Walk For Me: Club Avalon Book 4

by Kay Elle Parker

  It wasn’t advisable, Alicia knew, to take that nifty trip down memory lane. Not to those places, those men. Going back there meant opening the vault door and delving in deep to the heart of the locked away nightmares. The bear got another hard squeeze, and she had the most random thought that if she was going to strangle him every five minutes, she really should give him a name.

  “Pain. Fullness.” What else was there when a man put something inside her and jabbed it around? Abraham had left her sore and bleeding, Elliot raw and ashamed. “I don’t know what you need me to say.”

  The doctor shook her head. “That’s all I need, Alicia, for now. I have to say that, from everything you’ve told me so far, I have serious doubts about your original diagnosis. With your permission, I’d like to run some tests while you’re here.”

  I have serious doubts about your original diagnosis. What the fuck did that mean? Dumbfounded, Alicia looked at Atticus for reassurance. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure I understand. The accident…I broke my back. Severed the spinal cord. The doctor said so.”

  Atticus inhaled slowly. “It’s come to light that there are a few issues with Doctor Fielding, Lisha. There seems to be a lot of conflicting reports and data that doesn’t add up, not to mention he’s not on the straight and narrow. I brought you to Julia for a second opinion, because I saw how you react to touch. What you’re describing shouldn’t be possible with a complete spinal cord injury.”

  Her throat worked. “I broke my back, Atticus. I’ve been in a wheelchair for years.”

  “Unnecessarily, I fear.” The doctor looked ever so sympathetic, her expression matching Atticus’ down to the soft, pitying eyes and downturned lips. “You shouldn’t have control of your bodily functions. Sex shouldn’t hurt, because the nerves are cut. Take a look at this scan here,” she continued, reaching for a laser pointer and using the tiny red dot to circle a spot on the wall screen. “This is where Fielding reported the cord severing, but there isn’t any damage of that nature. Bruising, Alicia, some swelling, but not severed.”

  White noise eclipsed anything else that was said. Her ears rang with a sound that filled her head like a scream. As her vision blurred at the edges, she realized she couldn’t feel anything at all—she was totally numb from head to toe.

  This was what it came down to, her whole life being a lie? Even as her brain struggled to comprehend the gravity of the situation, a small part deep inside her knew her goddamn parents had orchestrated this. She didn’t know how, but there was no doubt they’d worked with the doctor to make her this way.

  The why was easy. The why was always money.

  But if the last fourteen years of her life had been fabricated, manipulated, why was she in this piece of scrap? Surely if there was nothing wrong with her spine, she should be able to move her legs. To stand, to walk, to run.

  What was wrong with her that she couldn’t do any of that? Had they deliberately broken her, using the accident as a cover, so they could profit off her?

  Fuck.

  “Princess, you need to breathe.”

  The white noise shattered into pieces, blown apart by the urgency in Atticus’ voice. Alicia obeyed without question, wheezing in a breath. She was shocked to discover how tight her chest was, her body straining for air. Apparently, being cut off at the knees by bad news was akin to ripping her lungs out.

  She was no longer in the wheelchair she despised, but cradled on Atticus’ lap with her useless, stupid, lying legs dangling over his. She had an overwhelming urge to shove away from him, to keep the sickness her family infected everyone with away from him.

  Toxic. The McGee name, the blood, the history…all tainted, all toxic, all fucking poison in the bloodstream of society. Maybe the sickness had missed Bodie, maybe her sister was the lucky one who could change the odds in her favor, but it was strong inside Alicia.

  Like a snake, the black fog curled around her ankles, writhing up her legs to circle her body. Tightening, constricting, choking the will to live out of her. She recognized the journey all too well now, the slow descent into the dark with no way to climb out again.

  Perhaps it was for the best this time. Now she understood who she was, the extent of what she came from. How deep the poison was rooted. Fading into the darkness and never coming out again might just be the answer to everything that was so, so fucking wrong in her pathetic existence.

