Bittersweet Chronicles: Pax (16 page)

“Okay,” the nurse says as she punches buttons on the wall above the bed. “The doctor is on his way, I’ll need both of you to move to the waiting room.”

“No,” Vaughn says firmly. “I’m her next of kin, I want to be here with her.”

The nurse looks at him for a moment then seems to realize that he’s not going to go easily. She nods once.

“But you,” she points at me, “You’ve got to go. We need space for the doctor to maneuver.”

I gulp, releasing Carly’s hand as my chest tightens so much I feel like I can’t breathe. “Okay,” I say. “Okay.”

“I’ll get you back in as soon as I can, man.” Vaughn looks apologetic.

I lean down and kiss her forehead. It’s cool and pale. “Please wake up for me, Carly. Please. I’m waiting for you,” I whisper, before I turn and head back to the waiting room.

The waiting room smells like disinfectant and has about twenty rock hard plastic chairs along with a TV hanging on one wall, playing MSNBC news. I don’t even notice other people as I sit down, the cold plastic making my bare skin pebble for a moment. My eyes are glued to those double doors that separate me from Carly, and my heart hurts so badly it’s like a marching band is in there. I run through the chain of events in my mind—me walking into the club, the guy who tried to stop me, Carly looking at me with her big brown eyes, the way she moved as if she was going to lean down and put her arms around me, then the expression on her face—

Wait.
The way she moved because she was about to lean down
. She moved to her left. I see her injury in my mind. The bullet hit her left side. I was below her but slightly to her left. She moved left to line up with me. And when she moved left the bullet hit her. My entire body goes cold and my vision dims as I realize the truth of what just happened in that club. The bullet that tore through Carly was meant for me. Inadvertently, she stepped in front of a bullet aimed at me.

I swallow down the bile that rises up in my throat and look around the waiting room for the first time, suddenly aware that I might be in danger. Everyone there seems legitimate, there for a real purpose, but now I’m agitated, uncomfortable. I stand and move to a seat with its back to the wall, away from the windows, trying to appear as casual as possible. Inside my heart is racing and my mind is frantic as it tears through scenarios. When it finally lands on something, it’s the thought that I’m in over my head.
We’re
in over our heads—Vaughn, Carly and me. We always have been. We were fooling ourselves thinking we could somehow deal with a guy like Lagazo and walk away unscathed.

I take my phone out of my pocket, nausea rolling in my gut and panic in my chest. I take a deep breath and then let it out as I hit speed dial number one.

“Pax,” my dad says the second he picks up. “We’ve been worried about you, son, is everything okay?”

“Hey, Dad,” I answer, shutting my eyes as if by not seeing the room around me I can make it go away. “I’m, um, Vaughn and me, we’re in trouble. I think we need your help.”

It takes about five minutes to explain everything that’s happened. It takes Dad another five to get online, charter a jet, and call Uncle Joss and Mike. He keeps me on the line as he does all of it, stopping every couple of minutes to say, “You still with me, Pax?” I think he’s afraid if he hangs up he’ll never hear me again. I feel the same way, so I keep the line open, listening as he talks to Joss and Mike on another phone, and curses at the computer while he tries to reserve the plane.

“Okay, son, the flight should get into Birmingham around six, so we’ll be to you by seven. I’ve been trying to reach Vaughn’s folks, but I haven’t gotten through to them yet. I’ll offer them a ride down there if I can reach them. Joss is calling Ethan, and he’s going to send someone from a local security firm to stay with you. The guy should be there within an hour. I want you to stay on this line with me until then, Pax. Do. Not. Hang. Up.”

I clutch the phone like a lifeline. “Okay,” I tell him, my voice hoarse.

“I also don’t want you to leave that hospital. It’s public, you have security staff there and cameras all over the interior and exterior. It’s the safest place for you right now. Once the security guy comes you let him take charge, he’ll decide where you can go. Hold on just a minute, it’s Ethan on the other phone.”

I wait as he talks to Lush’s head of security, then he gets back on the line. “Ethan’s got someone on the way. The man is from Steenan Security, and he will give you the code word
Canuck
. Don’t let any stranger near you who can’t give you that code word. You got that?”

