Cage's Misconduct (NHL Scorpions #3) (15 page)

In hindsight it would have been better if all the lights were red. As I went through the last green light before reaching my house, all hell broke loose. It happened in less than a second, but I swear I saw each movement in slow motion. I was only doing about forty miles per hour when a truck filled with partying kids ran the light going much faster than I was. There was nothing I could do. I watched in horror as the truck hit Karen’s side of the car dead-on. The air bags inflated, but not before I saw the intense pain cross her face as the door caved in, crushing her, and then—nothing.

***

Sirens. Sirens blared all around me. It was loud. Too fucking loud. My head hurt, and my face felt like it was on fire. I was pushing against something that wouldn’t move. My body screamed in protest, but all I could think about was getting out of there. I was too crammed into wherever I was.

I tried to look around, but there was so much blood.

“Sir? Sir, can you hear me?” I gingerly turned my head and saw a fireman looking in at me through what used to be my window. Then it hit me. It came rushing back to me with an audible sound in my head. All I could hear was something that sounded like rushing water. So much rushing water. It was deafening. I was missing something, I knew I was.

“What happened?” I was getting frantic to get out of there, and I started tearing at anything around me. That’s when I felt it. Her. Her limp hand. “Karen! Oh my God, Karen!” I brushed her hand again, but she didn’t respond. “Karen?” I became more agitated. I needed to get to her. I needed to make sure she was okay.

“Sir, I need you to calm down. We’re going to get you both out, but I need you to relax. Do you think you can do that for me?”

Fuck no, I couldn’t do that. “Where’s Karen? Is she okay?”

“We can’t get her out right now, sir. The truck that hit you is stuck into your car and she’s pinned in tight. Help will be here any second. Please, let me get you out so that we can work on getting her out, okay? I need you to cooperate with me.”

“Okay. Okay. Tell me what to do.” Oh my God. I had never, ever been so scared in all of my life. What if she was dead?

“I’m going to reach in and cut the airbag away from you. I want you to sit very still, okay? I’m coming in. Lean your head back as far as you’re able. Good. That’s good.”

I heard a ripping sound and felt a little relief as he pushed the bag and steering column away from me. Everything was twisted. Nothing resembled a car anymore. I could see Karen better now and what I saw made my heart stop. I heard a great gaping sob and realized it had come from me. “Karen!” I think I was in shock, because as bad as everything was, I could usually be counted on to be calm and collected in a crisis. “Oh, God. She’s dead, isn’t she? Is she dead?”

I tried to reach out to her, but the fireman grabbed my hand. “Don’t. Don’t touch her, sir. We don’t want to move her. Wait for the ambulance.”

He continued to work around me until I could almost wiggle my way out. “What’s your name, sir?”

“Cage. Cage Booker.”

Recognition lit his eyes. “Tell me what hurts. Anything broken?”

“No, I don’t think so. My head hurts and maybe I have some cracked ribs.”

“Can you move your legs? Arms? Feet?”

It wasn’t pleasant, but nothing felt broken. “I can move.”

“Okay then. I’m going to use my leg to push the steering column out of the way. It’s going to be tight, but I want you to try to pull yourself through the window. We’ll do it together. I want you to sit on my legs when you’ve cleared the steering wheel. Think of me as a rescue basket. Tom, behind me here, will pull us both out when we’re in position. I can’t give you much more room than that, but it should work. Ready to try it?”

I did as he instructed, and we wound up in the arms of another firefighter before we gently hit the asphalt together. Springing to my feet, I ignored my aching muscles and the searing pain in my side. I tried to run to the other side of the car, but was held back before I could reach it.

“Sir, please stand off to the side and let us do our work. Don’t get in the way.”

“But …but I can help.” I still couldn’t see very well. There was blood in my eyes from a gash on my head, and I wasn’t thinking straight.

“Thank Christ. The ambulance is here. Jimmy, help me open this door wider! The EMTs need to get to the other passenger. Her name is Karen.”

I stood by helplessly while they took their time, cutting my car apart trying to get to Karen. I knew they were trying not to hurt her, but I wanted them to just rip the thing apart to get to her. She still hadn’t uttered a word, and I was seriously losing it. An EMT tried to take me to the ambulance, but I pushed her back. I wasn’t leaving until Karen was out. “I’m fine!”

