~Willow~
I'd seen my father get up from his seat to follow Nick, and the dark look on his face instantly worried me. Excusing myself from Gale, I got up to follow. Though I don't think his mood had been caused by anything Nick did, I'm concerned anyway.
As I make my way to the exit, I open the door to slip outside after them, but what I see unfolding stops me midway out the door.
"Nick! Look out!"
My dad launches himself at Nick, knocking him sideways, just as the car barreling toward him jumps the curb without slowing. Nick's phone goes flying from his hand as the car slams into my father, throwing him up onto its hood. His body slams into the windshield, creating a dark web of cracks across its smooth surface.
"DADDY!" I scream as the nose of the car slams into the front of the building and my father rolls back down the hood, coming to rest against the cracked brick wall.
I can barely hear the commotion inside the restaurant caused by my terrified scream, nor do I take much notice of Nick picking himself up off the walk. I can only see my father, lying limp and seemingly dead on the hood of Spencer's car. I dart from the doorway, praying he's only unconscious.
"Willow!" Nick shouts.
I ignore him, and everything else, the soles of my shoes crunching against the fine silt of brick mortar cast across the sidewalk from the car's impact. I lean across the hood and reach for my dad, pressing my hand against a seeping gash on his forehead. His blood is hot against my palm, and the feel of it ignites even more terror inside of me.
There are other people's voices now, their soft murmuring growing louder until they completely drown out the sound of my heart pounding in my ears.
"911! Someone call 911!" a lady cries out from somewhere behind me.
To my right, I hear the driver's side door opening, and I glance in its direction. Nick reaches in and snatches Spencer up by the front of his shirt, then drags him out onto the walk. I barely have time to register the dazed look in Spencer's eyes before Nick lets him go to slam a fist in the center of his face.
He stumbles back, hitting the side of the car hard, and Nick follows, the rage in his eyes terrifying to look at. I turn my focus back to my father as Nick's fist swoops in again, my eyes welling with tears when his his next solid blow finds its mark.
"Daddy?" I whisper, blocking out the sounds all around me: Nick's rage as he releases it on Spencer; the growing panic of the assembled crowd; the sirens' screaming their approach from the distance. I focus only on my father's limp form. He's breathing, but he doesn't open his eyes to look at me. My tears slip down my cheeks as I silently will him to stay alive.
"ALLAN!" My mother's panicked scream breaks me, and a harsh sob escapes me as I turn to watch her stumbling approach. Her face is deathly pale, her eyes terrified O's. Her mouth hangs slack and trembling. She reaches for my father, clasping her hand around his then squeezing it tightly. She looks to me, as if I can fix what's just happened.
But I can't. Nobody can. My heart seizes in my chest and suddenly I can't breathe. My mother's eyes flit over my shoulder to where Nick is still dealing with Spencer, and whatever she sees there clears away some of her shock.
"Stop him, Willow," she says to me through her own tears. "You've gotta stop Nick. He's gonna kill him."
My neck creaks as I slowly turn my head in Nick's direction. Spencer is on the ground now, with Nick bent over him. As I watch, Nick drops to his knees, takes Spencer's head between both hands, then lifts it up and slams it against the concrete. The resounding thud breaks my paralysis.
My mother's hand covers my father's wound when I pull mine away. I dart around to Nick's side then grab his arms before he can slam Spencer'shead down again. I glance at his face, and when his eyes meet mine I almost cower from the pure force of his fury. But I squeeze his arms instead, willing him to focus on me.
"That's enough, Nick," I force myself to say. "You can't kill him."
He is slow to see me, but as the clouds dissipate from his eyes I find the dread it had hidden. He releases Spencer, rises to his feet, then reaches down and pulls me up too. He slings his arms around me then crushes me to his chest. It rises and falls rapidly beneath my cheek and a new flood of tears drowns me.
"Allan," he chokes out." Is he ...?"
I shake my head against him and try to stop my tears. "He's alive. But I think he's hurt pretty bad. God, Nick, why? Why would Spencer do something like this?"
"I don't know."
