The Call Read online

“You’re right. I do. Son? I really do hope that she pulls through. If for nothing else, for your happiness’s sake. And I’d very much like to get the chance to know the woman who has caused the chaos in our family. I haven’t decided if it’s a good or a bad thing yet.”

  “Leave Mother. Before you say the wrong thing and I have you removed.”

  “I hope to see you soon, Elijah.”

  Chapter Four

  Abraham

  “How are the dogs doin’?” Devon walks in with a fresh bucket of chicken and mashed potatoes.

  “Oh you know, your house looks like Armageddon.” I have to roll my shoulders to keep myself from scratching my skin off. “Dude, joking. Man, Reagan wasn’t kidding. You really are weird about your stuff.”

  “Shut it, Winters.” He laughs and sets the bucket on the rolling table next to the bed I’m sharing with Reagan. “She seriously reacted to fried chicken? Man, I can’t wait to pick on her for that.” I laugh, shaking my head. My smile fades when I think I might not get the chance to pick on her again.

  “Hey, stop that. Or you can go home. I’ve had enough of that look. She will pull through this. I won’t let her give up.”

  “Sorry. It's just morbid as fuck, ya know? If she were awake right now, she’d have us laughing so hard it hurts. It would probably be over our big asses crying over her too.”

  Devon laughs and takes a big bite of his chicken. Speaking around it he says, “You’re probably right. She’s such a shit. I don’t know what I’d do without her though.”

  “Me neither.”

  Damon walks in with Sam connected to his hip. She comes over and kisses the side of my forehead. “How do you feel today?”

  “Better than yesterday, now that I’ve actually gotten some sleep. Any word from the cops yet?”

  Damon shakes his head. “They found the truck abandoned about five miles from the wreck. They say it was full of his prints. And now that he’s tried to kill the both of you, her twice, they’re calling in for help from the surrounding parishes. I swear, this guy has to be holed up in some underground world that hasn’t been discovered yet.”

  Damon plops on the bed I’ve vacated and starts into a chicken breast.

  »»•««

  Reagan

  I take a big whiff and mm. Oh, the fried chicken. “Abraham? Abraham, when was the last time that we ate?”

  “You don’t remember yet?” He stares at me for a moment.

  “No. I don’t. Where’s the chicken smell coming from?”

  “Listen, Reagan. Put those ears to good use. What do you hear?”

  With a sigh I sit up in our bed. “Beeping. I can hear beeping. It's annoying.”

  “What else?” He moves his hands behind his head and stretches out on his side of the bed.

  “I don’t know. Voices. From downstairs maybe?” When I look back at him he’s just staring at me. “Can you tell me yet?”

  I love you. I need you to wake up. Come home to me. Reagan, I need you, sweet girl. Please. I miss you so much.

  “Who was that?”

  He’s sitting up now and his eyes have hope in them. “Think, Reagan. Think hard. Was it chicken?”

  “What?”

  “You have to remember. I love you, angel.”

  “Abraham, wait! Ugh! You’re such an ass! I love you too, you fuck.” He’s gone. What the hell was he talking about, ‘was it chicken’? Ugh.

  »»•««

  Devon

  I went back to Reagan and Abraham’s to feed the pets and to call Sara—Mickey’s sister.

  “Anything yet, honey?” She’s so worried about us all.

  “Not yet. Abraham’s trying to talk her awake. We’ve tried so much. The doctors say that she’s just not ready for reality yet. They say that she’s healing really well and that her brain activity is active. So she’s at least dreaming…or whatever you do when you’re in a coma. They say that it's all up to her.”

  “Do you want me to come out there? I can be at the hospital in like twenty minutes.”

  I don’t know if everyone is quite ready for us yet—or if I’m ready for them to see us together. We aren’t that stable yet. “Nah, it's just a bunch of waiting around, Sara. Besides, I’m just out feeding the pets. I’m about to head back and bring dinner.

  “I’m getting sick of hospital food. I’ve been really craving Burger King for some reason. Fries in particular. Which is weird because Burger King is more Reagan’s deal than mine.”

