CHAPTER 104

Sarah wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to throw up. As she heard the revelation, Sarah felt like she was about to pass out from the sheer gravity of what Marcos had just told her. She wanted to curl up into a ball and let the world swallow her up. She didn't deserve anything better than that, she thought as she processed everything that had been going on with Marcos, and how even as his girlfriend at the time, she hadn't found out, hadn't been able to help him. She hadn't even so much as gone into his house for months, as Marcos had remarked that it would probably be better if they hung out at hers, as her house was much bigger. And Sarah had been fooled by all of it.

As Sarah felt so consumed by guilt, she knew that she couldn't allow it to last. At least, not right now, because at that moment, Marcos had passed out, the pain overtaking him, and Sarah knew that she needed to take care of him first, before she could worry about her own feelings. However, by the looks of things, Marcos needed a lot more than the first aid kit in the kitchen. She called 9-1-1, summoning an ambulance, the beginning of the help that Marcos so desperately needed, and the paramedics arrived pretty quickly after to take him to the hospital.

As they were whisked to the hospital, Marcos in the middle of the ambulance and Sarah insisting on riding along with them, Marcos began to wake from his unconscious state. He was pretty quickly deemed to have suffered from a concussion, whether it have been from Robby or his dad he wasn't quite sure, and Sarah wasn't either. It had been when he had taken his shirt off to get his various wounds cleaned up by the medics that Sarah had been seriously shaken though.

As the shirt had been cut away from his body by the paramedics and Marcos was rolled onto his stomach, Sarah was exposed to one month's worth of scars that Marcos had received in his battle with his father. There were maroon, purple or green bruises; crimson lash marks from when his father had attacked him with a belt; a large swelling on his lower back from all of the times his father had slammed him against the wall or onto the floor; as well as so many jagged scars that threatened to tear open at any moment. It looked like Marcos had been through war, because in a way, he had. He had been locked in what felt like a losing battle with his father for so long, but he had finally made it to the other side, barely with his life.

The damage to his back was enough to stun the paramedics into silence for a moment, and it was enough to break the dam that had been holding back the tears for Sarah. Seeing all of the scars… it made everything all the more terrifyingly real. While the paramedics were thankfully professionals, trained to go about their jobs without getting distracted, no matter how gory the sight, the same couldn't be said for Sarah. They had the opposite effect on her, spiraling her into silent cries of hysteria, the emotions wracking through her whole body, stabbing her like a knife.

Sarah forced herself to remain calm. Or at least, not completely spiral to the point where she'd need a sedative to calm down. Marcos needed her right now. That's all she needed to think to calm herself. She hadn't been there as he went through all of this in the past month, so she swore to herself that she was going to be here now. That didn't make it any easier though, especially as she heard Marcos begin to let out cries of pain as the paramedics began to assess the various wounds on his body, using disinfectant, a suturing kit and other equipment. If anything, the more Sarah looked at his injuries, the worse it got. Even as someone who had seen plenty of injury in her years of kickboxing and karate, this was a whole other level of horror. She couldn't believe a human was capable of inflicting that much harm on another person, let alone the person's own flesh and blood.

But she stayed with him the entire time, not daring to let go of his hand, which was clutching hers tightly. He couldn't see her, his face pressed downwards as he lay on his stomach in the ambulance, so holding her hand was his only shred of comfort, the only thing that told him that he was okay, that he was safe. Sarah gently squeezed it comfortingly and stroked it for the entire way to the hospital, and it was only when they arrived and when Marcos was carried from the ambulance onto a stretcher that they were forced to separate.

He was quickly wheeled on the moving stretcher into the Valley General Hospital. He was still face-down as the vast majority of his injuries were to his back, and the fact that he was no longer holding Sarah's hand made the entire experience that much more terrifying. He couldn't see anything: whenever he tried to lift his head even a little, a searing pain to the back of his head would force him to lower it again. This meant that he was completely blind to see what was going on as he was quickly brought through the emergency wing of the hospital. The entire experience went by in a blur, once or twice medical staff asking him questions that he semi-consciously answered. The last thing he remembered was being taken into what had to be a Procedure room of some kind, before a sedative injection caused him to fall blissfully unconscious…

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Meanwhile, the entire journey into the hospital, Sarah ran alongside the stretcher, up until she found herself being held back by one of the hospital staff.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. You can't come any further. Family only." The staff member said. Sarah thought as quickly as her still spinning mind could.

"I'm his wife." Sarah lied, for a brief second being taken aback by just how… right that sounded. It sounded like it was actually meant to be, but it wasn't enough to convince the staff member.

"From what he's told us, he's under 18." The nurse said. Sarah nodded.

"He's 17. Legally in California, you can get married with parental consent." Sarah snapped, as if daring the nurse to challenge her. "Now please take me to my husband! Please!"

