Stranded with My Stepbrother Chapter 89: Luck Be a Lady

\-Caleb-

The shiv stabbed into my shoulder. I shouted in pain, but as Tyson had said, no help was coming.

And no help came.

“You are such a pain in the ass, you know that, right?” Erickson grunted, thrashing underneath me as I took him to the cement floor. The shiv stabbed over and over again into my back as he struggled to get out.

At least he couldn’t see what he was doing or else I might have gotten a punctured lung. Or worse.

I gritted my teeth against the pain and squeezed my hands around his throat, crushing down on his larynx. If I was dying today, I would take him with me.

Jacey, please be okay.

The shiv finally stabbed something important—maybe a kidney?—and my hands loosened. I collapsed on the bastard.

“... Where are the guards? What’s going on?” a female voice filtered through the cell door.

“Ma’am, you can’t go in there,” one of the guards said.

My vision swam.

“... Go wherever I damn well please. Now open this door!”

I recognized the voice, but I was too far gone to really take it in.

The shiv twisted in the angry spot it had found. “Be a good boy and die now, Killeen. I’m afraid play time’s over,” Erickson said.

The door scraped open.

I blacked out.

***

I woke up in a hospital room.

“Christ…” I groaned, my body aching.

“You almost went to meet Him,” the Attorney General said, getting up from a chair in the corner of the room and coming to my bedside. “Fortunately, they were able to save your kidney.”

“What about Tyson?” I asked.

She grimaced. “I’m afraid he was too far gone.”

Sadness weighed down my chest. “He was a good guy.”

“He was a serial killer,” she snorted.

I glared at her. “He saved my life and probably the lives of a lot of poor little kids.”

“Fine.” She shrugged. “You think what you want about Tyson Jones.”

“I will.” I looked around. “Where’s Jacey?”

“Her deposition didn’t go as planned. I’m afraid you won’t be able to see her until she gives a second one,” the Attorney General said, but there was something behind her eyes I didn’t like.

I locked eyes with her. “Where are Bea and Hansen?”

“Just fine.” She gave me a smile.

It wasn’t a very convincing smile. “You’re lying to me.”

She sat down on the edge of my bed. “Look, Caleb, there are a lot of things going on that even I didn’t know about. It’s made things very difficult…”

“Where are Bea, Hansen, and Jacey?” I demanded.

“Caleb…”

“Excuse me, ma’am? They just told me Bea didn’t make it,” an officer, who I was sure was trying to be helpful, said, poking his head in the room.

The Attorney General winced. “Thank you, Seth.”

“And Hansen?” I asked before the officer could leave.

“Oh, he didn’t make it away from the scene. He died right on the spot,” Seth said sadly.

I nodded, waited for Seth to leave, then rounded on the Attorney General. “Where is Jacey?”

She fiddled with my blanket. “Well, what you have to understand, Caleb…”

“I’m not going to understand a damn word out of your mouth until you tell me what the FUCK is going on!” I shouted.

She glared at me. “Listen here, you jumped up little shit—”

“Am I interrupting?” a smarmy voice I recognized did, indeed, interrupt.

Now she turned on Chalmers. “You aren’t supposed to be here!”

“A man’s not allowed to bring flowers to a sick patient anymore?” he asked innocently.

“No. Especially if it’s you. Beat it,” she said.

“Hmm. Mr. Killeen, do you want me to ‘beat it’?” He smirked at me.

I wanted to destroy the bastard, but at least he might give me some answers. And letting him in would piss off the Attorney General. She deserved it at this point. “Come on in.”

“Thank you.” Chalmers came in and set a large bouquet of lilies on the ledge by the window. He pulled the chair the Attorney General had occupied while I was unconscious closer, then sat down in it himself. “Exciting few days.”

“Few days?” I repeated. “How long have I been out?”

“Just three days. You’ll be fine, they tell me. I’m so happy for you.” He did, in fact, look almost gleeful, which told me the information I was seeking was going to be very bad indeed.

“What happened to Bea and Hansen?” I asked.

“Rob, leave the boy alone. He’s had a very traumatic experience,” the Ms. Jepsen inserted quickly.

He shook his head at her. “Now, Margerie, you know you shouldn’t tell lies to your witnesses. It makes them so touchy when I expose those lies on the stand. Or need I remind you of the Altier case?”

She turned beet red.

“Chalmers, go ahead. Dig out your pound of flesh. What happened to Bea and Hansen?” I asked again.

“Why, it was the most tragic thing,” he said, his voice dripping with false sympathy. “They were on protection detail for your precious Jacey, and someone shot them both in the suite you were all staying in. Terrible business.”

I nodded, deliberately not looking at the Attorney General who was waving her hands and shaking her head at Chalmers. “And Jacey?”

“They chased her to the hotel roof, and she jumped.” He was trying, and failing, not to sound positively giddy.

Everything went into slow motion. I couldn’t breathe. My heart stopped. “What?”

“We haven’t found a body,” the Attorney General said quickly. “So there’s every possibility—”

“That she grew wings and learned how to fly?” Chalmers finished sardonically. “She splattered herself on the roof of a truck or tanker. Some farmer’s going to find her in his flatbed. Whatever happened, she’s dead. No one could survive a fall from that height.”

The Attorney General’s nostrils flared. “No body,” she repeated. “And the camera only showed her jumping. There are no witnesses saying they saw her hit the ground.”

“Like I said. Truck. Splat,” he replied.

I jerked up, not quite involuntarily but at least before I thought about it. The sharp pain that accompanied my move had me lying back down immediately. A couple of monitors shrieked. “If it is the last thing I do…” I hissed at Chalmers. “I am going to end you.”

He just laughed. “Son, it’s over. You can’t even take care of yourself. We all know you’re never going to make it to trial. Think of losing Jacey as your wake-up call.” He stood and patted my knee before heading for the door, walking out just as a nurse rushed in.

“We don’t know she’s dead,” the Attorney General said again as the nurse fussed over me.

“Will you please stop upsetting my patient! Oh hell’s bells. Help me turn him on his side.” The nurse snapped her fingers at her.

Her eyebrows hit her hairline, but she did as she was told, helping the nurse to roll me. The nurse harrumphed loudly. “Just as I thought. Pulled some stitches. Now I have to go get the doctor.” She stabbed a finger at the Attorney General. “You stop riling him up.”

“I didn’t!” she protested.

The glower on the nurse’s face made her amend, “I was trying not to.”

“Try harder.” The nurse stormed out.

“Before the doctor gets here,” I wheezed. “I want to know what you think.”

She blinked. “Pardon?”

My chest went tight, but I forced the words out. “Do you think Jacey is alive?”

“I… I don’t know what to think,” she lied.

I nodded slowly. “So you don’t think she made it, either.”

“Caleb…”

“Just go. I need to think about some things,” I managed. I turned my head to the window.

The Attorney General sighed and rose from the edge of the bed. “She’d want you to testify.”

I gripped the sheets in my balled fists. “Just GO!!!”

She winced but made her way out.

My eyes stung, but I forced myself not to cry. I couldn’t break down. Not yet.

The doctor came in a moment later and looked me over.

I was wheeled to imaging, and after that, I was wheeled into surgery, only this time, they didn’t need to put me out to fix the damage.

Then, I was wheeled back.

The world still turned.

That was how I knew Jacey had to still be alive. It wasn’t desperation on my part. I just knew, if she had died, my world would have ended.

Instead, it kept trudging along.

All I needed to do was find out what happened to her.

She was fine.

Jacey was fine.

She had to be.