An accident
Cal’s cane fell, and his eyes widened as his hand reached out as if to hold Myra from falling when her body bent backward,
but then in a second, she was gone.
Cora’s scream rent the air as he heard the painful sound of thumping all the way down.
He could not hurry quickly enough, his useless leg would not support it as he limped, the cane long forgotten, putting pressure that he should not have on the leg that was still healing.
By the time he got to the head of the stairs, he was dizzy with pain. But Myra's body had just hit the floor, and he saw her eyes close.
Commotion ensued as his family members began to hurry towards them.
He felt someone push his cane into his hand, and he looked down to see it was one of his teenage nephews.
The boy took Cal’s hand and put it over his shoulder as Gib was yelling over the edge of the terrace for his guards to hurry into the building and for someone to blody call an ambulance.
His nephew helped him scale down the stairs in seconds just as he glimpsed Nico running up with Gib’s guards.
“Nova is upstairs alone.” Cal said when he saw Nico's eyes fall on Myra, and the man went white, his eyes widening.
“Myra.” Cal crashed down beside her now. “Myra, can you hear me?”
He gently picked her head up even though he knew he should not be doing that.
His family were all down now, running round him, all of them trying to stand too close, and the small hallway soon felt too stuffy.
“If you’ll not help, at least let the woman get air.” He heard his father yell at all of them, and they backed away, but they still did not go very far.
“Myra, please,” Cal said, staring down at her face.
Her whole body was limp and Cal felt like he was in a horrible nightmare.
Those kinds you had and cry in relief when you wake up, and then you sit up the remaining parts of the night so you don’t go back to bed and dream up another nightmare.
“Where’s the bloody ambulance? Why does nothing ever work in this country?” Gib the politician was yelling at everyone now.
Cal noticed something at that moment, how the back of her dress stuck to the floor, even though the front skirt sort of blew and danced in the light wind.
And then he saw the blood.
It crept down at the pace of cooking oil or car engine lubricant spill on the floor.
Very unlike water that moved fast and ran light, some drying up even as others moved, this one moved thickly and not as fast.
Even as he stared, it began to seem like someone had punctured a jar of red engine lubricant.
The blood ran thick and red.
Cal hurried up, “I have to get her to the hospital. The ambulance will not get here quickly enough,” and he was already bending over to lift her, completely forgetting his bad leg.
Until he felt the ache again.
He saw a flash of suit and then the silent guard, the one Gib told him had guarded Myra the whole time that he was unconscious, appeared.
The man walked past him, easily scooped Myra up and began running downstairs for the front door.
Cal's uncle shoved his cane in his hand this time, as he tried to bend down.
He hurriedly limped behind them, cursing his bad leg and cursing his age.
They had just stepped out of the mansion into the open air when they heard the siren, and soon the ambulance van was driving fast up to them, and the guard hurried up to them with Myra still in his arms.
Cal got to them just as the guard placed her on a stretcher the medics had pushed out.
He climbed up into the ambulance after the stretcher, and one of the medics called out Myra’s presumed details as she closed both doors behind.
Cal saw a peek of his family getting in their cars, and he took Myra’s hand in his.
Thankfully, she was still warm although the sweat he saw beading on her forehead worried him.
And that bleeding? That was too much, that was too much blood.
“Is there something we should know?” he heard the paramedics say as she shoved a wad of pads between Myra's thighs.
Cal winced. “She is pregnant.”
“How far gone?”
He turned to the paramedic now, and for a moment he glitched, trying to remember how long the beachfront property was. “I am not sure, but eight or nine weeks.”
The woman nodded and turned to run through all her first aid procedures, while her partner rang the hospital they were approaching to state the patient’s information.
Was he cursed? Or was it just his children in women’s bellies that killed them?
He had lost Cassie just like this, and now Myra.
He squeezed her hand, staring in her face.
He had been so useless to her. He could not even help just now.
Although he knew he should be thinking only about her health right now, he could not help but wonder if he was good for her.
She needed a younger man who was not temporarily a cripple. A man who would not need the assistance of so many people to save his pregnant girlfriend who had just fallen down the stairs.
They arrived at the hospital in a shorter time than he had dared hope for.
He limped after the stretcher being wheeled into the hospital, and waited outside the E. R as Gib joined him.
“Are you OK?” His uncle turned concerned eyes towards him as his eyes traveled down to his leg and Cal winced.
“I am.” He said as calmly as he could. “Nova?”
“Your assistant is with her.”
Cal nodded just as he turned, and his eyes fell on Cora, who was running down the lobby.
“I will hurt her,” he said, and was already turning towards her. “I swear, I will hurt her and do the jail time.”
“What?” Gib frowned in confusion and glanced back casually, but his eyes widened too in disbelief as Cal hurried past him.
“No, Cal.” Gib gripped his arm tightly, and nodded at his guards, who hurried towards Cora, and began to lead her outside forcefully, as she screamed to let her go.
Cal stopped, and then closed his eyes in pain.
How had he let this madness continue for so long?
He was supposed to have put a stop to Cora and her entitlement and manic behavior.
His uncle put his arm around him just as his father and older brothers arrived.
“She is pregnant, Gib.” She is pregnant.”
He heard the man’s sharp inhale beside him, but before he could respond, the door of the E.R. opened, and a doctor hurried out as a nurse pointed the Dankworths out.
The doctor hurried towards them.
"You’re the family of the patient. I will need your consent to operate on her. We have to evacuate the fetus.”