1. The Aftermath

Chapter One

THE AFTERMATH

Continued from Incoming Layne Shift

A hand waved in front of her face. "Miss?" The man dressed in a cheap gray suit stood in front of her. The emptiness of her emerald eyes stared ahead, not seeing the man or the hospital waiting room they were both in.

Layne sat there in her soiled wedding dress, sections of her hair had come loose from their previously pristine position in her bun, and Joey's blood stained everything including what was left of her heart.

Chaos

This was what her life consisted of; it was how he entered her life.

Luck

Both good and bad followed her everywhere; it was how he managed to save her from herself.

Wrath

Equally her affliction and what she planned to inflict on the world; it was what put him where he was now.

Gage returned with a bottle of water in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. Seeing the middle-aged man in front of Layne, he immediately rushed over, setting both beverages down on the table next to the set of seats where Layne was. "Hey, hey, hey! What the fuck are you doing, man?"

The man frowned as he looked up at Gage. "Detective Adams. I need to ask Ms.…" He checked a notepad in his hand. "Ms. O'Reilly, a few questions about what happened in front of St. Mary's today."

Before Gage could tell him to get lost, Layne said her first semi-coherent words since leaving the church steps, "De Luca." The tone of her voice was cold, flat, and empty, much like the rest of her felt.

"What?" The detective looked over at her, being caught off-guard by her sudden decision to speak up.

"My name. It's Layne…De Luca." Her eyes finally moved slowly through the sludge of emotions they were drowning in to settle on the man looking for answers on the day's catastrophe.

The man cleared his throat. "Oh, um, yeah so, I'm really sorry, but it's standard protocol that we get statements from witnesses as soon as possible while everything is still fresh. The remaining witnesses have been less than cooperative. I was hoping you could provide some clarity."

Layne's voice continued to remain soft and monotone, "I didn't see anything." She had seen everything, and she continued to see it on replay inside her mind. A fresh set of tears welled up in her eyes as she squeezed them shut, expelling them onto her cheeks.

The detective frowned again. "I'm sure there must have been something that stood out?—"

That's when Gage interfered, placing a hand on the detective's shoulder with a solid grip. "Now isn't a good time. She said she didn't see anything." He knew that was bullshit, they all had seen it.

He took a few steps away from Layne, guiding the detective with an arm around his shoulders as he lowered his voice. Several moments later, Detective Adams handed over a business card to Gage and went on his way. The card was immediately dropped into the trash.

Gage came back, picking up both beverages and sitting down next to Layne. "Baby, you should at least drink something. It's been hours."

When she said nothing, he leaned over to whisper in her ear, "I told you to do something; is this how you show me you're listening?" It was his last-ditch effort to get any level of reaction from her. It failed. He frowned, lowering his forehead to her shoulder while his lips kissed her arm lightly.

With her eyes still shut, flashbacks of the day were on a continuous loop in her head. The love and the pain. He told her it was okay and yet nothing was. The second a sob started to crawl from her chest into her throat, she opened her eyes, shook her head, and stood.

Choking down the sob, she looked at Gage. "I wanted a lot of things from him, but I never wanted him to sacrifice himself for me. I'd rather give myself to all the monsters lurking under my bed at night than to have him do what he did." Truth be told, those monsters were already poisoning her thoughts and beckoning her to surrender herself to the darkness calling to her soul. Without Joey, the fire within her was slowly being snuffed out.

Looking around at the piss-poor attempt of the hospital to look warm and welcoming, all she could see was despair and pity. "I can't be here." She wasn't sure where she could go to find her escape, but sitting for hours inside this waiting room wasn't it.

Gage's hand reached out and wrapped around her wrist. "Layne…" He wasn't sure what he could say to her to make this better, because he was feeling just as lost inside.

Before she could pry his grasp off of her, a doctor approached. It was a woman in her late fifties wearing dark blue scrubs that gave a boxy appearance to her body. "Mrs. De Luca?" She looked at Layne with eyes full of empathy, likely mastered from countless depressing conversations with families of patients.

Layne looked up at the doctor who was now standing in front of her. This was it. This was the moment she didn't want to be present for. She had played it out in her mind a thousand times over in the past hour alone. She could hear the words over and over that yet again someone was sorry for her loss. He was dead and gone with no chance of ever coming back to her. She would be told that the doctors did all they could and it still wasn't fucking good enough.

