Something Other than Fear

by Taylor, Kerry

  “I……I don’t know. She was just there…..at the door. She passed out and I can’t…….I tried, but I can’t Jack!” I tried desperately to explain.

  “It’s ok man, I have her now.” Jack reassured as he hurried over to her. He remained perfectly calm as he knelt beside her and checked her vitals. He looked at the cut on her head and lifted the hoodie she wore, a hoodie she had been wearing that last awful time I saw her. He checked for signs of internal bleeding. I stood back the entire time, just watching completely uselessly, unable to move as my anger level increased with each new injury I saw Jack reveal.

  “Her wrist is badly fractured, along with a couple of ribs. I’m worried about internal bleeding, but it’s hard to be sure when she’s so badly bruised.” And I knew what he meant. You couldn’t see one inch of Lucy’s skin on her abdomen and sides, it was entirely black and blue. I stared at her, just thinking the whole time of the million ways I would make Philip Greystone suffer when I got my hands on him! He was going to die a very painful death!

  “MATT!” Jack snapped me from my thoughts. I looked at him quickly. “You need to call 911. There’s no way we’re moving her again without a backboard. These bruises go around to the back and I’m worried there could be a spinal injury!”

  “Shit! I didn’t even think about that when I moved her” I gasped. What an idiot! I was trained in this stuff and I could have just paralysed my own sister by laying her on the sofa as I had!

  “Matt, just call 911, ok? Can you do that?” Jack asked, trying to snap me from my haze.

  “Yeah……yes, I’ll do it.” I agreed with a nod and I headed to the home phone in the kitchen. I called the ambulance and then stood in the kitchen and tried urgently to pull myself together. I was losing it and it was the last thing Lucy needed. She needed me to be there for her when she woke up, she needed her brother, not some revenge seeking moron! I took one more breath and then went back through to the lounge.

  “It’s on the way. Six minutes out.” I told Jack.

  “Good. How the hell did she get here Matt? I spoke to her a few days ago and she was definitely in the UK.”

  “I think she must have travelled here alone, like this…...in this state.” I realised as I said it.

  Jack said what I was thinking. “She took an eight-hour flight with these injuries? She couldn’t Matt!”

  “Oh, don’t be so sure. There’s nothing my sister can’t do if she sets her mind to it. She’s stubborn and so bloody strong.” There were tears in my eyes now as I thought of the pain she must have been through, not only getting to me, but for years, three years of surviving these beatings.

  “She’s going to be alright man. I’ll make sure of it.” Jack said as he stood up and put his hand on my shoulder again.

  “Is she? How can she ever be alright again after three years of this, and God knows what else he’s done to her!” I cried. Would I ever get my sister back from this? Looking at the state of her at that moment I really doubted it.

  “You said it yourself Matt, she’s strong and she has you now, and me. We’ll do whatever it takes to help her through.” I stood and took deep breaths, just praying he was right, that Lucy was strong enough to come through this.

  Minutes later there was a knock at the door and Jack rushed to open it to the paramedics. She was there with me, that's what I needed to focus on. I could and would get her through this.

  ***

  When we got to the hospital Jack took complete charge and set her up in a trauma room. He ordered drugs and IV’s and a mountain of tests. Nurses ran back and forth past me, and I just stood, praying Lucy would survive.

  “Matt, I’m taking her for an MRI now to check for internal bleeding.” Jack snapped me from my silent stare.

  “Ok. I’m coming!” I barked.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Jack She’s my sister! You can’t stop me!”

  “I can and I am, you’re not coming. You’re going to go and do whatever the fuck you need to do to get your shit together, because your sister won’t be unconscious forever and when she wakes up she’s going to need you to be here, not wherever you’ve been for the last hour!” Jack whispered harshly. I knew he was being purposely hard on me because he knew that was all that would work.

  “You’ll find me as soon as you’re done?”

