Waiting for her boyfriend to tell her his secret had become excruciating.
The longer Shane had waited to tell her, the more Dylan had been tempted to do it himself.
They had been halfway into the third month of the tour when the call had come in.
A dazed Dylan had returned to see Brenda straddling Shane's lap.
Dylan had begun to question of himself if he had hallucinated Shane's confession, perhaps brought on from Dylan's upset at Brenda announcing her love for her fellow thespian.
"That was Kelly," Dylan had said.
"Kelly's his ex," Brenda had told Shane, as if the whole group hadn't already known.
"Are you regularly in contact with your ex?" Shane had asked.
"Are you regularly in contact with yours?" Dylan had hinted.
"Which ex is he talking about?" Brenda had asked.
"Which ex are you talking about?" Shane had turned the question on Dylan.
"Bren, can I talk to you?" Dylan had asked.
"Shane and I don't have any secrets between us," said Brenda. "You might want to try it sometime. It's refreshing to know everything about someone."
Oh, you know everything about him, do you? Dylan had almost bit out, interwoven with heaps of sarcasm.
He had stopped himself.
As much of an ass as he could be, he wasn't the kind of ass who forced someone out of the closet before he was ready.
"Please, Bren," Dylan had said.
Something in his eyes must have softened Brenda to the point that she had agreed to join him for a stroll on the beach, to talk in private.
"I miss surfing," Brenda had said.
"You don't surf anymore?" Dylan had asked.
"I went by myself once," she had said, "after you had left, but it just…wasn't the same."
"Ocean's calling, Bren," he had said. "Are you gonna pick up the call?"
"I've probably forgotten how to surf."
"Nonsense. Come on, we're going in."
"I thought you had something you needed to tell me."
"It can wait until after we surf."
It couldn't, but any chance he had been given to spend with Brenda was one he had been consistently keen to take.
"I shouldn't surf with my ex," she had said.
"If you don't surf with your ex, then you might never surf again and is that what you want, Bren?" he had asked. "Because as I recall, you were getting pretty good there and it would be a shame to waste potential talent like that."
Brenda hadn't forgotten.
She had been rusty, needed to brush up on her technique, but she had not forgotten.
Properly soaked and refreshed, they had emerged from the ocean.
Dylan had captured Brenda's face in his hands, weighing the pros and cons of making a move on another man's girlfriend.
It wouldn't have been the first time he had done so, but for some reason, he hadn't been able to coax himself into making a move on Brenda.
Perhaps he had feared her rejection.
She, was, after all, the only woman who had ever rejected him, multiple times over.
"Alright," said Brenda. Her glistening hair and body had distracted Dylan from recalling the reason he had asked for their walk. "What were you going to tell me?"
He had figured that sugarcoating was pointless, as Brenda would have eventually learnt the news whether he had told her himself or not.
"Kelly's pregnant," he had said.
Brenda had stood, equally shocked or perhaps more shocked than Dylan had been at hearing those words uttered into a phone held by his quite literally distant ex-girlfriend.
"I thought Brandon said Kelly couldn't get pregnant," Brenda had said.
"That's what she was told, but I guess medicine was wrong," Dylan had said. "She's pregnant."
Dylan could see it; the moment Brenda had shut down on him.
"Congratulations," she had said, a faux attempt at cheer as she had removed Dylan's hands from her face. "I'll help you find a flight."
"A flight?"
"You're going back to Beverly Hills, I assume."
"I'm not."
"You're not staying here when your girlfriend's pregnant."
"Ex-girlfriend."
"I just assumed you'd be getting back with her; you know, because of the baby."
"You assumed wrong. There's a reason Kel and I split, Bren, and we aren't bringing a baby into that."
"But you are bringing in a baby, Dylan."
"I don't want to abandon the kid. I don't want to be an absent father, but I – Bren, I can't leave you behind. Not again. Now that I – that I've seen you every day, I can't…I fucking can't."
"We have less of a chance of being together than we did before, Dylan, and we had no chance then. I'm not going to be with a man who's having a kid with another woman."
"I'm not equipped to be a father," Dylan had said. "I'm not sure I want to be a father. I'd be the worst father, Brenda. I'm too selfish to raise a kid. I couldn't put them first."
"Well, you will be a father, whether you like it or not," Brenda had replied, "and fatherhood started the second Kelly told you that you are going to be one."
"She's letting me off the hook. Her words."
"Kel might let you off the hook, but I won't," said Brenda. "The only way for you to not abandon your kid is to be there for them and you can't be there for them if you're on the other side of the world."
"Brenda –"
"My boyfriend is waiting for me. Do the right thing, Dylan."
Before he had made any kind of decision, he had required an answer.
"Would you forgive me?" he had asked. "If I accepted being let off the hook for this kid, if I wasn't a father to them, would you forgive me, Bren?"
"No," Brenda had said. "Never. I don't date deadbeats."
"You also said you don't date guys who have kids with other women."
"Which rules out you, times two. Huh. Look at that."
It had been one of the hardest decisions of his life.
He had chosen to remain on the tour until he could ensure that Brenda had safely returned to London.
