Adam's Thorn (40 page)

A bad feeling shot straight
through Adam.  Unlocking the car door, he got in.  “I’m heading out to the
Declan house now.”

“Adam, hang on-”

But Adam didn’t wait to hear whatever
Brandon said.  He left the station and shot out onto the highway.  He kept
trying Barbie’s mobile, then tried the Declan houseline.  Nothing from either
in answer.

Swearing, he’d just hung up when
Brandon rang him.  “Sarge is on his way.”

It wasn’t far to the Declan house,
but right at that moment it felt like hours.  When he approached the turn into
the driveway, relief swept through him, only to ricochet back gut-wrenching
concern when he saw one car parked outside - Barbie’s.

She was there alone.  Where was
Spencer?

Pulling to a halt, he ripped on
the hand brake and jumped out, barely refraining from slamming the door.  His
instinct to run into the house calling for her rode him hard, but his training
took control.

It was his woman in there and he
wasn’t going to risk her getting hurt.  If nothing was wrong he was going to ream
her a new one for scaring the shit out of him and disobeying.  But if something
was wrong….

Quietly he made his way around the
back of the house, his gut clenching when he saw Spencer’s car, the bonnet
partially showing from behind the partially pulled down shed.  Moving
stealthily around the corner of the house, he scouted the area, checking
windows and doors, making sure to stay out of sight.

The rose buses caught his attention. 
Two of them had been chopped out roughly, the ground disturbed as though
someone had been digging.

Coming up onto the veranda, he
tried the door, finding it unlocked.  Entering, he moved stealthily through the
hallway, grateful that he knew which floorboards creaked.

Voices came from upstairs, but he
heard the sound of a car pulling up at the front of the house.  Quickly, he
went to the front door, stepping out and holding his finger up to his lips in warning
as Sarge got out of the patrol car.

The older man nodded, closing the
door quietly before pulling the gun from his belt and approaching the house.

Meeting Adam at the front door, he
followed, being careful to tread in Adam’s footsteps.

Silently they went up the stairs,
one slow step at a time, keeping against the wall.

As they reached the top, Spencer’s
voice became clearer, the words chilling Adam to the bone even as he and Sarge
approached the room from which it came.

“You are such a dumb bitch.  You really
thought this place was haunted.”

Silence.  Either Barbie was wise
enough to keep her mouth shut and not antagonise Spencer, or… He couldn’t even
bare to think of the alternative.

“Mind you, I tried.  Penny
wouldn’t give up and leave, kept staying here even when I was poking around
outside at night.  She thought it was ghosts, too.  Can you believe it?  An
exorcist?  I’m telling you, my Great Uncle did a wise thing in not marrying
her.  The woman was nuts.”

Holding the gun pointed downwards,
Sarge peered carefully around the door before pulling back his head and giving
Adam a reassuring nod, which almost made Adam drop to his knees.  Barbie was
alive, but going by the grimness of his boss’s expression, the situation wasn’t
going to be an easy one.

Sarge held up one hand in a
gesture to stay still.

Unable to see what was happening,
Adam could only clench his hands and trust Sarge.

The sound of furniture dragging. 
“You scare a little easier, or you did the last time.  I thought you’d run, but
no, you came back for that dumb cat.  He sauntered into the room, saw me and
tried to jump onto the windowsill, only to scrabble at the glass and fall
down.  Next thing I know, you’re running up the stairs.  I had only seconds to
get into the wardrobe and back into the crawl space out of sight.  But I sure
scared the shit out of you after that.” Spencer laughed.  “All those bangs and
crashes, throwing those dolls, and you screamed like a banshee and ran.  Mind
you, I have to admit, coming back in for the cats, now that took guts.”

Sarge glanced back at Adam, held up
three fingers.  Adam nodded, tensing.

One…

Two…

“Still gonna kill you, though,
bitch.”

They burst through the door, Sarge
in the lead, Adam right behind.

Spencer spun around from where he
stood above Barbie with a length of steel pipe in his hand.  “What the fu-”

Sarge took him down low and hard,
while Adam wrenched the pipe from him and flung it aside.  Within seconds
Spencer was on his belly with his hands cuffed behind his back, spewing swear
words and almost frothing at the mouth.