  “Did you ever think that maybe that’s why you want it? Everything happens for a reason, Dev. You said yourself that after you asked your mom for help, Reagan rejected her breathing tube. Maybe this is another push in the right direction. That or you just miss your little sister so much that you’re doing what she would do.”

  She laughs, making me laugh. “Yeah, yeah, okay Sara. I’ll text you when I get back to the hospital. Okay?”

  “Okay honey. Be safe.”

  “I will.”

  Okay. Time to go get food.

  »»•««

  Reagan

  “It was fries.” Abraham slows his horse to a stop next to me. “It wasn’t chicken. It was French fries. That’s what you meant isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Do you remember their significance?”

  I close my eyes and concentrate as hard as my brain will allow until the crippling hurt comes with it. “I see fries floating. And glass. Ugh, Abraham it hurts too much to focus on. Can you tell me yet?”

  “You’re so close, angel. Think harder. Why are the fries floating?”

  Taking a deep breath, I try again. “I don’t know. It's like there’s no gravity and they’re just floating with the glass. Some of the glass is clear, some is red. What does it mean, Abraham?”

  “It means that you’re ever closer tonight than you were almost six days ago. Listen for him. Can you hear him? He’s talking to you again.”

  I’ll never look at these the same way after all this. Wake up, sweet girl. Please come home to me.

  I fade out before Abraham does this time.

  »»•««

  Abraham

  “I love you, sweet girl. Please, come home to me. I long to hear your voice and smartass comments. I need you, angel.” When I kiss her hair and inhale her scent, Kate comes walking in.

  “Yeah, cause that’s not creepy. I’m totally telling her you did that.”

  “Look it, preggers. How’s the mommy to be?”

  “Well, since you asked.” Oh boy. “I’m hungry all the time, but in the time it takes for me to make whatever it is I wanted in the first place, I no longer want it. I’ve got heartburn that the devil himself wouldn’t be able to handle. I’m tired all the time and Mickey lets me sleep all damn day, so it’s hard as hell to sleep at night. I wake up with charley horses in my calves, when I’m not waking up to pee an amount that’s not even worth the trip from the bed to the bathroom.

  “I’ve gained over ten pounds. My emotions are everywhere and change at the drop of a hat. I cry for no reason. I can’t do the shit I want to do anymore because it would be bad for the baby. And worst of all? My best fucking friend and wife is unconscious. So I don’t have her to make it better.”

  “Damn. Well isn’t that what Mickey is for, to make it better?”

  Her head drops a tad, her jaw tightens, and her eyes squint at me. Fuck. “Mickey is a guy. Not just a guy, Mickey is the guy that has gotten me into this mess. Besides, his constant chipper attitude about me and this whole area,” she lifts her hand and gestures in a circle around her belly, “is about to send my fist uncontrollably through his face. Now wake her ass up.”

  My eyes grow in size as I look down at Reagan and will her to hear my thoughts. Reagan, if ever you could hear me, hear this. Wake up and save me from your hormonal friend. I think she might eat me if you don’t get up soon.

  “Um, so that good huh?”

  “I will cut you, Stone.”

  The arm that isn’t resting under Reagan’s pillow
, the one in the cast, goes up in surrender. “No maiming.”

  She stops and raises a questioning brow at me. “Maiming? God you’re weird.”

  I laugh at Reagan’s and my inside joke. God I wish she’d wake up. Kate plops her butt down on my old bed, lies down, and rolls to her side. “I miss her, Abraham. Like a lot.”

  Removing my arm from under the pillow to hold my head up and placing my other arm over Reagan’s stomach, I look at her wife. “I know. I miss her too. I keep thinking that if I could just find the right words to say to her at the right moment, she’ll wake up and be okay.

  “I feel like, if we just hadn’t have stopped for food, or left Peter’s at a different time than we did. That little fuck wouldn’t have had the perfect opportunity to get to us the way he did. Or if she’d have been driving, that maybe she’d be the one awake.”

  “Would you really want her to be suffering like you are, watching and waiting for you to wake up?”

  “No, I suppose not. I just feel so fucking helpless. It's been six fucking days, Kate. I don’t know how much more of this my heart can take. I need her like my lungs need air to breathe.”

