Chapter Fourteen
Jeremy
“It’s my fault.” The hospital tiles blur beneath my feet as I pace back and forth. “It was too much for her.”
“Bullshit,” Landon replies. “You told us the doctor said she could go.”
Landon and Justus both rushed to the hospital when I told them Melissa was in trouble. A doctor emerges from the double doors and asks, “Are you Melissa Sander’s family?”
“Yes.” I step forward, resisting the urge to grab him and shake the words I want to hear out of him. “Is she okay?”
“We were able to get her blood pressure under control for the moment. Are you the baby’s father?” His serious tone worries me.
“Yes, is he in danger?”
“At the moment, they both are. High blood pressure isn’t uncommon in pregnant women, but hers is indicative of pre-eclampsia.”
I run my hands through my hair. “I don’t know what that is. Can it be cured?”
“The cure is to deliver the baby.”
My skin turns to ice. “She’s only twenty-seven weeks along. Can he even survive?”
“Yes, and we’re going to do everything we can. He will go straight to our neonatal intensive care unit. At twenty-seven weeks, he may not be able to breathe on his own or regulate his temperature. There will be complications to watch out for.”
“Statistics.” I choke out the word. “Do you know his chances?”
“Ninety percent of babies born at twenty-seven weeks survive. There are chances of developmental issues and other future problems, but they aren’t our main focus right now. After the delivery, we’ll be taking it one day at a time. We have to give him time to gain weight and strength.” His face softens. “We will do our best for your son and keep you updated on his progress.”
“Does Melissa know?”
“Yes, she didn’t want to deliver. She was willing to risk her life for his, but she understands now that isn’t the choice. We deliver or neither of them may survive.”
I feel Landon’s hand on my shoulder as I ask, “Where is she?”
“I’ll take you to her.”
Landon and Justus wait in a nearby waiting room while I’m lead to Melissa’s room. She looks so tiny in the bed, with monitors stuck all over her. It’s everything I can do not to burst into tears, but I have to be strong for her.
“Jeremy,” she says, as soon as she sees me. I can hear the plea in that one word. It tears me apart that I can’t do anything to change this horrible situation. I do the only thing I can, and wrap her in my arms.
“I’m so sorry, Mel.”
“The baby, he might not make it. He could have underdeveloped lungs, or a weak heart or—”
“Shh. He’s going to be okay. He’s got you for a mother. He’s a fighter too.”
We don’t get much time before a nurse enters with a set of scrubs. “If you’re accompanying her to the OR, you have to scrub up and wear these. Stay where the nurses put you or you’ll be removed, understand?”
“I understand.”
Mel’s forehead is clammy under my lips when I kiss her and promise to see her in the operating room.
I’m lead inside by the same nurse. Mel lies on her back, a sheet hanging across her chest blocking her view. Her arms are strapped down to the table, spread out in a T.
“Wow, I hope you can keep the outfit,” she says, giving me a weak smile.
“We’ll play doctor all you want, babe.” I take her lax hand. “How do you feel?”
“Like a gigantic lump. I’m numb from my chest down.”
The nurse scoots a chair over to me. “You can sit here and hold her hand. Please don’t get up or move. There will be a lot of people in here to care for her and the baby after he’s delivered.”
“I won’t move.”
I sit as close to her as possible and stroke my fingers over the back of her hand. There’s no way I want to look over that sheet. I’m not usually bothered by blood, but I can’t bear to see them cut into her.
An unwelcome image flashes through my mind of Frannie, covered in blood, in a hospital just like this one, and I blink it away. There’s only so much a man can deal with at one time.
It happens unbelievably fast. While I continue to stroke her hand and comfort her the best I can, she never takes her eyes from mine.
“I love you, Melissa.”
“I love you, too.”
We’re waiting to hear a cry, but no cry comes. The doctors rattle off numbers and everyone rushes around, but I don’t even realize he’s been delivered until they move him to a clear table and crowd around him.
“Is he out? He’s not crying. Is he breathing?” Melissa cries in a panic.
One of the nurses walks around to talk to her. “You have a beautiful baby boy. He needs some help breathing, like we talked about before, which is normal for a preemie. Other than that, he looks healthy. All ten fingers and toes.” The nurse smiles at her, and Mel breaks into tears.
“Thank you.” Her eyes roll back as she whispers it again. “Thank you.”
“Mel!” I leap to my feet, but the nurse puts a calming hand on my shoulder.
“She’s okay. Patients often lose consciousness from the trauma of the surgery and anesthetic. Her heart rate is good. They’ll get her closed up, and she’ll go to recovery where they’ll keep her sedated for a bit. I’ll take you back to her room, so you can change.”