Adam wouldn’t have cared except
Spencer had been threatening Barbie, and when he saw the blood running down the
side of Barbie’s head, all that red soaking into the blonde hair, his heart
started pounding.

“Christ!  Barbie!”  Dropping to
his knees at her side, he reached for her, his hand shaking for the first time
in his life.  Everything he’d ever learned fled, for one wild second he didn’t
know where to touch, where to hold, where to look.  “Oh Jesus. Oh baby.”

Vaguely he heard Sarge talking in
his phone, calmly giving orders, heard Spencer still swearing, but his whole
focus was on Barbie.

Sitting with her back against the
wall, blood slipping down from her hair to soak into her blouse, she whimpered,
“My head hurts, Adam.”

“I know, baby.”

“Help me.”  She looked up at him, and
fear gripped him when he saw how unfocussed her eyes were.

Oh Christ.

She clutched onto him, hands
shaking violently, seeking reassurance from him.

It was that which galvanised him into
action, his first aid training coming thankfully to the fore.  Later he would
swear it was divine intervention, but right then he could only operate on
automatic.

Because if he didn’t, he’d kill
the bastard lying cuffed on the floor.

Because if he didn’t, he’d go into
a full-on panic seeing his beloved Barbie bloodied and obviously suffering from
concussion.

Because if he didn’t, he’d be
failing the one person who meant more to him than his own life.

In the distance came the wail of
sirens, a welcome sound.

Coming up on his knees, he
searched carefully through her hair, finding the deep cut.  Knowing head wounds
bled a lot, he whipped off his t-shirt and pressed it to her scalp in an
attempt to stop the blood flow.

“Ow.”

“Easy, baby.”  He held the t-shirt
firmly against the wound, seeing the blood soaking through almost immediately. 
Oh Jesus, where’s the bloody ambulance?

“Adam, how is she?” Sarge barked
out.

“Concussion.  Head wound.  She’s
lost  a lot of blood.”  One hand holding the t-shirt, he smoothed his other
gently across Barbie’s pale cheeks, his gut clenching when her eyelids
fluttered.  “Barbie!  Barbie, stay awake.  You stay awake.  Are you listening?”

She blinked.  “Yes.”

“Talk to me,” he ordered,
deliberately making his voice stern when all he wanted to do was gather her
close and howl like a baby.

“My head hurts.”

“I know, baby.  I know.  Can you
remember what happened?”

“He hit me.”

Christ, he was going to kill
the bastard!
  Adam shot a furious look over his shoulder to find that Sarge
had Spencer up on his feet and was shoving him out the door into Brandon’s
hold.

Sirens sounded in the yard,
voices.

“Hang in there, baby,” Adam said softly,
only to snap, “Barbie!” when her head started to nod.

“I’m here.”  She sucked in a deep
breath.  “Adam?”

“Good girl. I’m here, too.”

Her bloodied fingers wrapped
around the wrist of the hand he had at her cheek.  “Don’t let me go.”

God, his heart was going to
break.  “Never, baby.  Never.”

“Good.  Okay.”  Barbie leaned her
head back against the wall, her breaths coming in shallow pants.  “Adam...Adam,
I can’t see properly.”

The hand holding his heart
squeezed tight, threatening to rip it right out of his chest.  He was amazed
when his voice sounded so steady, so reassuring.  “Its okay, Barbie.  I’ve got
you.  Just stay awake, okay?”

“Adam.”  Matt ran across the room,
dropped to one knee on her other side.

Hamish, the other ambulance
officer, came in behind him carrying a stretcher.

“Not going on it,” Barbie said as
soon as she saw it.

“They’re just taking you to-” Adam
began as Matt carefully removed the bloodied t-shirt to check the wound.

Agitated, she pushed at Matt’s
hand.

“Barbie, it’s me,” he said
soothingly.  “It’s Matt.  I’m just checking your wound, love, okay?  Let me
check it for you.”

“I’m not going on the stretcher.’

“Okay,” he said in that calm, soothing
tone that was thankfully working on Adam’s shattered nerves as well.  “Let me
just check this wound, get something on ii, all right?”

  Hamish was busy setting out a
dressing pack, handing Matt the things he needed.

Barbie clung to Adam’s hand with a
rapidly weakening grip, and Adam was almost beside himself wanting to shake
Matt and scream at him that something was wrong.  Instead, what came out was a
low, “Matt.”

