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“Damn straight you will,” he growls. “She’s in surgery for internal bleeding.” His nostrils flare and my stomach roils at his words. “What the hell happened!” He turns his head slightly, and when I look at who he’s staring at, I see his gaze zeroing in on Tris. “I sent her to you because I thought she’d be safe, then I get the call that she’s in critical condition.” He turns back toward me, his chocolate eyes swirling with so many emotions I don’t think even he knows which one to settle on. “I should’ve kept her well away from all of you, I never should’ve let her come back on her own.”
“Now hold on a minute,” I start to say, but Tris interrupts me.
“Sir, you have to understand that we’d just been told she was lying to us. That presented with articles about her killing a baby—”
“They weren’t real,” I grind out to which Tris nods.
“Yeah, I know that now, but they looked real and in that moment all I was thinking about were my kids. I’d let a stranger live in my house and look after my kids for six years. I needed time to think.”
“The fact that you’ve known her for six years should’ve meant something,” her dad growls, pointing to his chest, his voice getting louder. “Did you tell her to leave?” He raises a brow in question but doesn't let Tris answer as he grinds out, “You believed a mentally unstable woman over the person you’ve known and trusted for six years!”
A hurt expression crosses Tris’s features. “I’m sorry this has happened to your daughter, we all love her, too, but don’t try and pass the blame onto me. Yes, I told her to leave, but I didn’t know any of this was going to happen. If I did...” He shakes his head as his chest rises and falls on deep breaths before he glances at me. “I’ll go and find Harm.”
He gets up and storms past us, Amelia’s dad following him with his gaze.
“No one had any idea how serious this all was, she never said anything and when I asked, she pushed me away. We all tried to help, obviously not hard enough which guts me, but we did try.”
“Let me ask you something.” He widens his stance. “Do you love my daughter?”
I scan his face to see if he’s being serious. “What sort of question is that? Of course I love her.”
“Then you should’ve tried harder; you never give up on the people who mean the most to you,” he says, his unforgiving gaze meeting mine.
“I didn’t give up on her! I tried to get her to tell us what was going on. I went around to her place countless times, but there’s only so much you can do. She moved out and wasn’t going to tell me she was doing so for Christ’s sake. She said she’d call me but she never did. She never answered my messages or picked up her phone when I called.” I step closer to him. “I did not give up on her, she gave up on us! Yet here I am worried sick, not being able to find out anything about the woman I love.”
He watches me for several beats, something passing over his eyes before he runs his hands through his hair and over his face. “Welcome to the world of the Waters women.” A faint smile passes over his face before his lips form a straight line and he hooks his thumbs in his belt. “She was stable the last time I heard anything, but it’s a waiting game.” I shut my eyes for a second and take a deep breath at his words before opening them as he says, “I need to know what happened.” His tone is all business now. “Every single detail, no matter how small.”
I recount everything from when Phoebe turned up at Tris’s to the second we arrived at the hospital, finishing with tears in my eyes, fueled by anger. “They need to find that woman, she needs locking away for what she did! What are they doing to find her?”
“I don’t know yet, the detectives who I’m friends with are coming to meet me here.” A muscle in his jaw ticks. “But I’ll do everything in my power to find her, I’ve already put feelers out back home and called Ryan.”
“Ryan?” Jealousy I didn’t even know I had rises in me over the mention of another man.
“Phoebe’s ex-husband,” he explains
I grind my jaw. “Who are these people?”
“They’re—”
“Waters?”
Both of our heads snap toward a man in scrubs. I can’t tell his full expression as he’s still wearing a surgical mask, but I see his brow is furrowed.
“Take off the mask, just take off the mask or say something,” I chant to myself.
“Carl Waters,” Amelia’s dad says, shaking the surgeon's hand before the surgeon turns his head toward me. Carl sighs and waves him off as if it’s okay to talk in front of me.
He finally takes off his surgical mask and it’s like a weight lifts from my shoulders at the small smile on his face. “I’m Doctor Bale, I’m the lead surgeon for your daughter. We managed to stop the bleeding and we’ve plastered her leg up. It was broken in two places as well as extensive bruising to the back of her body, specifically around the rib cage area. She has three broken ribs but I was surprised she had no head injuries.”
I run a hand through my hair, remembering the position she fell in, Phoebe’s arm was lodged behind Amelia’s head until she rolled off her. Thank God for little miracles. “The woman who pushed her also fell and her arm was lying under her head.”
He looks at me and nods. “That explains it then. Now, Dad, you can go and visit with her if you’d like? She’s being placed in the ICU as we speak.”
I clear my throat. “I’ll see her after.”
The surgeon exchanges looks with Carl before turning toward me. “I’m sorry, but if you’re not a family member then I’m afraid you can’t go in there. It’s hospital policy.”
“I am so sick and tired of those words. I have just as much of a right to see her,” I fume.
