Chapter 43 Purgatorio
Purgatorio
Leo
There was only pain.
It choked him from every direction. That dark well dragging him further and further. All he could focus on was Autumn.
Her closed eyes. Far too still body. The deafening silence as his hands trembled clutching her face.
Pain radiates over him from the cuts, throbbing as his wrists and forearms burned from the ropes that ripped his skin off.
Agony wanting to yank him under, exhaustion threatening next, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her.
He could barely feel the faint breath from her nose. The weak heartbeat in her chest. The only flicker of hope for him.
Anguish tears at him, blending with flashes of the last 24 hours. His focus becomes skewed as he struggles to concentrate on Autumn. Get her out. Get her home.
Leo’s thoughts jumble, merging with the torture he endured for hours. Dripping of blood. Gabriel’s taunts. The slow burn of the knife dragging across his skin. Her soul crushing screams.
“I’m going to fuck her in front of you.” Gabriel’s words echo as his vision blips. He can see him masturbating in front of him, coming all over her shirt.
Horror plunges deeper.
“No!” Autumn’s terrified shrieks as Gabriel was about to rape her. “No!”
Leo shakes his head. Moments jump from one to the next as if he’s living in a nightmare. Too slow. Too fast.
The phone ringing. Jameson’s shouts through the building. Rudy swearing. Cars pulling up. Ripping pictures down, and the smell of fire as they burned them. Wait…how is Jameson here? He called Enigma. Isaac was here, not—
The smell of fresh rain hits as he stumbles outside. Vehicles. Flashing lights. Arguing and yelling, most of it from him. Terror buries him as he blinks, feeling heavy as the next moment of clarity jolts him.
He’s aiming a gun at a woman.
Leo breathes heavy, holding it over Autumn’s body on a gurney. Jameson is trying to calm him down, while Rudy tells two others to stay back. It’s drizzling as they stand outside the abandoned building Gabriel dragged them to.
The woman’s brown eyes are calm as she holds her hands up.
They were about to touch her. Take her to the hospital.
“She’s going home,” Leo says in a rough voice. “Plane. Now.”
“Your wife may be in a coma,” the woman says. “We need her to go to the hospital. Both of you.”
“No.”
“Leo, Autumn needs medical help. You both do,” Jameson tries to convince him. “We’ll take care of the hospital—”
“So, fucking help me, not even you will stop me, Sombra,” Leo growls, dizziness swamps his vision as he shakes his head slightly. “I am taking my wife home.”
“Then allow me to help you get her home alive,” the woman says. “We will get her stable, check for internal bleeding, brain damage—”
The gun trembles. “No one touches my wife. No one.”
He doesn’t feel like himself. Pain unravels while the dread worsens. The only constant thought is to protect Autumn. Get her home.
“Mr. Luciano—”
“She has a DNR,” Leo states. The others go still. “And a very specific LST.”
“What the fuck do you mean…” Jameson’s voice trails away as horror comes over his face. “Fuck.”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t check her vitals or see what else we can do,” the woman reassures, briefly glancing at Jameson. “What’s her medical history?”
Leo feels himself sway, catching the gurney with his free hand to stay standing. It jolts pain up through his arm. Everything hurts. Pulsating as he tries to focus.
“Medical induced-coma,” Leo answers, voice rough. “Assaulted, multiple lacerations, broken bones, her uterus ripped from her.” The woman’s eyes widen. “Medical procedures she didn’t want.”
It could be minutes or fucking hours, but in the next blink, the woman is closer with a calm expression. Her soft voice almost soothing the raging turmoil inside him.
“You have full control of her medical decisions?” Leo nods.
“Then that won’t happen, and I won’t let that happen.
Let me do some tests, nothing invasive, and then I’ll help you get her home.
But please…let me make sure she does make it home alive.
Not to mention you. Those wounds on your arms can fester and you’ll lose your ability to use them or your hands entirely.
That’s why you’re struggling to hold the gun up. ”
He doesn’t move, keeping the gun on her and yes, struggling to keep it up as pain slices through him. The woman doesn’t budge, not showing any fear. Once more he can hear Gabriel’s voice, saying he’s worse than him. His hand drops with the gun.
“No intubation.”
“Very well.”
“I go with her. Everywhere.”
“There may be rooms you can’t enter, but I promise as a doctor and woman, no harm will come to your wife under my care.”
He nods, closing his eyes briefly. Next blink he’s in the ambulance. He sits across from the doctor with Autumn between them. Another medic near the front. The doctor looks up as he shakes his head, confusion filling him.
