Chapter Eighteen #2
“Nate, for God’s sake, can’t you keep her under control!”
I felt Dr Tate come up behind me, his hands moving around my waist. “Sorry Edward, she’s feisty!”
And then he was dragging me out of the room again.
“Emma!” I shouted, trying to get her to move, to fight back, but she didn’t even flinch. She lay there completely immobile, her head flopping to one side.
“It will all be better in just a second, Abi,” Dr Tate assured me, pausing to lift something off the table and my worst fear was realized as he brought the shiny tip of a syringe toward my neck.
“No, Doctor, no!” I sobbed against him as he used his arm to hold my head off to the side.
“Shh, Abi, don’t worry your pretty—”
“Drop it!”
I felt Dr Tate freeze against me. “What the...?”
He turned, keeping me positioned against him, the cold tip of the needle pressing at the taut skin of my neck...
“I said drop it!” An armed cop crouched in the broken window, his pistol trained on Dr Tate. Slowly the doctor lowered the needle but he didn’t loosen his grip on me.
The cop kept his eyes fixed on us as he lifted his receiver to speak into it. “All clear.”
The front door flew open as two more officers launched into the room, just as my stepfather swung open the bedroom door.
“What the hell is—” He stopped dead as he took in the scene before him.
I felt Dr Tate slacken his grip and I took the opportunity to get free of him, racing past my stepfather and into the bedroom, every thought imaginable running through my mind.
Please let her be okay, please let her be okay...
Emma still lay lifeless on the bed, but there was no blood to be seen. I hurried to her side, pulling her limp body into my arms as I scanned her for further injuries. An officer came in behind me and knelt beside us.
“You okay, ma’am?” he asked, looking to me.
“Yes,” I nodded erratically, clinging Emma to me, tears starting to stream down my face. “But her ... I don’t know ... please” My words were coming out a bumbling mess, hysteria well and truly starting to set in, I just couldn’t imagine life without her ... not my Emma!
Through my blurry vision I could make out him nodding to me, his hands moving expertly over Emma’s limp body as he worked to check her vitals.
I was vaguely aware of my stepfather and Dr Tate being read their rights in the next room but all I wanted was for Emma to wake up, to tell me everything was okay, that no one would hurt us again...
I realized the officer had stilled and was speaking to me, his hand on my shoulder as he tried to coax me out of my emotional reverie.
“I’m sorry?” I asked, taking in his reassuring smile with dawning hope.
“She’s going to be okay, ma’am,” he said. “She looks to have passed out but the ambulance is on its way and they will check you both over properly. Do you understand what I am saying?”
I nodded slowly, the words “she’s going to be okay” bouncing around my brain until they finally registered, a surge of relief washing over me and leaving me fuzzy.
“We’ll need to take a report from you, but it can wait until you have both been properly checked over. Until then, I suggest you stay in here.”
Again, I nodded, grateful that he didn’t want me to move, nothing would have made me leave her side right now.
“Look, that’s my daughter in there!” I heard my stepfather bellow from the next room, his desperation sending his voice hoarse. “If you just go and get her she will explain that there has been a misunderstanding.”
A misunderstanding — not likely!
“Abi! Abi!” he called, “Please get out here and tell them.”
“He’s right,” Dr Tate cut in. “She’ll explain all.”
I saw red then. The fact that they thought I would seriously bail them out after everything they had done to me ... to Emma ... and they had the nerve to declare me mentally unfit!
I settled Emma’s body back on the bed as I got to my feet, my eyes unable to leave her just yet.
“She’s really okay?” I asked the officer, the nagging doubt still there.
“Yes, she’ll come to soon enough,” he said, his brow creasing with concern as he added, “you know you don’t need to go in there?”
I looked from him to the doorway. “I need to do this.”
Striding to the doorway, I entered the living area just in time to see them cuffing my stepfather, his hands forced behind his back, his head bowed.
Dr Tate was already cuffed and being escorted out by an armed officer.
He looked back just as I appeared, the glimmer of relief bright in his eyes as he said, “Here she is now, look, Edward.”
My stepfather’s head flew up, his face showing a similar glow. “Abi, darling, thank God, please tell them,” he said, his head nodding to the officers stood around.
I really couldn’t believe they thought me so easily led.
His eyes flitted about the room at my continued silence, his panic swift to resurface. “Tell them!”
“Tell them what?” I said coldly. “How you had Emma beaten to a pulp or how you paid a doctor to sedate me and declare me mentally unsound? Or how about the fact you stole my inheritance?”
He froze, the deathlike pallor to his face making him look every one of his advancing years.
“Yes, don’t you worry, I’ll make sure they know absolutely everything.”
Satisfied that I had seen and said enough, I turned to re-enter the bedroom.
“Abi! Please!” he implored, his voice cracking. “How can you do this to me? I have loved you like my own.”
I looked back at him over my shoulder, the man that had been my father for as long as I can remember, and the anger and hatred that had fueled me over the past twenty-four hours gave way to overwhelming pity.
The strength of feeling in his gaze tugged at me, was it really love I saw there?
Or was it purely despair that he had finally been caught out?
Ultimately, it didn’t matter.
“Goodbye, Edward.”
He reacted as though slapped, never before had I addressed him by name.
It was a simple, yet effective message to send.
And looking back to the sleeping beauty in the bed before me, I pushed him from my mind, just where he belonged.
I had far more important things — or rather a far more important someone — to think about now.