Page 60 of Hutch (Minnesota Raptors #2)

Broken ribs? My girl has broken ribs? Tears well up. She’s in there fighting for her life and I can’t even help her. And I couldn’t protect her from asswipe. After all the fail safes I put in place, he still got to her. While I was out laughing and joking at dinner. I don’t deserve her.

Please baby, just keep breathing.

“This is my fault,” I whisper.

“No, it’s not.” Shaw’s voice is firm.

“I pushed her to get the restraining order. That’s what set him off.”

“No, that’s not what set him off,” Barry disagrees.

“The NFL asked him to withdraw from the draft. Their investigators got wind of the restraining order. Someone at the courthouse must have leaked it to them. It was under seal to protect her from this. Don’t blame yourself for this.

Blame the asshole in custody right now.”

“Has he been charged?”

“I’m not sure. His parents are on their way, and I know he has a lawyer who showed up at the precinct. The mayor promised to let me know the minute he’s been charged and booked.”

“There’s no way he can get off is there?”

“It would take an act of God, and I don’t think God’s in his corner right now.”

“Drink that,” Shaw interrupts. “It’ll be nasty if you let it get cold. But cold or not, I’ll pour it down your throat.”

I pull the cup to my lips and take a drink to get him off my back. My face screws up when the overly sugary drink hits my tongue.

“Don’t give me that face. You need the sugar.”

Everyone settles down after that while we wait for the doctors to come down and talk to us. The press has set up outside and Barry went to speak with them several times. The press has been banned from the hospital at least.

Collin is standing over by the window. I’m not sure when he got up, but this has to be hard on him. He hates hospitals. His brother was shot in a drive by when they lived down in Georgia. The kid died. I forgot all that as I mentally shut down.

Fuck.

Sighing, I get up and go stand beside him. “I’m sorry. I forgot.”

He shrugs. “You’re scared. I get it. I was the same way the night my brother died.”

I hug him tight. Not caring who sees. He’s hurting and is seconds away from having a panic attack. I see it in his expression. This will help stave it off. And honestly, I need the comfort myself.

“Red’s too stubborn to die,” he mutters, tears in his voice. “I’ll go in there and call her Deliverance just so she’ll argue with me.”

I hope he’s right, but I won’t give him false hope. I’m terrified to believe any of the hope floating in the room. I’m worrying Mom. She keeps looking at me and I see the concern. Her boyfriend’s here as well. He’s taking care of her and that’s one less thing on my plate.

“How long has it been?” Collin asks after a while.

“Five hours, ten minutes and forty-two seconds since we got here.”

“Fuck, that’s a long time.” He sighs heavily and steps back, his panic subsiding.

I nod, this knot of fear holding me hostage.

“Daisy Canton?”

My head whips around at the sound of her name. Two men wearing blue scrubs and one of those surgeon hats on their heads is standing there, looking surprised to see so many people in here. I am too, honestly. Daisy is well loved among our friends.

“Here,” I all but shout and run over to them. “Is she alive?”

“Who are you?”

“Jonathan Hutchinson.”

“Are you family?”

“I’m her fiancé.”

“And I’m her brother,” Collin pipes in.

The doctor who’s speaking looks skeptical. Collin’s Mexican. Daisy is not.

“He’s adopted,” I say.

The doctor frowns but doesn’t say anything else. What can he say to that?

“I’m Doctor Briney and I was Miss Canton’s general surgeon.

To answer your question, yes, she’s alive.

She’s stable, but critical and we’ve moved her to a private room in the ICU.

Her injuries are severe. She had two skull fractures, both arms were broken in multiple places.

She has a broken femur of the left leg. Her liver and spleen were lacerated as well as her bowel.

Her kidneys are bruised and she may still lose one of them.

Massive internal bleeding is our biggest problem in terms of everything outside of her brain.

We were able to stop the bleeding, but we had to remove her spleen.

She lost a lot of blood. We’re still giving her blood to keep her blood volume up.

She also had a collapsed lung and eight broken ribs, two of which punctured her lung.

I want to stress while she’s stable, she’s still critical.

We’re going to take it one hour at a time. ”

“I’m Doctor Sturgiss,” the other man introduces himself. “I was your fiancé’s neurosurgeon. As Dr. Briney said, she had two skull fractures. One of them caused enough damage that she would have been incapacitated as soon as the injury occurred.”

“She was defenseless, unable to fight back?” I whisper, horrified at my girl having to just lie there and suffer.

“Unfortunately, yes. When she got here, there was quite a bit of swelling and three major bleeds which I had to go in and repair. We won’t know the severity of the damage until and if she wakes up.

There’s still significant swelling and if it doesn’t start to go down, we may have to go back into surgery to relieve the pressure, but we’ll take it one problem at a time. ”

“I don’t know how long she lay there before we found her and started CPR.”

“The good news is she has brain function. That’s an encouraging sign. If that changes, then we’ll have a different conversation. Does she have any other family?”

“A brother who’s overseas in the military. We’re trying to get in touch with him.”

Dr. Sturgis nods. “Okay. I’ll be here all night to monitor her and will let you know if anything changes.”

“I need to see her.”

“She’s not conscious. We have her in a medically induced coma to help her heal.”

“I don’t give a fuck. I need to see my girl. She needs to know I’m here.”

“Doctors, can I speak with you for a moment?” Barry pulls them to the side and speaks quietly.

She’s breathing. She’s stable.

But critical , the devil on my shoulder laughs. She could still ,die.

Which is why I need to see her. She needs me.

The doctors come back over. “We’ve agreed that you can sit with her in the ICU, Mr. Hutchinson, but you have to be very quiet. There are other critical patients there who can’t tolerate the noise. Can you promise that?”

I agree quickly.

