by K. S. Adkins
Biting back the scream clawing to get out, I asked, “What the fuck is going on, Iggy?” Between the whiskey, Jon being alive, and Jon being stabbed, I was close to losing it.
I couldn’t even make sense of it.
“We had a good thing,” he said, circling me like a lion now. “You really shouldn’t have crawled in bed with a Fed.”
In my defense, I had no idea and said as much. “I didn’t know.” But, I did not bother to correct him that the DEA and FBI were too different sectors. Honestly, I stayed quiet because I didn't want to get stabbed like Jon.
“I set you up, made sure you were solid. Not like that fucking coward over there,” he said, thumbing to Jon over his shoulder. Glancing at Jon, I willed him to get up, to help me, but he was grievously injured. I was fucked.
“All you had to do was fix the cars, Lizzy.”
“I fixed the cars, Iggy.”
“True.” He smiled. “But then you let Ram install cameras all over the fucking place, invited a Fed between those pretty thighs, and bought us a whole lot of unwanted attention. ‘Fraid I can’t let that stand.”
At this I had no response, none. Circling me again, I tried following him with my eyes, but he moved too quickly.
The shifty bastard.
Striking fast, the blade slid into my side effortlessly. The pain was slow in coming because the shock of it was too much. Stumbling forward, I cover my side out of instinct, hoping to keep the blood in. Jon screamed for me, but I ignored him, keeping my eyes on Iggy. Laughing heartily, he advanced, and I tripped over my own whiskey bottle, slamming into the wall with a scream.
“Then there’s Jonny boy,” he chuckled maniacally. “Went and got himself a conscience. Wanted to save his Lizzy, protect his boy. Cut me out of the business, make a deal with the Feds. Wrong!” he shouted and lunged forward to slash me again. Striking true, creaming in agony, I hit the floor, knees first, trying unsuccessfully to crawl away. As a taunt, Iggy kicked me in the ass, circled again, finally stepping on my fingers. Kneeling down, he fisted my hair, twisting me to face Jon. “Wonder what it’ll feel like to watch him die twice, Lizzy?”
I refused to answer him, but the truth was, it was unbearable. Losing Jon at nineteen scarred me so deeply I vowed never to love again. All these years he used my garage, thereby, putting my son’s life, my life, in danger. And he claimed to have done it for me. Then I meet Luke, setup or not, he was the one who forced me to believe in love again, only to lose it a second time.
So, when Iggy yanked harder and said, “This time you’ll be joining him,” I was close to accepting it. If it made the pain stop, the black dots disappear, and my heart stop aching, I’d let it all go. But then Iggy made a huge fucking mistake. Because when he said, “Next, I visit my nephew,” everything—and I mean everything—inside of me came alive.
Staying on the ground waiting for my chance was not an easy thing to do.
Especially as he continued to take his anger out on my body by kicking me. Luckily, Iggy bored quickly and assuming I was unconscious, moved away.
While he focused on yelling and beating Jon, quietly and carefully I struggled to my feet. Without taking my eyes off Iggy, who Jon knew to keep occupied for me, I reached into the third drawer of the toolbox next to me, slid out the mallet, and charged. Swinging swiftly, I caught Iggy upside the head, sending us both down with a crash. Jon was once again screaming, but I didn’t have the energy to tell him to shut up. Mallet in hand, I crawl over to Iggy to finish him off when he lashes out, slicing me across my chest. The burning was unlike anything I had ever felt and knowing this was my last chance, only chance to keep my son safe, I put all my weight, love, and determination into killing Iggy Rogers.
After a few decent swings, he stopped moving, and I was pretty sure I had succeeded.
But the pain was too intense to even let me enjoy the victory.
With nothing left, I crashed onto my back and stayed there.
Dazed and staring at the ceiling, I blink several times wondering where the pain went. Was it a dream? A nightmare? Rolling to my side I lift my shirt and see it wasn’t a dream. Two stab wounds and a gaping wound in my chest.
