Isla
Iwake up to the sound of a door slamming open, and Corin sauntering into my hospital room. “So where is the little mistake at?” he sneers, looking down at my beautiful daughter. I don’t understand how her own father could hate her just because she’s a girl.
“Don’t call her that. It’s not her fault you didn’t get another son. Besides, the man is the one who determines gender anyway, so you can’t blame me. You get what you get, so grow up and fucking deal with it,” I growl back at him as I raise up to snatch her out of the bassinet. I don’t trust that he won’t try to hurt her.
I see the slap coming, and my body braces for it. I’ve learned not to make a sound because it only gets him hot when I try to fight back.
“Don’t talk back to me, you stupid bitch. I should just kill you both and get it over with. You are fucking useless. You can find your own way home. I don’t want that bastard child in my car.” He's looking at me like I'm the scum on the bottom of his shoe with his mouth in an ugly sneer and his nose scrunched up like he smells something foul.
You’d think I’d be used to it, but his words somehow hurt worse than him actually hitting me. Even though I take the physical abuse quietly, I still never learned to keep my mouth shut, even if I knew it would piss him off more.
“Unfortunately for me and our kids, none of them are bastards. I fucking wish none of them had your DNA. I can only hope I raise them better than your fucked up parents did with you!” I sneer back at him.
He storms over and grabs my arm that's holding my daughter, squeezing as he raises his fist to punch me; I go to flinch away, but everything is black.
When I wake up again, it's due to an annoying beeping… a slow steady sound. Where am I? Why does everything hurt? I hear whispers from somewhere beside me as I try to peel my eyes open. God dammit, it hurts to breathe. Oh, thank fuck, that was just a nightmare. It takes a couple tries to get my body working enough to open my eyes.
I blink a couple times, trying to get my sight to adjust and focus.Where am I? Why is everything hurting?I look around trying to gather my scattered thoughts. It takes a minute for everything to sink in; I can’t remember very much, but it’s all fuzzy and confusing.
Spread around the larger-than-normal space, Callum and Silas are on the couch that’s along a whole wall of windows looking out over the town. They look so cute sleeping sitting up and cuddled together. I’m glad they are working on figuring things out between them. Bodie is on my right in one of the hospital chairs with his head resting on my bed, holding my hand. His red hair is fanned out around him. Odin and Orin are standing by the door that’s across from my bed, talking, and from the looks of things, it seems Odin is trying to comfort his brother. My poor sensitive man seems to be struggling.
“Hey,” I choke out, my throat so sore I can hardly get the word out. Why does everything hurt? It feels like I’ve been breathing fire.
Both of the twins whip their heads in my direction. As I figured, Orin has red-rimmed eyes. They stand there stunned for a moment, then both rush to my side. In their haste to make it to me, they wake the others.
“Angel, don’t ever fucking do that again. You scared the shit out of us.” Bodie leans over to kiss my hand. All the guys look like shit. It doesn’t look like they have slept at all, despite being dozed off just seconds ago. I'm sure I don’t look much better though.
“What happened? I feel like I got hit by a bus,” I mumble. My throat hurts so bad.
“Well, Wildflower, you got shot. Heather attacked you outside the birthday party while you were on the phone with your sister. We heard the shot, and when we ran over we found her standing over you. Bodie dealt with her while Orin tried to get the bleeding to stop and we waited on the ambulance to get there, you've been out for five days.” Silas informs me, glancing around at the others.I was shot? What the fuck, that crazy bitch shot me. How am I still alive?I can feel myself going into a panic attack, but Silas grabs my hand and squeezes. I don’t understand why this happened or how I made it out okay.
I have a feeling they are leaving something out. “Are the kids okay? Where are they? What are you not telling me? What happened to Heather, was she arrested?” I shoot out the questions. I can feel the panic getting worse, I just need everything to be okay. I’m still raw from the nightmare about Corin, and all I want is for my babies to be okay.
Bodie grabs my face and makes me look into his eyes. He bends down to kiss me, and it definitely helps calm me down a little. God, I’m so thankful I’m still here, and I have these amazing men and my kids to live for. I don’t understand why bad shit keeps happening to me. Sighing. I give him a small smile, but my heart is still racing.
I look past Bodie to the others, hoping they will give me answers. Odin clears his throat and walks over to give me a quick kiss, seeming to need to reassure himself that I’m okay, before returning to where he was standing. “The kids are fine, Babygirl. Emma took them home. They didn’t see anything, so they think you are sick for now. We decided it was best to wait to see how you wanted to handle that. Heather is dead; the gun went off when she and Bodie were fighting over it, and the shot killed her instantly, and uh…” he trails off. Something big definitely happened if he’s this nervous to tell me. He said my kids are fine, and I can move so I’m obviously not paralyzed. All my guys are here, so what the fuck is going on?
I don’t understand what they are keeping from me.
“What?” I snap. “I’m not in the mood for secrets; what aren’t y’all telling me?” My eyes dart around, begging for answers.
Before any of my men can open their mouths, a doctor who looks like McSteamy fromGrey’s Anatomycomes in with a nurse who appears to be in her fifties, looking like a younger Betty White with a big smile. They both notice I’m awake, and the nurse hurries over and starts checking my vitals.
The doctor looks at the guys sternly. “Why didn’t anyone come tell us she was awake?”
“Sorry, sir. She was asking about her kids and was starting to panic. We wanted to calm her down,” Callum tells him, not sounding the least bit apologetic.
“Mmh.” He glances between me and the guys. “Do you want them to leave while we go over your injuries?”
The looks the guys give him would make most men run. He just raises an eyebrow at them and turns to glance at me. I like this guy already; he doesn’t take anybody's shit.
“No, it’s fine. They can stay; they are family,” I tell him. All the guys give me huge smiles for that.I really can’t believe how lucky I was to find them.
“Alright, then Isla. First off, the bullet punctured your lung. We fixed it, but you lost a lot of blood. Thankfully, we had O+ in stock, so we were able to help that as well. We are going to do another ultrasound to check on the baby later today, but like I told them, we aren’t sure it will be able to make it through all the trauma. Any questions?” He looks at me expectantly after delivering the news of a goddamn baby so matter of factly. What the actual fuck? I know he didn’t just say baby. It must be the drugs.
“Uhm, yeah, just one. What do you mean the baby might not make it? What fucking baby? I’m not pregnant. Ican’tget pregnant.” I look at him like he has two heads. I’m starting to freak out again. Multiple doctors told me that I couldn’t get pregnant again. What in the hell am I going to do with four kids? God, what if the guys leave me? I’ll be a single mom. I think I’m going to be sick.
“Well, I’m not sure who told you that, Isla, but you are definitely pregnant. You’re about eight weeks. The fetus had a pretty strong heartbeat, but we did a quick ultrasound to see about how far along you are, and if we could see if there were any signs the fetus was alive after your labs showed you were pregnant. It’s completely possible it may be healthy with no issues. However, I can’t promise that. I’ll let you get some more rest. They will be coming to do an ultrasound here soon.” With that, he heads out of the room. I take it back. I don't like him. How do you just drop a fucking nuke on someone, then just scurry out of the room? Who does that?