  “Alicia, I know this is a huge shock. I know you need to process it. If you like, Atticus can take you home now. We can wait until next week to do the tests, and I’ll make sure there’s room in my schedule to see you whenever you’re ready to move forward.”

  Why wait, she thought derisively. Let them dissect her, pull her body apart. With any luck, they’d hit an artery and let her bleed out. It would probably be less painful than the metaphorical exsanguination she was experiencing now.

  Voice dull, Alicia said simply, “You have my permission to do whatever you want. I don’t care anymore.”

  “Lisha,” Atticus murmured, and his compassion was too much to bear.

  “You should go, Atticus.” Her voice cracked on the word go, and she felt his body jerk in response. There was no reason for him to hang around and witness her making an even bigger fool of herself—after all, what kind of idiot let fourteen years of her life be commanded by—

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “If I ask you to—”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he repeated emphatically, circling her throat with his big hand. The callouses on his palm scraped lightly over the suddenly hypersensitive skin of her neck. “All your life, people have walked away when you needed them most, Alicia. Your parents don’t count—mainly because they were abusive, selfish fucking assholes who should never have been left in charge of your care. But everyone else does, despite their circumstances. Bodie left you when you were helpless and sick. Connie let you go when you were sad and lost.” His eyes seemed to glow with conviction. “I didn’t fight hard enough to keep Braun and Bodie from sending you to that goddamn hellhole, when I should have kept you here with me. Now, when you fucking need someone to have your back, I am not fucking walking away again!”

  Two fuckings in one sentence? It struck Alicia—hard—that while she was floundering in a world of hurt and bewilderment, Atticus had flipped into what was quite possibly his full Daddy Dom mode. He was, if she was completely honest with herself, exquisitely intimidating when he was like this.

  “That wasn’t your fault. I made the decision.”

  “You made a goddamn choice using misguided information. Sacrificing yourself to a life you didn’t want because you thought it was what everyone else expected you to do.” His fingers tightened subtly, not tight enough to bruise, but enough to make her broken body sit up and beg. “Push me away all you want, princess, but I’m telling you right fucking now that I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving you to deal with this alone.”

  Well, shit. Daddy Atticus had drawn his line in the sand, and he was standing by it.

  No, Alicia thought with no little amount of shock, he was standing by her.

  Chapter Six

  The woman infuriated him beyond belief.

  Two hours after he’d laid his stance out in front of Alicia, Atticus was still seething inwardly. To the untrained eye, he was one hundred percent positive his feelings were concealed—more than once, his life had depended on flattening his emotions and holding them secret for extended periods of time. That skill wouldn’t fail him today.

  She was far too used to the people in her life walking away—and he hadn’t dragged Bodie and Connie’s names into the argument earlier lightly. There’d been reasons why Alicia had been set on the back burner—reasons he understood and agreed with—but he also believed she shouldn’t have been cast aside so easily.

  Connie had fought for her. He’d fought for her.

  No one had gone to war with Braun over her, and now she was a fraction of the woman she should be physically, and the b
rilliant mind he could see lurking beneath years of abuse and conditioning was being shamefully wasted.

  Alicia had looked as though he’d cracked her over the head with a steel pipe when he’d refused to leave her. Her disbelief and confusion still clung to his heart, sharp claws digging into that tender muscle. The look she’d given him had simply asked, Why?

  One week. One fucking week and she was turning him inside out, nurturing his Daddy instincts out of hibernation and encouraging them to not only grow, but to spread like some invasive species of vine. Having gotten to know her during her stay at Connie’s, it wouldn’t take much of a push to make him toss aside his morals and teach Lisha exactly what his little girl could expect from a Daddy like him.

  So far, Atticus had coaxed her through the inevitable taking of blood—Alicia really hadn’t been lying when she said she hated needles—and now both he and the damned bear were sporting Band-Aids in the crooks of their arms as proof that Julia wasn’t trying to sedate her.

  That, of course, raised more questions he was compelled to discover the answers to—and that list of questions was expanding rapidly.