What a shitty way to go.
This made me think of Luke.
How I loved him, and how I owed him for keeping my son safe.
Luke would have been a terrific father. With me gone, I hoped he looked out for Ram. I prayed they could grieve together.
That their relationship would survive the test of time.
As blood surrounded me, I watched myself bleed out with detached eyes. Jon found the will to crawl to me, covering me with his body, crying as if he’d lost his soul. “Jon,” I struggled to say.
“Lizzy,” he begged. “Stay with me.”
“It’s okay, Ram’s safe now.”
“Lizzy, oh God,” he cried, but it sounded so far away. “Forgive me, please.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said before I let myself drift.
Despite being cold, I vaguely heard yelling, my name being torn from someone’s throat. Yes. He was here. Luke. My heart. The man who showed up, knocked my safe world on its ass, and opened my eyes to love. Though I had no voice, I prayed to whoever was listening that he found his way to love another because I knew it wouldn’t be me. It couldn’t be because I was fading.
Unable to take another breath of my own, I was aware my body was shutting down, and I didn’t fight it.
“Baby, don’t die,” I heard from worlds away, but was unable to find my way back to him. “Come back to me, fight! We haven’t had enough time!” Over and over again he begged me to fight, but I had fought. I’d won too, and now my son was safe from harm, he would live, he would love.
Since the day Jon died, my life had gone through what I called the ‘When’ stages.
When I did this, When Ram was older, When I got better, When I had enough money...
The word I used as an excuse not to live my life to the fullest, a way to protect my fragile heart.
But then I always knew that when I fell in love again it would be forever...
Hell, I even knew the night outside at the bar that when I fell in love it would be with Luke Temple.
It would always be Luke for me in this life and the next.
So of course, it would be when I was dying in his arms I would finally figure my shit out...
And couldn’t do a fucking thing about it.
With what I knew to be my final breath, I pictured my baby, my precious Rambler, said his name like a prayer, and let it all go.
From someplace safe and warm I heard my dad’s voice. Rambler Sr.
He was not a man who backed down in life, especially when it came to family.
Which was why I named my son after him.
His voice was soothing, even though it was rough, and he swore more than I did. When I found out I was pregnant, I came to him scared of his reaction, but my dad kissed my temple and said, “This baby will be loved.” And true to his word, Ram was. Clearly a gift granted to me for a brief time, I absorbed every word he spoke, even though I didn’t grasp why he was threatening to kill someone.
“If you didn’t have a hole in your gut, and Doris wouldn’t faint, I’d slice you from sac to sternum.” My mom, Doris, was slightly less rough around the edges than her husband. So, when she chimed in with, “I haven’t had lunch, I won’t faint, you go on ahead,” I felt myself smile. A fierce protector herself. When she found out Jon’s parents disowned him for knocking me up, she drove to their home and let them both have it. My mom loved Jon, loved me, and was over the moon for her only grandson, Ram.
Letting their love surround me, I closed my eyes and faded away.
Intense pressure surrounded me, I didn’t like it.
In fact, I hated it.
Off in the distance, as if I was in a tunnel, I pushed beyond the distortion, the oppressive noise, and heard my son.
Ram was dis
tressed, which distressed me. I needed to help my son, but hadn’t I done that? Had I failed? I tried to call for him, but my voice was absent. I tried reaching for him but had no arms, no body… How could I soothe him if I couldn’t hold him? I needed my hands. Then I heard him speaking to someone, and he did it in such a way I knew, if I had a body I’d have drawn back. Ram never disrespected an elder, but whoever had his anger, I knew it to be justified. “—Could kill you myself, you selfish prick. Don’t fucking look at her because if you do, I swear to God, I’ll come around this bed and choke the life out of you.”
A million voices drowned him out, and I wept for the son I couldn’t hold.
I was warm again, too warm actually.
Like I was wrapped in a heated blanket, and it was making me sweaty.
Part of me wondered if menopause followed me into the afterlife, and when the heat spread throughout my body I realized it had. Which meant I was in hell. Figures.
