Breaking Through, page 10
A shy smile curved the boy’s lips. “I like Batman, but I don’t have any other toys.”
“Well, that’s smart,” Sam said. “You wouldn’t want to bring too many here or you might lose them. Good to just have your favourite.”
The boy studied Sam’s face for a moment, then looked down at the toy. “I don’t have any others at home either.”
Sam’s heart twisted. It was an old familiar ache. He could not be sure, but he guessed the boy was about seven. A similar age to his niece, who was loud and robust, with a room bursting with more toys than she knew what to do with.
“Can I see him?” Sam asked. “Promise I’ll be gentle.”
Bottomless dark eyes roamed around once more. They remained on Sam’s face longer this time and reminded him fleetingly of Chuck’s. Eyes deep enough you could tumble right into them.
“Okay.” The boy passed the toy to him. Most of the paint had worn away, and one hand looked as if it had been none too cleanly amputated by the jaws of a canine.
“Do you have a dog at home?” Sam asked. “I love dogs.”
The blond head shook back and forth. “No, I found it like this. I think it got throwed away.”
“Sweet,” Sam said, turning the figure over in his hands once more before he passed it back. “Well, I think it makes Spider-Man look even tougher.” When the boy reached out, Sam glanced down. The skinny wrist that protruded from the jacket sleeves was ringed in deep blue. Stark morbid bangles against pale, fresh skin. Sam swallowed the wave of angry nausea swelling in his throat.
“What happened there?” He forced his voice into a semblance of casual as he gestured toward the marks. Quick as gophers, the wrists disappeared back into their cuffs.
“No...nothing.” Panic flared and burned in the brown eyes.
“Hey! What the hell you doin’?” a rough voice barked.
Sam pressed the toy firmly back into the small hands and rose to his feet. “Good after—” He didn’t have time to finish. The man stomped toward Sam, lips knotted in a fury, deep-set eyes wild. Without pausing, he snatched the hockey stick from the bloodied hockey player’s bag as he passed.
“Hey now!” Sam spread his hands at his sides but planted his feet, watching the wooden blade. “I was just talking to your boy, saying hi. I work here.”
“Don’t hey me! I know what you’re up to. Trying to take my kid away from me. Just trying to get some meds for my back, and you vultures swoop in. I got news for you. You’re not getting him.”
The scabbed face twisted into a snarl, and he stabbed the blade toward Sam’s stomach. Sam reacted, turning his body sideways, but the man was faster than he expected. The flat edge drove into his side and propelled the air out of his lungs in an agonizing whoosh. Mouth wide, Sam tipped forward in a breathless attempt to move away. The stick caught him across the jaw, and fireworks burst in a giddy buzz behind his lids, saturating his oxygen-deprived brain with dizzying light.
How stereotypical, his frantic mind supplied with cynical timing, as the darkness tickled at the edges of his consciousness. A proper Canadian beating. He hit the floor hard, twisting to guard his organs and head as the stick drove into the floor inches from his face with a crack.
A boot connected with his back, and then nothing else mattered but the stomach-twisting crunch that echoed through his body. The sound mingled with the screams of other patients, the shouts of medical staff. Pain flared white-hot as Sam gasped for air. Iron bloomed on his tongue as his chin connected with the floor.
The last thing that made sense in the face of the impending darkness was the bellow of his father’s voice over the din.
***
Sawyer was sound asleep, his limbs tangled with Carmen’s when the cell phone on the bedside table blared to life. Strains of “Lean on Me” sprang around their bedroom. With a growl, Sawyer rolled, fumbling for the phone. Carmen had switched the ringtone for when his dad called, and he still couldn’t figure out how to change it back.
“You’re fixing that in the morning,” he rasped at his wife, who sprawled in oblivion at his side. “Hello?”
“Sawyer, it’s your father.”
“Yeah, Dad, I know. What’s going on? It’s like—” He squinted at the clock. It read 11:30. Sawyer groaned and rubbed a hand over his face. “God, what happened to me?”
“You got married,” came Carmen’s sleepy mumble from the other side of the bed.
