Chapter 31 – Beast
I swear to God, today was the worst day of my life. I lived through a war and multiple deployments, but this had to be the most scared I had ever been.
When I saw Brenna lying there slumped down in her seat, bleeding from the head, the first thought I had was that I couldn’t lose her. I didn’t even think about the baby until after the ambulance got there. It was in that moment that I realized I was in love with Brenna and I didn’t want to live my life without her.
Thankfully she and the baby are okay. Once we got to the hospital, and they had her back in an exam room, I called Joker so that he could let Everly know what was going on and she could call Bren’s family. I hadn’t been waiting long when Brenna’s family rushed in, followed by Everly, Joker and some of my brothers.
Connor and Shannon came up to me, Shannon throwing her arms around me giving me a hug. “Are you okay? How’s Brenna? What do we know?”
I squeezed her back and pushed her back so I could look at them both when I told them what happened. “I’m okay. They took Brenna back and are checking her over, but they haven’t given me any updates. When we left your house we were t-boned by someone running the red light. They left before the authorities could show up so we don’t know who it was.”
With a nod Connor walked over to the nurse’s station to see if he could get an update. He came back to us shaking his head. “They don’t have any information for us. She’s still being assessed.”
Danielle walked up to us with Inara in her arms. When they reached my side, Inara put her arms up, silently requesting that I pick her up.
I took her from Danielle and she wrapped her arms around my neck and lay her head on my shoulder. “Hey beautiful. You okay?”
She nodded and squeezed my neck a bit harder. I looked over her head at Danielle who was looking at her daughter with worry on her face. “You okay D?”
She looked at me in shock, probably because I called her D. I had heard Bren call her that earlier in the night.
“Yeah, I’m going to be okay Grayson, thank you. I’m just worried about my sister and my baby. She loves her aunty so much and is worried about her.”
I lifted Inara higher on my shoulder and walked over to the seating area, sitting down beside Everly. I had a feeling we were going to be here for a while and figured if I had a seat her family probably would as well.
Everly leaned over and rested her head on my shoulder, right beside Inara’s face. “Hi Squishy.”
Inara lifted her head off my shoulder and smiled at Everly. “Hi Aunty Ev.”
Everly started petting Inara from the top of her head all the way down her back. It seemed to sooth her because soon she was fast asleep on my shoulder.
Ev took her hand away and lifted her head off my shoulder, turning to look at me. “How you doing Beast?”
I looked over her head at Joker who was staring at his fiancé. Feeling my eyes on him he gave me a nod before going back to just staring at his woman.
“Honestly? I feel like my heart is going to explode it’s pounding so fast. The adrenaline should have worn off by now, but my anxiety about how Bren and the baby are doing is causing my heart to pound.”
Everly grabbed my hand between hers and gave it a squeeze. Normally Joker would have ripped my head off, but given the situation I’m sure he was holding himself back. “She’s going to be okay Beast, you’ll see. She’s one of the strongest women I know and a little car accident isn’t going to keep her down for long.”
The automatic doors that lead into the Emergency Room opened and in came Griff. He was there when the accident happened and went after the truck that hit us. I lifted Inara off my shoulder and gave her to her mom before walking over to Griff to see what information he had for me.
Griff stopped abruptly in front of me, looking at me and the men who surrounded me, Joker, Techy and Irish. “What’cha got for me prospect?”
“I’m sorry Pres, but I’ve got nothing. I tried following the truck for a couple of miles, but it had too big of a lead on me.”
“It’s okay Griff. You stopped to make sure we were okay, which is what you should have done.”
“Did you notice anything about the truck or the driver?” asked Techy. He would be investigating this from the club’s end. The police would have to be involved since we called an ambulance, but I was determined that we would be the ones to deal with this.
“Yeah, the truck was a black Dodge Ram, probably a 2014 or 15, with no license plate. There were two people in the truck, the driver and someone in the passenger seat. They were both male, but I didn’t get a close enough look to get a description of them.” Griff was also a former Seal and was very perceptive, picking up details that civilians would normally miss.
I turned to Techy, who was already clicking away at his tablet. “You got this?”