Fuck me, now I was freezing.
Who was in charge of my journey, Frosty the fucking snowman?
Jon’s agonized voice stopped me from screaming for management. Focusing on him, I pushed the cold away to listen. Some of it made sense, most did not. He said things like, “Going away for a while,” and “Your forgiveness would mean the world to me,” and “He hates me, Lizzy.”
I wasn’t able to keep up or piece it together, and I was getting pissy.
So, when he said, “You gonna hold up your end? Fix her?” I had no idea what he was talking about.
Then I knew if I had the ability to cry, I would because my dad, mom, and Ram jumped all over Jon. And Jon, well, he took it.
“She wouldn’t need fixing if it wasn’t for you, you cowardly piece of shit,” came from dad.
“If she wasn’t on death’s door, she’d had crippled you like I taught her,” this from mom.
“Do her a favor and don’t be here when she wakes up. Better yet, do us all favor and fucking go,” this from Ram.
But it was when I heard Luke that my heart sped up. He felt close, like he was next to me, and I was no longer cold. “Enough,” he said silencing the room. “You caused a lot of unnecessary heartache, this ain’t news. Your presence upsets Rambler, Doris, and your son. Now you sending orders my way is upsetting me. When she wakes up, if she so much as frowns at seeing your face, I’ll personally see to it that you’ve got a private room in the ICU. We clear?”
Whatever was happening needed to stop, I couldn’t take it. I scream. Even though no one could hear me, I did it anyway. The people I loved were hurting, and Jon was adding to it. Why was Jon torturing me? I decided right then and there that the afterlife was a huge fucking nightmare. How was I supposed to move on when my family needed me to referee? Whoever I pissed off, whatever I did to earn this punishment, I begged them for forgiveness.
Let me move on!
Let me move on!
Let me move on!
And what in the hell was happening that I was dead but hungry for a hamburger?
Surgery to save Lizzy’s life had taken nearly ten hours.
For every problem they fixed, another one arose.
But around two a.m. her team of doctors declared the procedures a success.
The relief was instant and welcome, but our nerves were shot.
Early the next morning, we were finally told she was being taken from recovery to her private room. So, when we were allowed access to her and found Jon in with her first before her own son, parents, or myself got to see her, shit went from bad to hostile.
Lizzy’s father wasted no time issuing threats with his normally passive wife joining in.
Ram, who had already been balancing on the knife’s edge for hours, lost it. And it was unlike anything I’d ever seen. Jon wasn’t in any condition to stop Ram when he drug him out into the hall and kicked his ass for daring to touch his mom. And speaking of moms, Lizzy’s was cheering her grandson on like he was running for a touchdown at the Superbowl.
It took his grandpa and I several attempts to pull him off, though I will admit I wasn’t giving it my all.
So what if the kid slipped a few extra swings in? Poetic justice if you asked me.
Hell, the prick was so drugged up from his own injuries I wasn't sure he'd feel too much and honestly didn't care if he did.
While I didn’t have any say in how Jon’s deal played out, I was far from pleased to find part of it was access to Lizzy.
Being a patient himself, he saw a way to get close to her and refused to spill until his demands were met.
And man, did that motherfucker have a list.
Number one on that list was his presence in the room when Lizzy woke up.
Which had not gone well at all. Fuck, I hoped the two men guarding Jon received hazard pay because Ram was just looking for an in before he attacked again. The poor kid was lost, scared, and shouldn’t be dealing with Jon’s ass, too.
But the feds didn’t give a shit about that. It wasn’t their woman, mother, or daughter in that bed fighting to survive.
Here they had a man who would sing like a bird, giving them everything they needed to shut the supplier down as long as he got his way.
A supplier who, I should mention, was not Iggy Rogers.
Jon wasn’t stupid, he had to know if he made it to prison he’d die in there. Snitches didn’t last long.
But the guy had a hair up his ass to do right by Lizzy and Ram.