In all honesty, Sarah wasn't fooling anyone, least of all the nurse opposite her. But a miracle from God led to the nurse feeling sympathetic enough to not question her further, and instead gesture to Sarah to follow her deeper into the hospital. Sarah did so, walking swiftly beside the nurse, trying to get to Marcos as quickly as she could. Unfortunately though, the closest she could get to him was the waiting room just outside the Procedure room Marcos was in. This was as far as Sarah was possibly going to get, and she didn't want to keep challenging the nurse and get thrown out, so Sarah accepted it.

She paced up and down the small waiting room, over and over again, trying to decide who to call. Her first thought was to call her parents. They'd definitely know what to do. Unfortunately, they were out of town, unable to get back to the Valley for at least a few days. Her next thought was calling Marcos' parent… yeah, no way in hell she was ever doing that, even if she had his number. She then thought about calling one of their close friends from the dojo, but Sarah wasn't sure whether or not Marcos was comfortable with them knowing what had happened to him yet. She then decided on someone else to call, someone she knew would be there in mere seconds if he heard Marcos needed him and sure enough, she was right.

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"Hey." Kreese murmured as he rushed into the emergency room, not even 15 minutes later. Sarah breathed a massive sigh of relief as she saw her sensei arrive.

"Thank you for coming, sensei." Sarah said. Despite the fact that it was 2 in the morning, as soon as Kreese had heard the call, even though Sarah hadn't yet told him the details of what was going on, he had made his way to the emergency room as quickly as he could. Because that was exactly the kind of sensei he was. He might have had harsh teaching methods. He might push for a more merciless style of fighting. But whenever his students needed him, whenever they genuinely needed his help, he was there for them in a split second. At least, that's how he was with Marcos, the boy who had spent so much of the past 6 months with him, the boy who without even knowing it, had completely changed Kreese's life.

"Of course. What's going on? Is everything okay?" Kreese asked. Sarah took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down a little as even the thought of what had happened to Marcos had her agitated.

However, before she could answer, the door to the Procedure room swung open and a doctor stepped out to meet them.

"Good evening." The doctor greeted them, an exhausted look on his face. "Are you both his…"

"Wife." Sarah stated.

"Grandfather." Kreese followed up.

By the looks of it, just like the nurse, the doctor didn't believe either of them. With Sarah, it was their ages and the lack of ring on her finger that clued him in. With Kreese, it was the skin color difference between the teenager and his 'grandfather'. The doctor had gone through enough education in the 30 or so years it had taken to become a doctor to be able to see facts through bullshit, but he didn't question them. They were the only people there in the otherwise empty waiting room, so he played along with their stories.

"Look, your wife/grandchild is going to be fine." He told them. "He came in with quite a few minor injuries that might take a while to heal, but nothing permanent. A minor concussion; many bruises and gashes; a lot of swelling, but with some rest and medication, he should be okay. We did have to perform a minor surgery. We found some glass shards stuck in his sides.

"DAD! DAD, STOP!" Marcos yelled, as his father hurled object after object at him, the older man acting like he had been possessed by the devil himself.

"Let's get one thing straight, Marcos… I tell you to do something, you do it! Simple as that! I shouldn't have to ask twice!" His father bellowed. "Do you understand me?"

Marcos didn't respond for a moment, shellshocked by the frenzy his father seemed to be in for something so trivial. Upon not responding, Marcos' father picked up the glass he was holding and threw it at Marcos with all of his might. As Marcos ducked the glass that his father threw, it shattered harmlessly, shards of glass raining down on him and causing a searing pain in his side where some glass had impaled him.

"I said… DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!"

"The glass hadn't been removed and later got infected, hence the swelling, but everything went well with the surgery." The doctor continued. "He should wake up soon, and with the medication we're going to give him, any pain should be gone in a couple of days. He was awake long enough to tell us a bit about what happened, so um… we have an obligation to report it to the authorities when he wakes up. You're free to see him now though if you want. He's in the recovery room next door resting."

"Alright, thank you so much, Doctor." Sarah said, extremely grateful. The doctor nodded and walked away, pointing at the door behind which Sarah and Kreese could see their loved one. However, just as Sarah was about to head towards the door, Kreese caught her arm and held her back.

"Would you mind telling me what's going on?" Kreese asked. "The doctor was distinctly… vague. What happened to Marcos?"

So Sarah told him. She told him the entire story, every gory detail she had discovered in the past few hours. She told him about the belt lash marks. She told him about the zebra-like scars and gashes. She told him about the mountainous bruises. And she told him all about who had inflicted the pain on the boy they both loved so much.

By the end, there was an unreadable expression on her sensei's face. He didn't speak for a few moments, even after Sarah had finished talking and had fallen silent. It took an eternity for him to finally speak again.

"I'm sorry. I'll be back soon. I need to go somewhere." Kreese murmured. He didn't even need to say anything more for Sarah to realize exactly where he was going, and she didn't try to stop him. She knew the man deserved everything they got at the hands of the sensei. But little did she know that Kreese was not just on his way to teach the man a lesson. He was ready to put him 6 feet in the ground…