Chapter Twenty-Four
Wyatt
“How the fuck did this happen?” Kade screams into his phone.
“Who the fuck has access to his phone?” I open my eyes and see him pacing back and forth.
“Well fucking find out, Josh!” He hangs up the phone and looks over at me.
His arm has a white bandage wrapped around it. My head is pounding, but my thoughts flash to the brunette who was blissfully unaware of the danger I put her in.
“Where’s Blair?” I start to panic and sit up.
“Don’t move, Wyatt. They think you might have broken your neck.” I snarl and look around the best I can.
“Where is she?” My eyes dart all over the room, the doctor runs in.
“Mr. Eden, I need to you stay still, please. You might move wrong and become paralyzed.” I growl, I don’t give a fuck about me.
“Where the fuck is Blair?” I shout again, pulling out the I.V.s.
“She’s in surgery,” he finally says.
Kade walks over to me and gives me a sympathetic look. “She’s in bad shape, Wyatt.” My heart sinks .
“No, this can’t be happening,” Sitting up, my head spins.
“Fuck!” I shout and throw the I.V. drip across the room.
I look around the hospital room. The white and blue walls with curtains and beeping equipment. It smells like sterile death in here. I look down and see I’m in a white and blue hospital gown. Everything comes crashing back to me.
“I got a text, right before that bastard hit me.” Kade nods.
“I looked at your phone, Josh is looking into it now. Do you know if she has been getting threats?” I shake my head.
“Her phone is hooked up to mine, I receive everything she does. Nobody has contacted her.” I rub my head and wince.
“Who fucking hit me?” Pulling my hand away from my head, expecting to see blood.
“They were gone when we arrived. I got this message.” He shows me his phone.
It’s a picture of Blair and me on the hood of my car, right before I took her to the woods. “There was nobody fucking out there, I would have heard them, seen them, fucking something!” I hear the beeping of the heart monitor going up.
“What happened to her? The car hit on her side, what happened?” I ask, Kade sighs and sits down.
He runs his hands through his hair and looks up at me. I’ve never seen him look so distressed. “Her right lung collapsed, and her right arm and leg are broken. They had to use the jaws of life to open up her side of the car. The window broke and a piece of glass lodged into her chest,” I stop breathing. My whole fucking world shatters into tiny pieces.
“This is my fault,” I don’t say it out loud for him to disagree.
“She, she died once. They had to bring her back on the way here. I’m not going to lie to you, Wyatt. It’s not looking good for her.” My mind is racing .
If I didn’t fucking stop, we could have made it home. But no, I wanted to prove a point. Show her that I will always come back to her, always chase her. She would be in my bed right now, unharmed. I looked around before I grabbed her from the car, there was nobody that I could see or hear around us. I would have never stopped if I had known. This is my fault.
“I told her she was safe with me,” my voice cracks and I feel like I’m losing control.
I have not felt this out of control since before I left my shit foster home. I am always in control, and someone thinks they can try to take what’s mine from me. I will fucking kill everyone involved.
The doctor walks out at some point, because when I look back up, he is walking in with a chart in his hand. “Well, it’s great news. Your neck isn’t broken. You seem to be fine all except the concussion you suffered from hitting your head.”
“I want to see her,” I demand as a nurse walks around to take off the neck brace.
“She’s in surgery, I will inform you as soon as she is out.” When she moves back, I stand up and wrap my hand around the nurse's throat.
“You will fucking take me to her now or I will kill her.” The nurse cries and trembles under my grasp.
“Wyatt, man, you don’t want to do that. Let her go, she doesn’t have anything to do with this,” Kade says taking a step towards me.
The doctor clears his throat, “I can’t take you to the room she’s in.” I bring my hands up so I can easily snap her neck if he tells me no.
“But I can take you to the operating room. It overlooks where she is. But you have to be compliant, silent, and let them do their job.” He folds his arms over his chest .
“I’m sorry, I would have never hurt you,” I whisper in her ear and let her go. She stumbles over her feet and runs out of the room.
I’m not about killing innocents, but she didn’t know that. “Now,” Shouting, I look at the doctor. Kade sighs.
He opens the door and I follow him to the elevator. My head is pounding, my heart feels like it is being torn from my chest. My phone dings and Kade hands it to me.
Stuart: I’m glad you’re ok, Wyatt. You’re the closest thing I have to a son. I am on my way and will be in the waiting room with a few boys. Take the time you need but when you’re ready I have a lead.
I close my eyes and wrap my hand so tight around my phone I’m surprised it didn’t break. Kade’s phone rings this time.
“Hello?”
“And you’re sure?” silence
“He’s fine,” he says tightly.
“Thanks, Josh.” He hangs up the phone.
“Josh traced the number that texted you and the license plate he caught on the dash cam. It’s registered to a Lilly Ratliff. I will go check it out.”
“Thanks.” He gives me a tight-lipped smile, giving me a brief pat on the back.
“When she wakes up, can you let me know? Elena is going crazy and I… Just let me know.”
“Yes.” He sighs, closes his eyes, and turns towards the exit.
The elevator dings. “I would like it if you would at least sit down. Let me wheel you there.”
“No.” I simply say.
“You will be no good to her if you faint,” he says, and I growl .
I sit down and it feels like it takes forever for the elevator doors to open back up. We pass four doors and then he stops and opens the next.
