He slams his door in their faces as they swarm the car and honks the horn until they move, for fear he’ll run them over. He merges into traffic, rigid in the driver’s seat beside me. Clear of the cameras, the tears flow freely down my cheeks, soaking my clothes.
“Ben, I’m sorry. Baby, I’m so sorry.”
He doesn’t answer me, and I continue to ramble, terrified.
“I just didn’t want you to worry about me,” I say. “I was scared, and I wanted so badly for you to be okay with this.”
“So you decided it was better to keep this from me? Did you tell Doris?” His eyes widen, and he looks over at me. “This is why Kevin was worried…this is why Cindy told me she planned to schedule your leave in a few months.”
I stay silent, and he curses under his breath. “Everyone knew. Of course they did.”
“Ben, my body is strong and—”
“There’s evidence in that office that suggests otherwise, Darcy!”
“There’s absolutely nothing we can do about it, Ben! You came in me months ago and I got pregnant! Fighting isn’t going to change it!”
“You deserve my anger, Darcy. You’ve had time to process this. I was blindsided by this appointment and by your damn lies, so give me a fucking break.”
I fight desperately to breathe. We slow in traffic, stopped at a light. Our silence is heavy and suffocating. He’s right, and I know he is. I want so badly for him to be this ray of positive light, but that’s not Benjamin. He worries, and he worries about me more than anything else in the world. And a doctor just told him I could die because of this pregnancy.
“I love you, Benjamin,” I whisper, needing him to hear it. “I can imagine how upset you are, especially hearing what she said. I know it scared the hell out of me when I heard it.”
He doesn’t move an inch when I rest my hand on his arm.
“Someday this is all going to be a distant memory. We’re going to have an amazing kid, and all of this is going to be something we wished we had handled better. Is this really how we want to spend the next five, six months? In a panic? Or can we embrace this time and appreciate the fact that something you and I made together is growing inside of me?”
“You’re only saying this because you’re the one on the chopping block,” he says. “If things go wrong, it’s not you who has to live with it. It’s me. You are asking me to get right with the fact that every day you get closer to giving birth, you are in more danger.”
“I’m not asking you.” He looks at me sharply, and I hold the gaze, unfazed. “We are married and this is our baby. I feel her…or him. I feel pregnant, and I like it. I really like it. I know you’ve begun liking it too.”
“I was doing that to make you happy, Darcy.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s not.”
“This is truly the most unattractive you have ever been,” I snap, yanking my hand from his skin like he’s burned me. Instead of remorse, I’m overcome with blistering anger. “Don’t do it for me, Ben. I’ve lived my entire life trying to remember my father and forget my uncle. The last thing I want for this child is a father who doesn’t want it.”
His head snaps to me, paling at the comparison. At the sweeping horror that crosses over his features, which he quickly replaces with impassiveness to disguise how greatly my words sting, I experience a tinge of regret.
He’s focused on the road, the traffic plowing across the intersection while we wait for the light to change. I keep opening my mouth to say something, disturbed by his silence, but can’t find words. I’ve injured him and I know it. It’s rare when I manage to do that, which makes me realize how greatly my comparison holds meaning for him.
In many ways, Benjamin knows my uncle more than I ever did. I lived with him, endured his abuse. I had no idea why he hated me so much. Benjamin knows why, which is something he’s never divulged to me. I have no desire to hear it either.
To compare him to that is cruel and untrue. And I’m instantly full of remorse.
“Ben…”
I look at him, prepared to take it all back. His gaze is on the rearview mirror.
It all happens so fast.
The way Benjamin’s face slumps with disbelief and then true horror.
The way the car shoots forward without a single nudge to the accelerator, the deafening crunch of an impact surging us into drive, and into oncoming traffic.
The way his arm shoots out to shield me, throwing me back into my seat.
