Chapter 40
“Danny-”
“I’m busy,” he said, not bothering to look up from his phone as he headed towards his room.
“I need to tell you something,” Darrin said, quickening his pace to catch up with him.
“Tell me later,” Danny said, pulling out his keycard.
“But-”
“Later,” he said, opening his door and stepping inside only to come to a halt when he spotted his father sitting on the edge of the bed.
“She’s left the hotel,” Darrin said, unnecessarily it would seem since the note Tinkerbelle left for him on the mirror said it all.
“When?” Danny asked, trying not to panic.
“A little after ten this morning,” his father said, standing up.
He glanced around the room and noted that all her stuff was gone.
Nodding, Danny turned around to go after her, but he barely managed to turn around before his father stopped him by saying the one thing that he’d been waiting for his father to say for the past eight years but never really thought he would.
“You fucked up,” his father said, stopping him in his tracks.
“Dad,” Darrin said, shaking his head, but his father wasn’t listening.
“You fucked up and then you ran away like a coward.”
Jaw clenched, he met his brother’s shocked gaze and slowly, so fucking slowly, turned around so that his father could call him a coward to his face.
“I made a mistake,” Danny said evenly. “I was a kid and I made a mistake.”
“No,” his father said, shaking his head as he moved closer, sounding furious. “You didn’t make a mistake. You fucked up. You fucked up your life and instead of being a man and fixing it, you ran off like a fucking coward!”
Without thinking, Danny swung. He swung and he hit his father and he kept on hitting his father, not caring that his father was just taking it or that his brother was trying to pull him off.
He didn’t fucking care. There were too many goddamn years, too much pain and anger to ignore a comment like that.
His father ignored him for years. Fucking years!
And the first time that he acknowledged him, it was to call him a fucking coward?
“Get off him!” he heard Aidan scream, but he couldn’t stop.
This was his father and he loved him. He loved him so goddamn much and his father had abandoned him when he’d needed him the most. He’d turned his back on him and made him feel like shit, like he was fucking worthless and a failure and like his fuck up couldn’t be fixed.
That was bad enough, but when he’d joined the Marines, he’d waited for word from his father, waited for his father to call him, to visit him, to send him a letter telling him that he’d fucked up but that everything would be okay, anything, but there had been nothing.
The message had come through crystal clear.
His father had washed his hands of him. Nothing could have been clearer than the moment he woke up and found his father standing in his doorway, watching him with bored interest. Then, his father turned his back on him and walked away while he’d laid there in that fucking bed, struggling not to scream from the pain.
That had been the worst fucking moment of his life, and now…
He couldn’t stop.
He just couldn’t and God, how he wanted to stop swinging his arms, but he couldn’t.
There was just too much pain and he couldn’t stop.
So, when he felt his brothers grab him and pull him away from his father, he was unbelievably grateful.
But as they pulled him back and took him to the ground, that gratitude turned to pure agony.
“Breathe, Danny,” Ethan said, trying not to lose it as he watched Danny struggle to breathe through the pain.
“Dad?” Darrin said, putting everything into that one word as he looked up from Danny, pleading with him to make his brother okay with one look, a look he recognized all too well.
“He’s going to be fine,” Ethan said firmly, absently wiping away the blood trickling down his chin on the back of his arm as he looked his son over.
“Hold still, man,” Reese said, taking his brother’s hand in his. “Just hold still.”
“Call for an ambulance,” Aidan said calmly, but his hands shook as he grabbed Danny’s shirt and pulled it up. Ethan pushed his son’s hands away and examined Danny’s stomach. When his fingers moved over his scar and Danny screamed, long and loud, he tried not to panic.
Please watch over my son, Ethan chanted in his head, the same prayer he’d said every day for the past eleven years. Please watch over my son. Please watch over my son. Please watch over my son…
“Lucifer, go get Jodi and meet us at the hospital,” Ethan said, trying to remain calm as he watched the first signs of bruising and swelling spread around Danny’s scar, a clear sign that his son was going to need one more surgery that he might not make it through.
Oh, God…
“Someone call Mom,” Aidan said hollowly as he looked up and met his gaze.
“What’s wrong with him?” Darrin demanded, taking Danny’s other hand in his. The fact that Danny didn’t try to pull his hands away and tell his brothers that he was fine told them everything that they needed to know.
