When I saw him step forward and reassure me with his words, I felt better and relaxed as much as I could, against the pillow. He was still here. He hadn’t left me, and I stared at him a moment watching as his dark eyes furrowed and his gaze lingered on my face.
Then a doctor stepped forwards and asked if I was epileptic. I didn’t know why they asked that, and I could only watch, as one of the doctors stepped away, beckoning to Mason and leading him outside. Mason glanced over at me with a worried expression before he followed the doctor outside and closed the door over. My heart began to race in panic. I’d said they could speak to him about my medical conditions, but I was anxious to know what they were talking about. One of the nurses, Sally, who was short, blonde and had some really cool tattoos on her forearms, smoothed my hair from my head.
“They’re just outside, honey. He’ll back in a moment,” she muttered.
I pulled my gaze from the doorway to see her watching me.
“He’ll be back in a minute, but he sure is handsome.”
I gave her a small smile that she returned, and then she glanced at the male nurse, on the other side, who also gave me a small grin, when I met his eyes. His dark skin glittered in the unflattering light and his curly hair was cropped short, with just little curls on top of his head.
“He’s much more handsome in person, though I love the video for Undue Attraction.”
He gave me a smirk as I blushed a little. Picturing Mason, writhing about on the bed and singing to the girl underneath him, how he wanted her more than anything ever. The video was so hot, that it had ended up banned and Black Mercy had to record another one. My heart began to pound because I began to worry that Mason would leave, and I’d be all alone. Then I’d be broken, completely and utterly broken, by him. He could go and get on with his life and I’d be left picking up the pieces of my shattered one, for the third time. I knew I hadn’t wanted to see him initially, but now that he was here and fighting for me, I didn’t want him to leave me.
My eyes began to leak, as I thought about never seeing Sophia or Lucca again. It hurt my heart to know that they’d never know I hadn’t abandoned them. I put my head into my hands and began to cry. The pain was too much and even though the nursing staff had given me pain relief, it hadn’t really taken the edge off. Everything was still painful.
Mason walked into the room and came over beside me, as the staff all left the room. I breathed a small sigh of relief, that he was still here. I wasn’t sure I’d wanted him here, but he’d stayed, and it meant more to me, than I could explain to him.
“Hey, Ambs,” he muttered.
When I glanced up at him, his face paled, and he rushed over to me. His hand hovered uselessly over me and I could see him struggling with wanting to hold me, and not wanting to hurt me.
“Amber, what is it? What can I do?” he asked.
I turned to him, breaking down because he was still here. He still wanted me, even though I was bruised, broken, and would hurt him even worse, when I told him that his own sister was involved. I also felt guilty for leaving him, when I promised I wouldn’t. I swore to him I wouldn’t leave him again and at the first sign of trouble, I turned tail and ran. He put his arm around my shoulder, and it was so far from what I wanted from him. I wanted to crawl into his lap and have him hold me. I wanted him to help me forget the memories, that surfaced in my mind, of them beating me and hurting me.
“Mason.”
I sobbed brokenly, apologizing for how I’d been with him and wanting to tell him why seeing him hurt. It was only partly to do with what they said. I knew that they, were trying to break me. Hearing Helena say he didn’t care about me, as much as I did about him, was still playing on my mind. I had to tell him, and opened my mouth to do just that, when he began speaking again.
“Amber, I am so sorry I hurt you again. I was never getting back with Ollie. I was playing for time, until she left, so I could get a restraining order. You are the only person I want and I’m so sorry I hurt you …” he told me in a hoarse whisper.
I could see he was holding something back from me, but I didn’t know what it was. Instead of dwelling on it, I told him part of what else was bothering me. My words were broken, and I watched as his eyes darkened as he took me in, and I had to do it. I had to tell him how much it was hurting; how much their words were tearing at my heart and my soul. I took a small breath, winced as my ribs burned, then told him about what had happened in a low whisper. My heart hammered as I watched him digest the words and his eyes filled with tears. I watched as one broke free and rolled down his cheek, but it was his words that made me feel a little better. I was still hurt and still broken, but his next words, healed a small part of what was wrong.
“Amber,” he began in a gravelly, whisper, “I would have given everything I have, everything I own to get you back safely. You being taken, was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me and I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. I didn’t know what to do, or who to trust, but I would have gone to the ends of the earth to get you back.”
He paused and lowered his lips to mine, kissing me softly on the side of my lips. Then held me in his arms until I relaxed enough to fall asleep.
I woke up a while later and saw Mason’s head on his arm, beside me. One hand was across my abdomen and the other was under his cheek.
I watched his steady shoulders rise and fall with his breaths and thought back over the past few months, to all the trials and tribulations, he had caused me. My body was aching, but I didn’t move, because I didn’t want to disturb him.
My eyes drifted closed and I nodded back off to sleep, waking up to an empty room in the morning. My eyes scanned the room for him, but he wasn’t there. The nurses came in to tell me that I was going for a CT scan. My heartrate began to rise, but the nurse came and sat with me, speaking to me in a calming voice, until my body responded. I began to calm down and breath in time with her and then Mason came back into the room.
