Chapter 44
Lucas
Pulling up to the emergency room, I stopped the car right outside the sliding glass doors of the ambulance bay, and Levi launched himself out of the passenger seat, heading straight through the doors as they parted like the sea with Chase waiting on the other side.
He promptly directed us into the closest trauma bay with all of the blinds pulled closed before pointing to the gurney.
“Sit her down over there and stand aside, we’ll get to work on saving her.” He hastily instructed, gesturing to his staff on the other side of the doorway.
Levi was hesitant to separate from her as he gently lowered Tessa down and took slow steps back toward the wall just as a trauma team of nurses swarmed the room, and he crumpled at the sight.
I stepped up to my brother’s side, my hand resting on his shoulder for reassurance, as a mask was placed over her nose for oxygen, and her shirt was torn open for cardiac leads.
In a matter of seconds, they had our girl connected to several monitors as the nurses and staff moved in an almost choreographed dance around the bed. Machines coming to life with various lights and information I couldn’t understand.
“Vitals,” Chase called, and one of the nurses started rattling off a list of numbers.
Words like rapid, low, and erratic were mentioned, but I could barely hear anything over all the beeping and sounds echoing throughout the room and my head.
“She's breathing on her own, which is a good sign, but she's still not where I’d like her to be... Everly, be ready to intubate if her score drops below an eight.”
“Doctor, her oxygen’s at eighty-nine percent, and her BP’s dropping.” One of the nurses alerted Chase from the opposite side of the room.
“Push fluids to stabilize her BP and get me a tox screen. I need to know what we’re working with.” His attention shifted to us after directing his staff. “You mentioned Xanax bars were scattered on the floor where you found her. Do you know how much she took? Did she take them with alcohol?”
Levi silently shook his head, unable to tear his eyes from her body, and I could feel all of his pain mirrored in my own.
“A glass or two of wine before it happened… no idea how many of the pills…” I uttered before rolling my lips together and pinching them between my teeth.
How did it get to this… When…
“Doctor… This woman intentionally overdosed on a benzodiazepine, shall I page psyche?”
“No!” My brother and I shouted, our horror-stricken eyes meeting before they gravitated to Chase in a panic.
“That won’t be necessary. I’ll see to it that the patient receives the care they need and reassess when she wakes.” He didn’t skip a beat, unlike our hearts. But this was his job. To care for those in the MUR and their partners. He knew what it was like, understood our position.
“She’s going to be okay…” I heard my brother breathe through his words, as if he were hypnotized by the scene unfolding before our eyes, and I squeezed his shoulder even tighter for grounding.
“She’s going to be okay, Levi…”
We stood firm together, backed into the corner in anxious silence as we continued to watch Chase and the nurses trying to save Tessa’s life. All while praying to fucking god that she would make it through the night.
We sat for five long, excruciating hours at her bedside—her dutiful watchdogs, her faithful guardians. We took turns leaving, and only when we needed to get something to eat, drink, or just take a moment outside for some fresh air. To breathe. Because she was still breathing.
When Tessa stabilized, Chase had her moved to a room on a floor designated for VIP patients—more specifically, members of the MUR.
Chase was one of the few dancers who chose a career in the medical field when completing his initiation. He belonged to the Red Magic revue and had become extremely valuable with his chosen profession outside of the show.
We knew him in a very limited capacity compared to Dallas, but the fact that he would drop everything to save the life of our girl was more than we could’ve ever asked for in an acquaintance.
“How is she?” Levi padded into the room as I sat at her bedside, my elbows resting just beside her waist; Tessa’s hand cradled in mine as I watched her chest rise and fall with every soft breath.
“No news is good news, I suppose…” I didn’t tear my eyes away from her once, listening to my brother’s heavy heels drag as he crossed the room, the door clicking shut behind him.
