Scarred and Wanted

CHAPTER 4

“F-four days?” I ask in soft disbelief.

“Yes, dear. You...suffered from a severe head injury. A gunshot wound that grazed your head almost fatally, and a concussion from collapsing and hitting your head on the edge of a desk.” She explained.

I closed my eyes and let out a shaky breath and whimpered softly reaching up and touching my eyelids softly.

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JACE

“Are you serious? You want us to bring her here?” Axel asked Dante as he paced the living room.

“You didn’t see it, Axel. She has scars all over her... the one on her stomach...” Dante’s jaw clenched in anger. “That was Bianca's fault!”

“Okay I get it, but she would never stay with us after how we treated her,” Axel said, falling back onto the couch. My mind drifted to that day as the others bickered...

Flashback - Two days earlier

“Rayna was standing in front of us with tears falling and a gun pointed at me. I loved her once maybe still did, and I watched her put a gun to her head making my whole world slow. Everything we had done to her began to flash through my mind and my heart broke realizing we had led her to this point.

I barely thought and rushed toward her, but I reached her only in time to make her flinch and pull the trigger. Then I watched her body fall forward and she hit the desk hard and I caught her before she hit the floor. There was blood everywhere and I started to panic.

Dante grabbed her from me and laid her gently on the floor to examine her quickly. My ears began to ring as I looked down at her blood on my hands. Dante brushed her hair aside carefully and tried to see the bullet wound but there was just so much blood.

“She's still breathing!” Dante yelled to Noah who was talking to someone on the phone, I assumed 911.

“They are on their way! They said to lay her flat in case she has any other injuries.” Noah explained, his voice frantic.

I looked at each of the guys, and I wondered what they could be thinking. Did they believe this was our fault like I did? We had led her to this moment, and she could die because of it. She wanted to get away from us so badly that she was willing to take her own life.

How did it come to this? I saw Noah pacing and pulling at his hair as we waited for the ambulance, while Dante knelt beside Rayna and watched her carefully. Axel stood by Rayna with his hands clenched tight to his sides, his eyes squeezed shut. He out of all of us had seen too much death in his life, but we had no idea what we were walking into when we followed Rayna here. If we had known we could have tried to stop her sooner, now Axel was reliving his past as Rayna bled out right in front of us.

Dante moved to pick her up, but Noah held him back. “They said to leave her man.” “I have to do something! She’s dying!” Dante yelled.

Just then the paramedics came rushing in and the three of us moved away but Dante wouldn't budge.

“Sir, we need you to move aside so we can help your girlfriend, ok?”

One of the paramedics said.

“Dante looked up at him with eyes wide but nodded and moved away. Everything moved so quickly as they rushed her to the ambulance, but we were right on their tails. We loaded into our cars and took off behind the ambulance as fast as we could. When we reached the hospital, we parked and ran after the paramedics as they rolled her into the emergency room, even though I was pretty sure we weren’t allowed to go in those doors. No-one stopped us though because all their attention was focused on Rayna .

They wheeled her into a room and a nurse pushed us back, but we pushed forward trying to see what was happening. They had to call help to pull us away and escort us to the waiting room.

Time passed slowly as we waited to hear the news on Rayna’s condition, and we all took a collective breath when the doctor emerged into the waiting room.

“How is Rayna?” I asked, stepping forward first.

“Are you here family?” He asked. I didn't know what to say ...what could I say? That it was us who made her do this? That to her we were the enemy and we were nothing close to family

Her father hasn't come yet but I’m her boyfriend.” I turned and gaped at Dante as he stepped forward

What the hell was he doing?

“Well, your girlfriend is stable now, but she is still unconscious. You said after the gun went off, she hit the desk nearby?” Dante nodded. “Well, she has a good amount of head trauma due to the impact, we need to keep an eye on her to be sure it heals properly but we don’t know what conditions could be a result of it until she wakes.

Thankfully the gunshot wound was a surface wound and did not penetrate the skull, so we were able to stitch it up and she should recover well from that. She is still not awake yet, but you can come to see her now.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Dante said

“There is however another matter I must bring up”. We all fell silent and waited for his best words, and by his body language, I could tell it wasn’t good.

“The matter of her long-time injuries, I need to ask if you knew how she acquired such extensive bruising and scarring?”

“We all looked at him like he had just grown two heads. “What do you mean?” Dante asked. “You are not aware of her scars?” The doctor asked. “No. She is shy about her body.” Dante lied.

“I can understand why she is. Well, she has scars covering almost her entire back and along the tops of her arms. I imagine it was intentional so that it could easily be hidden under her clothing. She also had bruises around her stomach and ribs that look pretty recent.

Also... scars and bruising from what looks like a very violent s****l assault. With this information, we had to contact the authorities as per the law. They will want to ask you some questions and speak to her father as well when he can be reached.” The doctor said with a sigh. “We also contacted Psych because this was a suicide attempt, they need to monitor her mental state when she wakes. I’m sorry, I know this is a lot to take in but with help, she should be able to recover.”

We nodded but remained silent. The doctor turned and before he left he mentioned something

“Rayna has a disease called PCOS( Poly cystic ovarian syndrome) . It is a hormonal disorder common in women of reproductive age, affecting ovaries, periods, and sometimes fertility.

Some common Symptoms include:

- Irregular periods

- Excess hair growth

- Acne

- Weight gain

Rayna will need to start working out to lose weight so her cycle can normalize. If not she would never be able to reproduce, coupled with the beating she has had she would need to be taken care of properly.” He said and then left

“God. She was this bad?” Noah asks, his face riddled with guilt. “We did this to her,” Axel said pacing. “We body shamed her, not knowing what she was going through internally”, Dante said with a little tears about to form in his eyes.

“We didn't know about it , how could we?” I said trying to make them feel less at fault but I wasn't faring any better .

She had trusted me all those years and I turned my back on her. “What the hell was that man? Calling her your girlfriend!” Noah said, turning to face Dante.

Dante looked back at him with his usual coldness. “The paramedics already assumed I was her boyfriend, and it was the only way we would be able to find out what was going on. None of you stepped up.

“Noahscoffed. “Yeah, but if Bianca finds out what you said she will come after Rayna worse than before. Watch yourself, bro.”

“Dante rolled his eyes and walked toward the door where a nurse was now waiting to take him to see Rayna

“So what do we do?” Axel asked when the nurse told the rest of us to wait

“I don't know but we can't let her go back to her father , I think he has been the one hurting her. I remember her saying that he was pretty strict, so he wouldn’t let her be around anyone he didn’t know. She told me she wanted to keep our friendship a secret from him because he wouldn't like it”. I recalled .

“How well did you know her, you never told us,” Noah asked looking at me.

“We were friends the whole year before Pre college. She would sneak out so we could hang out during the break . But before pre-college was over she started acting weird. She wasn't able to meet me much but I didn't make a big deal about it because I had just met you guys then. Then after that first day of pre college, we never spoke again”. I said lowering my head

“We drove her away,” Axel added.

“I nodded. “It was my fault too. She had no one else and I left her.”