Destine (The Watcher's Trilogy) (34 page)

I stoo
d from the desk putting the fireb
ox back into the bottom draw
er
.
I grabbed the two duffle bags I had packed and headed for the front door
.
I paused and looked across the living room into the kitchen
.
There on the kitchen table lay
the keys to m
y
f
ather’s truck
.
I put the bags by the door, and took a deep breath
.
I tried not to think about it as I walked back through the kitchen, I refused to look around, I kept my eyes focused on the keys
.
As soon as my fingers wrapped around the keys, I turned and sprint
ed
out of the room
.
I grabbed the duffle bags and slammed t
he
door shut
.
No sense locking it, all the damage that could be done was done
.
I tossed the bags into the back of my dad’s old Dodge Ram pick-up and climbed into the cab
.
I hadn’t packed any
food or water, but Cami and my m
other could use the cash for that
.
I stopped at the end of the street and gathered my messenger bag from the sidewalk, where I had left it in my panic this afternoon
.
It was hard to believe it had only been 18 hours since my confrontation with Alex, so much had happened
.
I
grabbed
my cell phone and made two calls
.
First,
Gabriel to fill him in on the fact
that
I was coming to get Cami with my Dad’s truck
.
He attempted to argue with me, but I cut him off telling him I would explain everything when I arrived
.
The second call was to my Aun
t Karen to let her know my m
om was coming to visit with a friend
.
She sounded shocked, but excited to see her only sister
.
Next stop, the county hospital
.

Chapter 18

Psalm 144:1 “Blessed
be
the Lord my Rock, who trains my
h
ands for war, and my fingers for battle…”

I pulled up to the emergency room entrance to the hospital and parked the truck
.
I wasn’
t sure where they had taken my m
other, but I hoped they hadn’t admitted her to the psych ward
.
If they had, she would have to be held for at least
a
72-hour
observation period, and we definitely didn’t have time for that
.
I left the dark night sky and entered into the harsh
fluorescent
glow of the hospital lighting
.
The automatic doors opened with
a swoosh
, and then s
ealed tightly behind me
.
I always felt claustrophobic in hospitals, like I was sealed in a plastic bag and sooner or later the air was going to run out
.
I squared my shoulders, put my disturbing claustrophobic fear behind me, and approached the nurse sitting at the desk directly in front of the ER doors
.

“Can I help you?” she asked politely
.

“Yes, umm
…
my m
other was brought in earlier via ambulance
.
The last name is Cross.
”
I wasn’t at all sure that Michael had admitted her under her real last name, but all things considered there wasn’t really a
way to keep tonight’s events a secret
.

“Oh, y
es
.
”
The nurse looked up from the computer screen
that was illuminating her face. “She’s still in a bed in the ER.
I can take you to her if you’d like.
”

The longer I stood at the counter the more I began to doubt
my plan, and I started to lo
se my focus and determination
.
“Umm, well actually
…
I was hoping
t
hat I could check her out and take her home.
”
I
knew I
didn’t sound like the confident
adult I wanted to sound like, but at least I had got the statement out
.

“Well, she was just admitted a few hours ago, and it
’s almost eleven-thirty
at night
.
Why not just wait till the morning
? S
he’s been heavily sedated and is probably
sleeping.”

I had to take out the big guns if I wan
ted this nurse to discharge my m
other
.
“Well, my f
ather died tonight
,”
I just couldn’t bring myself to say that he had committed suicide
, “
and I wanted to take my mother to my a
unt
’
s
house
.
I just can’t be at home alone right now and I don’t want to be separated from her with everything that has happened tonight.
”

“
Aww
, h
oney
.
I’m sorry
.
If you want to stay with her we can roll another bed into her section.
”

She was not making this easy on me
.
“Honestly, aside from being home alone being at a hospital is the second to last place I want to be
.
No offens
e
, m
a’am
,
but hospitals
kinda
creep me out.
”
I tried to look y
oung, scared, and pathetic. C
onsidering the day I had had, it wasn’t too difficult a task to pull off
.

The nurse looked at me with her lips pursed
together and her eyes narrowed.
“Well I guess I can go try to wake her up
.
If I can get her up I can discharge her.
”

“Thank
you,” was all the response I gave
.
When you were getting your way it was
best to say as little as possible
.

