Adopted by Phan

Chapter 64

Dan's P.O.V.

"They've found her. Guys they found her." My eyes immediately looked up, my hand still clutched in Phil's with my eyes wide.

"You're kidding?!" Officer Briny shook his head.

"I'm not. Some officers stormed a house a couple of hours ago, she was being held in the basement. Her father's dead." My eyes widened.

"Is Jay okay?" Phil was squeezing my hand as tight as possible, his head bowed and his arms shaking fiercely.

"She- um- she's in hospital at the moment, it's honestly a miracle that she survived. When the house was stormed the officers found her father strangling her, she passed out apparently and then he took a knife to her throat, pretty much slitting it. It's a massive wound." I froze.

"Is there- is there anything else?..." I was dreading the answer, but I already knew what the answer was. If her father had done it before, he would have done it again. Officer Briny looked at the Phil and I sympathetically.

"Yes. Um... They had to amputate her right leg, the wound was too deep to heal and they couldn't risk infection." I was internally screaming but I saw something else that made me freeze.

"And?..." He let out a deep sigh.

"She was sexually assaulted, more than once from what I've been hearing." I felt my face pale. The leg amputation was terrifying as it was but we could get around it, but the sexual assault... Not so much.

"Where is she?"

"She's been airlifted to the children's hospital, taken her into surgery and stuff like that. I'm not sure when she'll be out, if not already." I nodded, my mind running over all of the information I'd just been given. Jay was alive, she was okay but probably traumatised and definitely very injured.

"Come we go and see her?"

"Yes. We'll go to the hospital now, she may be out of surgery, she may not be. I don't know."

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We spent the car ride in silence, hands clutched together and silently praying that Jay would be okay and that she would recover. Our hopes weren't high, we knew what sort of damage could have been done and even though I didn't want to think about it, I couldn't help but doing so, knowing exactly what had happened.

As we walked in through the front doors of the hospital Officer Briny led us around through a side door and in towards an elevator, were we stepped in and he pressed a button, labelled floor 4. I read the sign just above the button, which said Children's Trauma Unit, ICU. I felt sick.

Phil was looking at the sign too, his face paler than normal and his cheeks a slight shade of green, trying not to look at me or Officer Briny. Briny was looking oddly grim, his forehead pinched and face lined with worry, his hands curled into fists and his walkie-talkie crackling every few seconds.

When the elevator doors finally opened I saw three police officers and a nurse standing there, all waiting for us. As soon as Officer Briny saw the officers he sprang forwards, hugging two of them and turning worriedly to the third.

"She's okay. The surgery's went fine, she's in a public ward now on a ventilator but we aren't sure what's going on. She hasn't woken up and isn't responding yet, but I suppose only time will tell." I closed my eyes, my stomach dropping.

"What about her leg?" The nurse visibly winced, screwing her hand up.

"She's lost it from about mid-thigh, it'll be a long recovery. It's not going to be easy."

"Come on guys. Let's go see her." My hand still clutched in Phil's, we followed the nurse down the hallways and into a large room, curtains lining the walls. Some curtains were open and I could see children, some as young as 3 or 4, lying in bed or fast asleep, some looking at us and others looking disappointed, probably that we weren't their parents.

The nurse took us to the bed second from the end and drew back the curtains slightly, nodding for us to go in. Officer Briny came up behind us, nodding.

"Go in. You need to see her." Phil moved in first, tugging me with him and I followed him, avoiding looking at the bed for a few seconds, before I finally managed to find the courage to look up. When I first saw Jay I froze.

There was an oxygen mask over her face and bandages covering most of her body, especially her neck and IV's in her arms, bruises visible on her arms and any skin we could see. Her head was tilted to the side, both eyes closed and one surrounded by black, indicating quite a beating.

Underneath the blankets I could see where her leg was missing, a lump of what I assumed to be blankets and then it cut off abruptly, and I shuddered, thinking about who did it.

I turned to Briny.

"Did you say her father was dead?" He nodded.

"The officers had to shoot because Jay's life was as risk, he was going to try and slit her throat and the leg wound was going to kill her if they hesitated. They got the whole thing on body cam and I really don't want to watch it." Phil nodded and I felt him shudder, his eyes still trained on Jay.

"Have a seat, we want you to be here when she wakes up." It was the nurse, holding two plastic seats, which we took from her and then sat down beside her bed, still holding hands. Officer Briny went and stood behind us, going inbetween talking to the officers and looking at Jay, trying to get any details of what happened. I wasn't paying attention much but I did manage to pick up a few details.

"Arrested four other suspects... life in prison... suspects in a different case... could have died... in custody." I didn't have the grounds to assume what they were talking about, but I could guess, and I didn't like it.

Beside me, Phil leaned over to whisper to me.

"What do we do now?"

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I yawned, I was already exhausted even though it was just past noon. Phil had said that I had fallen asleep for a couple of hours, passed out leaning on his shoulder and he had let me sleep, even though I felt really mean for it. I knew he was exhausted too, four nights without much sleep really wasn't helping.

Officer Briny was slumped in a chair near the curtains where we had come into what I would consider a cubicle, although enough room to pass around each side of the bed, with his eyes closed and face resting on his hand. He wasn't asleep because as soon as he saw I was awake he looked straight at the two of us.

"Have you told your fans why you haven't been online recently?" I jolted. Shit. We hadn't.

"Um shit, no we haven't. Are we even allowed to say anything?" He nodded.

"Just don't mention the fact that her father's dead and you'll be okay. The media have already got ahold of information that there's a missing girl, from the alert we sent out with her picture, but they haven't seemed to pick up that she's yours." Phil nodded grimly.

"We can't just tweet this, can we. We'll have to film like a short video or something." I sighed.

"Can we just film like a one minute thing and put it on Twitter, please. I really don't want to drag this out." Phil leaned over and gently kissed my forehead.

"Yeah, I guess we can. They don't need to know everything yet."