Once she had, he would be going back to Beverly Hills, to be what he hoped would be a semi-adequate father for his child.
"I'll accept that," Brenda had said. "See? I knew you weren't a deadbeat."
"There is one woman I've dreamt of having children with, Bren," Dylan had said. "Only one who I've fantasized carrying my baby."
"The one in Heaven?" Brenda had asked.
"The one who chucked my stuff in a suitcase the night she threw me out," said Dylan. "The one who almost did the same when I told her about Kel."
Brenda had tried to back away from him. Dylan had gently grabbed her.
"This stomach is the one I've wanted to see grow my child," said Dylan as he had rubbed Brenda's slim abdomen.
"Maybe it could have," Brenda had uttered, "in another life. But in this one, Kelly is the woman growing your child and I'm the woman you'll leave behind in your forgotten past."
"I don't accept that, Brenda."
"You've made decisions, Dylan; decisions that have taken you further away from me. This stomach is never going to carry your child, especially not a child that you don't want to be a father to."
"I'd want to be a father to ours."
"No, you wouldn't," Brenda had said. "You're too selfish to be a father, remember? You wouldn't put them first. Any children I have, if I have children; they will always be put first, Dylan. I need a father for them who knows he will put them first, even if he has to put them before me. Go back to the old code and prove that you can be a better father to that baby than you believe you can. Because I believe you can be a phenomenal father to your baby. And I'm not going to be the reason a child loses his or her father."
There hadn't been more to be said.
Brenda had cemented his decision for him.
Dylan had told himself that he somehow had to find a way to release the hold Brenda had on him; that he had to do it permanently, as she had made it clear that the impending arrival had stamped out any hope he may have had of reigniting their relationship.
He had tried to console himself with the memory of the months he had spent relearning Brenda in Australia.
He had imagined another life in which his decisions had been different, in which he had moved with Brenda to London after a steady relationship as adolescents.
Imagining hadn't helped.
His suitcase had been halfway packed. His stomach had attached itself to his thighs, his cogitation inundated with leaving the newly single Brenda.
All those months that Dylan had waited for Shane to be honest with Brenda, only for Dylan to have to leave when Brenda's relationship had ended.
He hadn't wanted to accept the possibility of never seeing her again. He had checked and double-checked his planned flight to LAX, the desire for cancellation weighing heavy on his unstitched heart.
He had gone in to check on Brenda, watching her sleep one last time.
He had been about to shut her door and try to sleep himself before his flight, when the call had come in informing him of Kelly's epiphany.
Of the possibility that the child he had thought was his had been created in a DC hotel room, rather than a Los Angeles apartment.
Dylan had cancelled his flight and had remained with Brenda, as her irksome flatmate who had consistently bothered her with his flirtation until it had worked in his favor.
His insecurities had come back to bite him, when Dylan had found Brenda cradling herself in a bathtub empty of water.
"Bren?" he had asked, rubbing her back. "Did you not get the part?"
"I got it," Brenda had said. "I also got a part I didn't expect to get."
"Is this second part the reason you're sitting clothed in a bathtub?"
"You're still selfish," she had said, "but you do put me first."
"Bren, you gotta let me in on what you're talking about here," he had said.
"And you would've stepped up," said Brenda, "if Sammy had been yours."
"This sounds like a secret," Dylan had said. "We don't have secrets between us. We know everything about each other."
"You did step up," Brenda had corrected herself. "Even after you knew Sammy was my brother's, you still promised to be there for Sammy if he needed you."
"Do I need to call Brandon for you?" Dylan had asked, becoming more worried by the second about his wife's mentality and what he had done to get her to try to shut down on him. "Or maybe Val would be better? Donna? Mags?"
"I ran an errand," Brenda had said. "The results of that errand mean I need you to put someone else before me."
"I can't put someone else before you," Dylan had said. "My vows were to you, and you alone."
"If you refuse to put someone else before me, then I can't be with you anymore, Dylan. Because I have to put someone before you. I'm sorry, I know I'm breaking my vows, but it's just something I need to do now. And I might not be able to surf for a bit. You'll have to surf alone."
It had clicked into place for him.
"What was this errand?" he had asked.
Brenda had withdrawn an item from behind her back.
He had snatched it from her, matching the amount and color of the lines to the legend.
"You're pregnant?" he had asked.
"I'm pregnant," she had confirmed. "Do you still feel ill-equipped to be a father? Do you still think you're too selfish and won't put a baby first? Do you still not want to be a father?"
"I'll try," Dylan had promised. "For you and our baby, I will try."
"You have to swear to put this baby before anyone, Dylan; including me."
"I swear," Dylan had said, leaning in to give Brenda what had quite possibly been the most powerful kiss they had ever engaged in up to that point. "Any kids we have, I'll put them before you. I'll be the best dad to our kids that I can be."
"Woah, hang on," Brenda had said. "We aren't having twins."
"We are having the first of a few," Dylan had said, drawing his hand across Brenda's slightly less flat abdomen.
"Maybe if you carry the other babies," Brenda had said.
