly if you’re going to stay.”

  Abby frowned. Couldn’t the doctor see that she’d been worried half to death over him, that he was in much rougher shape than her? She didn’t get a chance to ask before the next contraction came and stole her breath.

  Sam gripped her hand more tightly, his gaze locked on her face. She didn’t want to look away, but the doctor was telling her to push harder, and she closed her eyes as she gave it her best effort.

  Sam’s nurse didn’t seem happy that he was there, but she said nothing.

  After a long, sweaty forty minutes of holding Sam’s hand, Abby finally felt the first rush of success.

  “It’s a boy.” The doctor’s words drifted to her through a haze of relief, fatigue and drugs. Time seemed to move both too quickly and too slowly as she sank into the pillows for a minute’s rest and a doctor hurried to clean and examine the baby. “How does he look?”

  “Good,” Sam said. “Great. He’s crying.”

  A wail pierced the air, surprisingly loud for such a tiny baby. “How much does he weigh? He looks so small.”

  The doctors hadn’t handed the baby to her right away – the nurse had warned her that careful examining would be the priority, given the slightly premature birth – but she craned her neck to watch what was happening.

  “I don’t know.” Sam squeezed her hand.

  “Six pounds and one ounce,” one of the nurses said emphatically, and lowered a soft bundle into Abby’s arms.

  Relief flooded Abby’s system, sudden and alien after hours of agonizing worry. Sam was there and the first baby was six pounds, which might not be much, but was more than she would’ve guessed he weighed.

  “Ethan,” she said, fighting a stab of sadness as she thought of the day she and Sam had sat at the kitchen table and decided on the name. His friend’s fate seemed more real, the sadness more poignant, now that Sam had come so close to losing his own life as the result of his work. In a way, that made her even more glad they’d chosen the name they had.

  Baby Ethan was no longer crying and seemed content to stare up at Abby with big, round eyes that were damp at the corners. He was tiny, his face round, and a miniscule set of knuckles and fingertips peeked over the top of the towel that wrapped around him and tucked beneath his chin.

  Sam stroked Ethan’s cheek and held his tiny hand. With only one functional arm and blood-stained jeans, he didn’t hold the baby, but he was there and they were together – a family.

  “He’s beautiful,” Abby’s mother said, smiling for the first time since she’d arrived at the hospital.

  He really was.

  The OB doctor had returned to his position at the foot of the bed after examining Abby’s belly, which still seemed as
huge as ever, minus one baby or not. “The second baby is head down and on its way.” He broke her water – again.

  “Do you want to hold him, mom?” Abby offered up Ethan as the doctor prepared to deliver the second twin.

  No sooner had she given up Ethan than a contraction took her breath away, confirming the doctor’s prognosis. She summoned every bit of energy she had left – with Sam holding her hand, it was much easier to do than the first time she’d begun pushing.

  “You’re doing great,” Sam said.

  Ethan’s twin didn’t take nearly as long to arrive – hardly ten minutes passed between the first birth and the second.

  “A little girl,” the OB doctor said as a pediatrician began tending to the new arrival.

  “Kylie,” Sam said, smiling. They’d chosen that name the same day they’d chosen Ethan’s.

  “Good thing you shoved that purple outfit into my bag last minute, mom,” Abby said when she’d regained her breath. The barest smile tugged at one corner of her mouth as she looked up at Sam, then at her mother, who was cradling Ethan – it was done.

  It hadn’t happened the way she’d expected – not at all – but it was so good to have Sam and both babies safe that in that moment, despite everything that had happened, nothing could shatter her happiness.

  Kylie weighed in at five pounds and three ounces. Slightly jaundiced, she was otherwise healthy, and a nurse lowered her into Abby’s arms. Neither baby would need the NICU.

  “You did great, baby.” Sam pressed his lips against Abby’s temple, bending to kiss her without wincing, though it had to hurt him.

  Sam’s nurse finally spoke up. “We need to get you back to your room. You need rest before your surgery.”

  “Surgery?” Fear slipped into Abby’s heart like a cold, familiar knife.

  CHAPTER 13

  “Sam?” Even through the light haze of painkillers, Abby’s voice sounded clear as a bell.

  “Sam?” She appeared in the doorway. Today, she wore a loose maternity dress instead of the hospital gown he’d last seen her in, though a hospital wristband still circled her arm.

  “Hey.” He sat up against the stack of pillows he’d been resting against. As soon as she was close enough to the bed for him to reach, he extended his uninjured arm and pulled her close with a hand on her shoulder. “How are you – how are the babies?”

  It felt so good just to feel the heat of her body beneath his fingertips, warming him from the inside out.

  “Fine. How are you?” Her shoulder shook beneath his touch, and her gaze slipped from his face to linger on his bandages. There were two on his chest and one on his arm, which covered his most severe wound as well as the site of his recent surgery, which had been performed to repair a cut tendon.

  “I’m fine.” He was. The surgery had gone without complications. He was expected to make a full recovery – he was lucky.

  She frowned.

  “Sit down.” He nodded toward the edge of the bed.

  She shook her head. “I’d rather stand – it’s more comfortable. Tell me what happened last night.”

  He’d been waiting for her to ask. This was the first time they’d had a chance to really talk since the incident. The birth of the twins had been an all-consuming event – he’d been there for it and only for it, explanations put on the backburner.

  “You remember that drug bust a few months ago?”

  “The one where you got that split lip?”

  He nodded, ignoring the pain that rippled through his sutured chest.

  “One of the criminals I arrested that day held a grudge.”

