Chapter 33.
Baz looked up as a second person entered the room five minutes after Emily had. He was both relieved and shocked when he saw it was Lucas.
"Lucas! Where've you been? We've been worried sick about you…" Baz didn't really expect an answer, but was shocked when he did.
"I'm sorry… I didn't mean to!" Lucas sounded on the verge of tears, so Baz waved him over to the bed. Emily took her cue and left the room, leaving the pair to talk in private.
"Didn't mean to what?" Baz looked into the teen's eyes.
"I…I didn't mean to hurt anyone. I've been so selfish…" Lucas broke off, when tears threatened to break his voice.
"About what happened to Matt? He's going to be all right, you saved his life! Without you, he would have been dead…"
"Not just with Matt… About everything! I never even considered what Matt was going through when the policemen asked me the questions; I never ever considered what you were going through after the accident…" Lucas broke down into tears and Baz placed his arms around him for the second time in two days.
"Listen to me, Matt has Emily to talk to. You have me and I have you to talk to. We'll stick together like the old times, nothing's changed and it never will. Anything you do wrong, you can fix it, learn from your mistakes. Like the old saying goes, 'Experience is what you get, when you don't get what you want'. I love you, Scamp."
"I love you too." Lucas replied, before leaning forward into an embrace. They stayed that way until Emily, Barry and Nathan entered the room five minutes later.
"Lucas, where've you been? We've been looking for you everywhere!" Barry began.
"Here and there." Lucas replied distantly.
"You're speaking! How? When?" Nathan was amazed.
"Since now," Lucas replied, effectively ending the conversation. He was about to say something more when he was suddenly interrupted by two people bursting into the room. It was the detectives.
"Listen, you're in danger…The guy who was captured earlier is called Jimmy Guildford and he's not working alone on this." Benson panted. "He talked. He told us that his partner planned all of this and that she was going to try again today, sometime this evening. We have to move you, and fast…"
"His partner…What was her name?" Baz asked, his face had turned ashen.
"Her name is Amy Adamson." Jimson answered.
"Amy?" Lucas gasped.
"Do you know her then?" Benson asked, suddenly interested.
"Amy is Matt's mum." Baz sighed.
"I thought Cynthia Adamson was Matt's mum?" Benson was clearly confused.
"No, Cynthia married Steve, Matt's dad. She was his step mother but Amy was his biological mother." Baz explained. Everyone turned round to face the door, as it began to slowly open. A nurse entered, wheeling a tray of food and needles in behind her. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, but Baz couldn't help feeling he had seen her before…
"Look, we've got to move you out of here as soon as possible…It's going to get dangerous. She knows where your room is and any minute now she could turn up and…" It was as far as Jimson got, before the crack of a gun being fired was heard and his face crumpled in pain. He fell to the floor and was instantly killed. Everyone turned to see the nurse holding a smoking gun.
"I don't want anyone to move. No hero's, is that understood?" She had an insane look about her.
"Amy, long time no see?" Baz's face was set in a grim line and he hugged Lucas closer towards himself. The teen had gone deathly pale and was on the verge of hyperventilating.
"Yes Baz and I see you still have the same habits of keeping things that don't belong to you." Amy trained the gun onto the pair on the bed.
"Why, Amy? Why did you try and kill me?"
"I felt like it. Is that all right with you?" Amy replied, slightly irritated by the question.
"What so you just woke up one day and decided, 'I've got an idea, let's try and kill someone today!' I don't buy that." Bridger spoke up, trying to draw the attention from Lucas and Baz and onto himself. Emily and Benson were in different parts of the room to him. "I think you had a reason to do everything you did, I think you wanted to hurt him and badly, for something he did to you a long time ago…"
"No, you've got it all wrong!" Amy screamed, her hand looming dangerously close to the trigger and now pointing it at Bridger.
"So tell us, why are you doing this?" Bridger softly spoke.