The reminder of the promise he had made in that London flat had come to Dylan then, when he had received the call from his oldest child that had rendered him unable to breathe.
Had almost rendered him unable to function, until he had thought of London.
He had kept his promise to Brenda, the one he had made all those decades ago.
He had contacted Valerie first, to ask if she could pick up Adrianna, before he had moved along to working on getting his wife released from jail.
"I was just about to call you and Brandon," said Valerie. "Brenda called me."
"You were Brenda's call?" Dylan had asked, unable to conceal his hurt nor making any attempt at doing so.
"She said she didn't want to interrupt your writer's conference or Brandon who could be interviewing someone," said Val.
"Even if there had been a writer's conference, my wife being fucking arrested would be a reason to interrupt!" said Dylan.
"If there had been?" asked Val.
"Long story for another time," said Dylan. "Did you get Ade?"
"Taking her home now."
"How's her mentality?"
"She keeps repeating that Brenda was arrested because of her. I've told her multiple times that isn't true, but she isn't listening."
"Stay with Ade and Callie, Val. I'm going downtown."
Dylan was met by two people he didn't mind being around and one person he didn't want anywhere nearby.
"Brenda doesn't want you here," said Dylan, "and neither do I."
"If Brenda didn't want us here, then she should have made it to where her very public arrest was not prominently displayed in the evening news," said Jim. "An arrest that I understand it is due to my daughter assaulting the woman you knocked up. My daughter has officially lost her marbles, Dylan, and that is entirely on you."
"Do you know your daughter?" Dylan asked Jim. "Because I do and there is no way in hell my Brenda would ever assault anyone, let alone someone who's pregnant."
"The evening news said that –"
"I don't care what the evening news said. If you think your daughter is capable of this, then you can fuck right off."
"All I know," said Jim, "is that since my children have come into your acquaintance, they have been repeatedly arrested. Brandon, twice –"
"Thrice," Brandon corrected his father. "Four times, if you count when Steve and I got wrongfully arrested for jacking a car."
"I do not count that," said Jim, "nor do I count when you were arrested for refusing to cite a source."
"Then you only count when I got the DUI and when I lost the seat for Senate?" asked Brandon.
"You're not helping," said Dylan.
"Brenda, twice," said Jim. "My children would have never been arrested for anything if they hadn't met you, Dylan; if they hadn't been influenced by your devious ways. I know all about the arrest that happened when you were fourteen. And every arrest that has happened since, including the one in London."
"Jim!" said Cindy. "We vowed to Iris that we would never speak of that to anyone."
"Maybe I would have kept my promise," said Jim, "if my daughter hadn't been arrested for the second time, because of this man she insisted on having in her life."
"I don't have time for this," said Dylan. "You might want to stand there and scold, Jimbo, but I have a wife to free." Dylan stalked up to the counter. "Excuse me!" he yelled.
"Yes?" asked the person behind the desk of the Los Angeles Police Department.
"I've been waiting here for two hours for someone to tell me how much my wife's bail is going to be," said Dylan. "I was told an hour ago that I would be given a total. I've got my card here," he showed them the debit card, "all ready to go. You need cash? I've got that, too. Checkbook? Right here."
He was asked who his wife was.
Dylan answered.
"Sir, your wife has been denied bail."
"Do you know who we are?" asked Dylan. "Who she is? Who I am?"
"It's the Judge's decision, sir. Brenda McKay has been deemed dangerous to herself and those around her and has been denied bail."
"This has got to be a sick joke, right?" asked Dylan. "How much? 50k? 800k? One mil? Name the price and we can pay it."
"Mrs. McKay is not eligible for bail."
"My wife is not dangerous!" said Dylan. "She would never hurt anyone!"
"That's not what the Judge determined. Mrs. McKay's intentional assault of Ms. Gina Kincaid and Ms. Gina Kincaid's fetus –"
"You gotta at least let me see her."
"Sir, I don't think that you are able –"
Dylan stalked off to call his team of attorneys.
"Brenda's sentence will depend on Ms. Kincaid," his top attorney told Dylan. "If Ms. Kincaid and her child have survived the fall, Brenda's looking at a year of jailtime for assault."
"If they haven't?" asked Dylan.
"Five to ten years for murder. Could be a lifetime."
"I need you to find an option where my wife doesn't do time; one where she goes home with me, today."
"I'm afraid given the circumstances, that option doesn't exist."
"My kids aren't going to be born in a fucking jail cell!" said Dylan, gritting his teeth.
"Mrs. McKay wouldn't be the first person to give birth when imprisoned and she would go to a hospital –"
"Find it, or you're sacked." Ending the call, Dylan returned to the desk.
"My wife is pregnant," he said. "She told our sister that she fell. Has she been checked for injuries?"
"I don't believe so, sir," said a different person than Dylan had interacted with before.
"What the hell kind of department are you running here?" asked Dylan. "Do you know how fast I can get funding pulled from the LAPD? One call. That's all it takes. One call and no more moolah."
"Are you threatening an entire police department?"
"If that entire police department is responsible for any kind of damage to my wife or to my family that she carries? Yes. Yes, I am."