Not deterred in the slightest, the tiny woman held onto my arm. “You’re not fine. You’re bleeding like a sieve, and I need to get a look at the cut to see how deep it is. Let them do their job, and let me do mine.” Her voice softened and she rubbed my shoulder. “They’re pros, Cage. They’ll get her out. Come with me. Let’s get out of their way and let them help her.”

I let her lead me back to the ambulance, all the while keeping my eyes glued to the work being done to free Karen. Miraculously, my phone was still in my pocket and was vibrating like crazy. I reached in to turn it off and saw that it was Karen’s brother calling me.

“Jody.”

“Do you know where my sister is, Booker? I can’t get a hold of her and figured she might be with you.”

To my embarrassment, I sobbed for the second time in my life and couldn’t get the words out. Jody snorted on the other end. “Are you
crying
, Booker?” No doubt he thought I was drunk again.

“Jody. It’s Karen. She’s hurt. We had an accident. They’re trying to get her out of the car.”

“Where are you?” In that instant Jody was dead calm. I think a calm Jody was way scarier than the normal yelling Jody, but his low-key voice went right to my brain, and I felt myself gaining some control back.

“I’m not sure. My mind’s a little foggy.” I asked the woman wiping at my head where we were. “Oh, we’re not far from my house. They’re taking us to the hospital as soon as they get Karen out of the car.”

“Is she okay? How badly is she hurt?”

Shit. I could feel myself losing it again. “No, she’s not okay. She’s unconscious and there’s a
fucking truck in my car pinning her down!
Fuck!”

“Cage. You need to calm down, man. I’m going to hang up now and meet you at the hospital, okay?”

“Okay.”

After ten more minutes of sawing, the truck was out of the way, and they were able to get Karen out. She was covered in blood from her face to her knees. There was so much blood. How could anyone lose that much blood and be okay?

“Karen?” I reached for her hand as they went whizzing by to the ambulance.

The EMTs ignored me as they continued to work on her, talking to each other. “We need to get her to the ER now. Her blood pressure’s too low, and her pulse is slow and erratic.” They pushed past me and got her loaded up. I tried to climb in after her, but they pushed me out and closed the doors.

“No! I need to be with her.” I banged on the door.

“Come on. You can sit up with me, Cage.” I knew it probably wasn’t protocol for them to do that, but if it was because I was the Scorpions’ goalie, I’d use my fame in any way I could.

“Thank you. What does it mean when they say her blood pressure’s too low?”

She didn’t answer me right away, and I allowed it since she was maneuvering her way around the multitude of emergency vehicles still on the scene. When she hit the sirens and sped out onto the main road, she gave me an answer. “It’s indicative of internal bleeding. If her blood pressure is that low and her pulse is erratic, she’s got some pretty serious trauma going on in there, but we’re going to get her to the hospital real quick. The guys will be calling ahead, so they should have an operating room all ready for her. We’re going to take good care of her, okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.” For the rest of the blessedly short ride I stared out the window
,
wishing with all my might we had left Keith’s two minutes later or hell, two minutes earlier than we had. This was supposed to be a night to remember—and it would be, but not in the way it should have been.

When we got to the hospital, chaos abounded. The EMTs weren’t even careful with Karen when they pulled the stretcher out. “Out of the way!”

“Come on, girl. Dammit, we’re losing her. Move!”

Three men in green scrubs met us at the door. “What do we have?”

“Twenty-eight year old female. BP averaging 80/60 and it’s erratic at best. Her pulse is faint—hard to read. Trauma to the midsection, possibly uterine. Majority of the blood seems to be from the abdomen and a head wound.”

“We’ll take it from here.” A short Asian man pointed at me. “You with her?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you run with me?”

“Yeah.” I’d do anything they asked me to. I ran after him, answering questions.

“Do you know if she has any medical conditions we need to know about? Could she be pregnant? Any medications?”

“Not that I know of, but I don’t know all of that information.” Just as I reached for my phone, I saw Jody running toward me. “That’s her brother! Jody, is she on any meds? Pregnant? Medical issues?”

“None that I know about. Only thing she takes is an Advil now and then.”

“Okay. This is where we leave you. Go up to the surgery waiting area and we’ll come out when we have something to tell you.”

“Please.” That was all that came out. I didn’t know what else to say.

