Fighting Ever After (Ever After #3) (36 page)

Then he said
the words that brought my entire fucking world crashing down.

“Jax . . .
she – she was attacked tonight.” He still held the phone in his hand, but it
was shaking so bad I thought he was going to drop it. I don’t know why I
noticed that, but it was all I could focus on. I was having a hard time making
sense of anything else.

“Is she – I
mean, she’s okay right?” She had to be okay. She had to be.

“She was
stabbed. It’s bad, Ky.”

It was
funny, I heard the words, but it was like I was in a fog. Everything was fuzzy,
and a little blurry. What was wrong with my eyes? I touched my face. Why were
my cheeks wet?

This wasn’t
happening. That’s what I kept telling myself all the way to the airport. After Ace
called all the guys back to the hotel and told them what was going on, we were
out the door, our flight back to Boston already booked. The label had to pull
major strings to get us out of Canada so quickly. They’d tried to dissuade us
at first when Ace called them, asking if we could at least wait until after the
show tomorrow. At that point I took the phone from Ace and told them to get me
the fuck back to Boston immediately.

Almost as
soon as our asses were in our seats, the plane lifted off. The guys were still
trying to get more information from Ace; he’d been the one to talk to the guys
that found Jax. It was all still playing over and over in my head, what he’d
been able to tell us. She’d left her krav maga class like every week – I didn’t
even know she’d started taking krav maga. Her instructors, the ones who had
answered the phone when Ace called her, said she’d walked out with the rest of
the class, but somehow, in the fifteen or so minutes it took them to clean up
and lock up, Connor had gotten to her when nobody was around to help her.

They found
her lying unconscious in the snow, her phone ringing on the ground by her car.

Not for the
first time I thought I was going to be sick thinking about her on the ground,
the snow around her turned red from the blood. God, she must have been so
scared. Did she scream? Did she call out for help? Did she call out my name?
Why was she alone?

So many
questions I didn’t have answers to, but I couldn’t shut them off. I needed more
answers. I needed to know that she was going to be okay, but nobody could tell
me that. Not her instructors even after the paramedics had
come,
and not Bas who had rushed straight to the hospital when Ace called him. The
doctors wouldn’t tell him anything more than she’d been rushed into emergency
surgery and was in critical condition.

She couldn’t
die. She couldn’t.

Fuck. I was
crying again. Ace was sitting in the seat next to mine. None of them were in
much better shape than I was. I didn’t want them watching me cry, but no matter
how hard I tried to stop it, I couldn’t. I dropped my head into my hands and my
whole body shook.

How could I
have left her, knowing Connor was still out there? How could I say I loved her
and not be there for her when she needed me the most? How was I supposed to
keep going if she didn’t make it?

The simple
answer to that was I wouldn’t. My body might keep going, but everything inside
of me would be dead.

It only got
worse, so much worse, when we actually touched down in Massachusetts and
finally made it to the hospital. It’d been an excruciating almost seven hours.
It was after one in the morning in Boston, and nobody would tell us a damn
thing. We found a distraught Bas pacing in the waiting room with his dad,
Vi
and Jake and some red headed chick. Shane was there with
Lucy at his side and Izzy asleep in his arms. It took me a minute to realize
that the man standing off in the corner was Jack. His eyes met mine only
briefly, but I could see that he was a man in pain. I wanted to hate him for
not taking care of Connor, for not protecting her, but how could I when I
hadn’t done any better?

 Even
with Bas’ dad’s connections at the hospital he couldn’t get me back to see her.
It didn’t matter how much I screamed at the doctors, they only threatened to
have security remove me. Even Jack’s demands were ignored. That was a brave
doctor.

They didn’t
understand. I had to see her. I had to know that she was still here, still with
me. I needed to tell her so much, mostly not to give up, to keep fighting
because I needed her to pull through. We all did.

