Chapter 8 Darla
Darla
There’s a special kind of humiliation in standing outside Lexington General with a soggy paper bag of cookies and no plan.
The rain didn’t even bother with drama, just the pissy drizzle that made the city look like it was sweating off last night’s bad choices.
I’d spent half an hour orbiting the ambulance bay, the heels of my discount designer flats getting eaten alive by the sidewalk.
The cellophane on the bag had turned milky.
My hair was stringy and limp from the mist, and I’d almost cried twice.
Almost, but not quite—Maple girls don’t leak in public, not unless it’s for a camera or Jesus.
I checked my phone for the fourth time. No new texts. The last one from Dad read, “Board meeting went late. Don’t forget the pork chops in the fridge.” No mention of the brawl.
I rehearsed it, anyway. The apology. The walk. The delivery. Hey, sorry my people tried to beat you to death. Sorry for spreading my legs for you, even though I knew what was going to happen. I'd been a cunt, here’s a fuck-ton of gluten.
It wasn’t much, but it was the best I could do. That, and not run away screaming.
The inside of the hospital was a punch of lemon bleach and hot, dead air.
There were Christmas decorations strung over the check-in desk, but they sagged under their own weight, like even the tinsel wanted to die here.
I drifted past the nurse’s station, kept my head down, and did what I’d practiced a thousand times, making myself invisible.
It’s easy when nobody wants to look at you, which is 90% of life in a hospital, and 100% if you’re a woman in a dress with a neck still showing last night’s bruises.
Room 307A was on the third floor, which made sense.
They kept the brawlers away from the newborns and the dying, as if violence was an infection that could spread by proximity.
The hallway was half-lit, every other bulb burnt out or buzzing.
I slowed my steps, peered through the square of wired glass in the door, and stopped cold.
Inside, Vin was standing at the foot of the bed, arms folded, tattoos crawling up his biceps like they were trying to strangle him from the inside. His voice was low and flat, but every word carried. I recognized the tone—the way a man gets when he knows every exit and is about to block them all.
“You think this is a fucking joke?” Vin snapped. “You’re two weeks in, and I got you on the news in a Santa suit with half your face caved in. That’s not how we do business. That’s not how you prospect for this club.”
Axel was propped up against a pyramid of hospital pillows, eyes blacked, gauze across his temple, jawline one solid stripe of purple and green.
He didn’t look at Vin. He stared out the window at the parking lot lights melting in the rain.
His hands were steady, even as he peeled the tape off an IV line like it was a snake ready to bite him.
“You want me to say I’m sorry?” Axel said. His voice was shredded, half an octave lower than usual.
Vin leaned in, palms on the footboard. “I want you to act like you give a shit if you live or die. I want you to stop making it about you.”
I watched, holding my breath, the cookie bag sweating against my palm.
Axel’s eyes darted to Vin, sharp as a switchblade. “If you want me out, just say it. I’ll walk.”
“You won’t make it down the stairs,” Vin said, and I thought he meant it as a threat, but then I saw the tension in his shoulders, the way his left fist kept opening and closing. The world’s shittiest dad, scolding a kid for jumping off the roof but too scared to say he loved him.
Vin straightened, rolled his neck. “I’ll be in the waiting room. Don’t go anywhere.” He stomped out, leaving a wake of bleach and rage.
I counted to five, then slipped in. Axel didn’t look up. His whole body was a freeze frame of battered grace—the kind of man who could get hit by a truck and still look like he was about to start something.
I tried to think of a cool opening line. Instead, I croaked, “Hey.”
He flicked his eyes my way, then did a double-take. I realized how bad I must have looked—hair plastered to my face, the runnels of mascara down my cheeks, and a week’s worth of shame packed into a five-dollar dress.
He said, “You okay?” like he hadn’t just been used as a mop by half the church security detail.
I tried for a smile. It didn’t stick. “I brought cookies,” I said, thrusting the ruined bag at him.
He took it, stared at the misshapen lumps inside, then at me. “You make these?”
“My Grandma’s recipe,” I lied, because what was I supposed to say? That I’d watched a YouTube tutorial at three a.m. and then burned half the batch?
He pulled one out, considered it, then took a bite. His jaw flared at the effort, but he chewed through the pain. “Good,” he said, mouth full. “Thanks.”