"I'm Dr. Monroe, I am the surgeon who worked on your husband." She pulled a tablet from under her arm.

Hearing someone refer to Joey as her husband made Layne's heartache burn even deeper. Gage's arm was suddenly wrapped around her shoulders, holding her firmly as they both braced for impact.

The doctor tapped on the screen several times as she drew in a deep breath to share the news. "He is currently in our Intensive Care Unit. I was able to extract the bullet from his chest and repair the tissue." She continued to go into the finer details of what had been done during the surgery, using her tablet as a reference point, but Layne was still stuck on her first sentence.

"He's in the ICU?" She stared at Dr. Monroe and wondered if this was her mind playing games on her. Had they renamed the morgue?

Dr. Monroe nodded. "He lost a lot of blood and he's not out of the woods yet, but he's extraordinarily lucky the bullet barely nicked his heart. If it had been only a hair to the left, it would have been fatal."

Layne's body was involuntarily shaking like a leaf and her lungs felt like they couldn't get enough oxygen. The renewed wave of hope had come from nowhere and crashed down on her. She didn't even feel the rolling set of tears on her cheeks.

Gage hugged Layne into his side, feeling the same relief and hopefulness upon hearing the doctor's words. "When can we see him?"

Dr. Monroe tucked her tablet back under her arm. "We'd like to monitor him for a little while longer to make sure he's stable after surgery, but I will have a nurse come get you when you can go to his room."

Whatever else was said, Layne couldn't have told anyone because her mind was solely on seeing Joey for herself. What if the doctor had gotten patients mixed up? Maybe she was mistaken and Joey was lying in a cooler with a tag on his toe.

About forty-five minutes later, a nurse came to lead Gage and her into a room located in the heart of the trauma ICU. When she entered, it smelled so sterile and not at all like the leather and sage she wanted to be greeted with. When she approached the bed, she saw him lying there unconscious and quite pale. Tubes provided him oxygen and drained excess fluids from his chest, IVs provided his body with medications, and monitors constantly checked his vitals.

Her hand covered her mouth, stifling a sob. Gage squeezed her shoulders reassuringly as his body released some of the tension it had been harboring since they had arrived at the hospital.

Layne stepped up next to the bed, carefully taking hold of his hand while her fingers trailed over the side of his face in disbelief. Touching him and feeling his warmth made it real. He was still here with her, and he hadn't left. His life hadn't been robbed of him in the name of Layne's survival.

Her words shook with the weight of her tears still on them. "You listen to me, Joey motherfucking De Luca. I swear to God if you die on me now, after all this, I will hunt your soul down and never let you hear the end of it."

Gage joined her at Joey's bedside, lightly patting his brother's shoulder. "You've always been a stubborn son of a bitch." He tried to make the commentary light, but his own emotions were getting caught on the words.

She stood there watching every breath he took into his lungs. Each minor movement of his body had her attention. When it was clear she wasn't letting go of his hand, Gage brought a chair over to her so she could sit. Layne rested her head on his arm, both of her hands steadfastly clutching onto the familiar skull tattoo on his hand.

"Hey, Layne!" The crack echoed in the air. Joey's weight on top of her. His cocoa-colored eyes were full of physical and emotional pain.

"Hey, Layne!" Liam's voice filled with nothing but hatred.

"Hey, Layne!" All her sense of security was shattered.

"Hey—"

She startled awake, lifting her head from the edge of Joey's bed to see the nightmare wasn't entirely over. Her heart was galloping a little harder in her chest to the point she could practically feel it in the back of her throat.

"Layne," Gage's voice repeated her name for a third time. His hand lightly rubbed the exposed skin of her upper back to ease her out of her nap.

Groggily, she responded, "Yeah?" Her fingers rubbed the slumber from her eyes as she tried to erase the fog that had settled over her. Glancing up at the clock on the wall, she had only managed to snag an hour of rest.

He had a large paper bag in his hand. "Rebecca dropped off some clothes for you to change into." She hadn't been allowed beyond the nurse's station since she wasn't considered immediate family, but Rebecca had met Gage for a few minutes to get an update and to see what else she could do.

Layne shook her head. "No." Her eyes looked at the unchanged slack expression on Joey's face. "What if he wakes up and I'm not here? What if he… and I'm not?" Her fears were getting the best of her and making her unable to say the morbid alternative.