“Yeah, I got this Pres” he answered without even looking up. He and Irish headed out, going back to the clubhouse to start scouring any video footage they could find.
Following them out, Joker and I found somewhere private to talk. “What do you think brother? Could this have been intentional?” I asked Joker after making sure there was no one else around.
“I don’t know Pres. This seems to be too big of a coincidence with everything that’s going on right now” he responded.
“I agree. Let me know what Techy finds from the surveillance as soon as you know. I don’t care what time it is or where I am.” I was determined we would figure out who the hell this was.
“You got it Beast.”
We headed back into the ER, I was still anxious to know what was going on with my woman. Making my way over to where Brenna’s family was seated, it wasn’t long before a nurse came through the doors. “Family of Brenna O’Reilly?”
Everly and her family stood up, Griff taking Inara from Danielle, who handed her over reluctantly, and we all walked up to the nurse.
“She’s still out, but she’s going to be okay. One of you can come back to see her now, but everyone else will have to wait until we get her up to the ward.”
I turned to her mom to tell her to go in, but she was already shaking her head at me. “She’s my baby, but she’s carrying your baby. You go in there. Just let us know how she is.”
“Thank you Shannon. I’ll come back out as soon as I can and give you an update.”
I turned away from them and followed behind the nurse. She stopped in front of a curtain that was closed off and put her arm out to stop me. I looked down at her expectantly. “Is there something the matter?”
“I just wanted to give you a head’s up. She and the baby are fine, the baby being so small it can survive a lot right now, but she doesn’t look great. We haven’t had time to clean her up from the accident so she’s very bruised and there is blood caked in her hair.”
I appreciated her warning, but I just wanted to get in to see my woman with my own eyes. I gave her a nod and she backed out of my way. When I pushed through the curtain my heartbeat finally started to slow down. I know she wasn’t totally out of the woods yet, but just seeing her lying peacefully in that bed took a huge weight off of my shoulders.
There was a chair beside her bed so I took a seat and picked her hand up in mine. The nurse must have told the doctor I was back here because he came in soon after I sat down. I went to stand up, but he waved me down.
“It’s okay. Stay seated. I’m Dr. Chan, I’ve been looking after your wife.”
I didn’t correct him, but I did stick out my hand to shake his. “Thanks for taking such good care of her doc. What can you tell me?”
He picked up the chart and double checked it before answering me. “Brenna has a head contusion and a possible concussion. We will be taking her to have a CT scan done now to confirm.”
“Okay, that’s not too bad. How come she’s still sleeping?” I just wanted to make sure that they were telling me everything.
He walked over to the IV and pointed to the bag hanging there. “We have her on saline to keep her hydrated and we’ve pumped her full of some powerful pain medication so that she can sleep through some of the pain. When she wakes up her head is going to be sore and the sleep she’s in will help.”
Okay that all made sense. “And the baby? It’s okay?”
Dr. Chan gave me a smile. “Yes, your baby is just fine. We did an internal ultrasound to check it out because there was some minor bleeding. Everything looks great, the baby’s heart beat is nice and strong. We’ll want her to come in every week for the foreseeable future to get checked out, but everything should be fine.”
I picked up Brenna’s hand and gave it a kiss, so thankful that everything would be all right. I let go of her hand and stood up, holding my hand out to shake the doctor’s hand again. “Thank you so much for taking care of my family doc. I really appreciate it.”
“Of course, I’m glad it all has a happy ending. We are going to take her for the CT scan and then move her to the ward. If you could go back to the waiting room, someone will come out to tell you where she is once we get her situated.”
I went back out to the waiting room and let her family know what the doctor told me. Once I knew she was going to be okay I decided to give my mom a call to let her know what was going on. She was shocked that she was going to be a grandmother and that I was in such a serious relationship without telling her, but said she would be down to the hospital right away.
My mom still hadn’t arrived by the time we went up to the ward to check on Bren, so I left Griff in the waiting room so he could show her up when she got there.
It was taking Brenna a long time to wake up and I was getting worried, but Dr. Chan reassured me that it was normal and she would wake up soon.