“Sawyer, for fuck’s sake, listen to me.” His dad’s deep voice was loud and strained over the phone. The hairs on Sawyer’s arms rose.
“It’s your brother. He’s about to go into surgery.
Sawyer shot upright. “What the hell! Is he okay? What happened?”
“Some maniac in the ER snapped and beat him up.” Dan drew a breath. Sawyer could hear it shudder. “His lung, it’s... it’s punctured. They have to re-inflate it somehow. Like my son is a fucking balloon—” Dan’s words ground to a halt.
Sawyer could hear him breathing through his nose and out through his mouth. Alice’s trick. She always sat them down and made them breathe that way when they were kids and needed a moment to calm down.
“I’m on my way,” Sawyer said, jumping up and going to dig through a dresser for a pair of jeans.
“We,” Carmen corrected. She was beside him in an instant, her long pale limbs flashing in the dark as she began pulling on clothes. “Do we need to pick up Alice?”
“Yes.” Dan and Sawyer spoke at the same time.
“Call Chuck,” Carmen ordered as she clasped her bra. “Tell her we will be there in ten minutes.”
Sawyer frowned, hopping into his jeans. His hands were shaking so badly it took him three tries to get the button done. “Why do we need to wake Charlotte up?”
Carmen shot him a look that said she would lecture him on his stupidity later. “Trust me and call her.”
CHAPTER 18
Sam’s head hurt. He groaned, and the sound hurt his throat. Distorted fragments of memories flickered through his muddied brain as he blinked at the white ceiling. There was a rustle beside him, a sleepy murmur, and then Charlotte’s face, hazy, as she peered down at him.
“Sam?” she whispered. “Are you all right?”
Sam squinted up at her, struggling to bring her into focus. “Chuck?” The light behind her head made her glow like an angel. “What the hell happened?”
Tears brimmed and ran over her cheeks, dropping to create dark spots on the blue fabric of his hospital gown.
Charlotte pressed her fingertips to her mouth and let out a long, shaky sigh. “You scared the shit out of us, Sam.”
“What happened?” he repeated. Charlotte didn’t answer. A high, rushing sob escaped her, and she grasped his chin in her hands, kissing him hard on the lips. She leaned her forehead against his, her breath shuddering across his aching skin.
“Some maniac attacked you with a hockey stick. He hit you in the back and in the face.” Her voice broke, and Charlotte paused. Her hands dipped lower to rasp across the roughness of bandages. Below them, his skin was sore and tight. Drawn together. He recognized the sensation of stitches through his flesh.
“I heard something break when he kicked me.” He could remember that much, then things went hazy. “What was it?”
Charlotte let out a choked noise and turned her face away from him for a second. “Your rib,” she said after a moment. “It punctured your lung, and they rushed you into surgery. Your dad was there. He nearly got himself arrested.”
“Dad was there?”
Charlotte nodded. “Security had to pull him off the guy. They held them both until the cops got there. They took Dan in, but he was so frantic to get back here that they let him go. That’s when he called Sawyer.”
Faint memories of being surprised by his dad’s text message. The roar of Dan’s voice over the chaos in the waiting room. “There was a kid,” Sam said, squeezing his eyes shut. That was how it had all happened. A little boy.
“They called social services, I think,” Charlotte said. “We can find out later about that. You need to rest now.”
Sam nodded, then regretted it immediately. “Okay. Hit that red button for me, will you, Chuck?”
Charlotte’s lips curled up a fraction as she reached across him to push the red call button. Her finger had scarcely lifted when the curly head of a nurse popped through the door.
“You all right there, Sammy?” She smiled down at him, but the etching of concern around her eyes betrayed her.
“Yeah, thanks, Val.” Sam tried to push himself up, then eased back onto the pillows when the room spun. “Can I have more of the good stuff yet?”
“You bet,” she said, bobbing her head with a wink.
“So?”
Val looked down at him, her lips tightening as she shook her head, then busied herself checking his chart. “Leave it to you, Sammy. Traumatic pneumothorax from steel toes to the ribs. Six stitches to the laceration on your face from the blade of a hockey stick. Are you trying to prove you’re Canadian? We all knew already; we figured it out when you were so damn nice all the time.”
