Chapter Seven—Meggie #2
“I appreciate our friendship and love you like a little sister. Your children are as dear to me as if we shared blood. As your big sister, anyone who fucks with you, fucks with me.”
“I know.”
“Right now, I’m talking to you as Rule’s aunt and a woman with her share of mental issues. We both know your son needs help. Don’t turn your back on him, darling.”
She’d seen Christopher aim his gun at Rule and pull the trigger.
If Mortician hadn’t knocked away Christopher’s hand, Rule would be dead.
At that time, Meggie hadn’t had any charity in her heart.
Her daughter was on her lap, barely conscious, and Axel was inconsolable.
She hadn’t cared what happened to Rule. He’d been dead to her.
Once she was loaded in one of the ambulances, numbness had set in, and she still hadn’t cared about his fate.
If he’d been dead, so be it. Same if he’d evaded Christopher’s retribution.
Now, as she talked to Kendall, sanity was returning and Meggie was glad Rule was still alive to get help since she’d severely miscalculated his mental state.
A loud crash and a woman’s scream startled Meggie; she sat up. Kendall jumped to her feet and started for the door, but it flew open before she reached it.
Mortician rushed into the room, panic on his face and his lip bleeding. Kendall gasped, though the commotion in the hallway almost drowned it out.
“Fuck, man!” Mortician swore, glancing around the room, searching for something.
Alarmed, Meggie swung her legs over the side of the bed. “What…?”
Christopher stormed in, eyes wild. “Where’s he at, Mortician?”
He looked at Meggie, then back at Christopher. “Outlaw—”
“They did more tests on Rebel.” Christopher kicked the rolling table. “She got a collapsed lung, a concussion, cracked ribs, and a hematoma from the hit to the back of her head.”
Meggie gasped. “Rebel has what?”
Drawing his gun, Christopher ignored her and took a step toward Mortician.
“Prez,” Mortician started, rushing to the other side of Meggie’s bed and crouching down.
“Megan fucked up, too,” he roared, listing her injuries.
“Where’s Rebel, Christopher?” she demanded.
Christopher started in the direction of Mortician, still crouching out of view, but Kendall placed herself in his path.
“Move, Kendall,” Christopher ordered.
Unintimidated, Kendall folded her arms. “No, fuckhead. We don’t need you arrested.”
Christopher glared at Kendall.
“You’re too fucking smart to be so fucking dumb,” she grumbled, borrowing Brooks’s words. “Lose your fucking temper and there goes your reasoning, you big man baby.”
“Fuck off, Kendall. You one to fuckin’ talk—”
“Enough!” Their bickering didn’t interest Meggie. She needed to know about her daughter. “Where’s Rebel?”
“In the fuckin’ room,” Christopher snapped, glowering at Kendall, who still refused to move.
“In critical condition. She woke up and just wanted mercy for that motherfucker. I played music, but her head been hurtin’.
She need a tube to reinflate…” His voice cracked before he glanced in Mortician’s direction.
“I’m givin’ you one more fuckin’ chance to tell me where he at. ”
Mortician peeped over the bed, but Christopher shoved Kendall out of the way and aimed the gun at his head.
“Fucking asshole,” Kendall hissed, dusting off her silk blouse.
Mortician ducked again. “You mourned my son with me, Prez. I never got to really know Tyler. You been with Rule his whole life. You don’t want to kill your boy.”
“The fuck I don’t.”
Swallowing the bile in her throat, Meggie grabbed her IV pole and got to her feet. She crept toward her husband, ignoring her pain and wooziness.
“Get back in bed,” Christopher ordered.
Kendall rushed to her side. “I’ll call a nurse for a wheelchair, so you can see Rebel.”
Meggie limped to Christopher, took his free hand and kissed it. “Mortician’s right,” she said softly. “You don’t want to kill Rule. I don’t want you to kill him. You don’t need to know where he is. Put you gun away.”
His nostrils flared and his eyes, so long a mirror to his soul, entranced her, his pain, sorrow, and anger laid bare, there for her to see. “Get back in bed, Megan.”
“Leave Mortician alone,” she ordered. “He’s your best friend.”
Christopher lowered the gun. “I been with Reb. I ain’t wanted to leave her side. Then when they told me about her—”
“Fucking motherfucking doctors!” Mortician grumbled, still out of sight. “Came and told Prez everything the tests showed like he a normal motherfucker.”
“Rule number one is to never assume this motherfucker’s normal,” Kendall said with a sniff, jabbing her finger in Christopher’s direction.
Ignoring Meggie’s glare, she went to Mortician and held out her hand.
As the enforcer grabbed it and got to his feet, Meggie placed herself in front of Christopher.
Sighing, he strapped the .9mm back into the holster at his side, then sat in the chair near her bed and hung his head.