  “You know I will man.” I nodded and watched as he pushed Lucy’s bed past me with two nurses. Jack was right, I was failing her again by being so self-absorbed. I had to get it together. I headed to the waiting room to get coffee and straighten my head out. I would be me again before I left that waiting room, I would be the Matt Lucy had come all of this way for.

  JACK

  As Lucy lay in the MRI I dialled the one person I knew who would force Matt to get himself together, the other member of our trio, Rob. I needed him to come and be with Matt while I took care of Lucy and I also needed him to start tracking Lucy’s husband, in case he tried to follow her. I knew Phil was unstable and likely to come chasing her eventually.

  Rob was an ex-marine and ran his own private security business. He was the best at what he did and would have no trouble digging into Phil’s life. He was a good man, my best friend and along with Matt and my mom, one of the only people I could depend on. I had known him since I signed up for the corps straight out of med school. We had found an unlikely friendship, despite being almost complete opposites of each other in many ways. We had survived training and served two tours together until I was honourably discharged with a debilitating leg injury after an IED hit the Humvee I was riding in. While I recovered and began a hugely different life completing my medical degree working at the hospital, Rob had served another two tours before leaving and starting his own private security firm in Chicago. He was like a brother to me and I trusted him with my life.

  “Jack! How’s the head?” He answered jovially. For a minute I had no idea what he meant. My night out and following hangover had long since been forgotten.

  “Rob, I need you at the hospital.” I said seriously.

  “Why?” He asked, instantly changing to his profoundly serious tone. “What’s happened. Are you ok?”

  “I’m fine. It’s Matt……well. It’s his sister actually. She turned up at his apartment this morning beaten worse than anything you could imagine. She’s in a bad way and I’m doing all I can for her, but I need you here for Matt. He’s really losing his shit!” I explained.

  “Fuck! Was it her husband, that sonofabitch you guys told me about?”

  “Matt didn’t get to speak to her, she passed out, but I’m guessing so. It had to be. I need you to look into him too. If he did this, he’s fucking nuts, he’ll be looking for her.”

  “Give me his name and I’ll set Mason on it before I head over there.” I knew I could count on Rob. He never, ever let me down. I gave him Phil’s name and as much info as I knew from my calls with Lucy over the years so his tech guy could look into it and then I hung up and got back to her. I knew I could count on Rob to take care of Matt while I did the best I could for Lucy.

  “There’s internal bleeding.” The MRI tech said as she brought up the scans. The bleeding was minimal, but there and I needed to do an exploratory laparotomy as soon as possible to stop it. I ordered an OR to be prepared and headed that way to change and scrub ready to operate. I sent a nurse to tell Matt what was going on and told her to assure him I wasn’t worried. I knew he would panic, so I sent the MRI scans on a tablet with her. I knew as soon as Matt studied them he would know I could handle it and maybe relax a little.

  I prepped for surgery and made my way into the operating room where Lucy lay ready to be anaesthetised. This was where I was most comfortable, in these rooms, this was where I knew one hundred percent what my every move was. I was born to work in these rooms, to hold precious lives in my hands. I took a deep breath and picked up the scalpel. I could do this; it was just like any other surgery.

  “Do you want me to call for a gynaecology
consult when you’re done here Dr Reed?” One of the scrub nurses asked just as I moved to begin. I stopped dead and stared at her.

  “Gynaecology?”

  “When we prepped her and got her into a gown we noticed she’s been bleeding heavily down her thighs. We assumed she was a rape victim?” Oh fuck, no! I swallowed a huge lump in my throat. Rape victim? That sonofabitch!

  “Yes, please schedule the consult as soon as we finish up, but don’t mention this to Dr Simmons if you speak to him. I’d like to tell him myself.” It would kill him if she had been raped as well as beaten.

  “Dr Simmons?” The nurse questioned.

  “This is his sister.”

  “Oh Lord!” The nurse declared. “This poor, poor girl.”