Landon and Justus sit perched on the wide windowsill in her hospital room and they both look up as soon as I enter.
“Is she okay?” Justus asks.
“Yeah, she’s going to recovery. They won’t let me in for a little while.”
“And the baby?” Landon asks.
“Hanging in there. He wasn’t breathing on his own.”
I flop down into the chair, and my head falls to my hands.
“He’ll pull through, man,” Justus says. “Give it a little time.”
“I thought the same thing with Frannie.” The words spill out of me.
Landon walks over and sits in the chair beside me. “This isn’t the same thing. I was there too, we all were, and that was a nightmare I know you suffer more than we do, but this isn’t the same. That was a murder. This is a medical emergency and she got help fast enough. You aren’t going to lose Melissa or your son.”
“My heads all messed up,” I confess, looking up at Landon. “I’m still so pissed over Frannie, that she didn’t get to have the long life she deserved. It wasn’t until after she died I realized I really did love her, but now, with Melissa, it feels different, like I didn’t know what love really was until now. But if what I felt for Frannie wasn’t love, I don’t know what it was.”
“There are different kinds of love. Just because you’ve fallen in love with Melissa doesn’t mean you loved Frannie any less.”
“I fucked up with her. All the back and forth, trying to get under each other’s skin and get our way. I let it go on too long. I missed my chance. I won’t let the same thing happen with Mel. She’s it for me.”
Justus nods and hops off the window sill. “Then don’t fuck it up by doing something you’ll regret when it comes to this cult. There are other ways than killing all the leaders. We can free the followers and find a way to take down the so called First Men. Just give us time and worry about your new family.”
I nod, accepting his words if not agreeing with the plan. “Don’t make any moves without me.”
“We won’t,” Landon promises.
“And I have to continue volunteering for them. We need to know what they’re up to. I still don’t know the target they have in mind for the C4.”
“I agree,” Justus replies. “Let’s get the girls up here to help with Melissa and your son.”
Sitting up, I feel a little of the stress drain away. “Yeah, I think we should.” I look from Landon to Justus. “Thank you.”
“They’re family now,” Landon says.
“And we take care of family,” Justus adds.
A nurse arrives to take me to the NICU before Mel gets out of the recovery room. My heart is racing as I’m suited up again, and lead into the room filled with machines. The baby is in what looks like an oversized plastic storage container. The sight of the wires and tubes leading to his tiny body breaks my heart, and I can’t stop tears from forming in my eyes.
“He’s so tiny.”
“Two and a half pounds,” the nurse says. “Which is pretty good for twenty-seven weeks.” She moves a chair beside the incubator. “You can stay for a few minutes.”
“Can I touch him?” I choke out the words, swallowing the lump in my throat.
She opens the incubator. “Very lightly.”
A layer of white hair covers his body. “Why is he so fuzzy?”
“It’s called lanugo. It helps protect their skin in utero. He’ll lose it soon.” She grins at me. “Do you have a name?”
“No,” I whisper. “We thought we had plenty of time.”
“You still do,” she assures me.
I can’t see his eyes, but he moves his leg when I run a finger across his foot. A feeling I’ve never imagined floods through me. He’s not my blood, but he’s my son. From this moment forward, he’s mine, just like his mother.
#
When I return to Melissa’s room, she’s lying in bed, asleep. Dark circles ring her eyes, but her skin isn’t as pale as it was before. She still looks so frail lying there, nothing like the fierce little thing who told me to sit my ass down and eat when I kept refusing her dinner invitations.
Her eyes open when I brush her hair off her face. “Jeremy, how is he?” she murmurs.
“He’s perfect. I just saw him. Look.” I pull up the pictures I took of him on my phone and sit beside her on the bed. I took a picture from every angle I could imagine, plus close ups of his little feet and hands. There’s no hiding all the machinery that’s keeping him alive though.
A sob shakes her body, and I wrap my arms around her. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. He’s doing okay. I know this isn’t how it was supposed to be, but he’s alive and waiting to meet you.”
She calms down a bit, and I run my fingers through her hair. “They asked me about a name.”
“I haven’t decided yet. I wanted to see him first. I had a name book in my baby bag in my closet at home.”
“There’s no hurry. I’ll bring it to you.”
Her hand wraps around my arm. “Don’t leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Get some rest, and I’ll be right here when you wake up.”
Her eyes fall closed, and her breathing evens out. Justus sticks his head in the room, and I nod to him to come in.
“Zoe and Leah are on their way. Is there anything we can do?”
My hands fumble to remove Melissa’s house key from the keyring. “She has a bag packed in her closet that was supposed to come to the hospital with her.”