The next
five days were hell. They’d finally let us in to see her the following morning.
Some of the group had gone home to grab a couple hours of sleep before coming
back, and I think Ace took the red head home to
Jax’s
.
Bas had introduced her as Sadie –
Jax’s
friend from
Portland. I didn’t go anywhere until they finally let me see Jax. When I did
see her, I’d had to grab onto Ace to keep from collapsing on the floor. Every
visible part of her body was bruised and cut up. They had her hooked to so many
machines. I heard
Vi
and Sadie start sobbing. She
barely looked like she was holding onto life. Her skin was so pale, even more
so against her dark hair, and it scared me how slow her breathing and heart
rate were.

Dr. Cross
had relayed the other doctor’s information in English, but basically all he
said was that she was in a coma. There was brain swelling and possible brain
trauma from multiple points of impact, like her head had been smashed into
something more than once. There was damage to her vocal chords and carotid
artery caused by strangulation. I’d had to sit when he told me that. The only
thing I could see was that bastard’s hands wrapped around her throat, squeezing
the life out of her. On top of the stab wounds to her abdomen, which although
had both miraculously missed all her major organs, had led to extreme blood
loss and bleeding into the abdominal cavity, she had several bruised and a few
cracked ribs.

When I
finally stepped up to her side, I was afraid to touch her anywhere because
there wasn’t an inch of her that had made it out of the attack unscathed. There
was so much I wanted to say to her, but not with everyone listening.

The doctor
came back an hour later to tell us we had to go, that he’d done us all a favor
by even letting us all in here. I scoffed. The hell I was going anywhere. The
rest of them started reluctantly filing out, but I remained in my seat pulled
up next to her bed.

“Come on
Ky,” Ace said. “They’ll let us back in here later.”

“No.” I
didn’t even look over at him. My eyes were on Jax, they weren’t leaving her. I
wasn’t leaving her. Not again. Not ever. I reached up and for the first time,
lightly brushed my fingertips over her hand. It was like she was
sleeping,
only she wasn’t just sleeping, and I didn’t know
if she would ever wake up again.

“Young man,
you have to go.”

“Then go get
your fucking security, because nothing short of them dragging me out of here is
going to make me leave her, and I can promise you I won’t go quietly or
easily.”

I heard his
deep, exasperated breath. “I’m
sorry,
I really can’t
let you stay in here. She has to be tended to and it’s against hospital policy
when the patient is in this critical of condition. I’ll let you know as soon as
you can come back in.”

“Like I
said, go ahead and try to make me leave.” This time I did look away from Jax to
meet his eyes. I wanted him to see how serious I was, how much I meant it,
because if they tried to remove me from her side, they were going to have one
hell of a fight on their hands and I would probably end up in jail.

He scrubbed
a hand over his face, squeezing his temples between his fingers in frustration.
The rest of them were still waiting just outside the door to see what was going
to happen. The doctor looked over to Dr. Cross and then back to me. He sighed,
“Fine. You can stay for now, but only you.”

Bas didn’t
look too pleased about it, but he wasn’t willing to take me on to be the one
who got to stay. He hadn’t left the hospital either and it was showing. He
needed some sleep. They all needed more sleep. Shit, I needed some sleep. I
didn’t even know how long it had been. The little twenty minute almost naps in
the waiting room as I was in and out of it all night didn’t really count.

I don’t
remember lowering my head to the mattress, but a nurse nudged me awake sometime
later. I blinked my eyes a few times, and sat up. My neck was sore as hell from
sleeping hunched over. My hand was entwined with
Jax’s
,
but the nurse made me let go, insisting she had to check
Jax’s
wound for signs of infection and that it was time to take her for more brain
scans to see if the swelling was going down.

I waited in
the room for what felt like hours, but was probably only twenty minutes, before
they wheeled her back in. As soon as the nurses were out of the way again, I
took her hand in mine. I waited until they’d left the room and we were alone
before I started talking to Jax.