His arms tighten around me, as if that can hold together the pieces of my shattered heart, but when I close my eyes only to see it all unfold again, my tenuous grasp on my emotions is lost. I fall apart in his arms, lost amid a sea of fear tossed grief.
"It's okay, he'll be okay." There is no conviction behind Nick's words and they don't help at all.
I pull away from his embrace, then turn to look at my father's limp form, and I watch him for any signs of life beyond the shallow rise and fall of his chest. But there is nothing. My mother is bent over him, whispering words I can not hear, but I know them in my heart--she is pleading for his life, too. I turn back and bury my face in Nick's chest, my arms snaking around him as he wraps me back up in his familiar warmth.
"He'll be okay, sweetheart," he says again, but his reassurance rings hollowly in my ears.
Though I want with everything in me to believe him, the shadow cast over my heart tells me he's wrong. Tonight I may have to say my final goodbye to myfather ... and I'm not ready for that.
***
When Aiden and Ava burst into the hospital's waiting room, Aiden strides over to Nick, pulls a laptop from under his arm, then shoves it at him. After Nick takes it, both Aiden and Ava swallow me up in their arms. I slip one arm around each of them, then squeeze them as tightly as I can.
Our embrace is brief, and once they release me to move to my mother Nick is quick to take their place. Setting down the computer, he wraps his arms around me again, cupping the back of my head and pulling it gently to his chest.
"He's gonna be all right," he says for the hundredth time, and for the hundredth time I pray that he's right.
There's been no word yet on my father's injuries or prognosis, and the suspense of not knowing is slowly killing me inside. I let Nick guide me to a seat, and when he takes it then pulls me down to sit in his lap, I curl into his chest and close my eyes. I try to focus on the steady beat of his heart, the quiet breaths he takes, the gentle hand now lightly caressing my back. But none of those things cast the sights and sounds of what Spencer did from my mind.
He's here somewhere too, being put back together himself, and I grimace at the surety that if I hadn't stopped Nick when I did, there wouldn't have been much anyone could have done for him. Not that I care at this point whether he lives or dies. As heartless as it may seem, my only concern was for Nick, and what could happen to him if he'd killed Spencer. He hadn't been making false promises when he'd said he wouldn't stop next time with a few punches--he'd been striving for a hell of a lot more than that tonight.
"He saved my life." The grief laden awe in Nick's voice squeezes my heart and I nod my head.
There's no doubt in my mind who was Spencer's intended target--my father's selfless act had put him where Nick would have been. That thought makes me just as queasy, and I press my face harder against his chest.
"This is my fault," he continues. "If I hadn't talked Gale into coming, hadn't provoked him--"
"He would have done something like this anyway," I cut him off. I pull away from Nick, then lift my hands to his face. Cupping it gently, I lift it until his eyes meet mine. "Something broke him, Nick. I don't know what turned him into whatever he is now, but that's not your fault. Spencer may have been an asshole, but he was never psychotic. Whatever's going on right now has nothing to do with any of us. I think this is bigger than me or you."
I lean in to kiss him, my eyes burning with the doubt I'd seen in his eyes. I pull away, then drop my hands to his. I lift them between us, studying their swollen surfaces carefully.
"You need to have these looked at. You may have broken something."
"I'll worry about that later. I'm not leaving you."
I look up then nod at the determination in his eyes. I'm glad for it. I don't know what's going to happen with my father, and the wait is more bearable with Nick's steady strength keeping me from completely falling apart. With a weary sigh I let his hands go, then lay my head against his chest once more. He lifts a hand to tenderly strokes my hair, his gentle touch trying its best to exert a sense of peace over me. And though it doesn't work entirely, it does help.
We all sit in worried silence a long time before a doctor finally enters the waiting room. He politley draws our attention, and as he speaks, our worries slowly lessen.
"I know it seems bad," he says, "but we are confident he'll pull through just fine."
"What are his injuries?" my mother asks quietly.
The doctor ticks them off, as if he's reading a grocery list. "Fractured pelvis, compound fracture of the left femur, internal bleeding, hairline fracture of the frontal lobe, severe concussion. But there seems to be no brain damage, or any other life threatening injuries. He should make a full recovery, though that will take some time."