“Haven’t lost one yet, and I’m not starting today.” A feeling of helplessness washed over me as I watched the elevator doors close, and they took her away from me.

As soon as they were out of sight, I became aware of Jody talking to me. Yelling was more like it. He thought I was drunk I think. Like I would ever drive drunk. I guess he was still thinking the worst of me. That was my last thought before my legs gave out and everything faded to black.

***

“Karen?” I opened my eyes, which would have been a hell of a lot easier if that asshole with the jackhammer would stop using that thing on my head.

It took me a couple of minutes, but when I realized where I was and what had happened, I threw the sheets back, noticing too late that I was attached to an IV.

“Whoa there.” Lacey got up from the chair she had fallen asleep in and gently pushed me back into bed. “You’re not going anywhere. Jesus, aren’t you hurting?”

“How’s Karen? Why am I in a hospital bed? I’m fine.” I again tried to get up, only to have Lacey sit on the bed and put her hand on my chest to keep me down. That was when I felt the searing burn in my side. I think the shock had kept it at bay. Holy shit it hurt.

“Relax and I’ll tell you everything we know, okay? First of all, you have two cracked ribs, a nasty concussion, road rash on your face from the airbag and forty stitches in your head from cutting it on your broken window.” She laid her hand over my forehead and brushed my hair back just like my mom used to do. “They had to shave a bit of your beautiful hair, too.” I didn’t care about my hair. Hair grew back. I just wanted to know how Karen was. I allowed my eyes to close for a brief second before I asked about her again.

Lacey took a deep breath and I was suddenly afraid to hear what she had to say. “Oh, God. She’s not …”

“No! Oh, no. Cage, she’s going to be okay, but it was touch-and-go for a while. She’s still in surgery, but they have the bleeding under control. The truck pretty much crushed all of her midsection. She had a tear in her uterus and lots of other damage.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, they had to perform a radical hysterectomy. She was hemorrhaging and just so damaged inside. It all had to come out. It was the only way to save her.”

She’d never be able to have kids. She loved kids. Hell, she even picked an occupation where she worked with them. And she didn’t even know about it yet. “Shit.”

“Yeah, but she’s alive. She’s alive, Cage. Focus on that.”

I didn’t know if it was the stress of the day, the relief that Karen was going to live, the knowledge that she would not be able to have children or all of the above, but my eyes started to burn. And it wasn’t shock this time. I didn’t cry. Ever. I was a tough guy—a badass. And yet this was what? The third time today?

I pushed the heels of my hands into my eyes until everything went fuzzy behind my eyelids, but it didn’t help. I felt hot tears leaking out the side and running down to my cheeks.

“Cage.” Great. Just what I needed—another round of Jody yelling at me.

Keeping my eyes shut tight, I put my hand up to stop him from whatever he wanted to say or do. “Leave me alone, please. I just want to be alone right now.”

“It wasn’t your fault. I talked to the police. The kid who was driving was well over the legal limit to drive. It wasn’t just alcohol in his system, either. The other kids said they were trying to get him to slow down, but he wouldn’t. The driver is dead, and it doesn’t look like his girlfriend is going to make it, either.”

“I know it wasn’t my fault. The fucker ran a red light. I’m glad he’s dead, I just hope he felt the pain of his death. I hope he lingered long enough to hurt.” Harsh? I didn’t think so. That little shit almost killed Karen. I guess it was nice that everyone else now knew that I wasn’t at fault, but it didn’t make me feel any better.

“Well, I just thought you’d want to know. Do you want me to call anyone for you?”

I still had my hands over my eyes. My tears were gone, but had given way to mass amounts of rage now that I knew about the driver of the truck. “No. Thanks.” I knew I had to call my mother soon. No doubt it would hit the news with lightning speed since it was playoff time. Oh God, playoffs.

“Okay. We’re going to go back to the waiting room and let you rest. When we hear something else, I’ll let you know.” Jody’s retreating footsteps got fainter and fainter until all was quiet again.

I lay there for hours replaying the accident in my head as if it was on a loop. There wasn’t a detail that hadn’t come back to me, but the worst one was the look on Karen’s face upon impact. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to get it out of my mind. Eventually, I slipped into a restless sleep. I fully awoke with a nurse lightly shaking my shoulder.