Retribution (The Protectors 3)

I was shaking when I reached the pair and while Hawke looked at me with an unreadable expression, Matty smiled and said, “Hawke says we’re going on a trip.”

Several things occurred to me as I took in my son and the hard man across from him. One, I probably shouldn’t be letting my son call the man by his first name. But I realized just as quickly that I didn’t know the man’s last name and I wasn’t about to ask. I didn’t want to know what it was…I didn’t want to know any more about him than was absolutely necessary. The other thing I noticed was the half eaten bowl of Cheerios on the table. Since we’d been out of the cereal the day Hawke burst into our lives, I knew what the box and the container of milk next to it meant.

“Where did these come from?” I asked Hawke.

“Hawke and I went shopping while you were sleeping, Daddy,” Matty answered, though I kept my eyes on Hawke. He, in turn, held my gaze, unconcerned at the growing anger I knew had to be wafting off of me.

“You took him without my permission?” I said, knowing the question was stupid. This man didn’t need my permission to do anything. Whatever he wanted, he took.

Hawke didn’t move, didn’t smile…didn’t do anything but stare at me with his cold, cobalt eyes. “Figured you wouldn’t want him eating pizza for breakfast,” he finally responded. “And we have a long day of driving ahead of us.”

I ignored the challenge in Hawke’s tone and went to kneel down next to Matty. He looked tired, but seeing the smile on his face had me feeling marginally better. “Hawke said we’re going on a trip,” Matty repeated, almost hopefully. I bit back the tears that threatened to fall as I thought about the many days of pain my son would have to endure in the coming months.

“Yeah, we are. Would you like to go meet Hawke’s friends?”

Matty nodded. “He said they have a really cool dog. His name is Bullet,” Matty said with a laugh.

I smiled and then reached out to press my hand against Matty’s forehead. “How are you feeling this morning?” I asked.

“My belly hurts a little,” he said. “There’s another one, Daddy,” he said softly as he pulled his shirt up to show me yet another bruise on his abdomen.

I nodded slowly while I tried to find the strength to speak. “I know, buddy. But the doctors know how to fix it now so you won’t get any more.”

“Is it gonna hurt like yesterday?” Matty asked, his voice dropping.

“No,” I lied as I pulled him into my arms. “But we’ll talk about that later, okay? Why don’t you go watch some cartoons for a bit and then we’ll get ready to go so we can meet Bullet, okay?”

I felt Matty nod against my neck before pulling free of me. To my surprise, he ran over to Hawke and threw his arms around the man before Hawke could even react. Hawke stiffened and tried to hold himself back from the contact, but then I saw the slightest relaxing of his body as he wrapped an arm around Matty’s small frame.

“Here, you can play with him for a while,” Matty said as he thrust Spiderman into Hawke’s hands before leaving the kitchen. I heard the TV come on a few seconds later. I reached for the dishes on the table and began cleaning up.

“The bruises?” I heard Hawke ask.

My entire body ached from exhaustion and I found myself leaning against the kitchen counter, my stinging eyes focused on the dingy tile backsplash over the sink. “A symptom,” I answered. “They were the reason I took Matty to the pediatrician a few days ago. He sent us to a specialist.”

“And you got the diagnosis.”

I let out a strangled laugh. “I didn’t believe him. I knew it was a mistake so when he said I needed to take Matty to the hospital for tests, all I could think was that they were going to look like fools when they told me they’d screwed up in telling me my kid had cancer.”

I began washing the few dishes in the sink. “Other kids get cancer. Not mine.” I sucked in a breath. “Then the oncologist starts talking about chemotherapy and stem cell transplants and I just lost it.”

I heard the chair scrape back and then Hawke was leaning against the counter next to me. I kept my eyes on the dishes in the sink, but at some point I’d stopped cleaning them. “My little boy has cancer,” I whispered in disbelief. At some point tears had started to slip from my eyes, but I was powerless to move as the enormity of what was happening hit me all over again.