Chapter 16 – Scared Sick

Liam glanced at Sam with a haunted look on his face. Since the revelation that their fathers and granddad may be dead, they had sat in silence, with no hope left in them. They had been listening to their captors celebrating over a few beers.

Liam sighed, "Do you think it's true?"

"I don't know, I just don't know, I hope not." Sam's voice was quiet, his eyes bright with tears he refused to let fall. If he let them fall he might be admitting, well, he just couldn't let them fall.

"Same here," Liam said. Then his tone changed "I always remember my dad saying that to give up hope is like giving up on life and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let those psycho's win, are you with me Sam?"

Sam rubbed his face with his hands a moment. "Yeah, it's what our dad's would've done, let's keep them alive inside of us"

"We will Sam, we'll come out on top." Liam reached over and squeezed his cousin's arm reassuringly; and for the first time since the awful revelation, they smiled.

"Yeah," Sam agreed "all three of them."

The boys sat and began to whisper plans back and forth to each other. Neither boy was really sure what had really happened to their fathers and grandfather, but planning an escape helped take their minds off the terrible possibilities.

Meanwhile, their very worried family sat and waited in the hospital for news on one Joe Hardy. They huddled together as they waited for word. Callie looked at Frank with gratitude in her eyes as she saw her strong, in-control husband once again at the helm of the situation. Frank sat with one arm around Kayley's shoulders as he held her hand and rubbed his thumb over Kayley's hand soothingly. "He's okay, Kayley, he's okay. He's going to be just fine," Frank whispered.

Callie rubbed Frank's back affectionately as she thought back to just a few hours earlier, 'Oh Frank, it's so good to hear you saying those words. So good to have you back.'

Earlier as the EMTs approached and took over the CPR on Joe, Fenton stepped back and noticed his eldest son for the first time. Frank remained standing in the middle of the street just staring at the smoldering car. He wore a blank look on his face and didn't seem to really be aware of anything going on around him, but tears trickled down his frozen face. Callie was with Frank now, rubbing his arms and trying to talk to him, trying to get him to snap out of this trance.

By the time Callie was able to reach Frank and bring him back to some sort of awareness, the ambulance had already sped off with Joe and the rest of the family had followed in Fenton's car. Callie yelled for them to go on ahead, that Joe needed them and that she would take care of Frank.

Frank suddenly began to blink rapidly as he became aware of Callie's voice calling to him. He saw, almost for the first time again, what was left of Joe's car. "What? What happened here?" Frank asked Callie as he began to recover. And then it hit him. The explosion, Joe, his baby brother, his best friend, Joe, who he had finally gotten back into his life after all this time, was dead, killed by a car bomb just like Iola. Frank looked around wildly, hoping to maybe catch site of Joe, prove he was wrong about what happened, but there was no Joe. There was only him, Callie, some policemen, and a fire crew working to put out the remaining flames from the explosion that took his brother's life.

Frank was overcome. He sank to his knees and sobbed right there in the road. The smell of the burning wreckage drove the truth home as it assaulted his nostrils. Frank fell over with his palms on the ground and heaved well beyond when there was nothing left to heave from his tortured stomach.