I practically ripped myself from the harness as I flung myself out of the jeep. Edward hadn't even gotten the car fully in park yet, but the moment my eyes hit the hospital marquee, I was in action. My phone was gripped so tight in my hand it was a miracle I hadn't rendered it to dust, and I wasn't entirely sure I hadn't broken the buckles to the harness with the speed I had undone them. Despite the rain that still pounded down from the heavens, I was running. My feet were creating small tidal waves in the water that gathered on the pavement, the splash coming up so far it splattered on my thighs. Why didn't Edward drive me closer? I thought angrily as the rain blurred my vision and mixed with the tears that had surely welled in my eyes. I finally reached the emergency room entrance and slammed through the automatic doors before they could fully open, catching my shoulder on it as I did. I could feel a burn in my knees and became vaguely aware that I had stumbled while exiting the vehicle, likely having scraped them to hell and back since I was only wearing shorts.
"Officer Derek Jacks! Where is he!?" I slammed my hands down on the desk at the entrance, my voice desperate and my hair soaked. I probably looked like a drowned rat, but that didn't matter.
"Ma'am I need you to calm down and-" I was sure the lady manning the desk was very capable of doing her job and a lovely human, but none of that mattered right now. Right now all I needed was to make sure my dad was okay.
"OFFICER JACKS!" I yelled, cutting her off and slamming my hand on the counter, the small puddle I had created was now splattered across the visitor sign in sheet as well as the nurse's face. I could feel my anxiety ramping up, and even more I could feel the ugliness of my compulsion rearing its head. It had my throat in a vice and I fought it off with every bit of my being as I spoke my next words. "GET ME OFFICER JACKS!" In two outburst shouts I had effectively given myself a migraine and ripped my throat raw, but none of that mattered. I wasn't sure if the order I had just given was going to be one of greater influence beyond the normal capacity of a human, but part of me didn't care. I hope this nurse did walk all the way to where they kept my father and took me to him with her. The only person in the world I wanted right now was my dad, nothing else and nobody else mattered.
"Oh shit." I heard a familiar voice before a figure ran up beside me. "Lisa, I'm sorry, this is Arabella." I spun to look at whoever was speaking so calmly while the entire universe shattered into a million pieces, and there Charlie was standing, his eyes wild. "I'll take her." He looped his arm around me and walked me towards the waiting area just as Edward burst in through the doors.
"Is he okay?" Edward asked, his eyebrows furrowed so low that his eyes looked black while rain dripped from his hair. He took one look at me and nodded for a second. "I will call my dad. See if he can get here soon."
"Thank you, Edward." Charlie said as he continued to pull me to the waiting area. "Ari, sit down."
"Oh god. It's bad isn't it? What happened? Why wasn't he wearing his vest? I thought he didn't have to work today, that he was just going to hang out on the reservation or something." My words came out panicked and rushed, and now I shook like a drowned rat as well. Hair had plastered itself across my face and my hat was practically glued to my head as I breathed heavily.
"Woah woah, calm down, deep breaths." Charlie eased. "He is in surgery now, he wanted to wait until you got here but the doctors wouldn't let him." Charlie's face swam in and out of my view as my eyes darted around the room, trying to make any kind of sense about what I was seeing.
"So he was awake?" My body relaxed an inch, though still very tense.
"Yes, he was wearing his vest, he picked up an extra shift today and he did a routine traffic stop. Turns out it was a drug runner making way up to Canada." Charlie was delivering the facts like I was the one he had to give a debriefing to. "The gunman fired three shots, two hit Derek's vest but the third one was just wide enough to miss the kevlar." My whole body was cold and governed in chills. Pinpricks from the top of my head down to my toes came in waves. "They couldn't tell me anything about his injuries because I'm not family, and they were still running tests as they took him down."
The only words I could manage in my state of shock tumbled from my mouth and laid on the ground in front of me like a living thing. Like my very own heart had leapt from my chest and was now bleeding everywhere. "Oh my god."
"Wait, Ari, you're bleeding!" Charlie exclaimed, his eyes wide. "What the hell happened?"
"She jumped from a vehicle that was still going twenty five miles an hour." Edward's voice broke through the room as he walked over. "I had barely gotten in the parking lot before she jumped out of the car."
"I did?" I asked, looking up to him in shock before taking in the actual state of my hands and knees. Both of my knees and my left hand had been scraped raw, my phone still clutched in my right hand now had a spiderweb of cracks across the screen from being used as a crash pad. None of this really mattered to me though, because all I wanted was to speak to the doctors and find out what the hell had happened to my father.