“I’ll get it,” Justus says. “Landon is going back to work on the cult accounts, but I’ll be back.”
“Thank you. There’s no hurry. It’s late, and she’ll probably be out for a while. Go crash and we’ll see you in the morning.”
“If anything changes with her or the baby, call me.” His eyes scan over her. “Sometimes, I’m so happy I was born with a dick.”
“Me too, man,” I sigh.
I manage to get out of bed without waking Melissa and move to the little sofa a few feet away from her. It’s been such a long day. It started out so well, and I had plans to take her to dinner after the gallery. I sure didn’t expect to end the night by becoming a father.
The sofa isn’t too uncomfortable, so I stretch out to try to rest. Despite the war of emotions raging inside me and the tangle of thoughts running through my head, sleep pulls me under.
The next two days pass by slowly. Mel is getting stronger and today they had her get up and walk around a little. I wheel her down to the NICU to visit our son as often as they’ll let us, and so far, he’s doing as well as can be expected.
Tonight is our last night at the hospital. Mel is being discharged and she’s understandably distraught at leaving the baby here without her.
We’re cuddled up in her bed, her head resting on my chest. The nurses gave up trying to keep me out of her bed after the first night.
“You need to recover from the birth and get your strength back. You can visit him every day. Zoe and Leah are going to help too.”
Melissa just met them yesterday, but they all hit it off, and I know how they are. They’ll mother her and the baby until they can’t take anymore. Tucker and Dare showed up with them. Justus really called in all the backup this time.
“Calvin,” she says softly. “That’s his name. I filled out the paperwork for the birth certificate this morning.”
“Calvin,” I repeat, kissing her forehead. “You can visit Calvin every day. I know it’ll be hard, but this is where he needs to be. His job is to gain weight and grow. Your job is to recover so you’ll be ready for all the sleepless nights we have coming.”
My phone chimes, and I grin as I load up Skype. I talked to Amos earlier, and he isn’t quite as technologically challenged as Agnes, so we arranged a video call.
“It’s for you,” I tell Mel, accepting the call.
Agnes appears on the screen, exclaiming, “Oh! I can see her!”
“Then talk to her, you goof,” Amos says, poking his head in front of the camera. “Hi Melissa. Congratulations. I hope you and your son get well soon.”
“Thanks, Amos,” Mel giggles, as Agnes pushes him aside.
“Move it, you old coot.” She regards Melissa. “I can’t leave you for a second. How are you doing?”
“I’m doing fine. And the baby is improving, but he’ll be here for a while. I named him Calvin.”
“Well, I’ll be coming to visit you and baby Calvin as soon as I can.”
“She would’ve already been back up there if she had her way!” Amos calls from the background.
They chat for a few minutes, and Melissa promises to keep her updated on Calvin’s progress before they hang up.
Sighing, Mel hands me the phone and lies back. I’m a little worried about what dark thoughts she may be thinking when she asks, “Can you do one thing for me when we leave tomorrow?”
“Name it.”
“Stop and get me the biggest, greasiest cheeseburger you can find. And a chunk of chocolate the size of my wide ass.”
Chuckling, I pull her close. “I’ll make sure you’re in junk food heaven.”
We both sleep through the night despite the uncomfortable hospital bed. The moment they come to deliver her discharge papers the next morning is bittersweet. No mother wants to leave the hospital empty handed after their child’s birth, but it could be so much worse.
Baby Cal is doing great, surprising the doctors with his progress. They’ve even been able to turn down the breathing machine so he’s breathing a little more on his own. They’ll keep decreasing it until he can come off it completely.
Tears run down Mel’s face as she changes her shirt, then grimaces as she gets to her feet. Considering she still has a row of staples from one hip to the other, I’m not surprised she’s in pain.
“Let me help, babe,” I tell her when she picks up her clean sweatpants.
She sits back down and lets me slide them over her feet. When she stands back up, I move behind her to pull them up and my heart stops cold.
On her right ass cheek is a tiny tattoo.
A very familiar tattoo.
An ornate T and L overlapping each other.
All the pieces fall into place. How could I not have seen it before? She was missing, completely off the grid for years. And now I know where she was living.
She was one of them.
A True Life cult member.
She glances back when she feels me freeze up. “Jeremy? What is it?”
I trace the tattoo with my finger. “You have a tattoo. I didn’t notice it before.” My voice is husky.
“It was dark the last time you were down there,” she teases.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. A teenage mistake. It’s a long story I don’t want to get into now, okay?”
“Okay.” My head is bursting with the new information. After she’s dressed and packed up, Leah and Zoe walk in, all smiles.
