Page 99 of Avenged

“I shouldn’t have. Fuck… I didn’t know.” All the anger flew out of him as he remembered why we were there. That Violet was down the hall in an ER room, and we didn’t know how she was.

I leaned up against the wall next to him, shoulders touching, and closed my eyes. One more thing to blame myself for as much as he was blaming himself. If I hadn’t pushed him away, if I hadn’t acted like a dad instead of a brother, he would have called me. Violet wouldn’t be in the hospital.

“She could barely drive the stick shift. I don’t know how she got it out to the race site without killing the car. I told her to pull over, and I drove. I didn’t see the deer until it was too late. When I swerved, we went off the cliff.”

God. He’d wrecked Jersey’s car, as well as her sister. But then, when I looked over at him, there was defiance written all over his face. As if he was daring me to challenge his story. And that made me want to do just that. There was no way he would have wrecked a car avoiding a deer. Dawson was good behind the wheel of everything he drove. He was right about one thing whenever he talked about the accident back in Clover Lake. It hadn’t been his fault. He’d been the reason anyone had walked away at all.

“She was driving,” I breathed out. It made much more sense. She’d been driving, without a license, and he was protecting her.

“No,” he said, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes.

The same nurse who’d taken Jersey back walked by, and I stepped forward toward her. “Please, we just want to know if Violet is okay?”

“Are you family?”

I started to say no before remembering the truth. “She’s my sister-in-law.”

The woman looked to Dawson and then back to me.

“She’s got a broken nose, a concussion, and a fractured wrist.”

Thank God. Broken bones. Things that mended. “She doesn’t have a spleen.”

She nodded. “We’ll keep her overnight to make sure there’s no clotting, and the doctor will likely prescribe some medications to make sure nothing happens as a result, but she’s going to recover.”

I heard Dawson gasp for breath next to me, and I turned from the nurse to find my broody, muscled brother sliding to the floor, head in his hands, crying. The nurse stepped forward, and I just shook my head. “He’s okay. Just relieved.”

She took us in a moment longer and then walked down the hall. I sank down next to him and put an arm around his shoulder. “She’s gonna be okay, Daw. You heard her. Just some broken bones. Things that mend.”

He rubbed his face and leaned back against the wall, making me remove my arm. “I don’t know what I would have done...” he trailed off.

“Don’t think that way. She’s okay. You’re okay. That’s all that matters.”

And it was. They were both alive. They both had been very lucky. I wasn’t sure Jersey would see it that way. I was pretty sure she’d hate Dawson for the rest of her life, but at the moment, I was just grateful he was alive for her to hate.

I didn’t know what that would mean for Jersey and me. I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to “go claim my woman” as Eli had said after all of this, but it would have to wait. Right now, it was going to have to be about getting them both home and healed.

Jersey

RESCUE ME

“Would you take my call when I started to crack?

Would you rescue me?

When I need your love, if I need your help,

Would you rescue me?”

Performed by OneRepublic

Written by Tedder / Kutzle

Violet was asleep when I entered the room. The nurse had updated me on her status as we’d walked down the hall. Broken nose. Broken wrist. Concussion. They’d be in to wake her up shortly to make sure she didn’t lose consciousness permanently. My entire body convulsed at that thought. Fear. Anger. Pain.

Vi was wearing a hospital gown, and a blanket was pulled up to her chest. Someone had pulled her hair out of her face badly, or maybe she’d had a ponytail in that had gotten messed up through everything she’d been through. The purple strands by her face were streaked with rust color. Blood.

Tears rolled down my face unchecked, and my heart skipped another thousand beats before it started again. Even though she was older than she’d been when I’d sat next to her after they’d removed her spleen and they’d arrested Dad, in many ways, she looked the same. Sleeping. Pale.

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