  Abby breathed a long sigh. “What the hell? Is he the one who threw the rock through the living room window, too? Shouldn’t he be in jail?”

  Sam shook his head. “There are lots of criminals out on the streets who should be in jail. We can arrest them when they fuck up, but we don’t decide their punishments. He’s not the first to get away with only a few months after giving up information that screwed over some of his buddies.”

  “That’s not fair – that’s ridiculous! You could’ve been killed!”

  He squeezed her shoulder. “I know, but there’s more I have to tell you.”

  Her temper was clearly already boiling – she still shook beneath his hand. He hated to tell her anything that’d upset her when she’d given birth less than 24 hours ago, but it didn’t feel right to keep secrets.

  “Like what?”

  Unslinging his arm from around her shoulders, he grasped one of her hands and squeezed. His fingers swallowed hers up, immobilizing them in the shelter of his touch. “Some officers were able to get information from Trish – after a night spent in a jail cell, she was ready to talk. She admitted to robbing our house, throwing the rock through the living room window around Halloween and slashing Natalie’s tires.”

  “Really – that was all her?”

  Sam nodded. “She flattened Natalie’s tires after she saw that Natalie was using my credit card in the café. She assumed that she was with me and got jealous. And she threw the rock last fall because she was pissed that I arrested her boyfriend.”

  “You did?” Abby’s eyes widened, then narrowed, and he could see by the look on her face that she was beginning to make the connections.

  “Yeah, that day I got the busted lip – he was one of three men we took into custody.”

  Abby’s hand tensed inside his. “They were together – that’s who she left to be with?”

  “Apparently. Cohen filled me in earlier. When Trish’s heroin-dealing boyfriend went to jail, she was left without her source of money and drugs. By that time, she was addicted and had already lost her old job. She got more desperate as time went on.”

  “So she robbed us, and her boyfriend … was he just released from jail or something?”

  Sam nodded. “Just a couple days ago. From what I gather, he roughed Trish up when he found out she’d come around my place again. I guess he thought something was going on between us and went into a jealous rage.” God, telling Abby what had happened left a sour taste in his mouth. The whole department knew, but having to tell her was even worse.

  “Sorry,” he said, suddenly hyper-aware of the dark circles under her eyes and the way she leaned against the bed for support. “It’s all so fucked-up, and this is the last sort of thing you need to be hearing after giving birth.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” She threaded her fingers through his and squeezed back. “I’m just glad you’re okay. You’re safe and the babies are safe – nothing else matters.”

  “Still. I hate that you had to be involved in this mess.” For the millionth time, he wished he’d never met Trish, wished he could go back in time and be less of an idiot.

  “They’re both locked up now, right?” Abby asked.

  Sam nodded. “They’re both in for a long and unpleasant stay in prison now, especially my attacker – I can guarantee it. And the note Trish left makes it look like she knew something about what her boyfriend was planning. That could make her an accomplice.”

  A little of the tension seemed to go out of Abby’s muscles. “So after you heal, we can put this all behind us.”

  He breathed a sigh. The fact that she was willing to let the past be the past would make it a hell of a lot easier for him to do the same.

  Silence stretched for a little while, and Abby leaned more heavily against the bed.

  “You sure you don’t want to sit?”

  She shook her head. “No, but I do want to know what happened – specifically, I mean. Did he just … attack you while you were watching the movie, or what?” She tightened her grip on his hand again.

  “No, afterward. We were walking down the exit aisle – it was dark – and I went to throw away an empty cup. I should’ve been more alert.” He grimaced. “Should’ve seen it coming. I tossed the cup into the trashcan and Gerrig said something. I turned to look at him, and the son of a bitch – Trish’s boyfriend – rushed me.”

&nb
sp; The memories were a fractured blur, a few seconds of shock composed of still frames his mind had taken as his body had slipped into shock.

  “It all happened in a few seconds. He stabbed me in the arm first. I felt the impact, but it didn’t really hurt. I realized what had happened when I saw the blood. By that time, he’d stabbed me again and Cohen was already on him.” He touched the bandage below his collarbone. “This wound’s not too deep, didn’t hit anything vital. The last blow was only a glancing wound. A lot of stitches, but it’s shallow.

  “Gerrig and Cohen had him on the ground within seconds. Pretty stupid to attack a cop who’s got two other cops at his back.” He smiled like it was a joke, but Abby didn’t return the expression.

  “When I was in labor, nobody would tell me exactly what was going on. All I knew was that you’d been attacked and were being treated for knife wounds. I thought you might—” She sucked in a breath. “I’m so glad you’re okay. Well, maybe not okay, but you know what I mean.”

  “I am okay.” He held her hand a little tighter. “I’ll be better soon and it’ll be like none of this ever happened.” At least, he hoped so – he wouldn’t mind the physical scars, but he couldn’t wait to forget what they represented.

  “Is that what the doctor said, or is that what you want me to think?”

  “The doctor said I should make a full recovery. It’ll take time for this tendon to get back to normal, but there doesn’t seem to be any nerve damage.”

  Abby eyed his bandaged arm. “My mom volunteered to stay with us for a while to help with the twins. I figure she can sleep in my office.”

  “Tell her I said thanks. I’ve still got one good arm though, and soon I’ll have two – I’ll be changing dirty diapers in no time.”

  “Well, that’s something to look forward to.” Finally, she smiled.

  “I’ll use the positive imagery to motivate my body to heal faster.” He did his best to keep a straight face, and it wasn’t hard to do when she yawned. “You look exhausted, baby – did you make your way down here all by yourself?”