Did his son care? No. Because when Jon made the error of explaining to the room what he’d been up to the last twenty-two years no one (myself included) gave a fuck. His actions changed the course of Lizzy’s life and not for the better. His twenty-four-year-old son knew this and wanted zero to do with his dad because of it.
But there’s been some good, too. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know her father, Rambler Sr., and her mother, Doris. Lizzy took after both of her parents equally, inside and out. Good people, solid people, who loved their daughter fiercely.
In the first few hours in the quiet of her room, none of us knew what to do. We were helpless.
Nurses came in to check vitals, administer medication, and encourage us, but all we could do was stare at the woman each of us loved more than life itself. A woman covered in tubes and wires. She had them down her throat, on her chest, in her arms, between her legs... it was more than I could take.
But I forced myself to stay calm for Ram’s sake, her parents’ sake, and my own goddamn sanity.
Sensing we were close to our breaking point, it was her father who broke through by telling stories that had Ram and I laughing one minute, wincing the next.
For hours, her parents spoke of their daughter. One thing was clear, Elizabeth Hudson was a born hell-raiser, did what she wanted, and having Ram only mellowed her out slightly.
Then there was that moment when conversation fell silent and all you could hear was the machines keeping her alive. That’s when I explained who I was, and why I lied to Lizzy.
After my explanation, no one judged or laid blame, even when I deserved it and more.
And when no more words could come, Ram spoke up, “Luke loves Ma.”
Lizzy’s father smiled and said, “That’s good news, Ram.”
Doris leaned into her husband. “If she can forgive Jon, she can forgive you.”
But it was Ram who nudged me and said, “I never thanked you. For doing what you did for her; I never said the words.”
“No need,” I nudged him back. “Just doing my job.”
“That’s not what I’m thanking you for, Luke,” he said, linking his hands with mine. Now I understood what Lizzy was talking about. There was something about this kid’s hands. “I’m thanking you for making her happy.”
“Shit,” I mumbled, lowering my eyes.
“For loving my Ma,” he continued. “For uh…loving me.”
“You’re a good kid,” I said, pulling him in for a hug. “The fucking
best, Ram.”
But he was his mother’s son, and to break an emotional moment he smirks and asked, “Can I call you daddy now?”
Pulling him in tight, I got serious and said, “Yes.”
That was two days ago.
Since then, Ram and Jon had to be separated at all times, Rambler and Doris kept away from any sharp objects they could cut him with, and that was before her guys showed up. Those three fuckers came in guns-a-blazin’, worried over Lizzy; but when they spotted Jon, they went after his ass while I held Ram back from jumping in. Security was called, the fucking cops were called, and through it all, my Lizzy never woke.
But I know she’ll be pissed when she finds out she missed this.
Which is why I promised Ram next time I’d film it, and her parents offered to do the honors in case I wanted to get my licks in. And believe me, I did.
This morning, Haines stopped by to personally check on Lizzy. And out in the hall, he let me know he had all the surveillance videos back. Ram heard this and said he wanted to be there when I watched them. I didn’t agree or disagree because even the thought of watching it made me want to kill someone, namely Jon.
Jon, who was a constant pain in all of our asses by being up Lizzy’s. Each time the nurses come in to check her wounds, give her meds, and update us, I felt my failure all over again. It’s been Ram who snapped me out of it. Because I fucked up, and it nearly killed her. If anyone deserved to be hooked to those machines, it was me.
Hours after having the tubing removed from her throat, Lizzy opened her eyes at 8:16 p.m. on a rainy Tuesday night.
From the corner of her hospital room, I watched her parents cry in joy, her son cry in relief, and Jon cry for the life he missed out on. Lizzy, who was confused, in pain, and overwhelmed, watched her family fall apart and cried her own tears when she couldn’t help them. With her loved ones crowded around her bed, and Ram calling a temporary truce with Jon, it was when I heard Lizzy whisper, “Luke,” that I fell apart.
It felt like hours had passed since I woke to my family crying over me.