  They were working their way through the scans now. It was a tedious process, although it could have been worse, he supposed. The benefits of having a friend who could commandeer equipment for her, ah, personal research projects was extremely fortunate.

  Following hospital policy—which Julia wasn’t in a position to waive—he’d been relegated to pacing outside during the X-rays, and she’d been quick to advise him that his promise of staying with Alicia might have to be bent for a short time.

  Apparently, Julia was set on ruling out everything and anything that could be causing Alicia’s inability to move her legs, and that included going at her with the whole hog of medical technology. Blood tests, x-rays, CT, MRI…the list was endless and, in his opinion, fucking torturous.

  “Atticus.”

  He paused mid-turn, glancing over his shoulder at the woman he thought of as a friend more than a lover. His blood no longer fired at the idea of taking her to bed, his cock had no desire to slide into the sweet spot between her shapely thighs. Julia was just labelled as a friend in his inner filing system. “What’s happened?”

  “We got the x-rays done, but she’s not happy. I can delay the CT, but I really want to get the MRI images today. It’ll give me more time to study them and figure out what’s going on inside her.” Julia blew out a long breath and grimaced. “She can’t take that bear with her into the machine, and she’s not going to be able to hold your hand. I’m suggesting we sedate her.”

  He snorted. “After the performance we just went through to convince her you didn’t want to do that? Ever hear the phrase lead balloon, Jules? As in, going down like one?”

  “There’s nothing I can do about it. The patient has to remain perfectly still—perfectly still, Atticus—for the machine to do its job properly. The more she wiggles, the longer she’s in there. The more time she’s in there, the more claustrophobic it can get. Vicious circle.” She threw her hands up in the air. “I don’t stand a chance of finding out if we can undo what Fielding did without the MRI, it’s that simple.”

  Simple wasn’t something that was ever in his vocabulary, Atticus thought in frustration. It had long ago been replaced by terms like clusterfuck, because that was how life liked to mess with him on a daily basis. “How long do these scans take?”

  Julia winced. “Two to three hours.”

  “It’s twenty to five now. On a Friday.”

  “I know what time it is, Att. I also know it’s not going backwards as we stand here arguing. The radiology team is willing to stay and get this done, but we need to make a decision now. Say the word and we roll her through, we get her sedated, and we get the job finished as fast as we can.”

  Well, this was one way to strain the trust she was beginning to put in him. Christ, how had he ever thought this would be an uncomplicated experience? “What are the risks?”

  “There are the usual advisories for both having an MRI and for sedation.” Julia reeled them off in a continuous babble of words that made his head spin. He wasn’t stupid when it came to medicine, but he tended to leave it to the professionals he hired for just that purpose. “We’ll take care of her, Att. I can even make an exception and let you stand in the control room if you promise not to scare the bejesus out of the radiographer.”

  He was exceptional at making on the spot decisions without hesitation. There were days when he had to choose between sending his team into life or death situations or holding them back, with only a second to process vital data. He was fucking good at it.

  Michael was his biggest failure.

  Michael was the decision that haunted him.

  Alicia was not Michael, and this situation was nothing like the one that got his friend’s throat cut and his body tossed in front of a truck as a diversion.

  “Give me the paperwork,” he grumbled.

  “It’s the right choice, Atticus. The sooner we act, the faster we can get answers. That girl is no more a paraplegic than I am for all intents and purposes, but something has been done to her to convince her she is.” Julia gestured for him to follow her, talking as she walked.

  As she passed the door they’d taken Alicia through at least a half-hour before, she rapped her knuckles on the wood without pausing her stride, and led him to another two doors down. “There is a communication system in here,” she continued as she stepped through the open doorway and into the room beyond. “We usually pipe music through to help calm patients who don’t opt for sedation, and the radiographer can talk to them if they don’t want music. You’ll be able to talk to Alicia even though she won’t be able to see you.”

