“Julian, please follow the light...” the doctor repeats, almost exasperated with me, and I finally snap.
“I don’t have a fucking concussion!”
A frustrated sigh sounds from across the room. From the corner of my eye, I see Dad standing up. There isn’t much tell of his stress except for his slightly ruffled hair and a loose tie, but other than that, the man looks like he’s on his way to a fucking board meeting. But I know better, he’s fucking stressed and I’ve already died a thousand deaths with all this waiting.
“Come on, Julian, he’s just doing his job,” he says quietly.
“No, he’s not!” I snap, looking at the doctor now. “Because if he was, he’d have told me what I want to know by now!”
“Doctor-patient confidentiality, man,” Liam grumbles from where he’s leaning on the wall, looking hellishly pissed. “He can’t tell you anything.”
“He can’t or he won’t,” I demand, looking directly in the doctor’s eyes. “Which is it?”
I’m too furious to be delicate or to ask nicely, which usually works, but not now. Not with this.
“Mr. Fitzgerald,” the doctor starts with a sigh. “Your brother is right. I honestly can’t tell you anything about the condition of Miss. Montague, even if I wanted to.”
“I’m not asking for details, doc, I just want to know if…” I trail off, too choked up to continue. I don’t even know what to say but each time I close my eyes, I swear I see her. Cold, pale and lifeless in my fucking arms.
Doc sighs heavily and steps back from me.
“I know you’re concerned, you all are, but I can’t talk about it.”
“You don’t fucking understand, she’s everything to me!” I seethe, the thing in my chest pounding so hard I can feel it in my fucking throat. “You need to tell me.”
The poor bastard looks away and then he looks at my father.
“Well, the truth is, we’ve all been banned from talking about Miss. Montague’s medical condition to anyone, especially with the press all over this story like flies.”
“We’re not fucking press,” Liam steps in. “Just tell us.”
The man sighs. “I might get into serious trouble by telling you this but since I’ve known you boys since you were knee high, I’ll tell you this.” I brace myself for the news. “She’s in a coma.”
My fucking soul sinks back into the depths of hell.
“What?” Liam demands. “A coma, like people who are dead in the brain? You know, the veggie people?”
I saw the nasty bash to her head. My Little Minx sustained multiple injuries and trauma. What else was I fucking expecting?
“Well, not quite. There’s no way of telling at the moment unless she wakes up.”
“Then wake her up! Don’t doctors put people in comas and then wake them the fuck up?”
“Liam! Watch your mouth,” Dad snaps.
“Well, that’s somewhat true but in this case, Miss. Montague is in a self-induced coma. It’s her body’s own way of fighting to stay alive and heal and honestly, that’s a positive sign.”
A positive sign or just delaying the inevitable?” I mumble uselessly, darkness creeping into my head all over again, filling it with ‘what ifs’
What if I had got to her in time?
What if I had protected her better?
What if I had showed her my fucking love and believed her when she told me the fucking truth that day?
What if I wasn’t such an angry asshole who believes the worst in people? The worst in her?
“Son, you can’t think like that,” Dad mumbles. “Her body is healing.”
Yeah, her beautiful, battered and fragile body is fighting to stay alive. She wants to stay alive… and I want to die for putting her in that coma. I fucking deserve it.
“So, when does she wake up?” I demand.
“I’ve already said too much already.”
“Come on, it’s been seven fucking days!”
Even hearing myself say it doesn’t lessen the brutal effect it has on me.
It’s been a whole fucking week since the night of all horrors. I wanted Armageddon and damned, I got it.
A wretched week since everything went to hell and Mia got shot right in front of my fucking eyes as the shithole we were in burned down all around us.
Seven days since she bled out in my arms and grew deadly still, I swear her heart stopped beating in my arms. And still, I fought my way out of there, walked through raging flames just to get her out and I’d do it all over again if I have to.
I can still feel the flames on my back, licking across the skin there, singing the clothes I was wearing, melting it to my skin.
And now, looking down at the bandages that cover most of my body, around my fucking torso, my arms and my legs, I can see the evidence of my curse, which is fucking nothing in comparison to what my actual punishment should be.
It’s because of me that Mia is somewhere in this godforsaken hospital, fighting for her life.
“Time is a good thing, son,” Dad says. I feel a heavy hand on my shoulder… the only one not useless. “Right now, you both need it.”
“Yes,” the doctor says. “Broken bones take a long time to heal, Julian. Including those second degree burns you sustained from that fire.”
I feel useless. I sit here, shirtless, my leg is in a brace and my right arm is in a fucking cast. My dislocated shoulder was well, relocated but the rest of my arm wasn’t such an easy fix.
I had to have an emergency operation to realign the bones but still, before they even told me, I already knew.
My dreams and hopes of going pro are all but impossible now.
My arm is shot.
“I don’t need time, I need to see her,” I mutter angrily, shaking Dad’s hand off me.
“Well, it just so happens that you can’t do that,” Dad says quietly, sitting beside me on the bed. I can feel his intent gaze on me. I turn to look at him, confused.
“What do you fucking mean?”
“That bastard, Nathan…” I lunge up onto my feet before he can say anything else and head for the door. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“He’s here? That fucker is fucking here near her?” I grit out, stumbling my way toward the door. Just then, the door swings open, and Cole walks in with a grim look om his face.
“Whoa, whoa, ugly duckling, where do you think you’re waddling off to?” he asks, eyebrow raised.
“Get out of my fucking way.” I’m fucking livid at this asshole for so many things I can’t say with Dad and Liam here. “Now.”
He just stares at me, not looking away.
“Block the door, Cole,” Dad calls from behind me.
“Why?” Liam demands. “Let him go. Someone needs to teach that scumbag a fucking lesson.”
“Okay, I think this is my cue to leave,” the doctor says. “Julian, take it easy. You inhaled a bit of smoke, so we’ll be checking your lungs and the respiratory system to see if everything’s a hundred percent back to normal.”
I don’t give a damn if anything is five percent back to normal when the fucker who sold off Mia to the fucking psychopath is close by!