"My dad is on his way, he stopped at home first to drop Esme off." I knew Edward was lying through his teeth, everyone except us had run to the clearing. Carlisle had to stop at home to put on dry clothing and drive to the hospital like a normal person.
"Oh my god, Maddie!" I jumped up so fast that my phone finally flew out of my hand, I spun to look at Charlie, fear and sorrow welling up in me. "Please tell me Maddie is okay!" The tears started genuinely flowing at that point. We had raised her and put her through all of her police academy schooling ourselves. Maddie was there for me when my mother died. I would never be able to forgive myself if she was injured too. Dad will never be able to forgive himself.
"She's fine, she was still in the cruiser when everything went down. Your dad was able to call for help over the wire." Charlie stood up in front of me, his hands extended in front of him like he was approaching a wild animal. "I took her back to the station myself. She is probably sleeping on her bed there as we speak. The ladies got her some milk bones today so I am sure she is living the life of luxury." My body eased slightly, but as the tension left my knees buckled. The only thing that had stopped me from hitting the ground was Edward's quick hands.
"Let's get you sat down, Ara." Edward said in my ear, leading me to one of the loveseats. "Deep breaths." He pulled wet strands of hair away from my face and tucked it all behind my ears. "Give the doctors time, they will have answers for you when they have something to tell." Edward murmured.
I sat in silence for what felt like hours, and at some point I had fallen asleep curled in Edward's arms. When I woke up Carlisle, in his full uniform, was finishing up wrapping my palm. My clothes were dry and I was officially freezing from having been pressed to Edward's side while I dried. "I didn't mean to wake you Ara, I'm sorry for that." Carlisle's voice was always soothing, but he seemed to be putting more effort into making it so.
"Any news on Dad?" I asked, rubbing my eyes with the uninjured hand. My throat was raw and my voice sounded like it had been rubbed against a cheesegrater after biting off the ER nurse's head. Some guilt tugged at my heart for that, but nothing really mattered now anyways.
"None yet," Edward said softly. "We have only been here for about fifty minutes." As the information processed I watched Carlisle move to bandaging both my knees, his cold hands making quick work of it all.
Holy shit. Less than an hour? I thought suddenly, the information now officially processing in my molasses brain. I could have sworn it would be about three. I looked at Edward, bewildered, as I thought directly at him. "Where's Charlie?"
"He went to fill out his reports and get you something to eat, I told him we hadn't gotten dinner yet." He nodded as I looked at him with a disgusted look. "I know, you don't think you can even think about food right now, but you need to get something in your system. You haven't eaten anything since breakfast." He seemed to be kicking himself in the ass for that one. Sometimes it was just easy to forget to do some of the human things when I spent the whole day with the vampires. Even with the wolves, who ate almost nonstop, there were some human things that I would forget I couldn't do physically. It was the downside to having a group of people who made you believe you could do anything, even when you really couldn't. My stomach felt hollow, and yet despite the emptiness it felt heavy. Like a rock had settled deep into it, if I jumped into the ocean right now I was sure I would sink to the bottom.
The face I had made when thinking of eating something was still stuck on my face when Charlie came walking back in, greasy paper bags in hand as well as two drinks balanced on a tray. "She's up?" Charlie said, his eyes wide as he walked closer. Carlisle had finished up with me quickly and seen himself out, now nowhere to be seen but the evidence of his visit present in the stark white bandages that clung to my slightly dirty skin.
"Unfortunately." I grumbled, staring at the bags and feeling as nauseous as I feel when watching Gaia eat chicken noodle soup.
"I brought you a burger and some fries. A coke too." His smile was sympathetic as he searched my eyes. What he was searching for, I had no idea.
"Thank you." I mumbled as Edward reached forward and took the food for me. I didn't want to eat anything, I wanted to sit with my nose pressed against the windows into the operating room. I wanted to sit in the operating room and hold my dad's hand, even if he didn't know I was in there. I would.
"Eat." Edward said, and I realized I had been zoned out and Charlie had walked away to speak to a nurse. I looked over to Edward, and he held a half unwrapped burger, his arm extended towards me and his face serious. "At least half."
"Do I have to?" The disgust was so heavy on my face that it now came out in my voice like a whine. Oh how I hate sounding whiny.