  He took an instant dislike to the white walls and cold, distant feel of the room. The machine took up a large chunk of space, and for a man his size, was his worst nightmare. He couldn’t imagine Alicia welcoming this with open arms. “How fast does the sedation kick in?”

  “Don’t worry about that. Once the canula is in, we’ll push the meds and she’ll be sleeping before she can blink.” Julia strode over to a small table by the wall, every inch the doctor in charge, and picked up a clipboard. “I had one of the nurses fill in the details to save time. Just read it through, correct anything you think is wrong, and sign the consent. Nothing we do here will hurt your girl, Atticus. It’s all painless.”

  He took the pen she offered as his eyes roamed over the pages. “I can stay until she’s under?”

  “I’ll permit it, yes. Keeping her calm is our main priority.”

  It felt like he was signing his life away to a huge mistake as the pen scratched his signature in black ink onto the papers. Alicia might not forgive him for taking liberties with her this way, but she needed to know what was happening inside her, even more than he did. “Don’t fuck about with her, Jules. Get the canula in and the drugs administered before she realizes what’s happening.”

  “We won’t let her suffer. Just let us work, big guy. We have anxious patients coming through here every day.” She took the clipboard from him and set it aside, then gave him a pat on the arm as the quiet squeak of rubber on the floor warned of an approaching wheelchair. “Try not to look as though her hamster just died, for God’s sake.”

  Pale and clammy, Alicia’s eyes darted around the room before the nurse pushing her along got her through the doorway. One hand slapped down on the wheel rim, slowing her forward movement and almost taking her damn fingers off, while she clutched the bear in the other. “I-I’m not going in that. I didn’t agree to getting in that death trap!”

  “This happens to be one of my favorite toys,” Julia said brightly, acting as though they weren’t about to ambush a defenseless young woman. She handed over the paperwork to the nurse, tapping a finger on the top sheet. “You’ve been in one of these before, haven’t you?”

  Atticus walked over to Alicia, dropping to one knee beside her. “It doesn’t look inviting. The thing you have to
remember is that, just like the X-rays, it isn’t going to hurt you. If anything, it’s going to bore the absolute spit out of you.” His lips quirked up at one side in a mimicry of a smile. He tried to recall exactly what he knew about one of these things. “Julia is going to take a lot of pictures of your spine, so you need to stay really, really still, princess.”

  “I can’t breathe in there. It’s too small.” Alicia gave it a nervous glare as she sucked on the bear’s ear.

  “You’ll be perfectly fine, Alicia. Atticus is going to be right through there,” Julia added, pointing toward the next room which was separated by a thick screen of glass. She waved at the tattooed guy behind the console, and he waved back with a wink. “Now, that’s our radiographer, Cutler. Say hello to Alicia, Cutler, she’s a little unnerved by our friend here.”

  The mic crackled, then a low, mischievous voice echoed in the room. “Hello there, sugar. How are you this fine Friday evening?”

  Alicia’s eyes took up most of her face as she pleaded with Atticus without words.

  “This is not then, princess. Fielding isn’t here, he won’t come anywhere near you. Your parents are dead, no one can hurt you. I’ll be literally a stone’s throw away from you, and I’m going to talk to you the entire time, just like Cutler did.” Bracing himself for the shitstorm about to hit, Atticus laid his hand on the bear. “I need to keep hold of this fella for a while, okay? I get the feeling he won’t like the machine—”

  Alicia yanked the teddy back. “He’s mine. I need him.”

  Julia had wandered off and was doing God only knew what. If she didn’t hurry up, they’d likely be chasing Alicia around the hallways as she attempted the great escape.

  Atticus knew most patients were required to wear a hospital gown for a scan of this nature—no zippers, no metal studs, nothing that could be affected by the magnet. Standing, he yanked his T-shirt off over his head, then crouched in front of Alicia and held it out. “Smell this, Lisha. Deep breath.”

  Watching him warily, she craned her neck a bit and sniffed hesitantly. Her eyes dilated, and some of the tension leaked from her face. “Smells like you. Smells warm and earthy.”