Dylan was able to get the LAPD to agree to get Brenda looked over by a nurse and to be able to go in with Brenda himself.
He stepped into a small, dingy room that appeared to have not been properly cleaned in an indeterminate amount of time and waited for Brenda to come in.
It took every bit of determination he had to not shove the guard who shoved Brenda into the room.
Punching the guard would have made the situation worse for Brenda, and the situation didn't have to be worse for her than it already was.
"Bren," said Dylan, "baby, how are you?" he asked. "Are you hurt? Does your back hurt? Ade told Val you fell against it."
Brenda lacked a response.
Petrification set into Dylan that Brenda had begun the process of shutting down on him, as she was wont to do in difficult situations.
"Can you leave us alone?" he asked the guard, along with a nurse who was midway through entering in.
"I was waiting for her," said the guard, departing without protest due to the entrance of the nurse.
"I have been ordered to not leave Mrs. McKay," said the nurse.
"I'll pay you," said Dylan. "Handsomely. Much more money than you'd ever get from the LAPD. In fact, I'll hire you. How about that? You could be a nurse for my company, instead of a nurse for the LAPD. How much PTO do you get? Working for me, you could get four weeks, minimum."
"Four weeks?" asked the nurse thoughtfully.
"If you want more than that, I'm willing to negotiate."
Shutting the door behind his new employee, Dylan bundled Brenda into his arms.
His fingernails clinked against the metal entrapping her wrists.
"It's me," he said into her hair. "Let me in, Bren. Please let me in."
He would have to be persistent.
"Pretend we're on the ocean," he said. "Pretend we're surfing, and let me in."
"I had to do it, Dylan." Brenda's voice came out on autopilot. "I had to."
"You could tell me yourself that you pushed Gina and I'm never going to believe it," said Dylan. "Tell me what happened – what really happened."
He pressed his lips underneath the creases of Brenda's eyes.
"I did what I had to do to protect my family," she said.
"That's what they said your confession was, but nowhere in that statement have you admitted to pushing Gina," said Dylan. "They've denied you bail. You're looking at doing time. Brenda, I need you to work with me here! I need you to let me get you out!"
His lips moved to her nose.
"I'm doing what I have to do," said Brenda.
"Gina threw herself down, didn't she?" Over to Brenda's ear, anywhere he could place his lips to make her talk.
Anywhere but her lips, for he refused to be rejected by them again.
"To manipulate you, me?" he said. "Tell them that. You already told them she's been stalking us. You have far more credibility in this situation than she does. They'll believe you if you say she threw herself down."
"Gina did not throw herself down. I won't lie and say she did. I won't stoop to her level. I'm doing what I have to do," Brenda repeated.
"We have four kids who are counting on you. I'm counting on you. The last secret we had between us has done its damnedest to try to destroy us. Don't stick another secret between us, Bren."
"You know what I've been thinking about?" asked Brenda. "Australia."
"Australia?" asked Dylan, lifting his lips from where they had rested on Brenda's elbow.
"Australia," said Brenda. "How much we love Australia. And Denmark. And England, most of all. Don't we love Australia? Denmark? England? Wouldn't we do anything for Australia, Denmark, and England? Anything at all?"
"I've given you enough time," said the nurse as she returned. "We will get Mrs. McKay checked out and then she will be going back to the cell. I assume I'll start on Monday?"
"Monday," Dylan confirmed.
"Then I ought to give my notice now," said the nurse.
That left Dylan an opening to get another nurse hired for the LAPD, one who could secretly report to him.
One who could help him break Brenda out, if he couldn't prevent her from prison.
He would prevent her from prison.
There was no other option.
Stuck on figuring out why Brenda had given him the names of three different countries, Dylan almost missed the pronouncement that both twins had not been affected by the blow to Brenda's back.
"If we didn't have the girls, I'd get myself put in a cell right next to you," he told Brenda.
"Another reason to be glad we have the girls," said Brenda, "because you'd be a horrible cellmate."
"I won't be much better if you don't keep yourself from going to prison," said Dylan. "I'll be constantly demanding conjugal visits."
"I'm doing what I have to do," Brenda said yet again, a statement that had begun wearing Dylan's nerves thinner than he had thought possible when it came to Brenda.
"Then get ready for some wild nights, baby," said Dylan as he and Brenda were forced to part.
Dylan blew right past Jim, who didn't seem to notice due to an argument between himself and Brandon.
Still shackled to his thoughts, Dylan caught a snippet of it.
"You've judged Dylan since before you knew him," said Brandon. "All because of who his father was."
"And I was right to judge him, wasn't I?" asked Jim. "Look at what being with him has done to my felon of a daughter!"
"Your granddaughters couldn't have asked for a better father," said Brandon. "He would do anything and everything for those girls."
Dylan had been surprised to hear Brandon defending him, but his surprise hadn't halted his steady walk to the carpark.
He turned the ignition, almost robotically.
Australia.
Denmark.
England.
England.
Denmark.
Australia.
Australia. Australia.
A promise began in Australia, made in England, and solidified in Denmark.
"Val, I need to talk to Ade," said Dylan.