  “Let’s see if we can’t at least make her a little more comfortable” I said as I lowered the scalpel. I had to stop thinking about her, about the many phone calls we had shared during which she had tried so hard to hide her crying, trembling voice from me. This person on the table wasn’t the girl I had come to consider a younger sister over the last three years, she was simply a patient, like any other. She couldn’t be the girl I had come to love as family before I even met her, because if she were, I could never do my job and she needed me to do my job then, she could have my love another day.

  MATT

  The nurse showed me the scans and I forced myself to calm down a little. The bleeds were small, and I knew a talented surgeon like Jack could take care of it while standing on his head. I knew he would take care of her; I would trust him with my life. The nurse left and I paced back and forth. I had been in the waiting room for about twenty minutes and I had drunk coffee and focused on my breathing and everything else I could think of, but still anger raced through my veins and filled me with a need to smash something, preferably Phil’s face! I couldn’t calm myself down, all I could see was each and every injury on her body and images of Phil hurting her that day I had burst into their house. I should never have left her, I should have dragged her back kicking and screaming! She might have hated me for a while, but at least she wouldn’t be in surgery, completely destroyed! I had fucked up so majorly leaving her there in summer. I saw what he did, I pulled him off of her and still I walked away and left her there to be battered again and again! How could her own brother do that?!

  “Matt?” I snapped from my angry thoughts and found Rob in the doorway.

  “Rob? What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Jack called. Said you could do with some company?”

  “You didn’t have to…”

  “Matt, I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. We’re family and that makes Lucy family too. We take care of each other, we’re all in it together.” He said so firmly I couldn’t argue. They were my family, he and Jack. Other than Lucy they were all I had, the only ones I could call in a crisis and know they would be there. I needed them, I knew I did and so did Lucy.

  “You should see her Rob! She’s tiny, so tiny and thinner than I have ever seen her, but he still laid into her in a way I have never seen before. She is black and blue on almost every inch.….she’s such a state……that bastard has completely destroyed her!” I was almost hysterical, just needing to get it out, to vent to someone!

  “Matt, you need to breathe man. I can’t even comprehend how filled with rage you must be. Jesus! If anyone laid a finger on my little sister I would completely lose my shit!. I understand man, I do, but your sister…….Jack said she must have travelled all of the way here, in that state you described. She suffered the agony of hours of flying to get here to you because she needed you. She escaped from this psycho to come to you Matt and when she wakes up she will want to see you. This, whoever you are now, filled with anger and a thirst for this guy’s blood, that’s not you. She won’t even recognise you like this. She needs you to be who you always are, easy going, caring and calm. That’s what she came all of this way for, for you to hold her and tell her she’s safe, for you to tell her you will be here to care for her. She wakes up and sees you like this, she’ll be scared……after everything she’s been through Matt. I think she’s witnessed enough anger to last a lifetime, don’t you?” I knew he was right, but it didn’t change the terrible guilt I felt at how badly I had let her down.

  “I’ve fucked this whole situation up so bad Rob. I knew, when I went home for the wedding I knew something wasn’t right, but I shut it out for years, and left her there and then in summer I saw what that fucker did to her and I still walked away and left her!” I ranted. “You’re right. I have to get things right now. I won’t let her down again.”

  “There’s no point thinking what could have been done Matt. It’s too late to dwell on that now. She’s here and she’s out of it and like you say, this is the time to get things right!”

  “Jesus fucking Christ! I can’t fucking wait to wring that bastard’s neck though!”

  “The day to do that will come Matt and on that day the three of us will stand together and make this fucker pay, but until then we focus on Lucy. We focus on getting her strong and getting her through this mentally. It’ll be a long road.”

  “I know. That prick has been in her head for three years. I hope we can get him out again.” “We have to think about her safety too Matt. If this guy’s as nuts as it seems, he’ll be looking for her.”

  “Let him come. It’ll save me a trip!” I spat viciously. I would kill him when I saw him, of that I was certain.

