I made it to the guy manning the front desk with barely a breath left inside my body.
“Sophia Madden,” I said. “She was airlifted in after being hit by a car.”
The man’s eyes widened at the sight of me.
I likely looked rough.
I hadn’t had time to change my clothes, and I’d been in the same ones all night.
Not to mention my hair was a mess, there were dark circles underneath my eyes, and my leather Battle Crows MC cut stood out starkly against the white interior of the hallway I was standing in.
“Oh, um. Yes.” He nodded his head fretfully. “Let me see if I can get someone to help.” He stood up and all but dashed to the panel on the wall, using his body to hide the code.
I would’ve rolled my eyes in any other circumstance.
Not this time.
I was too fucking worried about the woman that was on the other side of that door.
Luckily, they didn’t take long to get someone out to the desk to talk to me.
“Sophia Madden?” he asked.
At my nod, he continued.
“She’s under observation,” the doctor said when he looked at me. “Are you her father?”
I contemplated saying yes.
I almost did, because I felt like it might get me more information.
Instead I said, “Fiancé.”
His eyes went a little wide for a few long seconds before he said, “Oh. Um, okay. Are you Haggard?”
I felt something weird inside of my chest open up.
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“She’s been asking for you.” He nodded his head as if that was all the confirmation that he needed. “She looks really bad.”
I waited, not sure I could speak at that moment in time.
“Mostly bluster.” He gestured toward the hallway that he wanted me to walk down. “She was run over by the car. Hit the right front bumper. And both the passenger side wheels ran her over along here.” He pointed at his abdomen. “At first, we were worried that she’d broken her hips. However, after having a few X-rays and a CAT scan as well as an MRI, we know that all she’s suffered is internal bruising of almost all her abdominal organs.”
I was now physically sick to my stomach.
“Her eyes are completely red from the capillaries bursting in her eyeballs from the pressure. She has been having random nose bleeds that we were a little concerned about her having brain trauma or something from, but after scanning her brain, we’ve ruled out any brain bleeds.”
I closed my eyes as nausea churned in my gut.
“She’s bruised from head to toe. Her arm’s in a sling because her shoulder was dislocated. Right now, we’re going to keep her at least for the next two to three days to make sure that she doesn’t develop any internal bleeding.”
He continued to talk, but the door to Sophia’s room was in sight, and I could see her curled up in a ball on her bed.
Her hair looked like it’d been dyed red due to her blood, and I could see parts of it crusted up along her hairline, confirming my suspicions.
Her face was a mass of blue, purple and black bruises. And that was only what I could see.
“Goddamn,” I breathed, looking at her small form.
“She’s okay,” the doctor promised.
I swallowed hard and looked at him. “She doesn’t look like it.”
“She really is,” he assured me. “Other than the outside, she’s not hiding anything too severe. She’ll be really sore for a few weeks, look like hell for a month, but overall, she was extremely lucky.”
I could see how he thought that but… god.
Goddammit.
CHAPTER 15
What did the baby corn say to the mama corn? Where’s Pop Corn?
-Text from Sophia to Clem
SOPHIA
I felt like I’d been run over by a freakin’ car.
Literally and figuratively.
Everything on and in my body hurt.
One giant pulsing point of pain.
“Baby.”
That ragged, gruff voice had me blinking open my eyes, but not turning my head—I’d already learned that lesson the hard way—and staring into the wolf-artic blue ones of the man I loved.
The one that was looking at me with so much horror that it was painful to see.
“Hey,” I croaked, wincing when even that small movement caused my actual toes to ache.
He frowned, walking to me when he saw the wince.
“Do you need anything?” he asked.
I needed a new, temporary body while mine healed.
But for some reason, I didn’t think he could give me that.
“No,” I lied.
I’d love some pain meds, but apparently, I was maxed out for another ten minutes or so.
A morphine pump was nice and all, but dammit, it freakin’ hurt really badly, and the least they could do was give me more.
Something that the nurse refused to do, seeing as she thought I was ‘too small’ to handle more.
Whatever.
“Are you in pain?” he asked, reading me like a book.
I’d never been able to lie to the man.