The Hero Next Time: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 4)

Chapter Forty-Six: Lauren, Sunday

"Lauren?"

She heard the voice as if she were at the bottom of a well. Her head felt like it was filled with cotton, but at least the rest of her didn't scream in pain. She squeezed her eyes tighter, because she just wanted to stay down here, at the bottom.

"Lauren? Babe? Can you hear me? It's Joe. Please, babe, tell me you're okay."

The voice sounded closer now. She recognized the voice as her husband's, but she was annoyed by his words, because they were pulling her up out of the well when sleep was so much better.

"Five more minutes," she mumbled. 

"Oh, thank God," Joe cried, and to her dismay, even deep down the well, she heard him sobbing, and it was a terrible noise.

"Don't cry, Dad," she heard Naomi say, but she was crying too. "Look, her eyes are opening!"

Her eyes cracked open, and the blare of light was so intense that she closed them again.

"Come on, babe," Joe said. "Tosh is doing okay, he has a broken arm to match mine and some stitches on his head, but he's okay. They're just keeping him overnight for monitoring to make sure he doesn't have a concussion. Now we need you to be okay, so our family can be whole again."

"Fuck off," she mumbled, resentful at his implication that she had a duty to be there for her family, true as it might have been. "It's too bright in here."

"Maybe we can turn down the light?" Naomi said.

The light wasn't as intense the next time she cracked her eyes open. She blinked a few times to clear her vision, and Joe and Naomi swam into focus. Joe looked terrible, his eyes red rimmed and bloodshot. Naomi looked beautiful after a good cry.

"Where's Tosh?" she asked.

"Next bed over." Joe pulled back the curtain separating one emergency room bed from another, and there was her sweet boy, arm in a cast, lying slightly inclined. Turning her head to see him proved difficult, as her neck felt like it was in a brace.

Tosh turned his head and saw her, and smiled. "Hey, Mom."

"Hey, baby," she said, feeling tears run down her cheeks.

"You're okay?"

"I think so. What did they say?"

"You don't remember the last few hours?" Joe asked.

"It's a bit hazy. I think I got a lot of drugs. My neck..."

"You had some pretty bad whiplash. Also a dislocated shoulder and fractured tibia; apparently it smacked the frame hard during the rollover. While you were out they popped your shoulder back in and set your leg in a cast. It could have been worse. Your small size might have actually saved you from worse damage, just like Tosh."

His mention of size reminded her of the taller passenger in the car with them. "What about Al? Where is he?"

Joe looked at Naomi, who looked back at him with tears in her eyes and a trembling lip.

"Where is he?" Lauren demanded.

Joe closed his eyes and sighed. "He's in the ICU. Apparently the rollover caused the top of his head to smack into the ceiling of the Highlander pretty hard. He has a lot of swelling in the brain, and... uh... they had to induce a coma to relieve it."

"Oh, thank God," she cried. "He's still alive?"

"As far as I know. But he's in bad shape, babe. He's on a ventilator to help him breathe. Rachel and the kids are with him now."