“Gentlemen.” The doctor greeted. “She’ll be fine. She has some bumps and bruises that we’re not sure if they’re from the explosion or the abduction, and a few stitches, but either way, she’ll make a full recovery. I do have one of our top psychiatrists coming to see her soon, though, because she’s going to need someone to help her work through her guilt about her friend and eventually, her own capture. I think she’s choosing to focus on her friend to avoid her own nightmare. Be patient boys, she has a long road ahead of her, and I suspect so will you. Now get in there because she is eager to see you both,” he told them shaking their hands.
“Thanks, doc,” Coop said, slipping into her room.
“Thanks a lot, doctor, for everything,” Dane told the other man sincerely, going in to see her.
A sense of déjà vu niggled at his mind, walking in to find Coop lying beside her in the bed with his body wrapped around hers. “Dane,” she whispered. “Coop won’t tell me anything. Is she ok?” she asked, referring to Kenny.
“With time, baby girl, she will be. It’ll take her a while but with support, I think she’ll get there.” He tried to soothe her fears, not wanting her to know about all of her injuries because she would only stress herself over it; and she didn’t need to worry herself sick.
Nodding her head in acceptance that they weren’t going to give her details, she started to explain everything that the doctor already told them, but they wanted to get her honest opinion on things, figure out where her head was at with everything.
Once she was done, Coop asked her, “What do you think about the psychiatrist? Are you willing to take that kind of help?”
After he’d laid down so that he and Coop were both on their sides facing her and she was flat on her back between them, he watched her face closely and saw the indecision run across her troubled features before acceptance finally settled in its place.
“I think I need to. I know it will help me learn to cope with everything that happened before and after, but also with this guilt. It’s like a living entity growing inside of me. I feel it running through my veins, with every beat of my heart, and when I close my eyes? Even for just a second, all I see is that woman slicing Kenny’s flesh open and the blood gushing out. I need those images resolved in my brain,” she explained to them in such a way that Dane understood why she felt how she did. Watching someone you love get hurt so brutally was an endless torture in your mind.
“Is that ok?” she asked them hesitantly, not looking at either of them. It was like she thought they wouldn’t want her to get the help she wanted and needed to ease her fears.
“Baby girl, of course, that’s alright,” they told her at the same time.
“When can I see her?”
“Probably not until we get home to Austin. Her brothers and parents are getting her transferred there as soon as they can arrange it, and you need to heal some first. Baby steps, baby,” Dane told her. At her yawn, he instructed her to get some rest and they’d be there when she woke and to scare off any nightmares she may have.
Watching Emily sleep for a few hours while he and Dane laid and watched with nearly nothing said between them, soothing her fears anytime she would whimper from a nightmare, left Coop with a bad taste in his mouth. He was so angry she’d been taken, that they’d both been taken, he was having a hard time containing his anger so she wouldn’t see it. She would think it was at her, and that couldn’t be further from the truth; he was pissed that he hadn’t been able to protect her.
He couldn’t help feeling as if they’d been there when the girls were taken, it wouldn’t have happened. He knew it wasn’t Eric and Chad’s fault. They never thought her stalker would get so ballsy, and they would live with that for the rest of their lives. But he also felt like they could have somehow prevented it from happening, too. Irrational he knew, but he felt it all the same.
“Coop,” Dane whispered his name, making him look over and meet his friend’s eyes. “This shit? What happened to the girls; we can’t blame ourselves. So for her sake, and yours, don’t go there. Don’t dwell on the what-ifs and what could have beens. What’s done is done, and as fucking horrible as it was, we couldn’t have known, let alone done anything different, okay?”
It made sense, he knew that, but he had a hard time just letting it go until… “Cooper? I don’t blame you.” was whispered against his stubbled cheek, followed by a light kiss.
Pulling her closer to him, he kissed her lightly on the forehead telling her, “Okay, baby. For you, I won’t either.”
After spending the night in the Bay City hospital, Emily had been released with instructions to seek counseling and talk whenever she felt things muddling her brain, making her lose focus, or she felt increasingly depressed over everything that had happened to her. She was home now, at Coop and Dane’s house. Which they told her rather than asked her that she was moving into. She had been secretly thrilled that they still wanted her. It had been one of her biggest fears. Having it knocked out of the park had lifted a heavy weight off her shoulders that she hadn’t realized she carried.
Coming home to have her mom there had been a huge and welcomed surprise. They had cried tears of happiness for what felt like hours, sitting on the porch talking about everything that happened since she left home. Her mom had been terrified for her and missed her something fierce, but she always held faith that she would find a way to come through it.
The biggest surprise had been that her mom had met a man and fallen in love with him, and they were now engaged. But her mom refused to get married until she could be there. So one month after the whole ordeal, there they stood; her mom and her almost step-dad, Bruce Hawkins, at the alter saying their vows to each other, with Emily standing in as her mom’s maid of honor, a place of pride for her.
She was so happy that her Mom got her happily ever after, finally. Looking into the crowd her eyes immediately landed on Dane and Coop, both wearing dark suits with their collars opened at the top and their eyes fixated on her.
Watching them gave her goosebumps and made her skin buzz with anticipation of the night to come. They had been afraid that making love to her after everything that happened would somehow trigger a panic attack, which she still sometimes had. Or she would somehow reinjure one of her now- healed wounds. Having seen the doctor just the day before and telling them both that they were free to continue any bedroom activities had them all buzzing with excitement. But what they didn’t know about was her tattoo that she’d gotten that life-changing day because some days they acted like they thought she’d leave. So she waited for the perfect moment to show them. Hiding it hadn’t been easy, but the fact that they wouldn’t make love to
her until now made it slightly easier, and she couldn’t wait.
Kenny had been put in a medically induced coma because even after being brought to the Austin State Hospital, she went into debilitating anxiety attacks when someone would touch her, and she had ripped out her IV many times, as well as the stitches from scratching or just ripping them out, period. Everyone was extremely worried about her. While she couldn’t talk because of her jaw being wired shut, she refused to try writing to communicate with anyone, and she fought the nurses so hard when they would try to give her pain medication. When Creed suggested that it was because it would make her so sleepy she probably had nightmares, it was the first and only time she had communicated with anyone by nodding her head yes.
After that, though, she was silent again and would just stare off into the distance. When Kenny was brought home from the hospital, she started hurting herself purposely by rupturing the stitches in her wrist and then pulling and clawing at the skin and nearly tearing her veins apart. She was deemed a suicide risk and her parents were put in the position of either losing her or putting her into the coma so she would heal. They’re one hope was that the nightmares wouldn’t follow her. Unfortunately, from the description Linc and Creed had told Dane and Coop when they thought Emily was asleep on the sofa one day, the nightmares had indeed followed and were owning her body, mind, and soul.
Linc and Creed admitted they were attracted to Kennedy and had this not happened, they would have pursued her, but now they just wanted to help her through it. Watching her thrash and scream every night without being able to do anything was slowly killing them inside. Emily noticed it every time she saw them; the dark circles under their eyes, their surly attitudes. Even though they always apologized, she felt their pain.
She was hopeful, though, that Kenny would make it out of her nightmares whole one day.
Pulled from her thoughts as the minister pronounced her mom and Bruce man and wife, followed by the cheering of the crowd, she smiled. Genuinely happy for her mom, she knew one day soon, she would have her very own happily ever after with Dane and Coop.
The End.