Chapter 22: Relief
Luke isn't the oldest suppose to help PROTECT the younger ones?
He kept hearing that phrase over and over in his head along with the screams from when Kira was trying to fight off her attacker. Driving toward Atlanta, both he and Bo hadn't said a word in over an hour. What was there really to say? Both were lost in their own thoughts while praying that Kira would be alright.
Worried, Luke glanced over at the passenger seat. Daisy had filled him in on Bo's collapse out back while he had been chopping wood. Apparently, he had been fine one minute then on the ground the next. Bo had told her that he had gotten a sudden pain in his head, but it had passed as quickly as it had come. And it had happened just as Kira had been attacked. Luke wasn't sure that the two weren't connected; not with the unusual connection that the twins had.
As Luke drove, Bo was trying to call out to Kira. He hadn't really asked her how she'd finally been able to make her way through to him during the kidnapping before Christmas. He guessed it hadn't really been all that hard. Now, he wished he had since it was clearly more difficult than he had thought.
'Come on, Kira. You got to answer me.'
Looking at the road, Bo saw that they probably had at least another half hour before they hit Fulton County. And that was with Luke breaking every speed law there was. Luke still wouldn't tell him what he heard during the attack. If fact, he hadn't said a word since they had climbed into the General Lee right after Rosco had delivered their papers that allowed them to leave Hazzard.
Bo had been surprised by Rosco's helpfulness. It looked like his genuine affinity for Kira helped make him insist that Boss give the boys permission to head to the hospital, (of course, they would have gone one way or another) though since Luke was considered a witness, Boss might not have had much choice but to give his permission to let them leave for Atlanta. Bo had barely been able to wait for Rosco once he had gotten his overnight bag together to leave.
Daisy had gotten Kira's sweats together and packed them up. She had then called Cooter to see if he could come out to help out at the farm. She was certain that the boys wouldn't be back for several days. And while Jesse would try to carry on with the chores alone, Daisy didn't want him to have to. Cooter was on his way out to the farm as the boys drove out heading toward the hospital in Atlanta.
True to his word, Officer Lyons had someone waiting to speak with Luke when they got to the hospital. Even though it was probably the last thing that he wanted to do, Luke headed the officer's way when they walked in through the hospital doors. Glancing to his cousin at his side, he decided that doing this with Bo at his side would be the last thing that he'd want to do. He didn't need to hear this.
"Bo, why don't you go see what you can find out about Kira while I go and talk to the officer?"
If Bo wasn't so worried about his sister, he would have argued the point that he wanted to hear just what he planned to tell the police officer about what he had heard during the attack. Instead, he went straight to the Emergency Room desk and asked the nurse about his sister. Without learning anything, he was simply given some forms to fill out and was informed that someone would be out to speak with him soon.
Turning back around, Bo saw neither Luke nor the cop who had been waiting for them to arrive. With nothing left to do, Bo sat down and commenced with the paperwork while waiting for word on his sister. Luke still hadn't returned to the waiting room when a nurse came in to tell Bo that Kira had been moved to a room and that he could sit with his sister while he waited for the doctor.
He left word for Luke at the desk about where he was and followed the nurse.
Luke walked into Kira's hospital room and stood by the door not really ready for what he saw. In fact, if Bo hadn't been sitting in the chair beside the bed, he would have sworn he had to be in the wrong room. Kira's face was so swollen that he couldn't even recognize her face through the mass of bruises. Her left arm was in a cast and the foot of the bed was elevated. Luke walked over and put a hand on Bo's shoulder.
"Hey. Has the doctor come in yet?"
Bo looked up at Luke and nodded. "Yeh. She's got two broken ribs, a broken arm, a dislocated kneecap, a collapsed lung, a couple fractures in her face: one in her left cheek bone, the other in her right jaw. The doctor said something about head trauma, but they won't know how bad that is until she wakes up. They said she was..." Bo turned back to Kira choking on the next words. Bo's voice hardened as he asked, "Do they know who did this to her?"
"No. They're gonna go over some of her past cases to make sure that this isn't connected to any of them. To make sure someone hadn't decided to take out how they felt about a verdict on their lawyer." Luke pulled up the remaining chair in the room up next to Bo. "The cop said that her apartment will be off-limits until after the CSU had gone through it. It's a good thing we brought her some clothes from home. She's going to want something other than that hospital gown to wear just as soon as she wakes up. We won't be able to get into her apartment until at least Monday."
Luke knew that he had to try to give his cousin something to hold on to, but he didn't have anything to give. It hadn't even been three months since Bo learned that he had a sister and here he had nearly lost her.
He remembered how he had felt when he had been sure that he'd lost Judd. When the car had gone in the pond with him and the crooks that had planned to kill him trapped inside, Bo had pulled Judd from the car and saved him from the fate of drowning. Bo had saved his brother, but what had Luke done? Sat helpless on the other end of the phone with nothing to do but listen as Kira was assaulted.
