by S. M. Soto
It’s been radio silent.
Until earlier this afternoon. While I was at the grocery store, when Baz was at work, I swear I saw Trent. I wasn’t sure if I was seeing things or if it was my imagination playing tricks on me, but it was enough to trip me up. That wasn’t what had me so angry. It was the fact that Baz seemed to know everything about the Savages while he left me in the dark.
Whenever any of the Savages are in the equation, it always feels like there’s an ocean between Baz and me. He purposely keeps things from me, because he thinks he’s protecting me, but really, he’s just making me even more frustrated and paranoid. The secrets make me want to dig deeper and uncover the truth.
I knew he was keeping secrets again when he canceled his day with us tomorrow. He said he had a meeting with someone, but when I asked who, he refused to give me an answer. That’s left a strain on us the entire day. My brewing anger only grows to new heights when he leans toward Ava and the project she’s working on. The set is beautiful, heavy clay pottery bowls with paint for her to decorate.
Baz’s phone vibrates on the table, and I glance down at the screen absently, my entire being going on red alert when I read the name that flashes there.
Vincent.
My heart jerks to a grievous halt, and my gaze shoots to Baz who’s still talking to Ava, completely unaware of what I just saw.
“Sebastian. Can I talk to you for a second?”
Slowly, Baz shifts, sparing me a glance over his shoulder. His brows are drawn in, questions floating in his eyes. I don’t bother waiting for him. I shoot up from the couch, heading down the hallway, toward my bedroom.
With my hands resting on my hips, I begin pacing the floor, trying to rein in my anger and fear. I need to be calm and levelheaded when he gets in here, so we can have a decent conversation about—
As soon as Baz shuts the door behind him, all those thoughts are forgotten, and I’m fuming.
“Who is your meeting with tomorrow? And don’t you dare lie to me.” His lips press together, but he doesn’t answer me. That in and of itself is answer enough. “It’s Vincent, isn’t it?” I scoff, tossing my hands in the air and letting them fall back to my sides helplessly. “You want me to trust you. Yet, you’re damn near asking me to put my daughter’s life in jeopardy when you’re still in clear contact with a man who tried to murder me!”
Baz’s gaze shoots to the door. “It’s not what you think. I can’t bring this up to you or talk to you about it because you act like this. You act craz—” He snaps his mouth shut, but his words are still felt like a blow to my chest.
Sniffing back the sudden pressure in my nose, I cross my arms over my chest. “If you think I’m so crazy, then why are you here? Why bring Ava into my life? Why get me out of there if you truly believe I belong there?”
Baz pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a frustrated sound. “That came out wrong. I don’t think you’re crazy. But the subject of the guys, the mere mention of any of them, including Marcus, sends you into a tailspin.”
“They killed my sister!” I snap. Jutting my finger out, I take a threatening step forward, and my heart drops when I hear the scream. It’s not one of those screams that is used when playing around. It’s real, filled with pain and fear.
Without sparing Baz another glance, I run from the bedroom, down the hall, and back into the living room. My feet skid to an abrupt halt, just over the threshold, as I stare at Ava. There’s blood. So much blood. I place a trembling hand over my stomach and try to stop the sudden bout of nausea. I’ve never been good around blood, least of all not after my accident.
Baz jumps into action while I stand there, frozen in place, ice filling my veins. Taking a bleeding and crying Ava into his arms, he applies pressure to the wound on her head. My body, still thoroughly stuck in shock, won’t allow me to move forward and be productive. Baz barks at me, telling me to grab the keys and start the car. That’s the only thing that snaps me out of it. I hit the corner quickly, scrambling to find my purse and car keys.
Snatching them off the end table, I run outside, leaving the front door wide open and throwing open the driver side door and starting the car. Baz and Ava follow closely after. He’s cradling her against his chest, as he climbs into the back seat, a towel and his hand applying pressure to the slit in her head.
“Drive to the hospital.”
I pause for another long moment, as I stare at Ava’s sobbing form.
What have I done?
