Demanding Ransom

Chapter TWO



I hate hospital gowns. They’re terrifying. They’re always faded, so I suppose they wash them, but I’m pretty certain the one I’m wearing is at least a decade old because I can’t even tell what the original pattern was to begin with. Looks something like flowers, but it could be cats for all I know, it’s so old and worn.

And they don’t have backs to them. Mortifying problem number two. Worse than that, with my luck, the last person to wear mine probably died in it. Hospital gowns completely suck.

But I guess my clothes sort of do at the moment, too. My skinny jeans had to be cut off of me, though I don’t remember much about that. I don’t remember much of anything, really. Especially not how I got the six-inch-long, three-inch-deep laceration in my upper right quad. When I came to after the accident, I’d assumed the warm liquid on my forehead was the result of a cut from all the glass that coated me like enormous shards of glitter. I’d never suspected it was from the steady seeping of my leg wound dangling above me, releasing copious amounts of blood; the steady flow of a sink faucet twisted on.

I think I blacked out—well, I know I did—because all I remember is arriving at the hospital and saying something to Ran about how this was all really convenient since this destination was in my plans for the evening anyway. Then everything receded completely, sucking away any knowledge of what was going on around me as I lay there, totally unconscious, while the rest of the world continued on its merry way.

Now I’m in a sterile, stark-white room. Not the ER anymore, so they must have transported me at some point. I glance to the end table next to the bed, hoping to find my cell phone, but it’s not on it. There’s a large pink cup with a bendy straw in it and I’m tempted to take a drink, but who knows if it’s even mine. They reuse these stupid gowns. I wouldn’t put it past them to reuse their beverage cups, too.

“Miss Carson?” A slight woman with salt and pepper gray hair peeks through the crack in the door. “Are you awake?”

“Yeah,” I murmur. I think I am at least.

She skirts around the bed and comes up to my side, fastening a blood pressure cuff around my bicep. She squeezes several times and the device hisses as she watches the hands spin on the wall nearby. “And how are you feeling today?”

“Today?” I glance toward the window and see the rays of light slicing through the metal blinds. They create horizontal lines across the parallel wall, like some type of striped, illuminated wallpaper. “As in, I was admitted yesterday and you want to know how I’m feeling today.”

She gives me a sideways glance. “Yes, Miss Carson. How are you today?”

I huff a gust of air that lifts my hair from my face. “I’m fine today.”

“And your leg,” she continues, recording something in the binder that’s hooked over the foot of my bed. “Is it causing you any problems?”

I lift the crisp sheet off my lap and glance toward my thigh, but it’s bandaged in several coils of flesh-colored medical dressings. “It’s fine, too. Err—I think it is. I can’t really feel it.”

“Miss Carson, you were in a serious car accident yesterday. How is your pain level on a scale of one to ten?”

I shake my head. “One to ten?”

“Yes—one being a paper cut, ten being your leg cut off.”

“Holy crap! Talk about your extremes,” I blurt, drawing my chin back into my neck. The nurse doesn’t blink. “It appears like I still have all of my limbs, so I’d say a five. What’s that compared to?”

“To a deep laceration. And since that’s what you have on your leg, I’d say that’s appropriate.”

“Well good then. I’m glad I match up.”

She shoots me a quick, humoring smile as she continues writing in my records. “Is there anything I can get you for now, Miss Carson?”

I push with my hands against the thin mattress and scoot upward in the hospital bed, but the muscle in my right leg is completely dead, and the act takes much more upper body strength than it normally would. “Yes,” I reply, still trying to situate myself in the bed. She comes to my side and grasps my arm to assist me. “Can you send my brother, Mike Carson, in?”

Her grip tenses and her fingers dig slightly into the flesh on my bicep, just enough to leave five little crescent marks on my skin. “No one has spoken to you?” Her eyes are wide and her lips quiver, though she tries to mask it. Talk about your terrible bedside manner.

“No, no one has spoken to me.” I give her a stern look that she attempts to avoid by staring down at my arm like she’s assessing something. “Spoken to me about what?”

“I’ll go find your father, Maggie.”

“I asked for my brother,” I clarify, but before I have a chance to ask what is going on, she’s out the door, and I’m left in the cold room alone, feeling numb, like I’m dangling upside-down all over again.

***

“Maggie Girl.” He breathes into my hair and the hot air should warm me, but chills my scalp all the way down to my toes instead. “Don’t you dare do that to me again, do you understand?”

Do I understand? No, of course I don’t understand. I still have absolutely no idea what is happening here, why I’m the one in this hospital bed, and why no one seems to want to give me a straight answer about Mikey.

“Dad,” I speak, my voice soft not because I’m trying to be quiet, but because it’s the only volume that comes out when I open my mouth. Even if I tried to talk louder, I doubt I’d be successful. “Seriously, what’s going on? Where’s Mikey?”

Dad purses his lips and his straight brow knits together. I’ve seen this look on him before. It makes an appearance when he’s searching for the right words to say—the perfect delivery for a speech he’s already prepared. He had the same face nine years ago when he told us Mom wasn’t coming home.

“Mikey is down the hall, Maggie.” He doesn’t add anything to the statement, but the words weigh down on me like a stack of heavy books, only I don’t know the information that’s held within their pages. “He’s fine.”

“You’re a terrible liar.” I stare straight into his gray eyes and the red veins that web through them indicate nothing about this is fine. People don’t cry when things are fine. Forty-year-old men don’t hide their tears behind clenched eyelids when everything is fine. “What the hell happened yesterday, Dad? I got your text, and now both Mikey and I are laid up in hospital beds. What’s going on?”

Dad closes his eyes completely—an even worse sign than when he merely tightened them—and I know I don’t want to hear the words he’s about to say. Like when you’re a kid and you thrust your fingers in your ears and stick out your tongue, trying to avoid the very real confrontation that is bound to take place. I want to do that now. If I wasn’t so sore, I just might attempt it.

“Maggie Girl,” he sighs. That’s another indicator of bad things to come. He’s pulling out the childhood nicknames. Not a good sign. “Mikey had an accident during the game yesterday.”

I recall the text. “Yeah, I know,” I say, nodding. “A concussion. Stupid linebackers. And seriously, Mikey’s got to be ready for them next time. That’s his fourth sack this season. He’s going lax on us, Dad.”

Dad’s eyes well and his front teeth sink into the flesh of his bottom lip. “Mags.” In one swoop, he draws me into his shoulders and presses his lips to my forehead. I wrench back from the sudden action, but feel the spill of his fresh tears across my cheek and my breathing cuts off as the room spins around me.

“Oh no…no, no, no. Dad—please tell me Mikey is okay.” My heart has catapulted into my throat; I can feel the beats echoing loudly in my ears like the kick of a bass drum. “He’s not…he’s not—”

“Oh goodness no, he’s not dead, Mags.” Dad pulls back and breathes a relieving sigh, but the tears continue to run streaks down his cheekbones, sliding across jaw without letting up. “But he didn’t have a concussion like we thought.”

I shake my head. “No?”

“He blacked out.”

“Oh yeah? Well, tell him he’s not such hot stuff—I blacked out too, you know. Multiple times. And I might have even told a random guy he had a nice face. Tell Mikey he doesn’t get all the limelight, mm-kay?”

“Maggie.” Dad’s voice remains chillingly monotone. The walls in the room feel much closer than they did moments ago. “They’ve found a tumor, Mags.” His voice catches. “Mikey has a brain tumor.”