Chapter Eleven

Rowan

“Are you her husband?” The paramedic asks me.

“Yes,” I answer, still holding Anika’s hand. I am trying not to panic. She’s breathing still. She will be fine.

“We can bring you with us. They’ll have to follow,” she says.

“Okay. Guys, find the others and meet us there,” I tell them as I toss Anika’s keys to Max. He looks like he is hardly holding on. “Max, don't fall apart on me, man. Anika needs us, okay?”

“I’ve got him. You go,” Theo says as I step up into the ambulance with Anika. Theo may sound and appear calm but the look in his eyes say something completely different. He loves her and he’s terrified, just like me and Max.

“Mercy Vale Memorial this is Ambulance 8274 do you copy?” The paramedic says into her radio.

“Go ahead, Ambulance 8274,” a voice says.

“We have an incoming trauma. The patient is a twenty-six-year-old female with a GSW to the abdomen. Significant blood loss. She is unconscious and hypotensive. BP is 41/60 and declining. Her pulse is 197. ETA five minutes. She is going to code so have trauma on standby,” she explains.

“Fuck. She’s gonna die,” I say out loud to myself. I keep holding her hand. I’m afraid if I let go then she will, too. I need her to know I’m still here.

“I’m doing my best to prevent that. What’s your name?” she asks as she works on Anika.

“Rowan,” I mumble.

“Who were the other two guys?” she asks.

“Boyfriends. We are polyamorous. Max is more like her husband though,” I over explain.

“She’s a lucky girl,” the paramedic says with a smile.

“I think we are the lucky ones. Sounds cheesy saying it like that,” I say.

“A little,” she says. An alarm sounds and my heart sinks.

“Greg, she’s crashing. I need you to hurry. Call it in. I’m starting compressions. Rowan, I’m going to have you breathe for her. When I stop compressions, just squeeze this twice. Okay?” she asks as he intubates Anika.

“O-Okay,” I stutter.

“Mercy Vale. This is ambulance 8274 again. Incoming GSW is receiving compressions. ETA is less than a minute,” the man driving says into his radio.

“Ambulance 8274 we have a trauma team waiting for your arrival,” the voice says.

“Alright,” the paramedic tells me. I squeeze the bag twice and she resumes compressions.

She’s going to be fine. They know what they are doing. It’s okay. She survived her parents. She can survive this.

The ambulance doors swing open and everything is a blur as Anika is taken out and whisked away. Someone in passing tells me that I need to go wait somewhere else and I can’t come with her. I don’t want her to be alone if she dies. I want her to know that I was there. But she did die. She is dead. I don’t know if they’ll get her back.

“How is she?” Theo asks as he, Annie, Andrew, Max, Emma, and Mia come running up to me. I don’t know what to say. How do I tell them she’s dying? Poor Mia.

“Rowan!” Mia says as she pulls me off to the side and out of the way. Everyone moves over with me but I can’t say it.

“What’s going on Rowan?” Max asks softly. “Please say something, man.”

“Her heart stopped,” I say quietly. “She started CPR.”

“Oh fuck,” Max says in shock.

“What the fuck happened?” Mia demands from us.

“I tried to stop her from going out there. I swear to God I tried, Mia,” Theo says as he lets his calm demeanor slip.

“Isaac put a gun to my head when we wouldn’t tell him where she was and she ran out there. She got him to let everyone go but me and Max stayed. She was trying to talk him down and he spotted Theo. He was going to go after Theo and she pushed him back and he shot her. Theo shot him and we all went to her,” I explain.

“She has to survive. She wouldn’t do this to me. She’s not going to die,” Mia says as she starts to cry. “She can’t die, Rowan. She can’t.” I pull her to me as she starts to sob.

“Max, can you call Mom, please?” I ask him and he nods. “We need to go find the waiting room in case they come out.”

“I got her killed,” Theo says, mostly to himself.

“You know better than anyone that he was going to do that regardless, Theo. She’s probably going into surgery so we need to go find the waiting room,” I say. Mia pulls away from me and hugs Theo. Annie is trying her best to console him but she too is a mess. Poor Andrew doesn’t know how to react since he doesn’t actually know Anika.