"She isn't doing much talking right now," said Valerie, stepping aside to let Dylan in.
"What are you doing here?" Dylan asked David.
"I brought Ruby over," said David. "Val thought having her and Naomes around might help Ade. What can I do to help, Dylan?"
"Gina's in hospital," said Dylan.
"Yeah, I heard," said David.
"I need to keep eyes in that hospital. Brenda's sentence will depend on how Gina and her baby fare."
"So you're telling me to go," said David.
"Gina will be angry that I'm not there," said Dylan, "if she's awake. Me not being there will make her want to hurt Bren more, but I don't trust myself to see Gina. I don't know what I would do to her if I saw her."
"You think she might lessen the charges against Brenda if one of us is there?" asked David.
"I don't know what to think," said Dylan. "I just – I need my wife to be out of jail."
"I'll go," said David. "If it'll help your peace of mind, I'll go stay with Gina."
Dylan closed the door behind him as he took a backwards seat on a chair beside Adrianna.
"You're the only one there who might shed some truth on this thing," said Dylan. "Want to tell me what happened, kiddo?" he asked.
He didn't recall seeing his daughter with bloodshot eyes before, which must have been from all the crying she had done over her mother.
He pulled Adrianna close to him, trying to comfort her the way he couldn't comfort her mother.
"Mum didn't push Gina," said Adrianna quietly.
"I know that," said Dylan. "Gina threw herself down the hill. I just have to figure out some way to prove it."
"Gina didn't – she didn't throw herself down," said Adrianna. "Mum – Gina, she – Mum was standing there – and Gina – she –"
Adrianna burst into a fresh round of tears.
Dylan allowed his daughter to soak his formal wear, the one he had yet to remove from the date he should have had with Brenda.
He should have been feeding her Mexican from her plate, not hoping she had been given decent grub by the LAPD chef.
He still had time to get her out before her hearing.
Would they have to go on the run? What would happen to the girls? They couldn't take the girls on the run.
They would have to leave them behind.
He didn't think Brenda would ever forgive him or herself if they left their girls behind.
"Ade, please," he said. "I know it's hard, but if I know what happened between your Mum and Gina, then it'll help me be able to help Bren."
"Mum was standing there," said Adrianna. "Gina, she – she was going to push Mum. I – I saw her about to push her and – and I didn't think, Daddy, or maybe I did, but only about protecting Mum and the twins – I was so scared for Mum –"
Thinking over Brenda's strange comment in the jail, Dylan pieced it together with Adrianna's words.
"You pushed Gina," he said. "You pushed her to save your mother and siblings and Brenda's taken the fall for you."
"I'm the worst daughter," said Adrianna. "I've cost Mum her career, her freedom; Daddy, if you – if you have to kick me out because – because I killed your baby –"
"Hey," said Dylan, "no one's getting kicked out, least of all my first baby. Your Mum and I made a promise to each other, a long time ago, one I'm going to ensure we both keep."
"What would that be?" asked Adrianna as she sniffled into her sleeve.
"We promised that no matter what, we would always put our kids first," said Dylan. "That's what your mum did and that's what I'm going to do, too. We will get your mum out and we will do it without anyone knowing outside of us three the part you played. Okay?"
"But if I – if I killed your baby –"
"I thought you were the one person who believes Gina's baby isn't mine," said Dylan.
"She told Mum that Mum had put some kind of enchantment on you and Gina had to free you from it," said Adrianna. "Mum offered to take Gina to hospital, to get her mindset checked out for the baby's sake, and that's when Gina told Mum she had to get rid of her in order for you to love Gina, to love your son; that she was doing it for your son."
"Gina's not wrong there," said Dylan. "Your mum did put an enchantment on me, years ago, but there is nothing and I mean not a damn thing that can free me from it. Nor do I want to be freed from it. That so-called enchantment is responsible for my kids and I wouldn't have it any other way."
"I can turn myself in," said Adrianna, "if it will help get Mum out. I'll confess to the police that I pushed Gina."
"You will do no such thing," said Dylan. "I mean it, Adrianna. We will get your mum out another way, one that doesn't go on your record. Gina wants to hurt our family. We won't let her. If you tell the police, she will succeed in hurting us. Do you want her to succeed?"
"No," said Adrianna.
"You, my baby girl, are a heroine, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise," said Dylan. "You saved Brenda. You saved your siblings. You saved our family. You saved me, baby; I wouldn't have survived if your mum – if she –" He held Adrianna under his chin, the way he had when her height had barely come up to his legs.
"But I got her tossed in jail, Daddy."
"That was your mum's decision. And Bren makes plenty of them; not always the best ones, but always the ones she thinks are best. You can't change Bren's mind once she's made it up."
"You can."
"You think I can?"
"Mum's always said you're the only one who can, which is probably why she shut you out for so many weeks."
"If that's true," said Dylan, "I need that special power to work on your mum now more than I ever have before. Changing Brenda's mind; that's an immensely special power that requires a hell of a lot of energy."
He drove away from Valerie's, assured that he had gotten his daughter to change her mind about turning herself in.
