Page 25 of Every Broken Piece

Chapter twenty-five

Gabe

T hanks to Jacob, a rental car is waiting for me by the time I land in Cincinnati. The new VA’s not half bad, but he’s no Tess. I may have been overly harsh with him, and I’ll apologize later. But I really want Tess back.

Or maybe I just want Tess in my life any way I can get her.

I’m walking through the doors of University Hospital by dinnertime and head straight to the visitor’s desk.

Jack forwarded an article he found in the Cincinnati Enquirer detailing Tess’s assault.

It’s a stretch to say there were details because there weren’t.

Just that a Theresa James was assaulted at the Rusty Spur on Saturday night and taken to University Hospital where she remains in serious condition.

Serious. Not critical.

I keep reminding myself of that.

That was as of Saturday night. It’s now Monday night.

I know, better than anyone how much things can go downhill in forty-eight hours and that's why the shadows of my memories follow me through the hospital doors. Jack hasn’t gotten back to me yet about her injuries.

I try not to be pissed about it. Maybe he’s finally found the one firewall he can’t break.

More than likely he just doesn’t want to tell me and that scares the shit out of me.

“I’m here to see Theresa James,” I tell the older woman at the desk with a plastic name tag that says Martha.

As Martha taps on her computer, commotion to my left draws my attention.

A woman’s standing toe-to-toe with a hospital security guard, grinding a bony finger into his chest. He’s impassively staring her down, unmoving and stoic.

She’s the type of skinny that indicates a hard life of alcohol or drugs.

Her overprocessed blonde hair is short, thin, and scraggly, her sallow cheeks sunken.

She looks like she’s in her sixties, but more than likely younger than that.

“She’s my daughter,” she says loud enough for me to hear. “I have a right to see her.”

Another guard walks up and the two men confer while the woman tries to force herself between them, dividing and conquering, but they’re having none of that and sidestep her. She retreats, then advances, circling one way, then the other, almost like a boxer looking for an opening.

“You can’t keep me from my daughter. I have rights, you know. Where’s your supervisor? Where’s the chief?” Her voice gets louder and shriller with each demand.

On the other side of the desk a young woman with short brown, pixie-like hair watches the exchange. She bites her lip, her brows drawn in concern as she slides closer to me. Is she the daughter in question? Probably not or the crazy woman would be making a beeline for her.

“And your name?” Martha asks, pulling my attention back to the reason I’m here, but I keep crazy woman in my periphery.

“Gabriel Strong.”

“Are you related to Ms. James? Only family can see her.”

I grab the edge of the desk to keep from sagging. She’s alive. Otherwise, Martha wouldn’t have mentioned visitors.

I didn’t realize how terrified I was that I hadn’t made it in time.

“I’m...” Not related to her.

Martha raises an imperious eyebrow and scowls. “You have to be related to see her. Hospital rules.”

Pixie Girl is now standing beside me, head tilted up to study me, but I ignore her and the crazy woman.

I need to see Tess and I’m not leaving until I do.

A glance at the security guards tells me they’re not paying attention to me.

Martha, though, stands like a sentinel to the entrance of the hospital. There’s no getting around her.

“Gabriel Strong?” Pixie Girl asks quietly.

I glance down at her. “Yes?” There’s so much going on I don’t know who to concentrate on first. Martha, waiting to hear if I’m related to Tess. Pixie Girl, who’s suddenly clutching my arm, or the crazy woman with the guards yelling loudly about her parental rights as they herd her to the doors.

“GS,” Pixie whispers. She turns to Martha and leans over the tall desk, still clutching my arm like she’s afraid I’ll disappear. “This is Tess’s fiancé. He’s her only other relation besides me.”

Everything in me locks up in shock. Her fiancé ?

“I—”

Pixie squeezes my forearm to the point of pain and it occurs to me that if I want to see Tess, then she’s my ticket because Martha’s furiously typing on her computer, then handing me a wristband with Tess’s name and room number on it.