“You have to be quiet. As long as you can do that, you can sit here as long as the surgery takes,” I nod.
When we get in the speaker is on and I hear doctors speaking calmly. The beeping of her heart monitors calms me a little. She’s alive. Her heart is beating. I stand to stretch my legs. When I lay eyes on the sight in front of me, my knees buckle, and I fall back into the seat. A rage I have never felt before is brewing inside of me. I run my hands through my hair and look back up.
She’s on the operating table with tubes and wires coming from her small body. Her brown hair is matted with blood and the floor around the table is covered in it. “Does she need blood? I share the same blood type as her, A positive. I can…”
“No, son. She has all she needs down there. Kade is also A positive and offered up his arm instantly. You have a good friend there.” I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
Her dress is on the floor and several surgeons are working on her. Her head hangs back with a breathing tube in her mouth. I just want to touch her. I want her body to know she is not alone. It’s killing me to be so close and not be able to help her. This is my fault.
Time stands still when I hear the flat line of her heart monitor. He grabs my arm and pushes me back into the seat. The surgeons are calling cold blue over the speakers. I throw his hands off me and pound on the window. “Fucking save her!” I scream so loud they all look up with wide eyes. I hit the glass, over and over again, needing to get to her. They get the crash cart and charge it. Bringing it to her small body, they shock her heart. “Son, you need to call down. Let them work,” I hear his voice, but I can’t process anything other than the woman I love is dead on the operating table. They pull the paddles back and begin CPR again. Charging the paddles once more, they place them over her heart and shock her a second time. This time her heart starts beating and they start calling out medical terms I don’t understand.
“Take me to her now!” I shout in his face.
“Wyatt, I can’t. It will put her in danger of getting an infection. Her body can’t handle any more trauma. I promise, as soon as they move her- I will take you to her.”
The doctor sits back in one of the chairs. My eyes are glued to the small brunette. I’m not sure how long I’ve been sitting here watching her chest rise and fall. It’s the only thing keeping me calm at the moment. The doctor stands up beside me and pats my shoulder, “They are done, I’ll take you to the room she will be in.” I stare down at her as they wheel her bed from the room.
When I get to her room, she's already inside. I rise to my feet before he even comes to a halt and make my way to her bedside. Taking in the injuries visible to me, I note her leg propped up and encased in a cast. Pins protrude from her arm, suspended above her head. White gauze envelops her chest, and bruises mar her ribs. The right side of her face is a mosaic of bruising, cuts, and swelling. She appears so shattered, so delicate.
“I’m staying in here,” I’m not asking.
“I am having a bed brought in here for you,” he says and then leaves the room.
I sit on the left side of the bed and take her hand in mine. “I am so sorry, Little Dove. I’m so sorry.” The first tear I have ever cried falls from my face. I bring her left hand to my lips and I break.
“I will find out who did this to you, I will. But you have to come back to me. I can’t lose you. You are the light to my darkness, I need you. I’ve never needed anyone in my entire life, not my mom, my dad, nobody. But you, you are all I see when I close my eyes. The woman who breathes life into my dead soul. I will burn the fucking world down for you, Blair. And I will make a crown from the ashes of those who hurt you and build a throne from their bones for you to sit on. You are the queen in my world. And I am no King without you,” I kiss her hand, again.
The doctor brought in a chair and another bed for me. I take the chair and hold onto her like she might slip away from me. I must have fallen asleep because I’m woke up by screaming. Panicked, fearful, screaming. I stand up and see her looking around, thrashing about with tears running down her face.
“Wyatt!” She screams my name over and over again.
“I’m here, Blair. I’m here,” trying to get her to listen but she doesn’t seem to hear me.
“Baby, you have to stop. You are going to hurt yourself.” I walk around and put myself right in her face.
She blinks several times and says my name again. The doctors rush in and push me out of the way. I growl but let them work.
“Blair, my name is Whitney. I am the surgeon who worked on you today. I’m going to need you to calm down, ok?”
“Where’s Wyatt.” A heart wrench sobs escapes through her lips.
“Please save him! Save Wyatt! I can’t get to him, please! Please!” She screams so loud that the surgeon jumps.
I push my way to the front earning me some choice words. “I’m here.” She finally looks at me, but her eyes aren’t looking at me. She’s far away in her mind .
Her eyes look around and her heart monitor is going crazy. She blinks several times, while her lips tremble. My name on her lips again. I lean into her and kiss her lips, and she gasps.
“Where am I?” I kiss her forehead.
“Baby, you’re in the hospital. We were in an accident. Somebody hit us and you got hurt.”
She takes her left hand, moves it from my hand, and grips the hospital gown I’m in, “Please don’t leave me.” Her voice cracks with her sobs.
“Please! Please don’t go,” her knuckles are white from how tight she grips my gown.
Her bottom lip is trembling, “I won’t. I’m not going anywhere,” I assure her, and she seems to relax but doesn’t let go.
"I'm going to walk around and sit right there," I gesture towards the chair.
“I am not leaving,” I tell her again, but she still doesn’t let go. She pulls weakly on my gown.
I allow her to pull me and she kisses me. I feel her lips tremble, she’s terrified. “I won’t leave you,” I whisper.
“O… Ok,” I kiss her one more time and stand up.
She follows me the best she can with her eyes. I grab her left hand and she squeezes it. I place my lips on the back of her hand and keep it there so she can feel me. This is my fault.