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Chapter 22
Raven
With Max on my hip, I walked with Lexa into the exam room. She was still whining, and every time I saw her tears, the desire to eviscerate Fontana came back all over again. I hoped I’d killed whoever had shot my baby girl.
Maybe he had been one of the two I’d taken out that night.
But in my mind, Fontana was the cause of Lexa’s tears. He was why she was in so much pain. Without him, she wouldn’t have to go through any of this.
I held out my hand to her, and she trustingly placed the one that wasn’t connected to her aching arm in it to steady herself as she climbed onto the exam table. I sat her brother down beside her, then tossed the diaper bag in one of the chairs against the opposite wall.
“Poor little lamb,” Mable, Doc Robertson’s oldest and sweetest nurse, said soothingly as she took Lexa’s temperature and placed a blood pressure cuff on her good arm.
I rubbed Lexa’s back while the cuff squeezed her arm, and she whined again. Max didn’t like that his sister was so unhappy and tried to climb on top of her. Flick was just next door in the pharmacy getting me a few supplies for later and had offered to take him with her, but for some reason, I felt uneasy letting either of my babies out of my sight today. Call it mother’s intuition, or paranoia after what happened to Jos and Hawk the night before, but I couldn’t shake this feeling of unease.
I knew my best friend and soon-to-be sister-in-law would have protected my son with her life, but it freaked me out just thinking of not having him with me.
Fuck, I needed to calm down. My nerves were getting the better of me, and if I wasn’t careful, I was going to have a full-on meltdown.
Mable finally finished up just as a knock came at the door, and Doc walked in. He smiled warmly at Lexa and produced two suckers as he approached the table. Max snatched his before I could even say a word, expertly ripping off the paper and stuffing it into his mouth, while Lexa was more hesitant.
Good girl.
Her allergies scared us all half to death, but now that she was getting older and questioning everyone who offered her food, I was able to relax a little more about her eating while I wasn’t around. Still, I kept a supply of EpiPens everywhere.
Doc’s smile increased. “No worries here, Lexa. I make sure that all the treats I get are made in a nut-free environment just for you.”
Her smile was pitiful as she finally accepted the sucker and carefully unwrapped it before putting it in her mouth.
Doc’s attention went straight to me. “Still hurting?”
I nodded. “It seems to be getting worse each day. I’ve been giving her anti-inflammatory pain relievers, but they don’t even seem to put a dent in her pain.”
“Lexa, honey, can I see your arm?” He crouched down so he was at an even level with her arm. She pulled up her sleeve, and I had to grit my teeth at the sight of the angry red scar from where the stitches had closed up the through and through. He shifted her arm, making her whimper, and I had to remind myself Doc was only trying to examine her, so I shouldn’t punch him in the back of the head.
“Does it hurt more here…” He lightly touched the front of the wound, then the back. “…or here, sweetheart?”
“There,” she sobbed when he pressed a little more firmly on the underside of her arm. “It hurts so bad, Mommy!”
I pulled her close to my chest, kissing the top of her head. “I know, baby. I’m so sorry.”
After a few more seconds of feeling around, Doc straightened. “You know what I’m going to have to do, Raven.”
I nodded, my gut twisting. Lexa was going to need an MRI to check to see if there was any damage caused by the bullet. She was going to have to be placed in some tiny-ass machine, and lie still for however long it took to get the pictures needed. That was a nightmare of epic proportions. I didn’t want to have to put her through it, but we had to have answers as to why she was in so much pain.
“How soon can we get it done?” I asked.
“I’ll get the order, and you can take it straight over to the hospital. I don’t want to wait in case we need to go in there and repair something. This might be nothing but some growing pains and tender muscles, but it could also be something more.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said, outwardly calm. On the inside, I was praying this was just growing pains. Lexa had already been through so much. I didn’t want her to have to go through surgery on top of everything else.
Ten minutes later, I exited the doctor’s office. Jet and Flick were sitting in the waiting room and stood as soon as we came out. Max squirmed, wanting Flick, and I gladly handed him over. “Can you take him back to the clubhouse?” I asked her. “Lexa needs to go over to the hospital for the MRI.”
“What’s an MRI?” my daughter asked, her brow puckered in confusion and worry.
“A machine that’s going to take pictures of your arm, baby,” I explained patiently. “So we can see what’s wrong and why you’re in so much pain.”
“Will it hurt?”