  “I have one of my guys looking into him now. He’ll flag his passport, so we know as soon as he hits the US, if he does.”

  “He’ll come. He won’t ever let her go, not until I put an end to it all!”

  “Then that is what we’ll do when we come to it Matt, but right now Lucy needs you, needs us and that is priority, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” I agreed. I knew he was right. I would get Phil, I would make him pay, but at that time he was thousands of miles away and Lucy was right there with me. She was the one I needed to think of, the one I needed to turn my emotions to. “You’re right Rob.” I took a deep breath and tried to let my concern for Lucy overtake some of the anger within me.

  “Of course I am!” Rob said with a forced smile. “Now grab a seat and stop wearing the floor thin. I’ll get us some coffee and we’ll wait to hear from Jack, ok?” I nodded, he was a bloody good guy, they both were, he and Jack and I was so grateful to have them in my corner. I’d have been completely lost without them.

  I took a seat and sipped the coffee Rob handed me as we sat side by side, in a mutual silence, just anxiously waiting to know she would be alright.

  ***

  “Jack” I leapt up as I saw him walk into the room. He looked tired and worn down and I knew it must all be bringing back unpleasant memories of his own childhood. “How is she?” I asked as I hurried over to him.

  “She was stable throughout surgery and I got all the bleeds, so she’s doing well. I left her in recovery, but she’s still heavily sedate.” Jack explained.

  “Oh thank God and you…….thank you Jack.” I said calmly. “Can I see her? I know she’s still out, but I just need to be near her.”

  “Wait Matt. There’s something else we need to talk about first,” I knew from the look on Jack’s face and the tone of his voice, whatever he was about to tell me was bad, really bad.

  “What is it?” I asked hesitantly. I had to know, but I wasn’t sure I really wanted to.

  “You should sit down first Matt”

  “Jack, just bloody tell me!” I barked angrily.

  “When the nurses were prepping her……Lucy…….they changed her into a gown and they found blood……..a lot of blood, down her thighs Matt.” Jack was almost whispering, as though he dare not say the words. My heart stopped and I felt a rush of cold run down my body as I realised what he was saying.

  “They think…….you…..you think she was raped?” I gasped.

  “I have a gynaecology consult scheduled. We won’t know for sure until th
en, but from what was described to me, yeah, I’m sorry man, I think she was raped.”

  I fell back into a chair and buried my head in my hands. How would I survive this, let alone Lucy? How could she ever come to deal with what this animal had done to her and go on with her life when I wasn’t sure if I could even get over just knowing what she had been through! What else had he subjected her to that we didn’t yet know about? How could he do that to such a gentle, kind person? What kind of a maniac could do such cruel, twisted things to another human being, to a tiny, sweet little thing like Lucy?

  “Matt?” I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up to find Jack stood over me.

  “How can I expect her to ever go on after all of this? How will she ever move forward after surviving this?” I whispered; my eyes filled with tears for her.

  “She will Matt. She’s strong and she got here, to you, all on her own. That strength along with the support of all three of us and a fresh start here will help her to break free of his hold and the hold of the horror of her past. It won’t be easy and it’s going to take time, but we’re all here Matt and we won’t let her give up. She will come through this and she will survive if you can too?” I looked up into his face and I knew he understood what I was going through. He knew what he was talking about. I had to listen to him and to Rob and just focus on one thing and one thing only, Lucy.

  “Can we go and see her before the consult? I have to see her” I asked weakly.

  “Sure man. Come on, let’s go and sit in recovery with her, ok?” I nodded, took a very deep breath and then followed Jack. We moved through corridors I saw every day, places I knew like the back of my hand, but that day it was different. I wasn’t a doctor that day, I wasn’t in control. I was a family member, distraught and in turmoil as I watched someone I loved suffer pain and fight to come back to me.

  We walked into a large recovery room where Lucy lay hooked up to several IVs and monitors. She was breathing with the help of an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth. She looked like a child, filling barely half of the tiny bed she lay in.