Matt nodded without taking his
gaze from Barbie’s head.  Taping down the bandage, he said, “All right, love,
we’re going to just lay you on the stretcher and- Adam, catch her!”

Adam caught Barbie as she simply
flopped sideways.

Oh Jesus, she was unconscious, and
now he could see the pool of blood behind her on the floor. 
Oh Christ, it
was edging out from under her legs.  So much blood.  So much blood!

A hand tapped his cheek sharply
and he looked up to see Matt looking him right in the eyes.

“Don’t you go ape-shit on us right
now,” Matt ordered sternly.  “Barbie needs us, all of us, but you the most. 
Understand?”

“Okay.  Yes.  Right.”  Shaking off
the terror clawing at him, Adam supported her, lowering her to the floor with Hamish’s
instructions, watching as the stretcher was put in place beside her.

The ambos moved fast and
efficiently.  Before long Barbie was in the back of the ambulance, Adam sitting
near her, clutching her hand while Matt monitored her vital observations.

It was the longest ride he’d ever
been on, and the most he’d prayed in a long time.

Chapter 12

Opening her eyes, Barbie looked blearily
up at the ceiling. Her head ached.  Glancing sideways, she saw a bag of some
kind of clear fluid running through a sort of pump thing down into her arm.

Flexing her fingers slowly, she
blinked. 
So thirsty
.

There was a murmur of voices, a
hand on her cheek.  Someone leaned over her and she tried to bring whoever it
was into focus.  A light shone into her eyes, making her wince.

“Just look at the light,” a voice
told her.

“Ow.”  She closed her eyes.

“Open your eyes, Ms Declan.”

No way, it hurt.

A cool hand slid into hers. 
“Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”

She squeezed.

“Good.  Can you speak?”

“T…” She tried again.  “Thirsty.”

The back of the bed went up a
little, making her grab around, her eyes flaring open even though everything
was still blurry.  A warm, big hand took hers.

“Its okay, Barbie.”  Adam’s voice,
so deep, so reassuring.  She latched onto his hand, gripped tight.  “I’ve got
you, baby.”  Something touched her lips.  “Take a sip.”

Cool water sucked through a straw,
it was bliss.

After several sips, the water was
taken away and she rested back against the pillow.

More voices.

Something around her arm pumped
up, the sound of something else, and finally she was left alone.  But not completely
alone, because she had Adam.

Still clutching his hand, she slid
back into sleep.

~*~

When she next awoke, it was dark,
though a small light above her glowed softly.  Outside the door came the sound
of hushed voices.  More orientated, she recognised that she was in a hospital.

Blinking, she was relieved when
gradually everything came into focus.  Her head ached a little, but she seemed
okay.

Rolling her head sideways on the
pillow, she found herself looking at Adam.

Slumped in the chair by her side, his
head resting on the mattress and her hand cradled in his, he looked exhausted. 
Stubble covered his jaw, dark circles under his eyes.  His shirt was rumpled,
his hair almost standing on end.

It came back to her slowly.  Spencer,
being hit, dragged up the stairs.  Spencer had been going to kill her.  Bits
she knew, some she wasn’t sure of, for his ranting hadn’t been clear ,and she
strongly suspected she hadn’t been in any fit state to understand anything he’d
said.

Adam and some other cop bursting
through the door, Adam holding her, stemming the flow of blood from her head. 
Then she didn’t remember a lot of anything, just bits and pieces.  The
ambulance, lights, sunlight, sirens, waking up feeling thirsty.

Carefully she turned her head,
spotting the glass of water on a table close by.  Reaching out with a shaky
hand she picked up the glass, almost spilling the water.

“What?”  Adam jerked awake.

Barbie nearly dropped the glass.

He moved fast, reaching over and
grabbing the glass before looking down at her.  His eyes widened, his mouth dropped
open.  “Oh baby, you’re awake.  Thank God.”

“Hi.”  She cleared her throat at
the croak.  “Thirsty.”

Reaching up, he pressed something
before leaning across her with the glass, placing the straw at her lips.  “Sip,
baby.”

She obeyed, the cool water sliding
down her parched throat.

A nurse came in followed by a
doctor.  Adam moved back, letting the nurse take over, but Barbie grabbed for
his hand.  “Please stay.”