“It was an accident,” Reese said, staring down at his brother, shaking his head in disbelief. “God, it was an accident.”
“It’s okay,” Ethan told his sons in his most soothing tone, the one that he saved for frightened parents that were forced to stand around helplessly while their kids suffered.
“He shouldn’t have hit you,” Darrin bit out evenly, sounding pissed even as he gave Danny’s hand a reassuring squeeze.
“I had it coming,” Ethan told his son because they all knew that he had that coming and more for what he’d done to Danny.
“T-Tinkerbelle,” Danny whispered weakly.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Kenzie asked as she walked into the room, only to stop when she spotted Danny on the floor. “Danny?” she said, rushing to his side. “Oh, my God, Danny!” she said, trying to take Danny’s hand away from Reese, but he wasn’t letting him go.
“He’s going to be fine,” Aidan said, forcing a small reassuring smile as he took his sister’s hand and gently pulled her to her feet and into his arms. “He’s going to be fine.”
“I can’t feel my legs,” Danny said weakly seconds before he finally passed out and all hell broke loose.
“How long will he be in surgery?” Duncan asked.
Aidan looked up to see if his father was going to answer, but the look on his father’s face had him answering. “We don’t know.”
“He’ll be fine,” their mother said, nodding at her own words even as she released a shuddering breath while she sat there, holding their father’s hand tightly.
“We broke his back,” Reese said hollowly, looking as close to crying as he’d ever seen any of his brothers come and the fact that Darrin’s expression matched his twin’s terrified him.
None of the men in his family had cried when Danny had been shipped back to them, bandaged and in a coma with a poor prognosis.
They hadn’t cried as they’d waited for surgery after surgery to find out if their brother would survive.
They hadn’t cried when his brother had gone through hell and back to learn how to walk again, but today they were all struggling not to lose it.
For the past couple of years, they’d all treated Danny with kid gloves, careful not to hug him too tightly, put too much into their punches or headlocks, always pulling back, too terrified of what could happen if they didn’t, and today…
Today they’d seen him finally react to their father and gave him the beating that even he had to admit that his father had coming, and they’d reacted.
They’d all grabbed onto him without thinking.
They’d grabbed him by his arms, his legs and he’d grabbed Danny around the waist and they’d yanked him back, stumbled and tripped, bringing Danny down to the ground in an awkward pile.
He’d heard the snap and he’d swear until his dying day that he’d even been able to feel it as it happened.
“Has anyone heard from Lucifer?” Duncan asked, tightening his arm around Kenzie, who’d been quietly crying since the doctor came out and confirmed that Danny had broken his back.
“No, he-”
“Put me down, you overgrown bastard!”
As one, they all looked towards the double doors for the surgery wing in time to see Lucifer carrying Jodi in.
At first, he’d thought that she was pissed about being brought here against her will, but then he noted the orderly pushing a stretcher behind her, followed by two nurses and a doctor, who all looked resigned as they followed Lucifer and the woman who wouldn’t stop squirming wildly in his arms.
“Put me down!” Jodi screamed.
“What’s going on, son?” their father asked, standing up slowly as Aidan noted the large icepack Jodi had pressed against her hand.
“I-I broke her hand,” Lucifer admitted, shifting nervously.
“What?” Aidan asked, shooting his father a look even as they both moved their asses and rushed over to her side.
“Put me down!” Jodi demanded, struggling to get out of Lucifer’s arms.
As soon as they reached her side, his father was reaching for her.
In seconds, he had her in his arms and was carrying her over to the gurney.
“Why wasn’t this break set?” Ethan demanded, looking up just long enough to send the doctor shifting nervously by the gurney a glare before he returned his attention to Jodi’s damaged hand.
“She wouldn’t let us,” the doctor snapped defensively even as he took a healthy step back.
“She’s going to need surgery,” Aidan mumbled absently as he gently picked up her hand and examined it.
“I didn’t mean to do it,” Lucifer said, sounding miserable.
“How the hell did you break her hand?” Aidan asked, drawing Jodi’s murderous glare.
“Like this,” Jodi snapped, pulling her injured hand back and showing him exactly how she’d managed to bust her hand.