I let out a harsh sigh, my eyes burning with the news. He's beat to hell and back, but he's going to be okay, just as Nick had said he would be. A tear escapes my eye to trickle down my cheek, and Nick's tender touch brushes it away. I turn to hug him tightly, his arms going around me in the same moment.
"He's gonna be okay," I whisper before I tuck my face against his neck.
"I know." The relief in Nick's tone is palpable, and a soft sob escapes me at the guilt he'd felt was his.
I listen as my mother keeps talking to the doctor, and by the time he finally takes his leave, her own relief is complete.
As a group, we follow a nurse down a long corridor, stopping by my father's door in the ICU. He can only have three visitors at a time, and I encourage my mother and siblings to go in first. I watch them surround him on either side, a lump forming in my throat, making it hard for me to breathe. Nick slips his arms around me from behind, then pulls me gently against his chest. He leans his head down against mine and I let my eyes slip closed.
"I'll do anything I can to help." His soft assurance warms my heart.
"Thank you."
He hugs me just a bit tighter, and together we wait for my turn to visit with my dad. When my family finally leaves his side to join us in the hall, I take a deep breath to calm myself. When Nick pulls his arms away, I catch one of his hands with mine, then I slip my fingers through his. He hisses through his teeth, but forces his fingers to curl into a soothing pressure around mine.
We walk into the room together, stopping by the bed and looking down at my father's relaxed features. The cut on his forehead has been stitched, the edges of the wound pulled together but puckered with swelling. There are additional nicks on his face I hadn't seen before, in addition to a massive bruise along his left cheekbone and temple. But the worst part of it all for me is that he has yet to open his eyes.
I let go of Nick's hand to take my dad's, and then I press my hope into his calloused fingers.
"I love you, dad," I say softly, bending over to press a light kiss against his cheek. A single tear escapes as I pull away, glistening where it lands just beneath his right eye. My hand trembling, I reach out to brush it away.
I turn back to Nick, and he wraps me up once more in his arms. He presses a kiss to my forehead and I close my eyes. We stand there a long time, until the gnawing ache I've tried to ignore dominates my want to stay longer.
"I think I'm ready to go home now."
He nods but says nothing, letting me go before guiding me from the room. In the hall, I hug my mom tight, then do the same with Aiden and Ava, promising to return early tomorrow. When we finally part ways, finding a comfortable pace proves to be more difficult with each retreating step Nick and I take together. Tomorrow will come with even more hardship I'm afraid, but for my dad I'll endure it.
We return to Nick's truck without speaking, and after he helps me inside then climbs behind the wheel, I lean my head against the window and close my eyes. It is a short trip back to my apartment, but in that short distance, an all too familiar stiffness has set in.
Nick opens my door and helps me out, but I have more difficulty than I want him to know in following him to the complex. Stopping midway to the door he turns to me, studies me a long moment, then bends down and scoops me up in his arms. I lean my head against him, grateful for him and the promise he'd made me not so long ago.
I can't keep up, and so he is carrying me, just as he'd said he would.
Inside, he takes me to my room then sets me gently on my bed. Kneeling down, he pulls off my shoes, then eases my dress up and over my head. He lifts my legs then lays them on the mattress, and as I lower myself to my pillow, he undresses too. He slips in beside me, pulling the blankets up to cover us both.
I curl into his warmth as he wraps me up in his arms, and then I let out a ragged breath when he kisses the top of my head.
"If you need anything--anything at all--please tell me."
I nod my head as tears prick my eyes once more and a soft sob escapes my lips. Nick rubs my back in soothing circles as my fear and grief escape their confines and I try to focus on nothing but that.
"I need you," I whisper through my tears, and he pulls me just a bit closer.
"I'm here," he assures me in a hoarse whisper. "I'll always be here."
I fall apart again, crying long into the night, and Nick's gentle touch helps to ease my pain. I don't know what will happen tomorrow, but I know he'll be with me through it all, no matter what fresh hell is spawned from tonight's disaster.