Just like that, the world goes black.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The smell of oil and burning metal fills my senses, stinging my nose with the sharpness. I’m struck by overwhelming pain that makes it impossible to speak. My world is dark, my body immobile, although I can feel the hard cement against my cheek, shards of glass piercing my skin. Sirens are soaring through the air.
My eyes won’t open. My head is pounding.
Ben.
“We can’t reach them!” someone shouts distantly.
There’s a groan near me, and the smell of blood is pungent and overwhelming. I recognize the sound to be Benjamin’s, and hearing his struggled gasps, I know I need to move.
He’s awake, and he’s in pain, his gulps of air accompanied by frightened tears.
I try to force my eyelids open. I try to speak to no avail. He shifts and cries out louder, and I hear a loud clang of glass against the ground. Oil is trickling onto my skin.
A voice I don’t recognize shouts so loud I feel like he’s in my ear, “Wait, don’t!”
***
My eyes shoot open wide at the sudden strike of pain that seems to pierce my brain, a simmering nerve struck at the moment of consciousness. I’m in a hospital. I move to sit up, but strong hands push me down. The noise around me is alarmingly loud.
“Stop, please.”
“Darcy, we need to clean this wound. Stop fighting us.”
I flinch, clenching my hands in pain. “Where is Benjamin? Where is he? Where is my husband?”
“Mrs. Scott, please, stay still! Lay back. You’re not well.”
The pain is excruciating.
“Not until one of you tells me where the fuck he is!”
I’m pulling my arm from her grasp when my body suddenly freezes, zoning in on the commotion beside me.
I recognize the cuff links immediately. “B…Benjamin?”
The doctors are pressing a defibrillator onto his bare chest. His shirt is open, and what was once a crisp white color is now blood red. I gape at him in horror, terrified by the sight. His eyes are closed, his body thumping off the gurney at the shock of electricity.
In a soft crescendo, my ears begin to accept noise as it is, and that’s when I hear the deafening sound of a flat line.
I shake my head, refusing to believe it. Tears spring to my eyes, swarming in a matter of seconds. No. No.
“Benjamin?” Fear seizes every part of me. When he doesn’t open his eyes, when they land another shock from the defibrillator, I am undone.
God, no.
“Benjamin!” I scream, gutted by a sob. I sit up in a flash, my pain disappearing in my desperation. I shove the girl cleaning my wound hard enough that she slips and falls to the floor. I scramble off the gurney, dropping onto my knees and into puddles of blood to clutch his hand.
He doesn’t respond, and I cry out, blubbering in despair. “No! Baby, no!”
I’ve just managed to grab onto him when arms wind around my stomach, forcing me off my husband. “Mrs. Scott! Stop! Doctor, I need a sedative!”
“No! Ben! No! I love you. I love you! Stay with me!” I sob, fighting the nurse with all the strength I have. I can’t breathe. I can’t see anymore. The sobs ripping through my chest threaten to tear me right through the middle, shred me into small, insignificant pieces.
“Doctor!”
“Let go of me! Please! Let go!”
I feel a sharp prick in my neck, and instantly, the drugs drift through my veins, numbing my moveme
nt first. My consciousness is coming second. I use the last seconds I have to turn my head to the congregation of doctors standing over my husband.
I black out before I can see him.
***
“Mrs. Scott?” Cold fingers are against my arm. I tilt my cheek to the voice, wetting my lips to try and produce moisture. “Mrs. Scott? Can you hear me?”
My eyelids flutter open, my vision unfocused and blurred. I try to place my hand to my head to clutch my throbbing skull, but an IV makes it impossible.
“Oh no, honey. Don’t do that.”
The moment I see her, and recognize her to be the woman in the waiting room, the flashbacks hit me like a bulldozer, stealing all breath from my lungs.
I gasp, feeling my lips tremble as I try to control the tears that are coming. “Benjamin…”
“Is stable.”
I latch onto her words with hope, quite sure I’m actually dreaming. “He’s what?”