Luke isn't the oldest suppose to help PROTECT the younger ones?
"Luke. Are you listening to me?"
Luke looked up and realized that Bo had been talking to him. "Huh? Sorry, Cuz. You say something?"
Bo looked at his cousin studying his face. He recognized that look.
"Luke, none of this is your fault. You probably saved her life. If you hadn't been on the phone with her, sent help, no one would have gone looking for her until Monday. You did good Luke. You kept your head and got Kira some help." Bo looked Luke dead in the eye, "No one could have done better. You SAVED her. You hear me?"
Luke nodded his head though he didn't look convinced, so Bo added, "Besides, you said it yourself. After siccin' Pauline on her, Kira was ready to nail our hides to the wall; I don't doubt she'll do it, too. She can be more dangerous than Daisy with a fryin' pan. Kira ain't goin' nowhere until she sees us get what's comin' to us."
One of Bo's gifts had always been to make people laugh. Watching Luke now, that gift just failed him.
Two days later, Kira woke up to the feeling of choking. Panicking, Kira realized that something was blocking her throat.
"Relax. You're alright." Bo took her hand in one of his as he stroked his sister's hair out of her eyes.
With tears burning her eyes, 'I can't breathe!'
'Calm down. You're on a ventilator. Just relax. You'll be able to breathe just fine.' Kira tightened her grip on Bo's hand as she tried to force herself to relax. After a few minutes, she lightened her grip on Bo's hand. 'That's better.'
'Why am I here? What happened?'
'You don't remember?'
'No, what happened. Why am I... What am I doing here?'
'Kira you were attacked...in your apartment.'
Kira's eyes went wide. ATTACKED! At HOME! Of all the places, she would never have thought that she could have been anything but safe in her apartment? Her apartment was in one of the best areas in the city. It was supposed to be one of the safest buildings in Atlanta. She paid enough for it. She spent nearly her entire paycheck on the rent on that apartment.
'Luke was on the phone with ya when it happened.'
Closing her eyes, Kira tried to remember what had happened after she had left work, but it only made her head hurt. In fact, everything hurt. Bo saw the pained expression on his sister's face. While not all of it may be physical, enough of it was.
'I'll get a nurse. Tell them you're awake. That way they can give you something for the pain.'
Bo stepped outside of the door just far enough to get a nurse's attention. He told her that his sister was awake, and he thought she needed some pain medication. The nurse came in to check Kira before saying she'd let the doctor know of the change in her condition. That left Bo alone with his sister again. He told her what most of her injuries were, not sure if she could handle complete honesty just yet. Faster than Bo thought possible at a hospital, someone came to take Kira to get some scans now that she was awake to find out just how extensive her head injury was.
With Kira gone, Bo went to find the others at the cafeteria. Jesse and Daisy had driven up right after the morning chores, without even going to church. Everyone in Hazzard knew that if Jesse Duke wasn't in church on Sunday morning, then nothing short of a tragedy would have struck the clan. Luke had gone with them, and Bo hoped that Jesse would talk to him. He knew that Luke was still blaming himself for not being able to stop the attack. No matter how much Bo told him that feeling like that was ridicules. He had been hundreds of miles away. And he still wouldn't talk to anyone about what he had heard.
Bo was worried about Luke; probably as worried as he was for Kira.
Jesse could see that his oldest wasn't holding up as well as he claimed the moment he saw him. He had hoped to be able to come up sooner but J.D had been stubborn when Daisy had asked for a few days off to come up with the boys. He had to give Luke permission to go to Atlanta and Jesse had been surprised that Rosco had stood his ground and insisted that since Kira was Bo's sister, so he had to go too. That had helped the boys but had caused Boss to dig his heels in when it came to giving Daisy some time off.
It was only after Jesse had sought out Lulu's help that Boss finally relented and given Daisy some time off while Kira was hospitalized. He knew from talking to Bo that Luke had refused to tell anyone (except the police) what he had heard on the phone. He didn't know what Luke thought that he could have done, but he had to find some way to snap Luke out of it. Looking up from their hospital lunch, Jesse spied Bo walking toward them.
"She's awake." The three Dukes at the table all breathed a collective sigh of relief. "They took her for some scans and said that they'll let us know when she's back. They'll look for us in the family waiting room. But we have at least an hour."
Bo sat and joined the rest of the family. Strangely relieved now that his sister had woken up even though he knew that the next several days (no, make that weeks) will be difficult. For everyone, but for two Dukes especially.
Luke isn't the oldest suppose to help PROTECT the younger ones?
Luke sat watching Kira sleep. She'd been taken off the ventilator that morning, since she was fighting it so much (even though her breathing was still a bit labored), just before the others had left to go clean her apartment up. Bo had gone reluctantly considering he was the only one in the family who had been there before. Only Bo knew how to get to it.
Luke stayed behind to watch over Kira while they were gone. Truth be told, he was torn between wanting to go and see the evidence of the assault firsthand before cleaning it up and not wanting to have more proof of what he already knew, too well, confirmed before his eyes.