  “You don’t have to tell me. I’ve been conscious for all of them. I can’t imagine how you feel right now, because your relationship with her is different than my own. All we can do is hope, Abraham. Hope and pray.”

  I sigh and lie back down. “I know. I just miss her so damn much. It hurts.”

  »»•««

  Damon

  It's ten o’clock at night on day six that Reagan’s been in a coma. I’m lying in her old bed in their guest bedroom with Sam. Judge all you want. I like being around her things. Sam has been asleep for about an hour.

  Between classes and the hospital, she’s exhausted. Mickey split my client list at the tattoo shop between him and Kate. I just don’t feel like being in the middle of inking some punk when Reagan finally wakes up.

  We started gating the dogs in the master bedroom at night. Turns out Dozer has a bit of a digging habit. That is probably the only reason why I can hear Thor growling right now.

  I slink away from Sam and out of bed. I go straight to the top drawer of Reagan’s old dresser and pull it completely out. The gun that she’s had there since she left for college is still there. When I pull it out, I hear something downstairs. Shit.

  I don’t see anything when I peek my head out of the door and down the hall—so I hop to the other wall and follow it to the stairs. Gun pointed to the floor, safety off, I start to descend the steps. The third one I step on squeaks and I freeze. Fuck.

  I can hear noises coming from outside. The back doors must be open. Grabbing the cell phone from my pajama pants pocket, I dial 911, hit send, and set it on the top step, face up. Another noise comes from the game room.

  When I get to the second step from the bottom, I flip the light on and I jump to the floor. “You mother fucker!” It’s Chris. I get three shots off. His shoulder pulls back and blood instantly starts to color his shirt.

  I hear it before my body registers anything has happened. He takes back off out the back.

  I fire twice more at him, shattering one panel of the glass wall. The sirens are ringing out, but I can barely hear them from the ringing that I still hear from the gun going off, and the amount of noise that the dogs are making as they wig out upstairs. I can see red and blue lights flashing around the house. “Damon!”

  “Sam, stay up stairs!”

  The front door is kicked in. The rest of the lights on this level come on one by one. “Damon Winters?”

  “Yes.” The gun slides from my fingers and hits the floor. When I look down at it, there’s blood pooling on the hardwood floor. It's coming from me. My entire arm is covered in red, and there’s a small, puckered, red, choppy, circle on the meaty part of my shoulder.

  Pain instantly comes when my brain registers what’s happened. Chris shot me. “Damon!” My head turns to see Sam standing at the top of the stairs, with her upper body leaning down on the railings. “Damon!” She rushes to me.

  My legs give out and my body lies down when she reaches me. I don’t make a sound. Not a tear. I just lie there. My ears are still ringing from the shots fired. From my elbow to mid collarbone feels like I’ve been set on fire. It hurts, but it's not going to kill me.

  »»•««

  Reagan

  “Abraham?”

  “Yes, sweet girl?”

  “My arm feels like it's on fire. Why?”

  He smiles at me. “Sweet girl. Why do you think?”

  “I don’t know. Can you tell me yet?”

  “Not yet, angel. I love you. Get some rest.”

  “I love you too.” I close my eyes and see…Damon?

  »»•««

  Devon

  “Jesus, God. I’m on my way. Sara, Sara honey, wake up.”

  “Hmm? What’s wrong? Did Reagan wake up?”

  I’m out of bed throwing on a shirt. “No. Damon’s been shot.”

  “What?” She launches herself out of bed and grabs a hoodie. “I’ll drive.”

  “Okay.” I can’t think straight, not enough to trust myself driving back to the hospital. Mickey said that it wasn’t fatal and that he was awake. “Damn it!”

  “Devon, it's okay. Come on. Let’s just focus on getting there. Did they say what room he was in?”

  “They’re putting him in the bed that Abraham refuses to lay in. Damon requested it. Well, I guess they’re going to get a crash course in the two of us.”

  She kisses my cheek as she pulls out of my driveway in her Mini Cooper. “I’m ready if you are. Let’s hit this thing head on. Maybe it will take Damon’s mind off the pain.”

  “Mickey say’s that he’s pretty loopy from the pain meds.”

