“What happened to her, Mr. Langston?” the doctor asks softly.
“She was kidnapped. A psychopath took her last night…Sorry, the night before last. It’s been a long couple of days. He ran us off the road before he took her.”
“Is that why you’re bleeding as well?” he asks as he gestures to my side. Blood is seeping through the blue scrub top. “Here. Sit down and lift your shirt. I can’t have you bleeding out in my sterile room now, can I?”
I try to protest, but he stops me. I flop in the chair across from her bed and lift my shirt. The fabric sticks to the blood spots that have already begun to dry. He kneels next to me with a bottle of something that he squirts onto the wound. He wipes at it before using tweezers to remove two of the broken stitches.
“Who stitched you up?” he asks as he glares at the wound.
“Would you believe a stripper?”
The doctor laughs. He full-on belly laughs as he stands to grab something off the table.
“Honestly, yes. Yes, I would. Tell her she needs to work a bit harder on tying off thestitch…Here.”
He kneels back down and begins to remove the stitches. The pain is excruciating. My fingers dig into the armrest. Thankfully, I didn’t break it by the time the last stitch was tied off.
“Thank you.”
“You really should have gotten that looked at…by a professional,” he scolds as he finishes disposing of the blood-soaked cotton balls and old stitches.
“So give it to me straight, Doc…” I ask as I walk back over to her side. She hasn’t moved, and nothing has changed. I keep expecting her to open her eyes. To hear her laugh, which makes my entire world light up.
“Like I said, we won’t know more until the swelling goes down. She has severe lacerations and chemical burns on her body. She has a cracked skull and an intracranial hemorrhage. She also had a knife wound through her hand…”
“Through? Like all the way through?”
“Yes. I don’t know who did this to her, but I pray they suffer a slow, painful death. The damage they did to this poor woman…Sorry. Where was I? Oh, she has a few broken ribs and a fractured shoulder and wrist. All her vitals are stable right now, though, which is good. We’ll keep a close eye on her, Mr. Langston. I do have one question, though…”
“What’s that?”
“When you found her…Do you know if the man who had her sexually assaulted her?”
“I honestly don’t know. She barely spoke one word before she had a seizure.”
“I’ll have the nurse bring a rape kit in for evidence. Acop will be by in a little while. With these kinds of injuries, we had to notify the police as soon as we had her stabilized.”
“What about my other friend, Cassius London?”
He pulls up his tablet and scrolls through a long list.
“Ah, here he is. He just got out of surgery twenty minutes ago. They probably already went to let your friends know.”
“Is he going to be okay?”
“According to his chart, they are still trying to get all his vitals to stabilize. The bullet went through his liver and right kidney before it exited his body. A rib was shattered, and his lung was nicked. They had a lot of damage to repair, and he had a chest tube put in to remove the blood. But as long as they can get his vitals stabilized, he should make a full recovery.”
“Thank you, doctor.”
“Press the red button if you need anything. I’ll be back by to check on her and you within two hours. A nurse will be by shortly with the kit…” He pauses, assessing me as he says the next words. “She’s going to ask you to step out of the room.”
“I understand.”
He gives me a grateful nod before closing the curtains then shutting the door quietly. When the latch clicks into place, my world collapses around me. I fall to my knees next to her bed. Everything turns dark. No more color. No more light. Until she opens those beautiful eyes of hers, I’m not leaving her side.
My body shudders as I try to hold back my tears. None of this should have happened. If we hadn’t stopped on theside of the road. If I weren’t such an idiot and just kept driving. We were only a few miles from my house.
“I’m so sorry, Sunshine.” I continue to cry. The pain and exhaustion of the last two days are finally hitting me, and it’s overwhelming.