“She’s still…”
“Asleep? Yeah. Chase stopped by about ten minutes ago and mentioned that she could be out for a few more hours…”
While he was here, he took note of the machines, jotting down some notes before lending me a weak, empathetic smile.
If something were wrong, or if all hope was lost, he would’ve said something by now, but he didn’t.
And that was all I needed to keep my head above water, to continue to sit here and pray that she came back to me—to us.
“Why would she—”
“Don’t… ask that question. Not yet.” My brother softly warned.
“But I just—I just want to understand—” I choked out, my eyes beginning to water all over again with the anger that burned deep in my gut.
“It wasn’t anything we did or didn’t do. But I believe she found us at the right time in her life, regardless of what happened. Because no matter the outcome, we won’t leave her, whether she wakes up or not.”
“Or not… You just had to add that part in, didn’t you…” I don’t think I can return home without her; I doubt Levi could take a single step into that bathroom without—
“She’ll wake up, Luke. You know she will. Our girl is strong, resilient. She’ll come back to us…”
Levi dropped into the chair on the other side of Tessa, sliding his hand up her arm to rest a palm on her shoulder, and we fell back into silence. The same drawn-out silence we’ve been stewing in for the past several hours, waiting for her to wake.
Time crawled as our hearts slowly sank beneath the soles of our feet. We didn’t need to talk to understand what we were going through, to comfort one another.
“Tess…” A rough-cut voice broke the stillness of the room, and the two of us peered over to the doorway where an older gentleman was now lingering, a bouquet of sunflowers in hand.
Levi and I awkwardly stared at him, unable to form words as the man in question entered our space. Then we both snapped, releasing every shred of our pent-up aggression.
“This is a private room on a closed-off floor. Who the fuck are you, and who gave you permission to be in here?” Levi barked, shooting up from his chair to step in the stranger’s way, blocking his access to Tessa.
“Sit down, kid. I could ask the same question, seeing as one of you—or I suppose both of you—thought you had the fucking right to change her last name.” He scorned, still not giving us his name, all while verbally attacking my brother and me with a brazen fucking attitude. “Tessa fucking Castiel?”
“She’s our wife,” I announced, standing with my fists buried into the mattress where my elbows once rested. “Of course she’d hold our last name.” Like a badge of fucking honor.
“With whose permission? Because I sure as fuck know neither of you asked for it.”
“Who are you to come in here and accuse us of random bullshit, when we still don’t even know who the fuck you are.” My brother seethed, his hands curling into fists as he crossed his arms over his chest, refusing to give in even an inch.
“Theodore Thomas. I’m her bodyguard—was… her bodyguard.”
“And you’ve done such a wonderful fucking job of keeping her safe.” I taunted, still agitated and unsure if he was telling the truth or simply lying to gain access to our girl.
For all we knew, this man could have been making shit up to get in here just to take more photos for the goddamn vultures that caused this to happen in the first place.
“No better than her husbands.” Theodore quipped, placing the flowers he’d brought on the nearest table, and rage ignited under my skin.
“You want to have a fucking go at me? I’ll kick your ass, old man.” I threatened, shoving the sleeves of my sweatshirt up to my elbows as I skirted the corner of the bed to confront him.
“Luke. Stop. Enough with the pissing contest…” Levi intercepted my motion, arm extending to block me from following through with my onslaught of riled-up emotions.
“Listen to your brother, kid.”
“And you.” My brother seethed, returning his attention to Theodore while somehow remaining calm and composed. “Why are you here? If you no longer work for Tessa, then how the fuck did you find her, and who gave you permission to be in this room?”
“I’ve known Tess since she was a tot.” Theodore relaxed, sliding his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, letting out a long-winded sigh.
“Raised that little girl into the woman she is today while her parents left her to trail behind in their shadow. All but forgetting they even had a daughter to begin with.”
“They what?” Levi and I echoed in utter shock.
The intense atmosphere in the room dissolved at Theodore’s words, with the knowledge that she had been abandoned more than once, and by her fucking parents at that.
