Page 21 of A Twist of Fate

I don’t remember the ride in the ambulance.

Shock. That’s the word I kept hearing. The only one that seemed to get through. Surgery. They said that one too when I was able to make my mouth work to ask. All they kept saying was, “She’s in shock,” or “He’s in surgery, honey.”

It didn’t feel like he was in surgery.

It felt like he was gone.

I was alone. The room they took me to, eventually, was quiet as a church on a Monday.

“Gretchen?” I heard a familiar, feminine voice say from the doorway. The nurse had walked out moments ago, after refusing to update me on Toby’s status, and had left the door open. I turned my head slightly to the side to see the woman who stood there.

“Ever!” I called out as the tears leaked down my face again. She would be able to tell me something. She was family. She could find out. Actually, it wasn’t just Ever there. Her mother and father were with her. “Please!” I begged with my raspy voice. “They won’t tell me.” I had to stop speaking as the sobs forced their way to the surface. “Is he okay?”

“Is who okay?” Ever asked me, looking both puzzled and hurried.

“Toby,” I managed to get his name out even though it was only a whisper on my lips. A prayer. Because I knew. I knew. I couldn’t feel him anymore. Before, I could always feel the possibility, the anticipation of seeing him again. Now, all I could see was the look in his eyes before… I refused to see it again. To see what she had done.

Ever and her parents moved further into my room then. I had to explain. “We were on our way,” I started to tell them. “Your house. We were headed there to…” I glanced down at my belly, my hand moving over it, cradling what we had been so damn excited to tell them. I glance back up to see two more men in my room, ones I had seen in passing before when picking Toby up from the clubhouse. “I am…” I couldn’t speak past the tears. The damn things kept clogging my throat and making it too thick. “I was pregnant. We were going to tell you,” I blurted out before my words failed me again. I didn’t have a chance to get anything else though before Ever and her mother swooped in and cradled me in their arms while I cried for what I’d lost.

“Oh, sweet girl,” Lucy whispered against my hair.

“Gretchen,” Ever choked up and couldn’t get anything else out as she held on to me until I winced from the pain of her pushing on one of the sore spots on my arm.

“What is going on in here?” It sounded like the doctor who had been in to see me earlier. “You all need to leave,” he ordered with authority.

Lucy stood, moving away from me, albeit it looked as though she was doing so reluctantly. “We are her family,” she stated coolly.

“Lucy?” The man asked as he moved around Merc so he could see who all was in the room beyond the men who crowded nearer to the door. “What’s going on? I was told the young lady didn’t have family here to call.”

“My son is her man, so she has his family here with her, and you will update her on his condition as if she was one of us,” Lucy informed him. God, my heart thundered in my chest. We didn’t even get to tell her about us and here was Toby’s mother, making sure I was a part of them. She was making sure I could get answers too.

“Yeah, okay, we’ll see to that,” my doctor agreed. Then he turned his attention back on me. “Are you okay with these people being here when we talk about your condition though?”

Deck was suddenly there. Somehow, I had missed his presence altogether. He spoke and left the room before I could really pull my thoughts together and understand what was going on around me. Everything was still very confusing and slightly foggy around the edges.

“Ms. Tierny,” he sighed. “We have an OB coming down to check you over and make sure that everything is as it should be.”

Tears raked down my face once more, if they ever even bothered to stop at all. “Everything isn’t as it should be,” I ground out. “I shouldn’t be here. Toby shouldn’t be in surgery. My baby shouldn’t be gone. What more do you want? Is there something else you’d like to take?” I knew my anger toward the doctor was unreasonable. I just didn’t know where else to put it in that moment.

Lucy was back by my side as the doctor stood there and tried to figure out how to say what needed to be said to me without causing more of an emotional outburst. “It’s okay sweetheart, we’ve got you. My boy will have you when he’s better too. Everything will be okay. You’ll see. I know it hurts right now, but you’ll heal and have many more grandbabies for me to spoil rotten, okay?” She stroked my hair as she spoke, and the calming gesture almost had me believing the words she spoke. At least, they had helped before the doctor finally spoke up again.

“We need to check to see if your body needs help with the,” my doctor seemed unsure of how to proceed with so many angry glancing being shot his way from Toby’s family. “I’m sorry,” he offered. “There isn’t an easy way to do something like this.” Toby’s father grabbed on to the doc’s shoulder and squeezed. I honestly couldn’t say if the gesture was meant to shut the man up or encourage him to just come out with it. I already knew what he was trying to say though. They needed to make sure I didn’t still have parts of my baby floating around inside my body. Just acknowledging that in my own head sent me into full-blown body-wracking sobs once more.

“Doc, how about you give the women a few minutes. You know who Lucy is?” The doctor nodded as Double-D spoke to him. “Let her work her magic.”

“Use the call button for the nurse’s station,” the doctor explained before giving the family some time alone with me.

“Yeah man, make sure that they bring any news of Toby to us here. We’ll be sitting with his woman until he’s brought back down.” Toby’s dad didn’t give any room for argument as he told the doctor what to do. I sort of admired him for that, but it was a fleeting feeling. It seemed I wasn’t capable of holding onto much beyond anger and overwhelming sadness.

The anger rode me hard, and before I realized what I was doing, words were spilling out of my mouth. “She tried to kill us. She did this. She took my baby. I warned him she’d been coming around more and more. My baby is gone now. What am I supposed to do? I want to take everything from her the way she took it all from me.”

Double-D came marching over to the side of the bed where his wife was holding on to me. He lowered himself to his knees so he could look me in the eye. “What did you just say, darlin’?”

“She killed my baby!” I yelled at him as tears once again changed the tone of my voice to one I didn’t recognize. It almost sounded inhuman to my ears.

“Who?” He asked me, though judging from the flash of something in his eyes, I was sure he knew exactly who I was talking about. Toby had gone to his dad just days before to try to get something done about the woman. That conversation was no doubt playing itself out in his head again.

“Seneca,” I managed to get her name past my lips even though that bitch didn’t deserve to ever have anyone know who she was. “Your fucking club whore killed my baby!”

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