“You know where to go?” Martha asks Pixie.

Pixie nods, loops her arm through mine and pulls me past the desk toward a bank of elevators.

“Hurry,” she urges, walking fast.

I don’t know what the hell’s going on but if it gets me to Tess, I’m following.

She veers off down a hall before we get to the elevators.

Rounding the corner, she glances over her shoulder but not at me.

She’s looking at the arguing woman who’s almost at the front doors now thanks to the guards.

The closer she gets to being thrown out, the louder she shouts until everyone passing through is staring.

Pixie yanks me into a short, dead end hallway with a locked door on either side that says employees only.

She releases me and widens her stance, scrutinizing me with a wrinkled brow. No one’s looked at me with such obvious judgment in years and I find myself wanting to shift from foot to foot.

“Gabriel Strong,” she says. “I don’t know what you’re doing here but I’m damn glad to see you.”

I clear my throat. “And you are?”

“Amelia. Tess’s best friend and right now the only family she’s got. Except you now.”

Yeah, we’ll discuss that later. “She’s told me about you.”

Her head tilts. She reminds me of a fairy, or a sprite, something fey-ish. Fantasy isn’t my favorite genre, but I seem to remember it’s full of sprites and fairies who I imagine would look like her. Short and trim and full of sass. “She’s told me about you too.”

Tess has talked about me to her friends? It goes against the NDA, but that’s not important. Tess discussed me . With her friends.

“Your Tess’s GS.” She says it like it’s obvious.

I must look as confused as I feel because she grins. It’s a wobbly grin, a lot sad. “Tess talked about you a lot but wouldn’t tell me your name. Now I know why. You were in her phone as GS.” She suddenly frowns. “How’d you know to come here.”

“Do you mind telling me what’s going on?” I’m itching to get to Tess and my frustration is showing. “Is she okay? What happened? Why’d you tell Martha I’m her fiancé?”

She blinks at the questions that machine gun fire out of me. “I’ll tell you but let’s walk.” She grabs my hand and we’re off again, briskly moving down the hallway to a different set of elevators. Amelia stabs the up button, her toe tapping as she gnaws on her lower lip.

“Saturday was her birthday. We went out to celebrate.” She glances behind her like she’s afraid someone’s following.

I look too but it’s only the two of us at the bank of elevators.

“Tess doesn’t have any family,” she continues.

“Just me and she’s only reluctantly let me claim her.

” She frowns as she looks over her shoulder again.

Why didn’t I know Saturday was Tess’s birthday? I would have at least wished her a happy birthday. I would have...I don’t know, done something. She was fucking attacked on her birthday . Somehow that makes everything worse and my vengeance tenfold.

“Who attacked her?” I ask. “Have the police caught him?”

Amelia jams the lit button again like that’s going to make the elevator arrive faster. “We don’t know who attacked her,” she says. “And I don’t know if they caught him. The police haven’t been forthcoming with information.”

I can fix that, especially now that I’m established as her fiancé, but also, in this situation I don’t have problems throwing my weight and name around to get answers.

“Tess doesn’t remember anything about the attack,” Amelia’s saying. “But they say that’s normal for her injury.”

The elevator doors swish open but I’m glued to the floor, locked into place. “Her injury?”

Amelia slaps a hand on the door opening to keep it from shutting me out. “You don’t know?”

It takes everything I have to make my head move back and forth because my throat's closed up and no words will form.

Amelia’s eyes fill with tears. “You really like her, don’t you?”

“I...” I clear my throat because her question catches me off guard.

“She’s become a good friend.” But those words aren’t adequate to describe feelings for a woman I’ve never met in person, whose voice I’ve never heard.

If I can’t describe how I feel to myself, I certainly can’t describe it to Amelia.

But she seems to accept my answer and motions me into the elevator, pressing the button for the eleventh floor when I step in.

She leans against the wall, her fey like eyes seeing right through me. “She never carried her work phone with her on the weekends until she started texting you.”