“Of all the fuckin’ threats, I ain’t ever thought one would come from one of our children.
” He looked as weary as he sounded. “They want Jo. They want CJ. Rebel. And those motherfuckers been wantin’ you.
They ain’t gonna rest until they take you from me. ”
Mortician cleared his throat and glanced around. “They? ‘Cause I swear, Prez, it’s just me, you, Red, and Meggie girl.”
“Them!” Christopher raged. “Hoof-foot and his fuckin’ friends stalkin’ me.”
“You talking about Satan and his little demons?” Mortician asked, gulping. “They here?”
“Jesus Christ, both of you are fuckheads,” Kendall said, rolling her eyes. “If they want to take you from Meggie, it’ll be an angel, so you have nothing to worry about.”
“Yeah, real angels are frightening motherfuckers,” Mortician said.
“You’ve seen a real angel?” Meggie asked in surprise.
“Drawings. I’m a paster’s son, so I know how they look. I don’t fuck with the supernatural whether they filled with benevolence or malevolence. Stay the fuck away.”
“Then how…never mind,” Meggie decided. They’d have the conversation another time.
She went to her husband and stepped between the ‘v’ of his thighs.
He rested his head against her chest and shuddered.
She slid her fingers through his hair. “It’s okay, Christopher.
We will get through this as we get through everything.
Together. Loving each other, our children, and our family. ”
He shook his head. “No. I ain’t ever lovin’ Rule—”
“You are,” she whispered, wrapping an arm around his neck. “You do. You’re his father. You know he doesn’t deserve our scorn—”
“Rebel begged me to get him help.”
“It’s what he needs, my love,” Meggie whispered, kissing his temple. “He needs us. His mother and father most of all.”
Christopher stiffened, lifted his head, and glared at her, anger hardening his green eyes. “Why the fuck Rule did that, Megan?” His voice cracked. “Why?”
“Rule is ill,” she said quietly.
“A bunch of psycho motherfuckers walk around. They don’t try to fuck up their ma and their twin.”
“I know,” Meggie said.
“Bailey and Zoann are working to get him help,” Kendall said crisply. “You can eSign if that’s easier.”
Christopher met Meggie’s gaze, his still so tortured and tormented. Kendall slipped past Mortician and headed to the bathroom.
“If he’s lucid, he might take comfort from seeing you,” Meggie said.
The sound of running water echoed in the room.
“Okay, baby,” Christopher said with a nod. He thought for a moment. “He still with Wilcunt, huh, Mort?”
Mortician winced. “Didn’t mean to lie to you, Prez, but I didn’t know what else to tell you so you wouldn’t kill your kid.”
Kendall walked to Mortician, holding a wet washcloth. “For your lip.”
“You punched him, didn’t you, Christopher?” Meggie asked.
He shrugged.
“I’ll call Brooks so he can call the hospital’s CAO and settle whatever damages you two juvenile assholes caused,” Kendall announced, and walked out.
Christopher ignored her. “Baby, you up to movin’ to Reb’s room?”
Meggie smiled. “That’ll be the best medicine of all.”
He stood and swept her into his arms.
Squealing, Meggie grabbed her IV pole.
“Reb need her ma close, baby.”
No matter what Christopher said about Rebel’s condition, Meggie wasn’t prepared to see her daughter hooked up to monitors with a tube running from her chest to the draining machine.
Rebel slept, so still and silent, not at all the lively girl Meggie knew and loved. Tears rushed to her eyes and she pressed her lips together to hold back a sob. Christopher didn’t speak as he brought Meggie to her bed and laid her down.
“I thought…I thought…” She couldn’t process her daughter’s condition to say what she thought. She sniffled. “Why does Rebel have all of that?”
Christopher walked to the foot of Rebel’s bed and touched her foot.
“They need to reinflate her lung,” he said, his tone suddenly distant and his expression unreadable.
“They was hopin’ it wasn’t as serious, but she couldn’t fuckin’ breathe.
After Pritchard told me everything, I signed the consent and a pulmonologist performed the procedure. ”
Snapping her brows together and wiping her wet cheeks, Meggie narrowed her eyes. “You chose to chase Mortician rather than stay at Rebel’s bedside?”
He scowled. “What the fuck could I do in here, Megan? I told them to sedate her so she’d relax.
Pritchard said it should only be a couple days.
I want her sedated the entire fuckin’ time cuz he said a lot of patients are in fuckin’ pain from the chest tube and the reinflation.
On a scale of ten, motherfuckers rate their pain at nine or ten.
You want that for her? I sure the fuck don’t. ”
“Christopher, I know you’re upset and worried right now, but calm down. She’s going to be o-okay.”
“She almost wasn’t. You, too.”