They’re never going to let me keep her.
How did I ever think I could take care of a child?
“Drive, Mackenzie!” Baz shouts, snapping me out of my fear-induced trance again.
The drive is thirty minutes long. Thirty minutes too long from my house to the hospital. I pull straight up to the emergency doors, allowing Baz to carry Ava out of the car, before I pull off, looking for a parking spot and trying to control myself.
I’m not usually this skittish or idiotic when it comes to someone with a serious injury. But seeing someone I love? Someone I’m supposed to protect? It tripped me up. It’s fucking with my head, and the only thing I can think about is losing her. Losing Ava. Either to the loss of blood or to the state. They’ll see I’m an unfit mother, and they’ll take her from me. They’ll take my one piece of happiness. My bright light in all this darkness.
Steeling myself, I walk into the emergency room, scanning the area, and I’m not surprised when I find Baz carrying Ava over by the admissions desk. Sucking in a lungful of air, I step up behind them and close in on her, needing to see that she’s okay. Her beautiful little lashes fan her cheeks when they flutter open, and she stares at me with tears glimmering in her eyes. I sniff back the pressure in my nose and take a step closer to Baz and her.
“Everything is going to be okay, sweetheart. I promise.” I rub my hand along her arm, needing to feel the warmth of her skin beneath mine, just so I know she’ll be okay. The doors leading into the back exam rooms open, and with a scowl on his face, Baz trudges through with Ava, and I follow closely.
Placing her onto the patient bed, he takes the seat closest and keeps the pressure to slow the bleeding. The towel is soaked with blood already, and I may not be a doctor, but even I know that isn’t normal. Some pressure to the wound should at least be slowing it down, but it doesn’t seem to be helping in her case. An older man in a white lab coat pulls back the curtain and stops just bedside the bed.
“What seems to be the problem today?” the doctor asks, taking a step toward Ava.
“I-well…” I pause and then frown, not really sure what happened. One second, she was fine, painting in the living room, and then the next, she was screaming and bleeding everywhere. Once again, a better mother would know what happened to their child. But, of course, I don’t.
Baz picks up my slack again. “There’s a glass coffee table in the living room. Ava must’ve been playing, cracked the glass, and cracked her head.”
“Let’s have a look.” The doctor takes over for Baz, removing the soaked towel, and blood spurts. He quickly covers it back up. “That’s quite a lot of blood for a cracked head. Let me gather my nurses, and I’ll be back. Does she have any allergies by chance? Any blood disorders? The flow should at the very least be slowing down by now, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.”
I frown, glancing at Ava, then Baz for help. I was never warned of any allergies or anything. For all I knew, when I adopted Ava, she was a healthy child.
“No, not that I know of. She’s…we’ve just finalized the adoption, so this wasn’t—nothing was mentioned to me.”
The doctor nods, pursing his lips. “I’ll be right back. Dad, please keep the pressure on the wound. I’ll have a few nurses stop in to do some blood panels to be sure nothing else is going on here.”
As the doctor pushes the curtain back before leaving, I glance at Baz and find him looking at me. There’s a moment, a single moment, when things feel like they used to. But that moment i
s gone in the blink of an eye. He glances down at Ava and goes back to avoiding my gaze. He’s obviously as frustrated with me as I am with him.
We wait in silence, Ava starting to drift. Worry begins clawing at my gut when I see how much blood she’s losing.
This isn’t normal, right?
I cracked my head open once and had to have stitches, but I don’t remember losing this much blood. The towel is soaked in crimson. It looks like someone dipped it into a can of red paint. It’s colored her perfect blond hair a matted red and the patient bed is soaked with it.
“Something’s wrong,” I whisper, as I look down at her. I feel it. Baz glances up at me, and by the look in his eyes, I can tell he knows it, too. This isn’t right. She shouldn’t be bleeding this much.
“Go find a doctor, a nurse, fucking someone.”