“You’re out of here, girl! The nurse will be here with the wheelchair any time.”
They start chatting about the baby and the nursery while I excuse myself. I step out into the hallway and right into Tucker.
“Whoa, what the fuck, dude? You look like you’re going to rip someone open.”
“She lived there. They had her. True Life. Fuck.”
I’m not making any sense. Tucker pulls me into the men’s restroom, which is empty. “Calm down. Tell me what you’re talking about.”
“Melissa has their mark, the tattoo they brand the True Life followers with. It’s tiny and hidden on her ass, but it’s there. She was there. If they hurt her, I swear, I’ll fucking slaughter them.”
“Fuck,” Tucker breathes.
“She doesn’t know I know. She’s still weak and—”
“Yeah, you can’t hit her with this right now. She’s just had major surgery and her son’s life is hanging in the balance.”
At the mention of the baby, another devastating realization strikes me. She said the father was dead. That may be true, or she could be lying to protect Calvin from an abusive biological father who still belongs to the cult. I have to make sure Calvin is safe, and the best way to do that is to make sure there’s no doubt he belongs to me.
“I have to do something,” I announce and head toward the door, only to be stopped by a solid wall of ex-soldier.
“What are you doing, Jeremy? You can’t do anything crazy.”
“I’m just going to sign the birth certificate. I wasn’t here when she named him.” Tucker studies me for a second, and I know he sees the truth, that Calvin isn’t mine.
He’ll be the only one who knows. Calvin will grow up as my son. I never want him to doubt my love for him.
Finally, he slaps me on the back. “Let’s go make it official then.”
It doesn’t take long for me to hunt down the nurse, who hands over the paperwork. All it takes is a signature, and I’m legally the father of Calvin—holy shit. My chest swells to bursting when I read the name.
Calvin Jeremy Sanders.
She gave him her last name, but named him after me all the same.
Tucker grins down at me. “Come on. Let’s get C.J.’s mother home.”
#
“I’m fine, Jeremy. Leah is taking me to the hospital to sit with Calvin, then we’re going to go have dinner. Go do your thing.”
Melissa waves me off, and I drop a kiss on her forehead. “Okay. I’ll be back tonight. I don’t know how late. Kiss C.J. for me.”
She smiles and smacks my ass as I walk away. She’s been out of the hospital for three weeks and she’s feeling much better. Every day we go to the hospital to stay with our son until the nurses chase us out.
We had a little scare the day after they took him off the ventilator. His breathing slowed, and his oxygen numbers dropped. We were afraid he’d have to go back on the machine, but he pulled through and has been improving ever since.
She’ll be fine for the day with Leah and Zoe. Plus, the guys will all be at my place if they do need anything. Still, I hate that I have to leave them to deal with this cult bullshit. I called Anthony and told him I was out of town dealing with an emergency, that a friend had gotten himself into trouble and needed my help. He didn’t sound suspicious when he told me not to worry, and to come back when I could, but until I talk to him face to face, I’m going to be on my guard.
If there was ever a time they’d be watching me, it’s now, since I texted him I was coming back home today, so my first stop is the decoy apartment. I park out front and get out with a suitcase I packed at home. I let my shoulders slump like I’m tired and make my way inside.
Once I’m out of the public view, I walk around, peeking out different windows until I see the same car they used to follow me before, parked one space over from last time. They really aren’t very subtle about this. Tucker would lose his shit at this kind of sloppy surveillance.
I take a shower and change into different clothes before heading back to my car for the drive to True Life. My stalker falls in behind me, staying one lane over and two cars back the entire trip. Hopefully, they saw what I wanted them to. A guy returning from a trip, getting cleaned up, and heading to them, like I claimed.
Anthony greets me when I walk into True Life, and leads me back outside. We take a seat on the steps.
“Glad you’re back. Did you get everything straightened out with your emergency?”
“Yeah, I owed the guy a favor. He helped me out a while back. And he was in deep shit.” I look around to make sure no one else is listening. “Some chick he was fucking got smart, and he popped her one. She fell and cracked her head open on the cement. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t mean to hurt her, but they’d have locked him up anyway.”
“Damn straight they would have.” He studies me. “So, you know how to help in those…situations? Might come in handy someday.”
“I do.”
“Want to explain how you’d handle it?”
I lean my elbows on my knees and drop my voice as if I’m afraid of being heard. “Okay, let’s say, hypothetically, you have a package to hide. There are two ways to guarantee that package is never found, that no pieces or scraps get you in trouble later.”