“What about me?” Collin asks. “I’m her brother. I need to see her to reassure myself she’s alive. I saw her. I gave her CPR. You can’t keep me out of the room.”

Dr. Briney sighs. “Fine, but only one of you is staying in that room tonight. It’s already against hospital policy to allow anyone to sit with the patients through the night.”

“That’s fine. I’ll go in, check on her, and then camp out in the ICU waiting room. I swear I’ll be as quiet as a mouse.”

Both doctors look skeptical. He’s not being quiet at the moment. He’s just loud normally. But they don’t change their minds and we’re told to follow them.

They lead us upstairs and before we can go in, we have to scrub down and put on gowns and gloves to make sure we’re sterile and can’t bring any type of germ or infection in with us.

The room we approach is right in front of the nurses’ station, which sets off alarm bells. Why would they put her here where they can reach her within seconds?

Stable but critical.

She’s here in case of the worst and they need to work fast.

But she’s breathing and that’s all that counts right now. And her heart is beating. She’s a fighter. My girl can come back from this. She can.

Dr. Briney stops up. “I want to prepare you both for what you’ll see.

” His tone and his expression are grave.

“She’s bandaged, her arms are in slings, her head is wrapped from brain surgery.

Her leg is in a suspended sling. She’s on a ventilator to help her breathe and she’s hooked up to a bunch of different machines.

Her face is swollen, bruised, and honestly, I doubt you’d recognize her.

She will not wake up. She will not respond to the sound of your voice or your touch because she’s in a medically induced coma. ”

“Can she hear us?” I ask.

It’s Dr. Sturgis who answers. “No one can agree on that, but I personally think the patient can. Those who have people here, constantly talking, those are the ones we see recover quicker. So, yes, be quiet, but talk to her. At the very least, it can’t hurt.”

I nod, understanding, and grateful for the hope.

“Thank you both for helping her. No matter how this turns out, thank you.”

“You’re very welcome, Mr. Hutchinson. Let’s go in, shall we?” He opens the glass door and moves aside so we can enter.

My brain stutters at what it’s seeing. They warned me, but hearing about her condition and seeing it, it’s entirely two very different things.

My legs give out and I fall, my knees hitting the concrete floor hard.

There’s pain, but I ignore it as I take in my beautiful scrappy girl.

She’s covered in bandages and what I can see of her is a big swollen purplish black mess.

Her eyes are so swollen, I can’t even find the eyelashes.

“Her jaw was broken as well,” Dr. Sturgis says. “We wired it shut and her cheekbone on the right side is fractured. Her being in an induced coma will keep her still and allow that to heal as well.”

She has so many injuries, they’re still listing them. What she suffered…dear God, what my baby suffered. And she wouldn’t have been able to fight back to even try to defend herself. More tears leak out of my eyes.

“Is she going to be okay?” I whisper as Collin pulls me up.

“We’re going to take it hour by hour right now.”

Why won’t they just lie and tell me she’ll be fine? I need those words like I need air to breathe.

A male nurse carries in another chair and sets it on the other side of the bed, the side next to the window.

“Does it have to be this hot in here?” Collin asks. “She hates the heat. Says it makes her sick to her stomach.”

“We can definitely turn the heat down,” the nurse agrees. “It will be better to keep her comfortable to have it a little cold in here. And the cold fights off germs.” He goes over to the thermostat and adjusts it. The air doesn’t come on, so he probably just turned the heat down.

Collin pushes me down into the chair on this side of the bed.

He leans down and kisses her forehead. “We’re here, Red.

Me and Hutch are here and we’re not going to leave you, my sister from another mother.

I promise we’ll both be right here until you open your eyes and they say you’re through the worst of it. ”

I take her hand, noticing the other one has her fingers taped together. “What’s wrong with her hand?”

“The orthopedic surgeon wants to let her get a little stronger before he operates on her hand. The bones in her hands are broken from her fingers down. It looks like they were bent backwards until they snapped. There was a shoe print on her hand. I assume whoever did this to her stomped on her hand until he shattered the bones.”

“Joseph Ayers did this. He was caught red handed trying to get rid of the body.” Collin’s tone is flat. “No one from his family gets anywhere near my sister, do you understand?”

“Of course. The only people allowed to see her are immediate family.”

Collin snorts. “Tell that to the cops back home. Ayers’ uncle is the sheriff, and he intimidated my sister into not pressing charges the first time he beat her after she broke up with him.”

“What?” Dr. Sturgis asks, startled.

Collin whips out his phone and shows them the photos.

“They pressured her not to ruin his chances at a career and this is what he goes and does when she files a restraining order to keep him away from her.” His voice rises in anger with each word.

“I don’t want him, his family, or his attorney’s even on this fucking floor. ”

“I promise, Mr. Canton, we’ll keep her safe.”

“It’s Mendoza. Collin Mendoza.”

“I thought you were adopted?”

He shrugs it off. “I kept my family name. It meant a lot to my parents back in Mexico, so I did. We need to put security on the room.”

That I agree with.

“I’ll ask Barry about it. Not sure how much it’ll cost, but it’ll be worth it to make sure no one gets near her. Can our friends see her during visiting hours? They’re like family.”

“Yes, but only two at a time. If you or Mr. Hutchinson are in here, only one other can come in.”

“We can do that,” Collin agrees, and both the doctors leave.

I sit there, quiet as a tomb, holding her hand and just so thankful she’s breathing and that her heart is beating. The bruises and broken bones can heal. Her head will heal. She just has to keep breathing so her body can do its work and heal.

“I’ll be right here, baby, until you open those beautiful green eyes. I’m not going anywhere.” The Raptors can fire me. I’m not leaving this room until she wakes up.

With that resolution, I settle back into the chair, her hand in mine, and my eyes watching the monitors with Collin across from me.