I push off the chair, before he manages to finish his sentence. I call out into the hall, probably rousing other ER patients, but I don’t care. My daughter is losing too much blood. A nurse carrying a handful of stuff skids to a halt at my panicked look.
“My daughter, she’s bleeding everywhere. There’s something wrong.”
She nods and calls back over her shoulder. “Martinez! I need help.”
We hurry back to Ava, and I almost burst into tears at the fearful expression on Baz’s face. The nurses urge us back, one taking over to apply pressure, the other twisting Ava, so they can take her vitals. It’s a mass of urgency. One nurse calls out for the doctor who comes speed walking in. The doctor looks at the nurses and the blood, and he starts giving out orders.
“Prep an OR room. For now, give her a blood-clotting agent. I don’t want to risk blood panels if she’s already losing this much blood. She might need a transfusion,” he rattles off to one of the head nurses, who’s nodding and jotting things down like his entire life depends on it. The doctor speeds off, getting ready to prep for whatever, and the nurses start wheeling Ava off. I shoot to my feet, unsteadily, tears filling my eyes. Fear claws at my chest.
“What’s wrong? What’s happening?”
“We’re taking Ava into the OR to better stop the blood flow. Mom, do you know Ava’s blood type? In case a blood infusion is needed. We just want to make sure she hasn’t lost too much. The doctor is giving her a clotting agent to help stop some of the blood flow.”
I shake my head, feeling panicked. “No, I don’t know. I think it says it somewhere in her medical file.”
The nurse nods, patting me on the arm, trying to get me to remain calm. “I’ll have a nurse look through her records. In the meantime, would one of you mind giving blood? In case either of you are matches?”
“Yes, of course,” Baz and I agree at the same time.
I’m antsy the entire time I give blood. Usually the act itself makes me nauseous, but right this second, all I can seem to worry about is Ava. All I want to do is be by her side. I pace the hall, just outside where she is. I continuously rake my hands through my hair, praying to anyone above that she’ll be okay. Kids don’t get taken to the OR just for a cracked head. I’m not ready to lose her. I can’t lose her.
“Mackenzie.” I jump in surprise at the warmth of Baz’s hand on my shoulder. “Let’s sit down. Don’t wear yourself out.”
The dam I’ve been holding back suddenly breaks as I stare up at him. “This is my fault. I should’ve been watching her. Now look at her,” I hiss, pointing at the closed doors. “All my life, I’ve never been able to do anything right. How could I possibly think this was the one thing I’d get right? Taking care of a child? I’m in way over my head. She’s going to—”
Baz grasps my shoulders, throttling some sense into me. “She’s going to be just fine. They’re taking care of her. You didn’t know this would happen.”
“And that’s the problem,” I choke. “I should’ve stopped it from happening. Instead, I was with you. I was so focused on…all the shit that doesn’t even matter anymore, on Vincent, on the rest of the guys, Madison, my parents. I wasn’t looking out for the one person who needed me.”
Baz’s features soften. “Sit down, Mackenzie. You can’t control the world. Accidents happen. Just sit and breathe.”
I do as he says. I plop down in the chair and stare at the closed door with tears trailing down my cheeks.
“Ms. Wright, I have some good news, and I’m afraid some bad news.”
I jump to my feet and sway from the exertion, but Baz is there. He takes my hand, giving a firm squeeze, letting me know he isn’t going anywhere. “Okay, what’s the bad?”
“Ava’s lost a lot of blood. The doctor is certain she has a bleeding disorder, but until we do more tests, it could be any number of things. She’s going to need a transfusion since she wasn’t administered a blood-clotting agent soon enough.”
I slap a hand over my mouth, trying to hold back the sob. The nurse must notice my impending hysterics, so she cuts to the next set of news.
“The good news is, you are an exact blood match, Mom.”
She prattles on about something else, but that little tidbit gives me pause. “Wait.” I shake my head. “How is that possible?”
“Well, you’re her mother, so it’s not surprising—”
“I’m not her biological mother. Ava is adopted,” I cut her off, my brows tugging down.