“The first
moment I knew, like really knew for sure that I loved you, was the moment you
forgave me after the Fourth of July. I’m not sure if I realized it then, but I
just remember thinking that I’d never met anyone with such a big and gentle,
but strong heart. I’ve never seen anyone show so much grace to another person
who didn’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve you, but I loved you in that moment and
every moment after, even when I didn’t show it. I need you to wake up Princess,
so that you can forgive me again. I screwed up so bad this time,” I wasn’t even
ashamed of the tears that were falling down my face. She deserved so much more
than just my tears. “I’m so, so sorry. I never should have left you. I should
have taken you with me or stayed behind. Nothing matters if you’re not here to
share it with. I thought all I ever wanted was to make it big with my music,
but I’d give it all up in a heartbeat to have you be okay. I don’t want it
baby. I don’t want anything if I can’t have you by my side.” I couldn’t talk
anymore. The tears were coming too fast and the guilt and shame of letting her
down and betraying the love and trust she showed me was choking me from the
inside.

I could
barely eat over the next few days, and sleep only came when I was too weak to
fight it off and ended up passing out where I sat, usually with my head slumped
over on the edge of the bed at
Jax’s
side.

Her body was
healing. There was no sign of infection in her wounds. The bruises were all
fading and most of the cuts were nothing but faint marks now. If she could just
wake up, if her brain could just heal as well, they said she would be okay. But
she wasn’t waking up. It had been four days, and she hadn’t woken up. The
longer it took, the less likely it became for her to wake up. The doctors said
they were still optimistic, that it was too early to seriously worry, but I was
seriously worried. Every day I talked to her. I told her everything. Stories
from my childhood, about my parents, what being on the road had been like for
me – the thrill of performing on those stages, how much I’d missed her and
thought of her constantly. I promised her that if she woke up I would take her
to see all the things she wanted to. I even sang that damn Disney song that had
made her smile so much before when I sang Izzy to sleep with it. I made every
deal with God I could think of, begging and pleading with Him. Jaxyn believed
in Him, believed in miracles and if anyone deserved one, it was her, and if
ever there was a night for miracles to happen, it would be Christmas Eve.

By this time
the doctors had given up trying to get me to leave, after days of arguing and
issuing threats and me refusing, they’d come to accept me as a permanent
fixture in her room. That night after they’d checked on her before lights out
time, I crawled up in the bed beside her, careful not to jostle or bump her. I
just needed to be next to her, to hold her hand and run my fingers over her
cheek and hair. I needed to breathe her in and remember what it felt like to
fall asleep beside her.

It was
almost perfect.
Almost.

Sometime in
the middle of the night, I felt a stirring beside me,
then
I heard a soft groan. I shot up so fast and flipped on the nearby light. It
wasn’t very bright since it wasn’t the main, overhead light, but it was enough
that I could make out
Jax’s
face as she struggled to
open her eyes. I could see them fluttering slightly, but never quite opening
all the way. I gave her hand a squeeze and whispered her name, but she was
already out again.

 I
immediately went in search of a nurse and told her what happened. She checked
Jax’s
vitals and said everything looked good and that it
was a good sign that she was coming out of the coma. She said they’d take her
in for another brain scan in the morning.

That never happened
though, because first thing in the morning, almost before the sun was even up,
she woke up, or well she tried to wake up. She started to, her eyes fluttering
again, and her hand twitched in mine. She managed another groan that the doctor
and nurse heard too.

 
“Princess?”
I said, rubbing my thumb over the back of her
hand. I know she heard me, because at first her whole body, which she had been
struggling to move, stilled. She recognized my voice, but then something
happened. All the sudden the beeping on the machines increased and she started
whimpering and trying to suck in breaths like she couldn’t get enough oxygen.
She was having another panic attack right there in the hospital bed, and I
didn’t understand why.

The doc
urged me away from her as the nurse readied a syringe.

 “What’s
happening to her? What are you giving her?” I was panicking now too.

“It’s just a
sedative to calm her down until she’s ready to wake up,” the nurse answered me
as the doctor continued going back and forth between checking the machines and
Jax.