He still asked for Valerie to keep a close eye on Adrianna, just in case.
Gina had planned to kill his wife, his children.
She may have succeeded, had Adrianna not protected her mother and siblings.
What Dylan had felt for Gina when Adrianna had told him that had gone far beyond hatred.
He couldn't formulate a proper description for it.
"Silver," he said, walking into the room as he attempted to mask all emotion. "Leave us."
"Do you think that's a good idea?" asked David as he scrutinized Dylan.
"Leave us," Dylan emphasized.
David left Dylan alone with Gina.
"You came," said Gina, reaching out her arms towards Dylan. "I knew you would. I told them you would. You came, to check on me and our baby."
"You don't seem to be in pain," said Dylan, his intonation flatter than a postcard.
"I was," said Gina. "It was a lot of pain, but they gave me something to stop it. The doctor was just in. They said our baby's fine. Your wife didn't kill our baby."
"If you'd had your way," said Dylan, "Bren would've been in pain, too, wouldn't she have? Lots and lots of pain. Until she'd stop breathing. That's what you wanted, isn't it? For Bren to stop breathing? For my heart to cease beating?"
"Your precious Brenda could have killed me and our child and all you can ask me about is her?" asked Gina.
"Tell me you weren't about to push her yourself, Gina. Fucking tell me that!"
"It doesn't matter what I intended to do, Dylan. I'm the one who was pushed. I'm the one who is in the hospital and Brenda's the one who will be put away in prison because of it, just as she deserves."
"You wanted to kill my wife," said Dylan. "You tried to kill my family. There is no semblance of the old Gina in you. None. She's gone, long gone."
"Brenda was the only thing standing in our way, Dylan!" said Gina. "You said yourself that we could never be together as long as she is alive."
"I said we would never be together. Period."
"But now we can be together; you, me, and our baby."
"When I, what, ship my kids off to boarding school?" asked Dylan. "Where do my kids play into this happy family equation you have going on?"
"Adrianna will be in college soon enough," said Gina.
"Calista won't," said Dylan. "Or are you going to try to take her out, too? You honestly thought I'd be with the woman who murdered my wife? Do you think that little of me?"
"You wouldn't have had to know," said Gina. "How do you know I was going to push her, anyway?"
"So you were going to push Brenda," he said. "You just admitted it."
"She pushed me," said Gina. "I was just trying to protect my child from her and she almost killed him regardless."
Dylan still had a chance to protect his daughter.
Gina hadn't caught on to the role Adrianna had played.
"If anything happens to Brenda or to my family in prison, I will kill you myself, Gina, you understand?" Dylan vowed. "I'll make you wish you hadn't survived that fall. I'll take that baby of yours and give it to my wife to raise after I ensure you die a long, slow, and painful death."
"Your wife wouldn't want to raise my baby," said Gina.
"Except it isn't your baby, is it?" said Dylan. "It's Brenda's baby. It's my baby, with Brenda, though I still haven't figured out how it's mine."
"You dare to call me insane when you yourself are insane?" asked Gina.
"I went to the clinic," said Dylan. "I know about the missing embryo; or, should I say the stolen embryo?"
He hadn't gone to the clinic.
He had met with his inside man from the clinic, earlier that week when Brenda had gone to the grocer with Adrianna.
"All of my embryos with Bren were non-viable, except one," said Dylan, "one that just happens to be missing with no explanation for why. And wouldn't you know it, Gina; it's missing from the same clinic that has record of your multiple visits!"
"Maybe you and Brenda should have kept better track of your embryos," said Gina.
"Maybe that missing embryo is sitting inside you," said Dylan.
"Maybe knowing how insane you've become, how cruel, is the thing I needed to finally get over you," said Gina.
"You're carrying Brenda's son," said Dylan. "Admit it, Gina! You've used Brenda's son to try to manipulate me into leaving her! And when that didn't work, you tried to kill my pregnant wife!"
"This is my son," said Gina. "Mine."
"He's Brenda's son," said Dylan, "and when I get her out of prison, we are coming for our son. You will not be raising my son, my son with my Brenda."
"I hate you!" Gina screamed. "Get out!" She threw a pillow at him.
Dylan ducked out of the soaring pillow's way.
"People can take a lot of things from me, Gina," he said. "They can take my money. They can take my assets, my houses, my cars, my pool, my pool table, my stables; hell, even my surfboard because I can always get a new one. But if they try to take my family? Any member of my family? I'll bury them. You? Aren't any member of that family, and you never will be. What you will be? Is facing Bren and I in a courthouse, when we take back our son. When the whole world will know how insane you are that you would go so far as to steal a fucking embryo and be implanted with it, with sperm you somehow jacked!"
"Get out!" Gina's second yell was louder and filled with more vitriol than the first.
Her face contorted. She grabbed at her side.
"Pulling the old ow-I'm-in-so-much-pain schtick?" Dylan taunted her. "I'm not buying it."
"Get a nurse!" said Gina.
"Get a nurse yourself," said Dylan, "because thanks to you, Bren almost didn't get one."
"Why are you so cruel?" asked Gina.