He really didn't need anyone else trying to talk to him right now, neither. Everyone kept praising him for his quick thinking that he had gotten help for Kira but sitting beside her hospital bed, he just couldn't see that he had done nearly enough. If his job as the oldest was to protect his cousins from harm, well, he'd failed. He'd failed Kira. He had heard her screams for help as he had sat helpless hundreds of miles away.
Luke blinked back the tears that he hadn't allowed to fall. It won't happen again. He'd find a way to make sure that nothing like this could happen again.
"Excuse me; I had hoped that Kira would be awake. I'll come back later."
Luke looked up and saw an older man, maybe Jesse's age, in a suit at the door. He was carrying a vase of mixed flowers that had to have come from a florist.
"Can I help you? I'm Luke Duke. Kira's cousin." Luke got up and shook the man's hand that wasn't holding the flowers.
"I'm Paul White. I'm Kira's boss. The office took up for the flowers. Thought she might like them. I didn't know what had happened until this morning when I went in early for our meeting. I tell you what, you tell her for me that there's no hurry to come back. You hear. And if she's still interested in that new job offer, it'll be hers whenever she's ready. No rush. I'll just be on my way and go ahead and head out." Paul put the flowers on the side table and turned to leave.
"Wait a minute. I'm confused. What job offer?"
"Oh, I guess this all happened so fast, she hadn't been able to tell ya'll the good news. You see, Old Man Pritchet in Hatchapee County, the lead prosecutor over there, is just itchin' to retire. His assistant would take over for him, but that leaves a job opening for an assistant prosecutor over in Hatchapee."
"Hatchapee! Well, that is just the next county over from Hazzard."
"I know, that's what she told me. Said that taking that job would put her right in her family's lap." Paul gave a weak laugh at the joke Kira had made when offered the position. "But that doesn't matter none. It'll be hers when she wants it. You give her all of our best, ya hear?"
With that, Paul left, leaving Luke to think about the possibility of Kira being moved closer to home where she'd be safe.
Luke walked back over to Kira and saw her moving around in a way that told him that she was reliving the assault. She may not be able to remember much while she was awake (thanks to the head trauma), but there was nothing wrong with her memory while she was asleep. Luke put a comforting hand on her arm, but she jerked away.
"Shh. It's alright, Darlin. It's alright."
Kira awoke with a start and looked around to get her bearings. When her eyes fell on Luke, she started to cry as she buried her face into the front of Luke's shirt. He sat on the side of the bed and just held Kira as she cried.
"It'll be alright, you're safe now. I ain't gonna let no one else hurt 'cha."
Back at Kira's apartment, Daisy and Jesse were still busy trying to clean up from the assault on Friday night. Bo had been sent to get some more cleaning supplies. Truth was, Daisy saw that Bo had just about ripped the carpet up where he had been scrubbing trying to get rid of the stain that Kira's blood had left.
The whole place was a mess, but it was clear that Kira had been attacked in the living room. Both from the stains on the floor, and from the hole in the plaster that showed where Kira had been thrown against the wall. Daisy figured that he needed to get out for a while. She couldn't believe just how much debris was strewn around the apartment.
Every drawer had been dumped; everything that could be broke was broken. Plates, lamps, glasses, the television, chairs, it even looked like the intruder had taken the time to shred some paper over near where the bloodstains on the carpet were. There had been a whole big pile of it there. From what Daisy could tell, it had been nothing but a road map. Why someone would take the time to shred it was beyond her.
In Kira's bedroom, Daisy went to try to salvage some of her clothes. She wasn't sure she'd be able to. They all looked pretty much ruined. Daisy shook her head as she thought of the mess and how much time it would take to clean up everything. She didn't know if her cousin would want to return to her apartment, but if she did, she didn't need to see this mess.
Getting busy once again, Daisy grabbed some more bags and sorted through yet more of the debris left by Kira's assailant.
Days later, Kira was finally released from the hospital. Physically, there was nothing left that the doctors could do. The emotional healing would take time and the doctors felt that the best place for her to would be surrounded by her family. So, it was decided that Kira would be taken straight out to the farm. It only made sense that she'd go to the farm. Especially since Luke told everyone that as soon as she was ready, Kira had a job waiting for her in Hatchapee.
Jesse had been surprised by how easily Kira agreed. Of course, since her assault, she had begun to retreat into herself. It may not have been so much that she had agreed, she just didn't fight it. Jesse and Daisy went ahead, fixed up the guest room, and Daisy did her best to make it Kira's with what had been salvaged from her apartment.
Luke had gone back as well to help Jesse get caught up on the farm chores that had gone undone while he and Bo had been in Atlanta. Bo drove Kira to Hazzard in her truck and did his best to try to lighten Kira's mood. He tried to talk to her about the upcoming planting season, the races that he and Luke planned to enter. Anything he could think of. Instead of responding to his efforts, Kira just stared out the window unmoving the whole long drive to Hazzard.