The nurse cocks her head to the side, looking at me like I’m crazy. “Ms. Wright, you are an exact match. The blood samples. The only way that is possible is if you and Ava are related.” She glances at Baz quickly, as if realizing her mistake. “If you’d like to speak in private, I’m happy to do that and explain further.”
I feel Baz stiffen beside me. She thinks I’m hiding something from him? What the hell is going on?
“No, I don’t need to speak in private. He can hear this. I just need…I need you to explain. This doesn’t make any sense. There’s no way I can be related to Ava. I adopted her. I have no immediate family with children.”
“The DNA is a match, Ms. Wright. Unless you have a twin that birthed a child, I have no other logical explanation.”
My legs give out.
Baz’s strong hold keeps me upright as I process her words.
“Unless you have a twin that birthed a child.”
“Unless you have a twin that birthed a child.”
That can’t be right.
No. There is no way Madison had a baby. There is no way in hell that could’ve happened.
Flashes of the past hit me in quick spurts. Madison’s time away during the foreign exchange program. Her less than frequent calls home. When she got back, she was a totally different person. She’d changed. She wasn’t my twin anymore, but someone else entirely.
Could it be?
No. My parents would never keep something like that from me.
But what if they did? That would change everything. Everything I knew to be true about my parents and Madison.
And there is one question I need answers to.
Who is the father?
“I’ll give you both a minute.”
Baz helps me back into my seat, and I stare blankly ahead, trying to make sense of this. There has to be a mistake. It can’t be possible. Because what are the odds? What are the odds Ava is my sister’s daughter, and she would come into my life by accident, just like the way she had?
“You need to get up, because there’s a little girl out there that needs you.”
I suck in a sharp breath at the replayed line, the sound of Madison’s voice. I didn’t understand it at the time. I just thought she meant Ava. When Ava was a lonely child, but now, now, what if she was trying to tell me Ava wasn’t just a random child? What if she was put in my path because Madison needed me to keep her safe?
I clench my eyes shut and let the tears trek down my cheeks. I need answers, and I hate that the only way I’ll be able to find out the truth is through my parents. After the way they so callously cut me out of their lives and washed their hands of me, the last thing I want to do is have to
ask them for anything, but I need to know.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking a whole lot of shit right now that makes no sense.”
“We’ll have them run it again. Make sure there isn’t a mistake.”
“And if there isn’t? What if it’s the same result over and over again?”
There’s a long pause. It’s long enough that I peel my eyes open and glance up at him. He’s staring down at me thoughtfully. Something in his expression doesn’t sit right with me. “Is there—is there something you’re not telling me?”
I shift away from him, angry that he has the audacity to make me seem like I’m the one keeping everyone’s secrets, when he has a whole fucking closet full of them. “No. I’ve told you everything. And if you’re insinuating that I had a child, you’re dead wrong. I didn’t even lose my virginity until I left Ferndale. There’s no way my child would be Ava’s age.”
He blows out a gust of breath. “So, what then?”
I pause, nibbling on my bottom lip, debating on whether or not I should tell him.
“The summer that Madison died, she had just gotten back from a foreign exchange program. That’s probably why you didn’t see her around much.” Baz’s eyebrows raise. He’s taken aback by the information. “She didn’t call home much. I just thought…I thought she was having fun out there, enjoying being away from me. From that shit town. But now, now I’m wondering if that’s why she was gone. She stayed for two semesters. That’s not long enough to carry a child, but if she was already pregnant and left when she started to show? She could’ve given birth there and let her body return to normal before coming back.”
Baz rakes a hand through his hair. “There’s only one way to find out.”
I start shaking my head, already knowing what he’s going to say. “No. I can’t. They put me in a mental institution, Baz. I refuse to have anything to do with them anymore.”
“They did. And that was fucked up. But do you really want to spend the rest of your life not knowing?”
I glare at him. Hating his logic. Hating that he’s right. What I hate even more? Knowing that I’ll follow through. I’ll reach out to them because I can’t not know the truth.