We go inside and a nurse tells me what waiting room to go to. They put us in a surgical waiting room and gave me her patient number so I can track where she’s at on the board. Right now it shows that she’s in the operating room. The nurse promised that a resident or medical student would be out to update. When I asked her if she was alive she told me she was in the surgery. I don’t want to be too hopeful just to get let down, but I don’t think they would have taken her to surgery if they hadn’t gotten her pulse back. We would have at least been told by now if they didn’t get her pulse back.

We get to the surgical waiting room and we are alone in here. My mom gets there at record speed and comes straight to me.

“She’s going to be okay,” Mom says softly. “She’s in surgery. She’ll be okay.”

“Mr. Garcia?” a woman says as she enters the room. I jump up to go to her.

“Yes. That’s me,” I say.

“The surgeon wanted me to give a quick update since you were left not knowing her condition. They did get her pulse back shortly after arrival. She woke up for just a moment before she was sedated. They are giving her blood since she lost so much and she’s in surgery right now. The surgeon is Dr. Mitch O’Brien. He said that she is still critical but if she can get through surgery she will have a high chance to pull through,” she explains.

“Do you know how bad the damage is?”

“I know blood loss is the biggest issue. They need to get the bleeding stopped so they can start repairing. Once he does that she should stabilize,” she tells me. “I will come periodically to give an update but no update is still an update. It means we are still working with her, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you,” I sigh. She nods and walks out. Behind her are Anika’s parents and sister.

“ No. Get the fuck out! ” Mia shouts.

“We just want to know if she is okay,” her mom says softly.

“ This is your fucking fault ,” Mia yells at her. “ None of this would be happening if you hadn’t been a shitty fucking mother. You should have protected her .”

“I did care about her,” she frowns.

“No, you didn’t. She was disposable to you. All you did was take from her. You didn’t give a fuck about her. You let your husband get by with trying to rape his own daughter. He made her touch him and your whore of a daughter covered for him,” Mia says as she starts to cry .

“Is she okay?” Harper asks me.

“No. He fucking shot her, Harper. She died in that ambulance because of what you did. You let him do this to her. If she dies in surgery, it’s your fault. No one wants any of you here,” I snap at her.

“Is he dead?” she asks.

“Yes. Theo shot him in the head. Any more questions?” I ask with venom in my tone.

“Can you tell her we came?” her Dad asks.

“If she lives,” Max deadpans. “Get the fuck out or I’m calling security.”

“We are her family,” her mother says tearfully.

“ No. I am her family ,” I say, raising my voice. “Everyone in this room is her family. Me, Theo, and Max love her more than anything in this world and will spend the rest of our lives showing her how fucking special she is. Mia is her sister. That woman is her mother now. Not you. Annie, Andrew, and Emma are her family. You are nothing to her. Get the fuck out or I will remove you myself.”

Max pulls his phone out to call hospital security and Harper is the first to break. “Let’s just go,” she says to her parents. She then pushes her parents out of the waiting room.

We all spend the next several hours with no update. We all are restless and take turns pacing the room. Mom forces us to eat but I think she’s just trying to focus on us so she doesn’t fall apart herself. I’ve never seen her pray until today and that’s half of what she's been doing.

Max finally gets Mia to sleep. She was going through cycles of falling into panic attacks and then anger.

“Mr. Garcia?” a man says as he comes into the room. He is wearing scrubs and a surgical cap. With him is the woman from earlier.

Everyone shoots up from their seats. “Yes,” I say.

“I am Dr. O’Brien. Anika is out of surgery. We have her settled in a room and off sedation, so she should wake soon. She lost a lot of blood but we fortunately found the source of the bleeding. She’s going to need to stay for at least today since she lost so much blood, but she’s going to be just fine,” he says.

“Oh, God. Thank you so much,” I say with a relieved sigh. “Can we go see her?”

“Yeah. All I ask is to not overwhelm her. She’s been through a lot in the last few hours so she needs to rest. I did see that the police told us that she has a restraining order against her parents and her sister, is that correct?”

“Yes. They showed up earlier but we did get rid of them. Emma is her lawyer and has made calls about that so hopefully they won’t show back up again,” I say.

“We will let security know. Anika is in room 343. It’s not technically visiting hours so just keep quiet, okay?” he asks.

“Thank you so much,” Mia says tearfully.

“Are you Mia?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she sniffs.

“Before she went into surgery, she woke up and told me to not let her die because Mia would cry too much,” he says with a smile.

“She’s not wrong,” Mia laughs.

“I’ll come check on her after a while,” he says.