“Give her back!” She shoved him with her bandaged hands. “Is that why you took me down to the stables and came back in without me?” She shoved him again. “You just wanted to take her. Give her back. You can’t take her from me. Give her back!” She pounded on his chest with her fists, completely oblivious to her injuries. “Give her back!” She slapped his face with a resounding crack, the brace on her arm scraping his skin.
It didn’t even register. He stood there and let her pound on him and felt nothing but that he deserved it.
He didn’t know what brought this on. He knew better than to grab her arms to try to stop her. He didn’t want to send her into another nightmare of the attack like he’d done when he bandaged her arms in her dorm room. So he stood there and took the beating and everything she dished out. If she needed to do this to find a way to heal, he’d let her.
“Give her back.” She grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and shook him. “You can’t just take her from me. She’s mine. She’s mine,” she said weakly. “Give her back,” she begged and shattered his battered heart. “Please. Please. Give her back.” She sobbed, all the energy she’d had moments ago vanished, and she leaned heavily against him.
Cody felt the tears slide down his own face. He didn’t know what she was talking about. “I can’t give her back to you, sweetheart. She’s gone.” He wished with everything inside him he could take it all away and have this madness be just a dream.
He briefly glanced at Kristi and saw the shock in her eyes and something else he didn’t want to admit was guilt.
“Brooke.” Susanne rushed into the room. Brooke’s screams had echoed through the house, drawing Susanne out of the kitchen.
“Give her back, Cody. Please, please, give her back,” Brooke sobbed. She had nothing left. Everything seemed to drain awayand leave her blank. “Please, give her back.” She pulled her arms back from his chest. Fresh blood stained the bandages.
She held her arms up in front of her in horror. She’d pounded on his chest so hard, she must have torn some of the stitches, or opened some of the more healed cuts. The blood drained out of her face, and her eyes rolled back in her head as she swayed.
He caught her before she fell.
“Brooke!” Susanne screamed and rushed over to help Cody lay her on the sofa. “What is going on in here?”
Cody gently laid Brooke on the sofa. He put her arm gently over her stomach and gazed up at Susanne. “I don’t know. She ran down the stairs in a rage. She wants me to give her back our daughter. But I can’t.” He kneeled down beside Brooke and smoothed the hair out of her face. “Oh, baby, I’m sorry I can’t give her back to you.”
Susanne ran a shaky hand over her daughter’s hair. “What do you think set her off?”
“I don’t know.” Cody touched a hand to Brooke’s cheek and gently wiped some of the tears away, careful to avoid the stitched cut on her face. “I don’t know,” he said again absently.
Cody looked up and saw Janie standing by the kitchen door. “Janie, could you call Dr. Nash? He was due to come by in a couple of hours to check on Brooke, but we need him now. Tell him she’s had some kind of breakdown and she’s fainted. Tell him she’s hurt her arms, and she’s bleeding. Some of her cuts may need to be re-stitched. If he can’t come, ask him if he’ll meet me at the ER.”
Janie left the room quickly to do what Cody asked.
Kristi came forward and stood at the end of the couch at Brooke’s feet. She appeared hesitant and scared. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
A wave of anger rushed over him. “What do you mean? What did you do?”
“She wouldn’t share her with you. I didn’t think it was fair that she kept your daughter all to herself.”
Cody stood. He was finally beginning to understand why Brooke had said to give her back. “What did you do, Kristi?”
“I know no one is supposed to know that Brooke was the victim of the campus stalker. But after I calmed down the other night, I remembered you saying that her classmates held a memorial of sorts for the baby. I thought we could do that here. Today. You and me. I brought flowers and candles and the ultrasound picture of our baby. I thought we could say something for the both of them, so I took the urn from upstairs and brought it down to your office.”
Cody swore and fisted his hands, his whole body vibrating with rage.
Kristi implored him with her eyes to understand. “I just wanted to do something nice for you. For us to remember them.”
“Cody!” Susanne took his hand. “Take a breath.”
Nothing would calm the fury raging through him. “Susanne, please go get our daughter for Brooke. I don’t want her to wake up without her.”
He waited for Susanne to go into his study before he turned on Kristi. “Do you have any idea what Brooke has been through? She was stabbed in the belly. That six-inch knife went through my daughter’s back and severed the umbilical cord, cutting off her blood supply. It literally left the baby and Brooke bleeding to death with every beat of her heart. Then, the doctors had to cut her open and take our daughter out of her. They didn’t let her see her daughter. She never laid eyes on her. She never got to hold her own child. After all of that,youtook her daughter away from her.”
Kristi stood rooted to the floor, hearing the brutal truth, every one of his words laced with the hatred he couldn’t hide. Tears shimmered in her sad, regretful eyes, but they had no effect onhim. “I had no idea it was that bad. I’m sorry isn’t enough,” she began.
“You’re damn right, I’m sorry isn’t enough!” he bellowed. “You’re jealous. You did this to manipulate me. You thought we’d have a little ceremony and grieve our losses and I’d change my mind about breaking up with you.”
“I wanted you to see that I understand your losses and that as partners we could get through this together.”
“Yet you came in here ready to confront Brooke the second you saw her. That wasn’t about being kind or compassionate. That was you being selfish as usual. You can’t stand it that you didn’t get what you wanted this time.”