Sam let out a pained snort, and the two of them sat in silence while Val bustled about the room. When she finished, she came to the bed and gave Sam’s hand a squeeze. “Call if you need anything, you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Then she was gone as quickly as she’d appeared.
“Val was born in Washington,” Sam said.
“That explains the Canadian jokes,” Charlotte said, settling herself down into the chair once more.
“Chuck,” Sam said. It was a struggle to get the words out. The painkillers were already flickering through his veins, lapping up the pain it encountered until he was numb. “You don’t have to stay,” he mumbled. With a considerable effort, he turned his head on the pillows so he could see Charlotte where she hovered at the edge of his bed.
“I know that. But I will stay,” Charlotte said. There was a tilt to her chin that told him arguing would do him no good. He didn’t have the energy for it, anyway.
“You’re beautiful,” he said instead, his voice slurred.
“Those drugs are making you crazy.” Colour washed over her cheeks, and she reached out, running one finger along the back of his hand where it lay on the bedsheet. Sam turned his palm upward, capturing her fingers with his.
“Thanks,” she whispered. “You’re not so bad yourself when you’re not stitched up like Frankenstein’s monster.”
Sam chuckled, then groaned at the spear of pain that shot through his back. “Is my dad still around?”
“Yes,” Charlotte said. “Everyone is. We’ve been taking shifts sitting with you. Everyone else is asleep in the waiting room.”
“Everyone? Who? Why?” He squinted at her. The effort to keep his eyes open was almost more than he could exert.
“What do you mean, why? Because we love you, idiot. Carmen and Sawyer, your mom and dad. Sash is on her way; she had to wait for Pete to get home and stay with the kids.”
“Oh, man,” Sam groaned. “You guys didn’t have to do that. It’s not a big deal.”
“No, Sam, you almost dying isn’t a big deal to any of us.” She glared at him. He was too euphoric with sedation and the pleasure of the realization of just how worried she was to let her anger bother him.
“I’ve never seen Dan this upset,” she said, sinking back into the chair. She swallowed and tightened her fingers around his. “He said your lips were blue, and you were gasping and... and blood—” She waved a hand at her mouth. “Fuck, I’m happy you were in a hospital.”
“Potty mouth,” Sam mumbled.
Charlotte shook her head but couldn’t hide the hint of a smile that played at the corners of her lips. “I’m not sure how you can joke.”
“You either laugh or you cry.” He tried to smile, but inexplicably, he felt more like crying instead. Morphine did that to him. Brought long-hidden emotions roiling to the surface for no particular reason. Charlotte’s face was swimming before his eyes. The flickering images were back, dancing around his head. Weird, random, distorted fragments. Mr. Edwards, the smiling face of his dog grinning from a phone screen, Sam’s parents.
“I lost Sasha’s hamster,” he blurted.
“Umm, sorry, what?” One of Charlotte’s dark brows rose.
“I was nine, and Sasha was seven. I said I didn’t want a hamster. Because if my parents weren’t getting me a dog, I didn’t want any other pet. Then I got home early one day, and Sash was at a dance.” Sam shook his head. The scrape of his hair against the pillowcase made him wince. “The stupid thing was adorable, and I wished I hadn’t been so stubborn. I took it out in the sunshine and made a little nest for it in the grass.”
“Oh, no,” Charlotte whispered.
“The phone rang. I figured it would be fine. I mean, why would you run away from a cozy home and two meals a day?”
“What did Sasha do when you told her?” Charlotte leaned closer, studying him with wide eyes.
“I didn’t tell her. I left the cage door open just a tiny bit, ran to Noah’s house, and hid. All these years, she thought she was the one who forgot to close the door.”
Sam risked a look at her, ready to see the judgment on her face. Instead, her lips pressed tight, and her eyes sparkled with something that looked suspiciously like laughter.
“Oh, Sam.” Charlotte shook her head. Her free hand floated up, hesitated, then stroked his hair back from his face. Her fingers were cool, the touch so soft that Sam’s eyes drifted closed.