"Why are you?" asked Dylan. "My wife is sitting in a fucking jail cell, a jail cell you and your friend put her in. I can't hold her hands because they're in fucking cuffs and you're talking about us having a life together? You'll have to excuse me if I don't trust anything you say, Gina, including this pain you're supposedly experiencing after you yourself said the doctors said you and that baby were fine. They say Val's the master manipulator. Val's called herself that; we've all called her that, at times, but she's got nothing on you."
"Valerie hates you, did you know that?" asked Gina. "She actually hates you. She hired me because she hates you. She wants your marriage with Brenda to end, because Valerie thinks Brenda can do so much better than you."
"Keep telling yourself that."
"Dylan, please, I'm not faking. It really hurts." Gina curled into the fetal position. "Please! Have some compassion!"
"Compassion?" Dylan snorted. "My wife, she could use some compassion. You know what they do to people like Bren in prison? Let me tell you. They mop the floor with her. Bren's tough; she's always been tough, but tough enough for prison she is not. You, on the other hand; Gina, you could get through a stint in prison, easily. Which you will get, once I prove that you stole our embryo. You do time for that, you know; stealing embryos. You should have thought of that, before you stole mine. Mine, and my wife's."
Squeezing her eyes shut, Gina stretched out her arm just enough to smack the nurse call button.
Only when the nurse parted Gina's legs and Dylan saw the stain forming on Gina's hospital gown did he believe that she truly had been in pain.
"I don't want him here," Gina moaned to the nurse. "Falling in love with Dylan was the worst mistake of my life. He and his wife have harmed my son and I will hate the McKays for it until the day they die."
"I've made a lot of fuckups when it comes to Bren," said Dylan. "Dating you is only one of those."
"Sir, I do think it is best if you leave," said the nurse, treating Gina much more fairly than Dylan had seen Brenda treated.
"I want a maternity test done on that baby," said Dylan. "Who do I talk to about that?"
"A maternity test?" asked the nurse, blinking rapidly.
"That baby is in the wrong mother," said Dylan, "and a maternity test will prove it."
"Get him out of here!" said Gina. "He's a fucking lunatic who wants to harm me and my baby all because his wife's attempt to murder us failed!"
"Sir, you really should leave," said the nurse.
"I can't leave until I know how that baby is," said Dylan.
"He's lying," said Gina. "He doesn't give a damn about this baby, as he keeps telling me."
"I don't give a damn about her baby," he corrected, "but that baby is not hers."
"You can wait outside," said the nurse. "Or I will have to get security."
Dylan complied.
"You were in there a long time," said David. "I didn't know whether to come in and get you."
"Gina was going to push Brenda," said Dylan. "She told me so herself. Gina wanted Brenda dead. She wanted my twins dead, all so that Gina and I could be together. Because for some reason, Gina thought I would just forget about Brenda the second Bren was out of the picture. Did I give Gina that impression, the first time I dated her? Am I the reason Gina thinks it's so easy for me to forget about Bren now?"
"Fuck, man!" said David. "What if Gina turns that crazy on Ruby? On Val? What have you gotten me into, Dylan!"
"You said Ruby was safe from Gina."
"Ruby's safe from a stable Gina, which this Gina clearly isn't!"
"I have to get Bren released," said Dylan. "I have to do that by getting people to question the credibility of Gina, and Gina's friend. No one else saw what happened."
"How are you going to get their credibility questioned?" asked David.
"By proving Gina's a psychopath," said Dylan. "That'll also put her friend into question for associating with a psychopath. Once people no longer trust their story, Bren's free."
David asked the identity of Gina's friend, which Dylan couldn't yet answer.
"We'll probably see her on the news," said David.
They did not see her on the news, though they did hear her voice telling a global audience what Brenda McKay had done to Gina Kincaid.
"Do you recognize that voice?" asked Dylan.
David said he did not.
Dylan didn't, either.
Daddy, came a text from Adrianna, I forgot to tell you. Mummy said she recognised the voice of the woman who lied and told everyone that Mummy pushed Gina, but Mummy didn't know how she recognised the voice, just that she did recognise it.
Thank you for telling me, Dylan texted back. I'm going to be out for a bit. You and your sister be good for your aunt.
We will, Daddy.
"I'm parking my ass at the LAPD," said Dylan. "Going to be a thorn in their side until they let me see Bren again."
"I'll go back to Val's," said David, "to keep watch of Ade and Callie for you."
"Sure, you'll be going to Val's only to keep watch of Ade and Callie," said Dylan.
"Val's best friend and one of my closest friends is in jail," said David. "We might both need a little comforting."
"Silver, you are not having sex with my girls in the house."
"Didn't you and Bren have sex with your girls in the house?"
"That's different."
Dylan wasn't the only one who had decided to camp out at the LAPD.
He sat down beside the man bookmarking his notebook with his finger.
"You were gone a while," said Brandon.
"You've been here the whole time?" asked Dylan.
"Told Kelly I couldn't let Bren stay here alone," said Brandon. "Kel said she understood. She'd be here, too, if she hadn't promised me that she'd stay with Adrianna and Naomi."