Anthony nods at me to continue. “The first is tricky and takes some planning ahead. You need a private place where a wood chipper wouldn’t draw unwanted attention. A farm or an isolated field. You run the package through the chipper, and catch the scraps in a bag on the other side.” I grin at him. “A water proof one.”
“Then you need to find a place where pigs are being raised. If you go out in the counties, it isn’t hard to find a farmer raising pigs. Even a few are enough. Dump the bags into the trough. The pigs will lick that shit clean. They don’t leave a chip or anything behind. I don’t know of another animal that will do that.”
I swipe across my forehead. “But that takes some planning, machinery, and the location of a pig farm. It’s not the most convenient option. Not how I’d do it.”
“So, how would you hypothetically dispose of an unwanted package?”
“People make the mistake of trying to burn it, you know, which is understandable, but it takes one hell of a hot fire and a long time to do that successfully. Fortunately, crematorium workers don’t make much money and tend to fall on the morbid side. Most have no problem chucking an extra package in the oven. Nothing left but ashes. That’s more my style.”
Anthony stares at me for a moment, then throws back his head, laughing loud enough to scare a flock of birds out of the yard. “You know, sometimes my instincts are damn near supernatural. I knew when I met you that you’d be an asset.” He gets to his feet. “Come on. I want to show you something.”
Yeah, we’re just a couple of murder buddies as far as he’s concerned. He walks slightly in front of me, and I can’t help but wonder if he’s the one. Someone from this group fathered Mel’s baby. Someone hurt her. She said she’s known monsters, but she has no idea I’m about to slaughter the monsters for her. She’ll never have to be afraid of them again.
Anthony leads me to an outbuilding behind the big house. While he fumbles with the keys to unlock the two padlocks on the door, I study it. Whoever taught him how to protect his shit didn’t know much. It’d be easy to take the hinges off and get in here.
We walk inside, and he pulls a cord, illuminating the room and the stockpile of weapons. Assault rifles, ammo, protective armor, gas masks. The place is a damned armory. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. None of this stuff would be hard to buy. Hell, any eighteen-year-old can walk into a superstore or pawn shop and walk out with most of this stuff.
After I fail to react to his pile of weapons, he pulls a chest out from under a workbench, grinning up at me when he opens it. “We finally found a legitimate seller.”
Fuck. Wrapped packages of C4, enough to bring down a damned building, share the trunk with blasting caps and a detonator.
“I got to be honest with you, Anthony. I don’t know anything about explosives. Playing with fireworks is the closest I’ve come.”
He laughs and closes the box, shoving it back under the bench. “No worries. I don’t need you for that part.” He gets to his feet and leans against the wall. “It’s actually really easy. We’ve got a guy who can rig it up. This is the exciting part.”
I’m holding my breath, hoping he’s going to reveal their target. I’m going to have to take these guys out quicker than I thought if they’re already planning. I can’t let them kill more innocent people.
He pulls out a geological map. “Are those mines?” I ask.
“Coal mines.” He grins at me. “We both know all that clean coal talk is bullshit. It’s one of the main pollutants dumped into our air every day. These three mines.” He taps the paper. “All converge here. Our guy thinks he can get down there, plant the C4 in a few strategic places and bring them all down. There’s not an overnight shift, and we’ll have to take out a couple security guards, but it shouldn’t be a problem.” He chuckles, nodding toward the assault rifles.
“Right.” I force a laugh. “Won’t take two seconds. How do we know we won’t get blown sky high though? It could go off early.”
“No threat of that. It’ll be triggered by cell phone. It won’t go off until I call the number and trigger it.”
I stare at the paper. “Will it be enough to permanently shut them down?”
“I don’t know, but it will definitely make anyone think twice about working for them. Don’t you remember when those Chilean miners got trapped? It was front and center on every news channel for months.”
Fuck. He plans to trap the miners.
“Yeah, I remember that. Fuck, this could work.” I try to sound impressed and awed, and apparently, I pull it off.
He slaps me on the back. “Yeah, it can. I’ll need a few guys to take care of the guards. Can you handle one of those rifles?” he asks as we leave, and he locks the place back up.
“Absolutely. Just make sure I‘m clear before you make that call,” I joke, and he laughs.
“We’ll be miles away, getting drunk off our asses.”
“So, do you have a date in mind?”
“The tech guy who is modifying the cell phone and planting the C4 has another job before ours. So, it’ll be a month at least. You’ll know as soon as I know.” We stop walking and he looks me in the eye. “This stays inside our circle. Shaun and Jose are the only other people who know the plan, other than the tech guy.”
“I don’t run my mouth.” I force a smile. “I’m a little excited though.”
Anthony laughs, and we head back for the house. “I’d be disappointed if you weren’t.”