His hair was curling a little and his clothes were creased, but he gave me a small smile and walked over, kissed me on the forehead. He muttered in my ear that he was going home to get changed, but would be back in the afternoon. He gave me another small kiss on the side of my lips, that caused my heart to race. The kiss was embarrassing in more ways than one, because the nurse was still in the room and could see my heartbeat spiking on the monitor and she could see how much Mason cared about me.
Once he was gone, I was helped into a wheelchair and wheeled into the MRI department. As the machine moved overhead and scanned my body, I lay on the cool metal table thinking of Mason. I couldn’t stop myself wondering what would happen with Helena. I tried to stop thinking about it, because it was causing my blood pressure to rise and my breathing to speed and I was supposed to try and relax. I lay there for a while and tried to listen to the whirring of the machine and focused solely on that. My life since I’d met Mason, hadn’t been easy, not at all, but I did love him, and he captivated me. He made me feel things that no-one else had and although, we had things to work through, I was sure we could find a way.
As I was wheeled back to my room, the nurse chatted away about this and that, but I was only half listening. My body was aching worse than ever, I just wanted to take some pain relief and try to sleep a bit more.
“Can I have some pain relief please?” I asked the nurse, and she gave me a small nod, before she wandered over to my chart.
Her eyes scanned it for a moment, and then she turned back to me with a smile. The sunlight caught her blonde hair and made her skin look ethereal, but it was her words that froze my heart.
“I’ll just need to check with the doctor what analgesia I can administer, with you being pregnant. I’ll be back soon.”
That simple phrase exploded my world and she just left me there, reeling without looking back at me. Her words echoed in my head and I sat in stunned silence, trying to digest them, to process the news that I hadn’t expected, wanted, or been prepared fo
r.
I was pregnant.
How?
When?
I couldn’t think straight, and my head swam with questions. It was Mason’s. There was no doubt about that, but would he still want me?
Would he want me to keep our baby?
Would he want me to leave if I wanted it?
Could we cope with another baby?
My brain was scrambled with all the questions and I sat there numbly waiting on the nurse to come back. My breathing was becoming more erratic which was hurting my ribs and my heart rate was beginning to spike.
The nurse returned and with her came the doctor, who wheeled in a large ultrasound machine. I’d had an ultrasound done one other time, a few years before. When I was a party girl and had been pregnant, but it was an ectopic pregnancy. I almost had to have surgery, but I miscarried naturally. The pain of my miscarriage threatened to overwhelm me, and I tuned out the first words of the doctor, as he stood in front of me.
“Amber.” He stepped forwards kindly and picked up the wand. “May I?” he asked.
I nodded numbly, unsure what I’d just agreed to, since I’d been lost in my mind for the first part of the conversation. He moved closer and lifted my top, squirting some cool gel onto my abdomen. Then he pressed one of the scanners onto my stomach and moved it about. He kept his eye on the screen and then I saw him shake his head.
“Amber, I’m very sorry to tell you that your yolk sack is empty,” he told me kindly, and I saw the nurse grimace as she watched my reaction.
“I don’t know what that means,” I told him truthfully.
I clenched my hands and stared at him. I wished Mason was here. I wished someone was here to hold my hand.
“It means that unfortunately, there is no baby in there and you’ll have a natural miscarriage. I’m very sorry.”
I nodded at his words as my eyes spilled over and my heart cracked. I’d only known I was pregnant for a short while, but to have that snatched away from me. To lose the baby I didn’t even know I wanted, was more than heartbreaking.
“Casey here is going to take the ultrasound machine out and I’ll be back soon to discuss the results of your CT scan. If you need anything, just buzz and one of the nurses will come in.”
He put his hands in his pockets and left the room, leaving me with the jelly still on my abdomen. My hands scrubbed and scrubbed at it and eventually, I collapsed back against the bed, crying softly, as Mason walked through the door.
His eyes were red rimmed, and he looked lost, broken and in pain. I didn’t know if he knew about the pregnancy yet, but I wasn’t going to tell him, while he was so devastated looking.
“Amber,” he began, but he broke off as the door opened again and the doctor popped his head into the room.
“Ah, Mr. Michaels, I’m glad you are here. I need to discuss something with both of you.”
He came into the room and Mason walked up beside me, sitting down and taking my hand in his. His was shaking, but he watched the doctor intently.
Dr. Jason, introduced himself to both of us and pulled up a chair, sitting down across from Mason, at the foot of my bed.
“Amber, there is no easy way to tell you this, but there is swelling around your brain and part of your skull is fractured. It needs immediate, surgical intervention because a blood clot is forming. If we don’t act quickly enough, then you could have a stroke. I know that this isn’t easy to hear, but I need to know that you’ll consent to this surgery, and we’ll get you up there straight away.”
He glanced between Mason and me. I didn’t know how to react, because I was feeling completely overwhelmed. My head raced, I shrugged and waited for someone to speak again. Mason watched me for a moment and then turned back to the doctor.
“If she doesn’t have this surgery, then what?”
His words were harsh, and I could see him bouncing his left leg in, agitation.