  “Oh, a loopy Damon. Sounds like we can get some dirt on him.”

  She’s always good at cheering me up. Fuck man. First Abraham and Reagan get thrown into an accident, now that fucker shoots my little brother? I will kill that little bastard.

  »»•««

  Abraham

  “Well, did you get the bastard?” Damon’s head whips in my direction far too quickly. Great. His drugged ass isn’t going to be any help at all.

  He’s smiling. “Hit him somewhere on the upper chest. Above the collarbone. Then I shattered one of your glass panels. I don’t know if I got him after that.”

  “What was he doing?”

  “Um…trying to play the Xbox maybe? I don’t know. I can see noises.”

  “Oh for fucks sake. Nurse Maggie?” I whine.

  She throws her hands up in the air. “Hey, he can’t feel anything, he’s breathing, awake, and it sounds like he shot the bastard. Don’t you ‘Nurse Maggie’ me. Or I’ll give you the same shit that I gave to him, making sure it knocks your ass out.”

  “Fuck, I might need you to. Those panels are a good two grand for install and everything.”

  “Hey. I don’t think it's very funny, Elijah. That prick was in your house. I’m not locking the dogs up anymore. I’ll just make it to where they can’t get outside at night somehow.”

  “Sorry Sam. I’m just happy that you guys are okay. Hey, the dogs can’t get to the broken glass can they?”

  Mickey looks at me and says, “Uh…the dogs and rabbit are at my house now actually. When I heard the shots, your house was the first place I went. When Damon left in the ambulance, I put them all on leashes and Kate carried Duchess to the house. Figured that would be the best place for them until the wall’s back up and all that.”

  “Thanks Mickey. Fuck man, I can’t believe that asshole got away. Again.”

  “You kids need to stop getting fucking hurt! It's not nice to scare an old woman like this.” Kathy comes in with Uncle Peter on her heels.

  “Sorry, Aunt Kathy. I hit him back though.” His goofy ass is smiling from ear to ear, like a dog that just snatched up a steak you dropped on the way to the grill.

  Peter comes and stands by me while Kathy dote
s on Damon. “What’s up with you and Kathy?”

  Uncle Peter just grins and pats my back. “She’s just staying with me until she feels that Reagan is well enough for her to make the drive back home.”

  His smile is all too telling. “Sure, sure.” She looks over at him and they both smile a smile I know too damn well. “You know, that’s the same way that Reagan and I would smile at each other when Thing One and Thing Two were around. Is there something going on between you two?”

  Kathy gives me the same look as Reagan’s ‘don’t fuck with me’ look. “Mind your business, youngin’.” She whacks me on the arm.

  “Hey, hey. If he passes out because you’re doin’ that, I’ll not be the one to explain it to her when she wakes up.” Nurse Maggie points to Reagan lying next to me, then leaves the room with one of the IV bags from Damon’s pole that she’s just switched out.

  It's after midnight, and the staff has granted us special privileges due to our circumstances. Sam is sitting at the foot of Damon’s bed, leaning against the wall. Mickey is sitting in the recliner with Kate passed out on his chest. Uncle Peter and Kathy are standing at the foot of Reagan’s and my bed. And Devon just walked in with Mickey’s sister, Sara. Huh, I guess Uncle Peter wasn’t extending the truth. Everyone is in pajamas.

  “He passed out like two minutes ago, dude,” I tell him as he walks over to Damon, holding Sara’s hand.

  Mickey’s eyes get huge and he flicks them to me mouthing, ‘dude?’ I shake my head, letting him know I had no idea about any of it actually being serious or true.

  “Did he seem okay?” Poor Devon looks like he needs about a years’ worth of sleep.

  “Yeah, he was laughing and playing grab ass with my sister. It was a through and through. He even hit Chris at least once. It’s okay, Dev. You want to push the cots together and you and Sara can sleep here? By the way, hi Sara. It’s nice to see you again.”

  “Hey, Abraham. It’s nice to see you too. Wish it were under better circumstances.”

  “We might as well stay here. You staying Aunt Kathy, Uncle Peter?”

  “Not tonight Dev. Call us if anything changes with either of them?”

  “Yes ma’am.” She cocks her head back at me.