A silence grew, heavy and jagged. I perched on the edge of the vinyl chair beside the bed, hands twisting in my lap. The hospital’s heating system made the air feel like it was filtered through a sock.
“I’m sorry,” I said, before I chickened out. “About… everything. The fight. My dad. The way the church people are. I never meant for those pricks to gut you like that.”
Axel shrugged, winced. “I’ve had worse.”
“Yeah, but not in front of a thousand kids. Or with a fake beard duct-taped to your face.”
He actually smiled at that, just a flicker, but it was real.
I stared at my shoes, at the half-moons of mud around the soles. “You don’t have to be nice. I know you probably think I’m an idiot.”
He looked at me, then shook his head. “You’re braver than most people I know.”
I snorted. “I’m the coward who let the security team drag you outside.”
He finished the cookie, wiped his fingers on the sheet. “You tried to stop them.”
“I didn’t try hard enough.”
He looked at me then, really looked. “If you had, they’d have killed you, too.”
I swallowed, throat closing up. The memory of Bart’s fist, the taste of blood and ice, came back in a rush. “They could have.”
He reached out, not fast, not pushy, just let his hand rest palm-up on the edge of the mattress. A truce, or maybe just an invitation.
I didn’t know what to do with it, so I just sat there, heart banging in my ribs.
A nurse poked her head in, checked the chart, and left. The world kept spinning, but in here, it was just us, a battered man with more scars than skin and a girl who’d failed every single person she cared about.
He cleared his throat. “Vin’s mad, but he’ll get over it. He doesn’t like the press.”
“I don’t blame him,” I said. “My dad’s the same way.”
Axel huffed, then winced again. “He hates me, huh?”
I shook my head. “No. He just… doesn’t know what to do when someone doesn’t flinch.”
We sat for a minute, the only sounds the distant beep of monitors and the wind rattling the windows.
Finally, I said, “Why’d you do it? The Santa thing.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I saw the flyer. Saw you in it. I put your name with your father’s.” He chuckled. “I have a long history of powerful men and their daughters.”
I rolled my eyes. “So I was a target.”
“Why did you do it?” he asked. “Sitting on Santa’s lap like that?”
I shrugged, and he held up a hand to stop me.
“Preacher’s daughter rebelling,” he said, hitting the bullseye.
The silence came back, but it wasn’t so heavy this time.
I wondered if he’d ever felt safe, or if every day was just another fight to the next one.
I wanted to ask more, but he looked tired, the kind of tired that no cookie in the world could fix.
I stood, straightened my dress, and tried to smooth my hair into submission.
“I’ll come back tomorrow,” I said.
“You don’t have to.”
I smiled, smaller this time. “I want to.”
He nodded, but didn’t say anything. I left him with the cookies and with the silence.
In the hallway, I found Vin leaning against a vending machine, hands shoved deep in his vest pockets. He glanced at me, then at the room behind me.
“Is he gonna make it?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper.
Vin looked at me, his face a map of old regrets. “He’ll make it. Tougher than he looks.”
I wanted to ask if that was true, or if it was just the lie men like Vin told to keep from caring too much.
I left the hospital, the rain finally letting up, and walked the three blocks home. When I got there, I peeled off the shoes, tossed them in the garbage, and went straight to my room.
I thought about Axel, about the way he’d chewed through the pain, about the way he’d looked at me with something almost like understanding. I thought about how easy it was to let people hurt you, and how hard it was to let them in. I curled up in bed, cookies still on my hands, and didn’t cry.
***
Sunday morning at Lexington General is a whole other flavor of hell.
The parking lot was full of half-dead nurses, bleary-eyed med students, and a few drunks on their way out of detox.
I’d tried to clean up—showered, borrowed a cardigan from the pile of charity stuff in the church closet, even put on lipstick—but as soon as I walked in, I felt raw, like I’d left a layer of skin at home.
The third floor was quiet, the kind of quiet that means trouble.
I crept past the nurse’s desk, waved at the same candy striper from last night, and found Axel awake, sitting up, eating a bowl of off-brand Fruit Loops.
He wore a hospital gown that barely covered his tattoos, one arm in a sling, and the other propped up with a stack of pillows.