“Well if she doesn’t stroke out, then we start her on blood thinners immediately, but I would strongly recommend the surgery. She’ll be walking around with a ticking time bomb in her head,” the doctor answered, and I could see Mason mulling it over.
“I want the surgery,” I told them in a small voice.
I didn’t know if they’d forgotten I was there, or that I was capable of making my own decisions.
“The surgery, though,” Mason continued as if he hadn’t heard me. “Will it be risk free?”
“No surgery is risk free and with Amber, the odds are entirely in her favor. She’s young, healthy and has no history of blood clots, so we have a very good chance of removing the clot, without any major incident.”
Mason looked at me and then closed his eyes.
“I don’t know. Can we have some time to discuss this?” he asked the doctor.
My mouth popped open in surprise. I wanted the surgery. I didn’t want to die, and I didn’t know what was holding him back. The doctor nodded at us with a surprised expression on his face.
“I’ll be right down the corridor. Let me know what you decide, and I’ll get organized.”
He stood and left the room and I wanted to scream after him to come back. I wanted to live without the threat of a stroke hanging over me, and I was perfectly capable of making my own decisions. I turned to face Mason with a mutinous expression on my face, ready to give him hell, when he began to cry. He put his head down into his hands and sobbed into them.
“Mason, what’s wrong?” I asked him.
I couldn’t reach him and when I tried to shift, he shook his head.
“Don’t, okay. Just don’t touch me. Stay where you are.”
I sat back against the bed in shock and watched as he broke apart, but I didn’t know why. After a few seconds, he stood, turned to face me and his eyes roamed all over me.
“Have the surgery or don’t. I don’t care anymore.”
His tone was harsh, but it was his eyes that caused me the most alarm. There was a cold dead look in them, that sent ice into my soul.
“Mason, what? I don’t understand…” I began in a low voice and he snarled.
“I don’t care anymore. I can’t. Have the surgery. It’s your life, but I don’t want to know either way. Not anymore.”
He gave me one last reproachful stare, then turned and walked out of the door, slamming it at his back.
“What the fuck was that?”
I muttered to myself, as I rolled my eyes up at the tiled ceiling above me. The door opened and the doctor popped his head back in.
“Amber, are you ready for the surgery? Mr. Michaels said you are going ahead with it?”
His calm and reassured voice gave me the strength to nod, and he nodded and left. Returning a moment later, with Casey, the nurse from earlier and another man I didn’t know.
“This is Doctor Jacobs. He’s our chief neurosurgeon, and he’ll be performing your surgery.”
Dr. Jacobs gave me a wry grin and nodded at me, before he turned back to Dr. Jason and left the room. Minutes later, they were back in, and I was being pushed towards the lift in a bed. We reached the Operating Room, and I was wheeled inside. A team of six people stood to greet me and Dr. Fracini, the anesthetist introduced himself, as he came over and spoke to me. He placed a mask over my mouth and told me to count to ten. I began counting and after two, my memory was blank. Until that was, I woke up in recovery, hours later, with a pounding skull and an ache in my heart that wouldn’t let up.
Chapter Five
Misplaced Anger
Mason
I went home to change and was hoping to be back at the hospital, before Amber even noticed I was missing. When I got home though, there was more activity in my house, than there should have been.
I slowly walked inside and saw my mom and dad, standing there. My mom looked devastated and my dad, stoic. I wanted to ask what was going on, when my stomach dropped out.
“Mom? Dad?” I asked in a small voice and my mom shook h
er head, as more tears fell.
“What’s going on?” I asked around the ball of dread, unfurling in my abdomen.
My mind was racing, and I began shaking. Helena. It could only be about Helena. I’d told Joe to pick her up last night. I said I’d deal with all of her betrayal today.
“Mason, you better come sit down, son,” my dad told me.
I knew from his tone. I just knew that she was gone. I followed blindly after my dad, as he led us into the living room. He sat on one sofa with my mom and I sat on the other.
“What’s going on?” I repeated.
I noticed mom dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief as she sobbed into her hands. She took deep breaths and every time she looked at me, she shook her head and began crying again. She’d had one for as long as I could remember, and it gave me a small bit of comfort to know, that she was still using it.
“Helena was found…” my dad began and I almost relaxed until I realized what he’d said.
“Found where? What do you mean found? What happened?” I asked them, pushing for information, that I wasn’t even sure they had.
“In the bay. Someone raised the alarm that a man was dragging a woman onto the bridge. By the time the cops got there, it was too late. I’m so sorry son, but Helena is dead...”
His voice shook and my dad, my strong, pillar of strength dad, had tears streaming down his cheeks. I stared at him in shock and then the anguish pulled me under.
“No. No. She can’t be. I was speaking to her last night. I told her she’d be okay, and that Joe would go to get her.”
I couldn’t believe it and seeing my parents so broken, hurt beyond belief. There was a commotion in the kitchen, I stood on shaking legs and forced my feet to move towards the door, leaving my parents on the sofa.
“Mason,” my dad called.
I ignored him, as I walked into the kitchen. Quinn, Harris, Joe and Norry stood talking with their backs to the door. Everything went silent as soon as the boys took me in. I glanced around and noticed that Lewis was missing.
Broken Mercy Page 4