I’ve started breathing again, my dad’s arrangements already making me feel safer, more in control. “Okay, I got it. I’ll be careful. I promise.”

“Jesus, Pax,” he finally says, his voice weary. “Is Vaughn’s cousin going to be okay? Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you say what was really going on?”

I sit, listening to the sounds around me, intercoms chattering, voices murmuring, phones ringing. I’m so tired my head is floating, and my chest is aching. I wiggle my fingers, trying to give myself some sort of feeling that I’m still in my body.

“I thought I could handle it, Dad. That’s all I know to tell you. I thought I could handle it. And now, I’m so scared that Carly’s not going to make it.”

“God, kid, when are you going to learn, no one can handle everything on their own? It’s not a sign of weakness to get some help every now and then. It doesn’t have to be from me, I know how you feel about that, but get some help from someone. You should have gone to the police or to Vaughn’s dad, your Uncle Joss, someone.”

Even though he can’t see me, I hang my head. I know he’s right, and I think deep down, I’ve known this was beyond us—beyond
me
—from the beginning. But I can’t stand to look weak in my dad’s eyes, or in anyone’s eyes really. The thing he doesn’t understand is that he’s my hero. He’s this amazing person—a guy from an ordinary family, with no money, a high school education, and some dreams—who conquered a horrible disease, and became a worldwide sensation.

He’s a multi-millionaire, famous all over the world. And on top of it he has a wife and kids who adore him, friends who would give their lives for him, and fans who wait years to see him perform. When he dies it will be on CNN, his image will grace the covers of countless magazines and newspapers, and people will mourn him in the streets of foreign cities. How do you compete with that? How do you distinguish yourself when you’re Walsh Clark’s son?

The only thing I’ve ever known for certain was that I needed to make it on my own too. I need to do exceptional things without anyone’s help, just like my dad did, or else I’m not worthy of being his son. Everything’s been handed to me my whole life—money, education, friends, family. It’s all been so easy. My dad gave me a life with no challenges left, because he’d already conquered it all. I want to live up to him, to what he’s given me, to the things he’s done. I’ve never been able to figure out how to do that, and this mess didn’t help any.

I think I saw Carly’s problems as my chance to conquer something my dad never did. My chance to be a hero in someone else’s eyes the way Dad is in mine. I realize now that I had no right. No right to use her troubles to salve my insecurities. It’s so much worse than whatever weakness I might have given into if I’d asked for help.

“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “I know I screwed up.”

I hear him sigh before he continues. “It’s not so much about this. It’s about your whole outlook on life. No one does it all alone. No one.”

“You did,” I say. “You did it all alone. You overcame your alcoholism, you became famous, made millions of dollars, married Mom, raised Lyric and me. You did everything on your own. I can’t even rescue a girl who I want to be my girlfriend without getting her shot—“ My voice breaks then, and I flex my hands, so angry I think I could punch through the drywall behind my chair.

“Is that how you see it? Is that how you see
me
?” He laughs harshly. “You don’t know your old man very well, do you?”

“What do you mean?” I ask, ready to tune out because I know he’s going to make up some bullshit to try to placate me.

“When I was your age I had a high school diploma, a drum kit and a serious drinking problem,” he says. “I spent most of my time loaded, while Mom and your Uncle Joss worked to get gigs for the band. I was a child, Pax, a big, selfish child. And I would never have gotten where I am today without your mother’s hard work, and Joss’s talent. Hell, even Mike with all his partying and Colin stoned off his ass day and night were more responsible than me.”

“I don’t believe that, Dad,” I mumble, leaning my head back against the wall.

“Well, it’s true. Mike may have been a tsunami of trouble, but he always showed up to gigs and practice when he was supposed to. He was a genius with six strings, and while he didn’t give a damn about much of anything else, he cared one hundred percent about the band.

“My point though is that I didn’t do anything by myself. Not one single thing. I have no illusions about who I am—an easygoing guy who was just savvy enough to grab myself a whip smart woman for a wife, and a musical marvel for a best friend. You have to know, son, I would never have been where I am today if I’d tried to do it alone.”

I’m still processing what he’s said when a big guy with no hair, khakis and a golf shirt approaches me. I tense, the phone squeezed in my hand like I think it might explode if I release it.