"Yes." My face dropped as he responded, and begrudgingly I took the food and forced it down. Each bite felt like too much, no matter how small it was. Somehow I managed to eat the whole sandwich and drink the coke, but the fries were out of the question. They sat in the bottom of the bag getting cold and hard as I waited for news of my dad.
Charlie had come back while I was eating and seemed pleased that Edward had me getting something down, then he spent time digging into his own food. He answered calls and continued to write a report to which I could only assume was the one detailing my dad's case. After a little bit, Charlie cleared his throat and looked at Edward expectantly. "Are you sure you don't have to go home? She is fine with me. I am sure your parents are worried about you." He looked up at the clock, I wasn't sure what time it was, I just knew it was late and we still hadn't gotten any news. Good news is no news. I reminded myself as I continued to vaguely listen to Charlie. "You must have a curfew."
"My father is actually here right now, and my mother knows I'm here." Edward got a small smile on his face, even without looking at him I could hear it. His face always brightened when talking about Esme, even when in the darkest times. "My mother would be more angry at me for leaving Arabella here than she would be if I stayed out all night to keep her company."
"Well." Charlie grumbled, nodding slightly before looking back at the clock. "I should go to the station… Ari, I will take Maddie home for the night if you are just going to stay here."
"Yeah, that works. I don't want her to feel abandoned." I whispered, my voice having left me at some point in my long stretches of silence that was filling the night. "If you can't get her to settle for you, just tell her Nox." I looked at him with a forced smile. "Dad never gave her a German command for going to bed, I made it because she usually slept with me."
"Noted." Charlie nodded and got up, stopping to drop a kiss on the top of my head like he would do if I was his actual daughter. "Get some sleep if you can kiddo."
"I will try." I whispered, pushing another forced smile onto my face as he walked away. The moment Charlie was out of the room I sagged against Edward and felt the true toll of the night begin to hit me.
"I will listen for updates, but I haven't heard anything and neither has Carlisle." Edward whispered against my hair as he wrapped his arms around me. After a few moments of silence he heaved a heavy sigh and held me tighter, making a small spike of panic rise in me. "I wish I had Jasper's gift so desperately right now." He said, which made me freeze. Edward had never expressed a desire for a different gift to me, matter of fact he had expressed specifically that he wished he didn't have any in certain moments. This was such an alarming departure from the logic I was used to him having that I felt my jaw physically drop.
"What?" I croaked, my voice still gone.
"If I could make any of this easier on you, I would. I would take away your pain in a heartbeat. I would make it so you could sleep easy, breathe easy, hell I would even make it so you felt peaceful enough that each second didn't feel like it was your last while you sit and wait for one of these damned doctors to come in with news that could lead either way." His words felt frenzied as he spoke, but the rush of them felt more like a breath he was holding finally rushing out from between his lips. These were words he had been holding onto for much longer than just the last few hours.
At some point the world had turned into July 6th, and then finally I saw the tired face and scrubs walking towards me. "Are you Officer Jack's family?"
"I am!" I jumped up so fast I tripped slightly, my legs numb from the uncomfortable seat. I hadn't slept a wink, I had merely counted the floor tiles in the waiting room, then when I finished that I counted the ceiling panels. Then the chairs. Then the windows. Then started on the floor tiles again because I had forgotten the number. "He's my dad."
"Okay," The surgeon smiled at me, clasping their hands together. "I'm his doctor, I just wanted to come out and give an update. He is doing a lot better but he isn't out of the woods yet." Relief flooded through me and I felt like I might faint from the euphoria. He is alive. "He is in recovery right now, he sustained a gunshot to the abdomen, right under his right arm. It did fracture a rib and puncture one of his lungs, but we were able to repair that."
I couldn't hear the doctor anymore, my ears were ringing and all I could focus on was the location of the wound. He was wearing his kevlar. He still got hit. It slipped past the edge of his vest. Straight through the arm hole.
I snapped back to attention, only to realize I had missed most of what had been repaired on my dad. Luckily I knew Edward would know it verbatim and be able to translate all the scary medical words to me if I needed it. "If you have any questions, feel free to ask. You should be able to see him tomorrow around visiting hours, but tonight he won't be able to have any due to his condition and where we are keeping him." The doctor's hands were so cold as they placed them on my bare arm, a soft smile was all I registered of the final statements before they walked away.
"Come on. Let's get you home." Edward whispered in my ear, leading me out the door into the damp outdoors. The rain had stopped and the clouds had moved along. Stars shone down on us while surrounding a waning moon.