His eyes tracked me as I entered, wary but not unfriendly.
I sat in the vinyl chair, smoothed my skirt, and tried to think of something cool to say. He beat me to it.
“Didn’t think you’d come back,” he said, voice still gravelly, but softer now.
“I almost didn’t,” I admitted. “But then I remembered you still owe me a story.”
He arched an eyebrow. “What kind of story?”
“Any kind. Just not the kind where you almost die at my dad’s church.”
He actually laughed, then winced, clutching his ribs. “Noted.”
I pulled the chair closer to the bed, so our knees almost touched. “I never met anyone like you,” I said, before I could stop myself.
He looked at me, waiting.
I fiddled with my necklace, the cross slipping between my fingers like it wanted to escape.
“I’m supposed to be perfect. Perfect daughter, perfect Christian, perfect everything.
But all I ever do is screw it up. I sneak out, I drink, I get in fights with old ladies at the food bank. I fuck men, I shouldn’t.”
He shrugged. “Sounds better than running from who you are.”
I stopped, caught off guard. “You were running?”
He nodded, eyes not leaving mine. “If you run, people can’t leave you. If you hide, they can’t find you.”
“Who left?”
He looked toward the window. “I don’t really—”
“My mom died a while back. Cancer, but I also think of a lonely heart. My father wasn’t much of a partner.” None of that was breaking news. I could guess his story, but it wasn’t for me to bring it up. Luckily, he did.
“Father left when I was young. Mom died after I cut out of Maine.” He shrugged. “Too much of life is about people leaving and not enough about them staying.”
“You staying here?” I asked. I wanted him to—not even because I wanted to piss off my father.
He huffed. “I’m a Prospect. They don’t even give you a name until you’ve bled enough for it. I’m here until the club tells me to hit the road.”
“Do you like it?” I asked. “The club, I mean.”
He thought about it. “It’s honest. They tell you the rules. If you break them, you pay for it. No surprises.”
“I wish church was like that,” I said. “They pretend it’s all love, but really, it’s just rules and punishments. You break one, you get paraded in front of the whole congregation.”
Axel leaned back, eyes half-closed. “You ever want to just leave?”
I thought about it. “Sometimes I do. But then I see my dad, and I remember he’s just as stuck as I am.”
He looked at me, really looked, and I could see the sadness there, and the anger, and something else—something that felt like hope.
We sat for a long time, saying nothing, just breathing in the same space. The world outside the window was gray and heavy, but in here, it was warm. Safe, even.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, quieter this time. “About yesterday.”
He shook his head. “Not your fault. You tried.”
I felt my cheeks flush, and I didn’t know why. “I’m not as tough as you.”
He snorted. “Bullshit. You faced down Bart with a folding chair.”
I smiled, remembering the chaos, the rush of adrenaline, the way Bart’s eyes went wide just before the metal hit. “I thought you were going to die.”
“Would’ve been a first,” he said, but there was a glint of humor there now.
I reached out, touched his hand, just for a second. He didn’t pull away.
Finally, I said, “You ever want to just… start over?”
He nodded, eyes still on the window. “Every day.”
I looked at the clock, saw that it was almost noon. I knew Dad would be here soon, checking on the flock, making sure the wolves hadn’t gotten to me.
I stood, smoothed my skirt again, and looked at Axel, really looked. He was battered, broken, stitched up with more scars than I’d ever seen, but he was alive. And that, I realized, was more than I could say for most people I knew.
“Coffee?” I blurted before I could think better. “When you get out of here. Or drinks. Or whatever people like us do.”
He blinked, surprised, then smiled—just a little, just enough. “You buying?”
“Only if you promise not to get in another fight.”
He held up his good hand, three fingers raised. “Scout’s honor.”
I grinned, giddy and terrified.
Before I could say more, a voice boomed down the hallway. “Darla Maple! Out here, now.”
My stomach dropped. I looked back at Axel, panic rising. He met my gaze, steady and unafraid.
I straightened my shoulders, brushed the hair from my eyes, and stepped into the hallway. Dad’s face was thunder, but I didn’t flinch. Not this time.
Behind me, Axel watched, and for the first time, I didn’t feel like I was alone.
Maybe I never had been.