“Your husband is stable, Darcy. Benjamin is alive.”
I choke back a gasp, unsure of what my body wants to do. It resorts to tears, gut wrenching wails that escape me like a flood. I shield my face as she holds me, letting me release and feel the full force of the trauma.
“He’s alive?”
“He’s alive, Mrs. Scott. I think he’s going to be fine.”
The sight of him on that gurney, so pale, surrounded in his blood, is still vivid in my mind, making it hard to believe her words. My tears consume me…for my husband and for the child we’ve lost. I don’t know how I know, but I do.
Maybe it was the devastation of the accident. Maybe it was the strong cramping pain I kept experiencing at the accident scene. But I know she’s gone.
“When did I lose the baby?” I ask.
She blinks at my knowledge but answers me clearly. “In the ambulance.”
The loss of our baby stuns me, but I’m so heavily medicated, I don’t think I can absorb it like I normally would. I stare at the pale white blanket, my cheeks soaking.
“I’m so sorry,” she says.
I shake my head, unable to form words.
“Are you thirsty? Do you need anything?” she asks, puffing up the pillows behind me.
“Uh, some water, please.”
I take the flimsy cup from her, seeing jagged cuts on my hands through my blurred vision. “I’m…I’m sorry I fought you.”
“It was understandable,” she replies, checking my vitals.
“I can’t remember anything.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I was being sedated. Benjamin wasn’t alive, I don’t think. Everyone was trying to resuscitate him.”
“It’s the going gossip right now that you brought him back. Even the newspapers have gotten wind of it. He was a complete flatline, and seconds after you touched him, he breathed. With the injuries he sustained, he should be dead.”
“What are his injuries? Is he in pain? I need to see him.”
“He’s asleep. There’s no need to worry. What is the last thing you remember before you woke up in the ER next to him?”
“Um, I don’t know. I remember sounds, and my head hurt. I couldn’t move. I heard him scream next to me.”
“Would you like me to tell you? Witnesses have already given statements.”
I nod, wincing as I sit up.
“Your vehicle was hit from behind. You went into traffic, and the front of your car was nicked by another going forty-five miles per hour. Amazingly, there were no casualties. You flipped a couple of times.”
I don’t know if I want to hear this.
“The wreck was severe. You both were caged inside. No bystanders could get you out. A witness explained that he could hear you crying, saying your baby was hurting. He could see you but couldn’t pull you out. You were strapped in your seat by the seatbelt, but the car had sunken in to the point that you both were on the ground. Your husband was impaled by a sizeable piece of glass from the windshield. It went through his abdomen, thankfully just missing his liver.”
I feel as if someone’s struck me. I shake my head, and seeing my fear and confusion, she comes to sit by me on the bed. “You have an extremely brave husband who loves you dearly.”
I stare at her, frightened for why she feels the need to say that.
“He pulled out the glass, which was the reason he nearly bled out. But in doing so, he managed to unbuckle you. He got himself out and pushed you toward a bystander.”
The last words I said to him light up my mind, bringing me shame.
“That’s what the witness said. You were voicing your concern about the baby, and that was when he moved, despite them telling him not to.” She smiles kindly. “He fell unconscious before he was able to get himself out, but they managed to drag him out.”
My chest inflates and deflates with difficult wheezes as I struggle with the recounting of it all. Benjamin risked his life, pulled the glass from his body to make sure me and the baby would be safe. And he flatlined because of it.
“You arrived at the same time. You miscarried in the ambulance while unconscious. You woke up in the ER, and you know the rest.”
“How did they fix the wound? Is he okay otherwise?”
“They moved him into surgery, and they sealed the wound. You both needed a blood transfusion, and he will have more before he can leave the hospital. He sprained his right wrist and arm, but other than cuts from the glass, he’s all right. It will take a while for him to recover, not only from the wounds, but from the trauma. For the both of you.”
“I need to see him.”
“He just got out of surgery.”