“I want a dog,” he murmured.
She blinked, shaking her head in confusion. “I missed the random pet confessions memo for this evening’s entertainment.”
Sam sighed, turning his face into her touch. “Sorry. I’m hardly sure what I’m saying anymore.”
“Why don’t you get one?” Charlotte asked.
“Can’t. How could I leave Archie alone all day while I work?”
“Archie?” she asked with a hint of amusement in her voice. Amusement and something else... pity?—he didn’t want that.
“I can’t get a dog,” he groaned. “There’s something I have to do.”
“No, there is nothing you have to do besides heal,” Charlotte scolded.
“I do. I have to... I have to... Mr. Edwards’s dog. He has to say goodbye soon,” Sam mumbled. That was it, what he’d been trying to remember.
“Sam, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her fingers stopped moving and fell away. He ached to have them back.
“Just rest now,” she murmured.
Opening his eyes, Sam tried to sit up, but Charlotte’s hand on his chest stopped him, pressed him back into the sterile embrace of the hospital bed. “You need to relax; the drugs are making you loopy,” she said, her voice stern.
“Mr. Edwards told me he wouldn’t get to say goodbye to his dog.” Hot liquid leaked from the corners of his eyes and over his cheeks. He wanted—he didn’t know what he wanted. The bright hospital room was fading at the edges. A vignette was waiting to swallow the entire scene. He hissed through his teeth, desperate not to let it go. Not the moment, not the memory of what it was he needed to do. What if the next time he woke up, she wasn’t there?
“Chuck?” He reached out to her. The tips of her fingers found his brow. Distracting him. Rubbing in small circles at his temples until her touch was all that mattered. He allowed his eyelids to slide closed.
“Chuck?” he mumbled again.
“Hush, sleep.” She used her shirt sleeve to wipe his cheeks and drew her finger repeatedly down his nose. “Please rest,” she whispered. The fingers came back to his hair, and Sam sighed in relief. Quietly, Charlotte began to sing. Some sweet, lilting tune in a familiar but still foreign language, especially to his muddled brain.
“Didn’t know you spoke Spanish,” he slurred.
“Some,” Charlotte whispered, breaking her song. “It’s a lullaby my mom used to sing to me. My dad memorized it. After she died, he sang it to me every night until I was probably much too old.”
“Keep singing, please.” Sam drifted off to images of Charlotte and the sensation of her lips warm on his cheek above the bandages.
***
“I want to go home.” Sam heard the sullenness in his voice but couldn’t bring himself to care. Deena paused in her whirl of tasks and turned a gimleted eye on him.
“Your parents are going to be here any moment, and they are taking you to their house. We decided going up and down all those stairs at your place isn’t a good idea for a week or so.”
Sam scowled. “Oh, you guys decided, did you?”
Deena matched him scowl for scowl. “Yes, and we are well aware of your thoughts on the matter. There is no need to voice them. We do not care.”
“What would I do without all of you to make my decisions for me?” He flexed his hands on top of the sheets. He was being insolent and downright grumpy. The helplessness of his lung capacity and hindered movements infuriated him. Being trapped in the hospital bed made his skin crawl with frustration.
“You’d probably go home and rot in your own filth because you’re too damned stubborn to allow anyone to help you.” Deena shoved a pair of pants into his duffel bag, then turned back to him, one brow raised in challenge.
“I can move.” Struggling, Sam raised himself a few inches toward a sitting position. Pain bloomed through his rips, and his lungs burned. “Fuck it. Fine,” he growled. “I need help, but only for a few days!”
Deena made a humph in agreement and turned her back on him, busying herself with his chart.
Sam let her work for a few more moments in silence. “Hey, D?”
She turned to him, face wary. “Yes?”
Sam extended his hand toward his friend. “Thank you.”
She took his hand but refused to meet his eyes for a moment. “Anytime,” she said finally. “Now, let’s get ready to busy you out of here.” With a squeeze of his fingers, she released him and turned away. Sam didn’t miss the deep breath or the rigid set of her shoulders.
CHAPTER 19