She says something about Autumn’s pulse, but all he hears is, “…your wife wants to be here, Leo.”
Torment clutches him as he looks down at Autumn, an oxygen mask over her face. He closes his eyes again, searing this image of her into his memory.
For the next 24 hours it’s like that. One moment he’s somewhere, and the next he’s somewhere else.
Hospital rooms. Doctors. Medical staff. Jameson trying to speak with him.
Almost starting a fight with a nurse who stitches up his cuts.
Another who tries to mend his wrists and forearms, but he keeps scattering things onto the floor.
Only that woman doctor can touch him without repulsion.
It’s a blur of noises, colors, and pain.
And then words clang through him as every test comes back. Cracked ribs. Her feet cut and destroyed, possible stress fractures. Spinal contusions. Brain swelling. Coma.
Soft words explain everything to him, something about no internal bleeding and her brain still functioning. Another shift happens, and he’s at the airport getting on the plane before exhaustion thrusts him under.
Gabriel’s taunts and torture follow him. Disgusting fantasies as he cuts away at Leo. He never escaped. His brother clutches his throat as he licks the blood off his fingers. “You thought you could run from me again?”
Leo’s eyes snap open, breath shaky as the nightmare disperses. He’s on a plane. He glances around, finding Autumn on a gurney next to his seat, the woman doctor on the other side. Slow, trembling breaths release as he realizes this is reality. Gabriel is dead. Autumn killed him.
“You’re alright,” the woman says gently. “So is she. Stable, as much as I hate her flying right now.”
He looks over at Autumn who has IVs in her chest and arms, breathing quietly on her own. His hand slides over to hers which lays on her chest, gripping it. Somehow, by a miracle, they both still have their wedding rings on.
Leo kisses her hand, then notices his forearms are bandaged tightly. He pats himself in other areas, feeling more bandages and where stitches are. All underneath a shirt he has no recollection of.
“Can you make a light fist with both of your hands, please?” The doctor asks gently.
Tiredly, he looks down and does it with his left and then his right. He struggles a bit as if his hands are too stiff.
“They’re still working, good,” she comments. “You shouldn’t need a skin graft, but have them checked regularly as they heal. Get some sleep. I’ll watch her. Don’t worry.”
“You kept your promise.”
“You kept yours by not shooting me.”
Leo lays his head upon the gurney, trying to get close to Autumn. He doesn’t want to sleep, fearful of the nightmares that will come. To feel trapped once more as he had hanging from those chains. He remains awake, staring at his wife.
“She doesn’t need to have a feeding tube, perhaps safer not to, given the contusions in her spinal area,” the woman says gently.
“But with only IVs, there are complications that can arise. Something tells me you aren’t taking her to a hospital when we arrive in New York, so you’ll need nurses around the clock to prevent said complications or her health declining. ”
Leo’s silent, stroking his thumb over Autumn’s hand.
“She may also need help with oxygen, which you can use a nasal cannula or even a BiPAP to not intubate her. It’s all possible to stay within what she wanted, but there’s far more risk by not taking her to a hospital.”
He should do everything to keep her alive, but he couldn’t break his promise.
Remembering the relief on her face when he said he’d protect her in health and sickness.
Promising she’d never endure what she had in the hospital before, which meant potentially giving her up.
He couldn’t bear the betrayal he’d feel if she woke up in a hospital again. To not be home. To want to die instead.
“No hospital,” he murmurs.
“Are you prepared to turn your home into an ICU then? Because she will need it.” Leo barely nods his head. She sighs. “May I suggest some physicians who can help you?”
“Why not you?”
“I have no visa. And not certain that I should even be on this plane right now, but I couldn’t in good conscience leave you or her yet.”
“You won’t need a visa.”
“I’m unsure who you are exactly,” she says quietly. “But I can’t. I have a residency, a life…to go back to. But I can help you set up something for her.”
Leo slowly looks up, finding those calm brown eyes. “What’s your name?” She blinks at him, confusion over her face. “Everything’s jumbled.” He swallows hard. “I can’t remember much of the last…however long it’s been.”
She rubs her temple. “I knew I should’ve made you take a CT scan. You likely have some head trauma if you’re having memory issues.”
Leo doesn’t say anything, just watches her. He clings to Autumn for any semblance of relief from the torment that’s continuous in devouring him.
Finally, she answers, “Dr. Howell. Sara Howell.”
His chest constricts, squeezing as he looks away and murmurs, “Sara. Thank you.”
Four