“Excuse me?” the guy says. “Pax Reed?”

“Who’s that?” my dad asks anxiously on the other end of the phone.

I swallow as my eyes take in the guy’s shoulder holster that he’s made no effort to conceal.

“I’m Jason Neal from Steenan Security. The code word is Canuck, and Ethan in Portland sent me.”
      The air whooshes out of my lungs in relief, and I sag against the back of my chair. “It’s the security guy, Dad. I should hang up now. I really need to see if there’s any news about Carly.”

“She’s going to be okay,” he tells me with a certainty in his voice that almost convinces me his words are true. “We’ll see you as soon as the plane has landed.”

I end the call, looking up at my new best buddy before I stand and shake his hand.

“Thanks very much for coming,” I tell him.

“It’s no problem. I’ve worked with Ethan in the past—he’s a good man, I’m happy to help him out. Now, first things first, it looks like you need a shirt.”

I glance down at my bare chest and cringe, as I remember why I’m not wearing a shirt. “Uh, yeah. That’d be nice.  Then I really need to find out if there’s any news on my…on my friend. It’s been over an hour,” I run a hand through my hair. “I’m going to go crazy sitting here another minute.”

“Alright,” Jason answers, nodding his big shiny head. “Come with me.”

Somehow, Jason manages to sweet talk a nurse into giving me a scrub top, it’s drafty, but at least I don’t look like a vagrant sitting in the ER anymore. He also gets the same nurse to agree to have someone give me an update on Carly’s condition. I pace up and down the floor in front of the nurses’ station as I wait, and Jason stands between me and the waiting room, like a big bear protecting her cub.

When a young doctor finally comes out several minutes later, Jason stops the guy from shaking my hand. “Sorry,” he tells the doctor, giving a small shrug of his anything but small shoulders.

The doctor looks at me like Jason’s lost his mind, but then moves right into discussing Carly.

“Vaughn gave me permission to speak with you about Carly’s condition,” he says, his voice brisk as he pulls out a cell phone and glances at the screen before putting it back in his pocket.

I nod, willing him to get to the part that matters.

“As I think you know, she received a gunshot wound to her left side, just under the rib cage. The bullet sheared off a piece of her bottom rib, as well as puncturing her kidney.”

“Holy hell,” I gasp. I have to lean against the counter at the nurses’ station or I might not be able to keep standing. “That sounds really bad.”

“Well,” he says with a wry twist of his lips, “it’s not a good thing, but kidneys are pretty durable little organs and we’ve got two of them. We can live a normal life with only one.”

“Will she lose it—the kidney?” I ask, my voice raspy and faint.

“We don’t know that yet. She’s been in surgery for about forty-five minutes now. They’re still assessing the damage and then they’ll develop a plan of action—either repair work or removal.”

“Okay. How much longer until we know more?”

“I can’t promise, but it shouldn’t be more than another hour before she’s out of surgery, regardless of what they need to do.”

I nod my head and awkwardly thank him—the whole ‘no shaking hands’ thing is weird.

He’s about to walk away but then he turns back. “We have policies that have to be followed. We’ve contacted the police and they’ll be here soon.” He glances at Jason. “You can’t leave until they’ve spoken to you.”

“He’ll be here,” Jason says. “But in the meantime, as you might imagine, my client is uncomfortable being out in the public waiting room. Is there somewhere more private he could wait?”

The doctor thinks for a moment, and then gives us a sharp nod. “I’ll have a nurse come escort you upstairs.”

“Thank you,” Jason and I say at the same time.

Five minutes later we’re ensconced in a private waiting room, and Vaughn has joined us.

I stand and put my hand out to clasp his. “I’m so sorry, man,” I whisper as I lean in and put my other hand on his shoulder. “I swear I would have taken it for her.”

He gives me a slap on the back and nods. “I know, dude. I know. There wasn’t anything you could do.”

He looks at Jason as if he’s just noticed him, then back at me.

“My dad sent him,” I say. “Security.”

After I introduce them, Vaughn and I sit down while Jason goes and stands outside the door.

“This was probably destined to happen no matter what we did,” Vaughn says on a sigh. “She should have left town. Come to Portland with me. Her old man did this to her, not you, not me. That dead son of a bitch and Lagazo.”