"The girls are at Val's for the night," said Dylan.
"Then I guess Kel and Naomes are, too," said Brandon. "Because I'm staying put right here until 6am rolls around and I have to go into the office."
"I think at some point, these cops are going to kick us out."
"Let them kick us out. I'm not leaving without my sister. And I have a notebook chockful of observations of how this department has been mismanaged." Brandon waved his notebook around. "I could do an entire exposé on the ongoing corruption of this department, starting with how you were able to bribe a nurse."
"Maybe Jimbo's right," said Dylan. "Maybe I have been a bad influence on you and your sister."
"Ah, but remember, D," said Brandon, "that I once threatened to take down a restaurant owner's business because she was underpaying her minority employees."
"Didn't you do that after you'd met me?" asked Dylan, attempting to not show how strongly the return of his nickname had affected him.
"I barely knew you then," said Brandon. "Doesn't count."
"You know me now," said Dylan. "Really well."
"Too well," said Brandon. "I've seen sides of you I could've gone my whole life without seeing and I would've been all the better for it."
"You defended me to Jim. I heard you."
"He called my sister a felon. He's an ass."
"I mean, B, she is a felon. Technically."
"We both know she didn't push Gina, D."
"Yeah," said Dylan. "We both know that. Now we have to convince the people who hold Bren's future in their corrupted hands of it."
Another text came in from his daughter.
Daddy, I can't find it.
Can't find what, sweetheart? he texted back.
The note from Mummy's purse, Adrianna wrote. I wasn't thinking, Daddy. I was just so upset and I saw the note and I threw it out and Aunt Val took me back here so that I could find it but I've searched the entire rubbish and it's gone. Daddy, it's gone!
Calm down, darlin'. What was the gist of the note?
"Brenda said LL was trying to make Bren think she was paranoid," said Dylan. "I brushed off Bren's concern, but what if that is exactly what LL's trying to do, B? Trying to make our girl think she's paranoid, make Bren think she's going crazy? Splitting Bren and I apart to make it easier for Bren to shut me out? Rearranging her schedule so that Bren wonders if she was sent an email she knows she was sent? Sending Bren notes asking if she knows where our daughters are, making her question where they are when she knows damn well they're in school? Getting Gina to put thoughts into Bren's head that make her question if our lives should've been different, if she and I should've never gotten back together when Bren knows how much it sucked being apart, when she knows how much she's controlled my heart since we were kids? Getting her thrown in a prison cell, with the report blasted all over the global news? Blasting Bren's faux cheating through the tabloids? Ruining her reputation until she starts to question if she is the person the tabloids have made her out to be?"
"If that is what's happening here, D," said Brandon, "then we have to do everything possible to help Brenda hold onto her sanity. Starting with getting her free."
"If we're going to free our girl, we need a truce," said Dylan. "A truce you have to stick to. You can no longer make accusations of me. And I'm going to need access to all the connections you have."
"Do I have to apologize for the accusations I've made thus far?" asked Brandon.
"Just the one where you accused me of getting high when Callie was sleeping."
"Yeah, that was a dick move. Sorry."
"Not like I didn't give you reason to think it was possible," said Dylan. "Like you said, you have seen me at my worst."
"And then some," said Brandon.
"Truce?" asked Dylan.
"Truce," said Brandon.
They hocked loogies into their respective hands and shook on it.
"Bren would tell us we're disgusting," said Dylan.
"Your phone's going off, bro," said Brandon.
Dylan's mobile had indeed gone off, with a message from David that the LAPD had received almost simultaneously from another source.
The son carried by Gina Kincaid had been delivered stillborn.
Brenda McKay's charge had worsened from assault to a double-charge of attempted murder and feticide, leaving her family to have to battle even harder to free her.
Particularly her husband, who hadn't left her behind in eighteen years and wasn't about to do so now.
Nor would he turn in his daughter to save his wife.
He would get himself thrown in a prison cell to join his wife before he had to resort to breaking a promise to her that would harm their daughter.
-x
Well, well, do we think Adrianna was responsible for the fate of that baby when she pushed Gina? Was Dylan when he didn't get Gina help? Did something else happen, in between Dylan leaving and Dylan getting the call? Or did the fall have nothing to do with it whatsoever?
Either way, Bren's taking the heat.
I don't have a clue whether there is a nurse at the LAPD or not, so take this chapter with strong creative license.
Sources: Google, the California Penal Code, and the websites for Eisner Gorin LLP, Guest & Gray Criminal Defense Lawyers, Justia, SHouse California Law Group, plus various articles in Californian newspapers.
(Shout-out to KJ to express my continued gratitude and appreciation, as well as those of you whose review I could respond to directly. KJ, I'd started that forty-fourth chapter of Lethe a bit ago and was finally able to piece it all together! Poor Ade; she's entered the world of crack and there's no going back. The kids definitely want their fun aunt and fun uncle back together lmao and Ruby's hoping David gives her more distance if he's occupied with Val. Leave it to our Steve to spill to David! Those walls have climbed so high, no ladder David can find will reach the edge, but he will do his damnedest to find one.)
Thanks a million!