Chapter 17

Keep rolling your eyes, maybe you’ll find your brain back there.

-T-shirt

Travis

“You’re a fucking madman.”

I didn’t bother to wait to hear the rest of the argument that my brother and Michael were having.

For once I was happy that my brother, who’d taken defensive driving fifteen times, and lost his license twice, was a fast driver with a lead foot. It got us to the hospital in forty-nine minutes instead of the usual hour and fifteen.

My boots pounded the white tiled floor as I bolted for the reception desk I could see just inside the doors.

In our haste to leave the house earlier, not one of us had taken our phones with us, so there was no way for me to get into contact with Hannah to make sure everything was all right.

Though, I had a feeling that it was bad, but not that bad.

Alex was lucky.

At least that was what I kept telling myself the entire drive to the hospital.

“No running!”

I didn’t listen to the old woman behind the desk as I ran up to her.

“My daughter…”

She lifted a single finger. It was obvious that she was used to being obeyed.

I didn’t obey anyone, however. I was always a rebel, and right now, I was a rebel who wanted to know how his fucking daughter was…forty-nine minutes ago.

“Young man, you’re going to have to go back and walk.”

Surely, she was joking.

I was not a child. I was a fucking concerned parent.

“Alex Hail. She’s eight. Came here by Life Flight likely about half an hour ago. She was in a car…”

“Young man.”

“I’ve got this,” came a terse reply. “Sir, my name is Tru. Your daughter came in a little over twenty-five minutes ago. They’ve taken her to CAT scan to assess any damage that was dealt to her by her expulsion from the car. She’s on the second floor right now. Your wife is with her, in the room. I can take you to where the room is, but you won’t be able to enter until they’re finished with the tests, okay?”

I nodded mutely.

She led the way, not saying another word.

We took the stairs, thank God, and arrived at the closed door that said, “CAUTION RADIATION” on it.

“Here’s where you’ll stand. They’ll come out in about five to ten minutes. Please, don’t get in their way. I don’t want to get into trouble with my supervisor for leaving you here, okay?”

I nodded.

She patted me on the shoulder. “I’ll just be down here if you need anything. Her room number is room twenty twenty-three. Very back corner, last door on your right, at the end of this hall, okay?”

I looked where she was pointing, and nodded. “Yeah, Got it.”

She nodded and left, leaving me to lean against the white wall and look down at the white tiled floor.

There were a lot of things that I’d thought about when my eyes opened today.

One of those thoughts was that I wished Alex were there to see Michael, Nikki, and their kids. They’d seemed to hit it off the last time they were around—even if Michael and I hadn’t.

The second thought was that I hoped that Michael didn’t kill me for what I’d put Hannah through.

He hadn’t done it yet, but I knew the threat was always there.

The third was that I wished Hannah, Alex, Reggie, and our son got along better than they did.

I wanted my entire family together when we were having a family dinner. Everyone was there but Alex, and the bad feeling had continued to grow all damn day long.

I wondered if it was a sense of foreboding. A sense of unease that was crawling down my throat and making my stomach buzz with nerves.

For the next five minutes, I tried to think of anything but murdering my ex-wife, and didn’t succeed. I was working on the perfect plan that involved shoving her into traffic when the door opened, and Hannah came out.

“Travis!”

I hugged her to me close, and buried my face into her neck.

“How is she?”

She patted me on the back just as a little voice said, “Daddy?”

I dropped Hannah to her feet, let her go, and moved around her to rush to my little girl’s side.

She was bruised, no longer had the thing on her neck to keep her immobile, and had her arm wrapped to her chest so she couldn’t move it.

Most of the blood was gone, wiped away likely by Hannah, and she was staring at me with wide, fearful eyes.

“Hey, baby.”

She smiled a wobbly smile, and threw her arm up at me.

I took the hint and leaned down, pressing my face against the pillow next to her head.

She wrapped that tiny arm around me, and it felt like she tightened a fist around my heart.

***

Four hours later, I walked out of my daughter’s room, my jaw stiff.

I just spent the last hour holding her down while the nurses started an IV on her. I also held her still while the nurses wrapped her arm in plaster, plain ol’ white because they were out of all the pretty colors.

I listened to her cry and tell the ‘nice policeman’ about what happened with her mom. It wasn’t very clear. From a child’s point of view, who was intimidated by all the people in the room, she wasn’t very informative.

She did happen to say that her mother ‘drank a lot at a party while she sat in an empty room and watched TV.’

That hadn’t been the worst part, though.

Allegra had called me, asking how Alex was.

Apparently, she’d sobered up, and now she was concerned.

Which led me to now, my daughter falling into an exhausted sleep, and me wanting to kill someone.

I found Hannah right outside the door talking to her brother.

The moment she saw me, she turned, and I gathered her into my arms, burying my face back into the side of her neck as I tried to breathe and tell myself that I couldn’t take care of my kids if I was in jail.

“She won’t be calling you again,” Michael promised. “Called a buddy who called a buddy. They took her phone out of her room.”

I gritted my teeth and let Hannah go, then blew out a breath.

“You hear all that she said?”

I nodded.

“She also told me on the way to the hospital that her mommy ‘always drinks.’” I stretched my neck side to side at Hannah’s words.

“I’ve already contacted our lawyer. He’s filing an emergency injunction that’ll temporarily give you full custody of her until the rest is settled.” She paused. “He thinks that she’ll get jail time for this.”

I fucking hoped so.

I heard a squeak of shoes, and saw Reggie running toward us.

“Is Alex okay?” she demanded, her little hands on her little hips as she stomped her foot.

I brought her into my side, and she buried her face in my gut as she wrapped her scrawny arms around my waist.

“She’ll be okay, honey,” I told her.

She let out a relieved breath.

Then I heard the crying.

I looked up to find Nikki heading our way with a very unhappy TJ in her arms.

She looked almost apologetic.

“I tried for an hour,” she said. “We drove all the way here with him crying. I know you said he had colic, but damn, girl. This is almost unbearable.”

I took my son from her arms, and his tiny frame fit into the crook of my arm with perfect ease.

That didn’t stop his screaming, though.

It only ratcheted up a notch.

However, Hannah somehow realized that I needed to hold him, so she let him continue to scream for a good ten minutes before I kissed my boy on his scrunched, pissed off forehead, and handed him to her.

Hannah took him, and he still didn’t stop.

In fact, the only thing that got him under control was when she walked to the chair that was just inside the room, lifted her shirt, and latched him onto her breast.

“That’ll work for about ten minutes,” I told the two people who were staring at me expectantly. “Reggie, girl. Can you go sit in there with Alex? If she wakes up, can you come tell me?”

Reggie nodded enthusiastically, and then she was gone.

I looked back to the two in front of me, and then to the two kiddos behind them that were sitting in the waiting room area just beyond Alex’s room. They were both quietly playing on an iPad each, both enthralled and uncaring.

Oh, how the naivety would be nice right about now.

“What are you going to do?” Michael asked.

I looked down at my shoes, raised one hand up above my head, then cleared my throat.

“I’m going to fucking ruin her.”