The nurse returned
in a few short moments with my m
other sitting groggily in a
wheel
chair
.
Her eyes
were
unfocused and drooping
.

I walked out into the hallway and bent down in
front
of my mother.
“Mom, it
’
s Michelle
.
How are you feeling?
”

Without looking up at me her arm shot out quicker than I had expected, considering how sedated she was, and wrapped around my wrist
.
“Michelle, we have to go.
”

I laid my hand on hers where it rested on my wrist and gently patted
.
“We are
,
Mom, we are.
”

I looked back at the nurse who was watching this interaction with sharp focus
.
I gave her a tired shoulde
r shrug, and the nurse left my mother’s wheel
chair and walked over to her computer screen
.
She returned with a
clipboard
of papers and instructed me what to s
ign and recommend I monitor my m
other’s behavior closely over the next 48-hours
.
At any sign of
strange behavior I was to bring her back
.
I shook my head, and gave the best eye contact of my life
,
hoping the nurse would believe I was
a
trustw
orthy
individual, not someone who was about to send this woman clear across the country
.

When the nurse was
satisfied she let me wheel my m
other out into the parking lot on my own
.
It took some coaxing and maneuvering to get her into the truck, considering how groggy she was, but I managed
.
I locked her door and closed it, and went back into the hospital to
return the wheel
chair
.

Once I had climbed into the truck myself, I headed off towards the old farmhouse w
h
ere Cami and Gabriel waited
.
I kept to the back roads
,
hoping
Alex wasn’t out searching for me, or worse yet already following me
.
Luckily we arrived without any unexpected confrontation
.
My m
other had dozed
throughout the drive, her head toss
ing back and forth with the bumps
.
Even un-medicated (which she hardly ever was) she was not a person you trusted to d
r
ive, and clearly from the looks of the way I left Cami she wouldn’t be driving either
.
I had to find a way to convinc
e Gabriel to drive Cami and my m
other to Colorado, to my Aunt Karen’s
house
.
I knew it was going to be a tough sell, but Michael had said Alex would only follow me
.
If I stayed here, then theore
tically Cami and my m
om were safe
.
I knew Gabriel wasn’t going to want to leave me, but I had to think of a way to convince him
.

I was deep in this thought processes as the truck drove down the bumpy dirt lane towards the old farmhouse
.
As the headlights washed over the old broken out windows, the front door swung open and Cami came leaping out with Gabriel directly behind her
.
Before I could even shut the engine off, Cami had swung open the drivers side door and was embracing me in a rib shattering hug
,
seatbelt still on and all
.
I hugged her back
, and then very gently placed
my hand under her chin and tilt
ed her face towards the interior cab light
.
Sure enough her eyes were back to their deep-midnight blue and no longer the cloudy pale
-
blue of this afternoon
.

“Cami, when did this happen?” I asked in shock
.

“It took a few hours, but after you left my eyes slowly began to adjust
.
It was
kinda
like when you enter into a dark room after being in the bright sunshine all afternoon
.
Except
instead of taking a couple of seconds for your eyes to adjust, it took several hours.
”
She was surprisingly chipper for someone who had jus
t broken free of the powers of h
ell
.
Cami
’s
gaze shifted to the passengers seat
.
“Hi
, Mrs. Cross.” She smiled at my m
other who barely responded
.
“Michelle, w
hat did you bring your Mom for?” she whispered to me
.

“We all need to get into the house, and I’ll explain
.
Something has happened,” was all I said
.

After what felt like the longest explanation of events ever told, I had explained to Cami and Gabriel everything that had unfolded after I left them that afternoon
.
I
finished with a sigh a
nd slid down the wall I had
been leaning against so I now sat on the floor with both legs extend
ed
out
in front of me
.
It had been horrible living through it, but it was just as bad retelling it
.
My m
other had sat through the whole story, curled up on the floor slipping in and out of sleep
.
Cami crawled over to me from where she had been sitting on the floor and wrapped her arms around me and pressed he
r chee
k into my hair
.
“Oh,
Chell
, I can’t tell you how sorry I am
.
I feel so stupid for ever getting involved with Alex,” I hear
d
her voice crack. “This is all my
fault!” I began to feel the little splashes of Cami’s tears crash on the side of my face
.