“She was an accident played off as a blessing to people who were at the peak of their careers, and they used her birth as a publicity stunt to accelerate their popularity. Tess needed someone to protect her in more ways than just security. So when the opportunity arose, I stepped up to the plate and became both her bodyguard and the stand-in parent she needed.”
“And then you left her, just like they did.” I rolled my eyes, not wanting to give in to his petty sob story. But it did make me wonder why she never talked about her family… her life…
“I had no fucking choice.” His throat rumbled with his admission.
“I had a wife who needed her husband back, a life that I had put on pause, all for her. I’m not to blame for this.
But I will take accountability because I know that I could have taken her away sooner.
.. Not legally by any means, but I could’ve done it, and I should have. ”
“So why didn’t you?” I couldn’t help but pry; this conversation was far better than the alternative.
“Because a lifetime on the run wouldn’t have been any better, and at the time, she was just a job, a paycheck.
It wasn’t until later down the line that she became so much more to me—the daughter I never had.
..” Theodore’s expression softened as he glanced around Levi’s arm to Tessa, still sleeping peacefully, unaware of the conversation we were having.
“But this isn’t about me, this is about her. .. How is she?”
There was no denying the fatherly look he gave our girl as he stepped around us—and we let him.
“Stable. Breathing…” I spoke, releasing a held breath as I collapsed back down into the same spot where I had been refusing to leave for longer than a few minutes. My elbows and fists were probably imprinted on the cream knit blanket.
“Who found her?”
“I did…” My brother exhaled, recalling that nightmare moment all over again, his hand trembling at his side as he aimlessly stared at one of the machines. He still hadn’t worked up the nerve to tell me everything that happened, just bits and pieces before falling silent, numb, all over again.
“Were there signs?”
“No… none. Everything seemed so… perfect… normal, at least that’s what we thought…” Levi spoke up as I reeled over the question I had been asking myself on repeat since we arrived.
“You wouldn’t have known... Tess hid her pain well. Knew precisely how to hide her feelings and faults better than any—”
“She’s not flawed.” I cut in, slamming my fist down on the sheets with a slight edge to my tone. No one, not even he, had the right to state otherwise.
“I never said she was…” Theodore murmured, ignoring my outburst as he took her right hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Tess has been perfect since the day she was born… I only wished she had the parents and a life to match.”
Lifting her hand, Theodore pressed his lips to the back of her palm, shutting his eyes as he fought to hold back a tear that lingered in the corner.
For a man who looked as though he could take out an entire army, he appeared more broken than we did—the guilt radiating off him in waves as he opened his eyes to stare down at the woman he believed he’d failed.
“How’d you do it?” He asked, lifting his gaze to meet ours from across the bed.
“Do-Do what?” We stumbled together, our shoulders tensing at the question.
“Flip the narrative? Because I saw the photos and the video on TMZ. That was unmistakably my Tess in all of them. So, whoever made the allegations against her disappear had to possess considerable power, effectively painting the woman who sold her out as the star of the show instead. Brandi, was her name, I believe…”
We couldn’t tell him the truth, even if we wanted to…
But it was true. No more than two hours after Brandi was delivered to Dustin, the script was reversed in our girl’s favor—Brandi was accused of falsifying everything she’d sold to profit off Tessa’s disappearance as if it were nothing more than a joke at the public’s expense.
My brother and I stared at each other, trying to figure out what the fuck kind of excuse we could give that would be reasonable enough for Theodore to accept without jeopardizing our status or asking more questions…
Levi was better at handling complex conversations, always knowing the right thing to say to get us out of a troubling situation.
So while he took the lead, pulling Theodore aside, their conversation turned into nothing more than a mumbled hum and I returned my attention to my princess.
Clasping her left hand tightly between mine, rolling her ring with my fingertips as I leaned in by her ear and whispered words that I hoped she would hear.
Words that I prayed would bring her back to me.