“What does that mean?”

The elevator stops and an older couple step on. I move closer to Amelia without breaking eye contact.

“That means you were special to her,” she says softly, glancing quickly at the couple whose backs are to us as they face the doors.

They exit on the sixth floor, and we’re left alone again.

Amelia waits until the doors close. “She has a concussion. Bruised ribs. A sprained wrist. She was beat up bad, Mr. Strong. Real bad.”

I picture Tess bruised, bleeding, broken and clear my throat because I won’t cry in front of this girl who’s held it together for her friend. “Thank you,” I say softly. “For telling them I’m her fiancé so I can see her.”

“That’s not why I did it.”

I wait as her throat works, her emotions finally getting the best of her as tears spring to eyes glued to the rising numbers that are taking us closer to Tess.

“Then why?” I finally ask after three floors go by.

She flicks a glance at me. “That woman yelling at the guards? I don’t know who she is, but she was here to see Tess.”

“That crazy ass woman out there was here to see Tess? Why?”

But I know why. She was yelling loud enough for everyone in the lobby to hear, demanding to see her daughter . A mother has rights, she’d said.

“You said Tess doesn’t have family,” I say.

“Because Tess told me she doesn’t have family.”

I’m trying to reconcile the blonde, strung out woman in the lobby to the picture of Tess that I have in my phone.

Amelia is chewing on her lip as she watches the floor numbers grind closer to eleven.

“Tess told me once that it’s just her. I guess I assumed that meant she doesn’t have family.

So, when this woman showed up demanding to see her, I didn’t know what to do.

I don’t know if she’s Tess’s mom or not, but if she is, I know Tess wouldn’t want her here.

” She raises her thin shoulders in a shrug.

“Then you were there and I just... I just did what I thought I should to protect Tess.”

The doors slide open into an empty, dark, waiting room.

Amelia leads me in the opposite direction. I follow, my feet dragging, suddenly apprehensive. Am I doing the right thing by coming here? Am I making things worse by being here? Does she even know she’s lost her job?

“She was in ICU for a little bit,” Amelia whispers.

I stumble to a stop to catch my breath from the shock of...well...everything.

“They moved her to a regular room last night.” She stops outside a closed door and presses her palm to it but doesn’t push it open.

“They have her pretty drugged up. When she’s awake she doesn’t make much sense.

The police have come by to ask her questions, but they can’t get much out of her.

” She looks at the closed door, then at me.

“I don’t know what’s going on between you and Tess, but she always had a smile on her face when she was texting you.

She didn’t tell me your name because that’s against the NDA.

All I know is you’re big time.” She bites her lip again as she considers me.

“I don’t know how you found out about this or why you’re here, but please help her. ”

“I will.” As I say it I mentally scroll through my calendar for the upcoming week, deciding what can be moved and what can’t.

Amelia’s troubled eyes never leave mine. “Don’t hurt her. She’s been hurt enough in this life.”

I lean a shoulder against the wall because my legs are suddenly weak. A metal door stands between me and the woman I flew halfway across the country to see. My entire body feels hollowed out as I question every decision I’ve made in the past twelve hours.

Amelia opens the door, and I take a deep breath for courage and step inside to finally meet Tess.

It’s not black.

That’s my first thought.

Her hair isn’t black. It’s a deep, dark, mahogany.

She’s so much smaller than I’d imagined, maybe about five inches over five feet.

I have nearly a foot on her. Besides her hair the first thing I notice is the bruise on her jaw, then the brace on her wrist. Her eyes flutter open and my next coherent thought is they’re not brown .

Her eyes aren’t brown but a deep caramel.

She lies so still as our gazes meet for the first time and all I want to do is sweep her away from here and take her somewhere safe where she’s not in pain or fear.

Something powerful and primitive rushes through me. A need to protect this woman. I’ll make sure she gets the best care. I’ll destroy anyone who threatens her.

I’m here to stay.