"I'm not doing this to hurt Baz, its Lucas I want to hurt. You don't understand. Every time I tried to get close to Matt, after Steve moved in with that slut Cynthia, all he would talk about is Lucas and Cynthia all day…" Lucas felt his blood boil after hearing the insult directed at his mother. "You don't know what it was like, none of you do. And then she had to go and get cancer. You know to this day, I swear she did it to annoy me." Baz had to physically restrain Lucas, who was quietly struggling to hit Amy. To hurt her in the way she had hurt him. "So, now you know why I'm doing this I'm going to have to kill you all…"
"You were jealous!" Amy looked at the speaker. It was Emily. "You caused all this pain and suffering because you were jealous of Lucas? Matt loved you, but you drove him crazy…And that day he told you he was going to marry me, you went mad at him because you finally saw that you couldn't keep him any more and I could. You literally threw us out of the house. Don't you see? The only person who took Matt away from you was yourself…Can't you see?"
"No you see.…" Amy began with a wild look in her eye before she collapsed to the ground. Behind her stood Benson, who held a needle in his hand. The contents were half empty.
"It's anaesthetic; it'll wear off soon so we'll have to hurry." Benson added. Barry, Emily and Lucas hurried to get some help, leaving Bridger and Baz to look after the prisoner. Help was quick to arrive, but it was after midnight before they were released from the police station. In the end, the hospital consented to let them stay in Baz's room. Matt was being moved into the same room the next morning.
Everyone was asleep, or so Baz thought until he heard a gentle sob. He immediately recognised Lucas' heart wrenching sobs, having heard them many times in the past. Not wanting to intrude Lucas' privacy just yet, the elder man listened until the sobs had died down, before softly calling,
"Lucas, can I talk to you a second?"
He could hear a soft gasp of shock from Lucas, who hadn't realised anyone, was awake. A few seconds later, he meekly obeyed. The teen had silent tears running down his face, the elder man could make out in the light of the moon.
"I want you to tell me everything, starting with why you stopped talking, Matt and anything else that's been bothering you." Baz's approach was different from anything he had tried before. "I'm giving you a chance to talk to me, as a grownup, as a friend who you can trust. Whether you want to talk is up to you but you have to talk about this sooner or later."
"So do you." Lucas countered.
"I will, after you. Now, do you feel ready to talk?" Baz was relieved when Lucas nodded his head softly. "What made you stop talking?" After what seemed like a life time of waiting, Lucas replied,
"There was a visit from the police…They knew about the note…The one they found in your back pocket that was actually mine. I don't know how, but I told them what I told you, how it appeared under the door. Then they moved onto more questions, about mum and how she died…" Lucas trailed off here, the pain and anguish resurfacing again. "Why can't I remember? It's been years, and I still can't remember how my own mother died!" Lucas spoke the last sentence with such venom, he surprised himself. He looked to Baz for an answer.
"Some times your mind blocks things so horrible to protect yourself from the things you don't want to see." Baz gently explained. "No matter how long it takes, it will come back but when your mind thinks you're ready for it." The answer made sense to Lucas and he carried on with his story.
"I just got so scared and all I could see was the door handle of the kitchen and my hand reaching out to grab it…And then Matt holding me and saying it's all right. I was just so scared; I couldn't say anything cos I could still see the door handle and Lawrence's face staring back at me. I didn't want to make him mad, but somehow I always did. I wasn't good enough for him, in anything I did." Lucas' tears began to show in his voice and Baz held him close.
"Lawrence was cruel man and the things he did to you were unforgivable and horrible…But not everyone's like that. I'm not, Matt's not and Bridger and many other people aren't, it's just a random few that feel so depressed with life that they take it out on the first person they see and, I'm sorry to say, that person was you." Once Lucas had calmed a bit, Baz asked him, "What persuaded you to start talking again?"
"That was Emily's fault," Lucas remembered with a smile. "She told me I had two choices, I could either be an adult and start to talk or hide away and be a child. She left the decision up to me." The teen yawned and leaned sleepily against the elder man. Baz could see his charge was growing weary of the present conversation and so changed the topic to a more cheerful one until the elder man was sure his charge had fallen asleep. Glancing down at the teen, he looked so peaceful and innocent that Baz's heart melted.
'Night, Scamp.'
TBC…
Well, now you know about the guy, I just need to clear a few things up with the plot cos it's gone a bit haywire at present. It'll all become clearer in the next chapter.