Gage squatted down next to her, a hand soothingly rubbing over her thigh. "Baby, he's not going anywhere in the next ten minutes." He offered her the bag with her clothes in it. He had already changed out of his tux and into a set of casual jeans and a solid blue t-shirt that his buddy had dropped off while Layne had been catching some rest.

Layne stared at the bag for a minute then sighed as she stood from the chair. She leaned over and kissed Joey's mouth softly. "I will be right back, okay?" There was no telling if he could hear her or not, but it made her feel better to think he could.

It took what little strength she had in her to release Joey's hand and grab the bag instead. Gage stood and motioned in a direction across the hall. "The nurse said there's a bathroom right over there you can use."

After Layne left the room, Gage plunked down into her chair. One elbow rested on his knee while the fingers of his other hand roughly ran through his cropped hair. "She's hurting, Joe. Hell, I'm hurting. If you check out, you'll be taking her with you. You gotta pull through this, for all of us." His emotions tainted the last few words that passed through his lips.

Finding the easily marked bathroom, Layne stepped inside. She stared at herself in the mirror. The day had begun with her looking and feeling her prettiest. Now, her eyes were swollen and bloodshot from the tears, her makeup smudged into dark circles around her eyes, her hair frazzled, and the red bloodstains still marred her fair skin.

Mentally, peeling off her wedding gown had been the most painful part of the process. The weight of the fabric should have been a relief when it fell to the floor, but her body still carried an incredible emotional load. Looking in the bag of clothes, Rebecca had done her typical thing. Not only did she pack two outfits, but she had tossed some spare toiletries in there as well. After scrubbing any speck of dried blood from her body and washing her face, she brushed out her hair putting it in a ponytail.

Layne chose a pair of black leggings, slip-on sneakers, and a lavender tank with a dark purple zip-up hoodie overtop. She shoved her dress into the bag, unable to get it to fit fully so the skirt was cascading out the top like a fountain of tulle. Why was she even keeping it? It had to be bad luck to keep something that you wore when your husband took a bullet for you, right?

Emerging from the bathroom she came back to Joey's room. She dropped the bag onto a small sofa that doubled as a sleeping space. As much as she hadn't wanted to leave and try to put herself together, Gage had been right to urge her to do it. It left her feeling slightly more human and briefly chased away some of the darkness consuming her thoughts.

Gage got up from the chair, his eyes red from the few minutes he had to allow the day's events to sink in. He walked over to her and wrapped his large arms around her giving a near-crushing hug. "You look gorgeous."

Her partial laugh fell flat. "Liar." Her arms wrapped around his waist and let him hold her for the amount of time they both needed. "How is he?" It seemed a silly question since she hadn't been gone all that long.

He pulled back and turned to look at his brother. "Still here, just like I told you. You should go get yourself something to eat. There's a cafeteria down on the first floor."

Immediately, that was a hard pass for her and she shook her head. "I'm not hungry." It felt like she was being chased away from Joey's side, and her defense mechanisms began to rise up in protest.

Cupping her face, he stared at her. "I need you to eat. It's not going to do anyone any good if you pass out ‘cause you're too damn stubborn to take care of yourself."

Frowning, she pulled her face back from his hold. "I'll be fine."

He groaned in annoyance that this was going to be a battle. "Sitting here refusing to do anything but stare at him isn't healthy. Joey would be kicking your ass right now for forcing the question to be asked twice." The moment the words flew out of his mouth he instantly regretted it.

Layne's hurt came bubbling back up to the surface and she pulled back from Gage.

"I'm sorry, you know I didn't mean to…" His eyes were apologetic as he reached out for her but she kept herself just out of the reach of his hand.

Her eyes shifted to where Joey was lying. His condition hadn't changed since they arrived in the room. It was neither better nor was it worse. "I'm going to go get some air. Call me if anything changes."

She reluctantly left the room in search of some space to clear her head. When Layne got past the sliding glass doors that led outside, she was greeted with a small breeze filled with cool air. Finding a bench to sit on, she stared up at the sky letting the one question fill her head. Why? Why was this happening to all of them? Why did Liam have to do this? Why hadn't it been her?

There should have been unparalleled rage directed at her brother, and she was sure at some point it would rear its vicious head. Right now, the only thing she felt was small, lost, and shattered all thanks to the crippling grasp of fear her brother left her with.