“I need to be next to him when he wakes up. I need to.”
She tugs on my hand. “You need to take it easy. You’ve got a sizable gash on your head, and you’ve just miscarried. I suggest you try to sleep and we’ll wake you the moment he stirs.”
Frustrated, I lay back into the pillows, forcing myself to remain calm.
“Is there anyone we should call for either of you?”
I nod, giving her Tiffany’s number, so she can be aware for press releases and the swarm of calls they are bound to get, if they haven’t already started trickling in.
She leaves me so she can make that call, leaving me in a single room, the television on low. There’s a game show playing on it in Spanish. The sky is dark, indicating we’ve been in here all day long.
The events hit like a nightmare, and I begin to cry again, wishing I can forget them.
I don’t understand how any of this happened. This morning, Benjamin and I were wrapped in each other, insanely happy. And then we weren’t.
It’s my fault.
We were hit so fast, and the result was so bloody, so horrific, that it doesn’t even seem real. No one person can experience all of this in a day, can they? It shouldn’t be possible.
I’m in a hospital gown. My body is empty. My heart is broken. And I can’t move. I can’t focus on my husband. I can’t leave here.
I can only mourn.
***
I squint against the morning light pouring in through the windows when someone nudges me awake. Doris is on the bed with me, her face pinched with concern. I blink at her and once again have to come to terms with the fact that our lives have changed significantly.
“Doris?”
“Oh, sweetheart.” She kisses my cheek sweetly, lingering there to sniffle. “Kevin woke me up, said he’d heard about the accident on the news.”
“I was too tired to see anyone last night.”
“I can imagine.” She sets down her purse on the floor. “Kevin is with me. He’s signing in now.”
“You guys didn’t have to come, really.”
“You really did bang your head if you think we didn’t need to,” she scoffs, squeezing my weak fingers.
“Have you seen Benjamin?” I ask. I’m left concerned when she says no. Either no one told me he’s woken up or he hasn’t regained consciousness. Neither
of those warms my heart. Thankfully, she puts an end to the momentary panic.
“He’s still asleep. He’s been under all night, the doctor told me.”
“Did she tell you about…?”
The look on her face says it all. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry.”
I cast my gaze down, not wishing to fall into the deep misery I endured last night. I don’t have time to dwell because Kevin hurries through the threshold in sweats and a t-shirt. His hair is tousled, meaning he rushed to get here.
“Kev.”
“Baby, thank God you’re okay.” He hovers over the bed to kiss my lips. “How do you feel?”
“I’m fine.”
He doesn’t look like he believes me. “They’re going to release you today.”
“And Ben? How long does he have to be here?”
“I believe it will be a week, a few at most. His injuries are going to take a while to heal. I just stopped in to check on him on the way over.”
“Is he awake?” I gasp, shooting up. I’ll kill that nurse. Kevin nearly shoves me back into the pillows.
“No, he isn’t,” he says sternly. “You need to take it easy. Doctor’s orders.”
“How did he look?”
“He looks awful, Darcy. Gorgeous but awful.”
But he’s alive. He’s alive.
“I-I need to talk to Tiffany, Ben’s assistant. She needs to know what’s going on.”
“She’s been in the waiting room. Want me to get her?”
“Please.”
“Okay, we’re going to the lunch room. Do you want anything?”
“No, I’m good. Thanks.”
They aren’t gone even two minutes before Tiffany bounds into the room, her red heels clacking against the tile floors. “Oh my God, Mrs. Scott, I—”
“Darcy, please call me Darcy,” I say, mustering a smile.
“Thank you for informing me about this. The news has been playing coverage from the accident on the hour since late last night. They wouldn’t give me any news on him as of yet. Is Benjamin okay?”
“No, he isn’t. He’s in critical condition. His heart stopped for a few moments yesterday before they were able to resuscitate him.”
Possessed By You (The Consumed Series Book 3) Page 10
