Family Secrets

Chapter Two

When they reached the hospital, Philip rushed out of the car and picked up Maris, and ran into the hospital waiting room and up to the podium. The women there recognized him right away.

"Mr. Jefferson what are you-" She stopped talking as soon as she saw the girl covered in blood, she pressed the emergency button. A loud alarm began to ring and the nurse rolled up with a gurney. Philp placed her on the gurney gently and looked up at the woman.

"We need to get her in a room and ready for Doctor Jefferson stat!" Philip said; the nurse nodded as she ran off with Maris on the bed.

"Honey, I have to go to her now ok." Her mother ran off in the direction they took Maris. Philip grabbed some alcohol and bandages and walked over to Cora.

"Alright, you know this is going to sting rosebud, but it has to be cleaned." He cleaned her arm up and concluded that it wasn't broken, just sprained, so he wrapped it up, and by this time, his wife came back out holding a clipboard.

"Well, I have stabilized her and she has some brain damage mostly to the cerebellum and the whole left side due to the blunt force trauma; she was stabbed with some sort of knife. She also had multiple other injuries, her clothes had dried tear marks on them, so she was not alone." Cora stood up quickly and started walking to her room, her parents hurried after her.

"She saved my life by basically risking hers, so, the least I can do is watch over her while she sleeps." Once they had gotten there, Cora pushed a chair and sat next to Maris. Kathy placed a hand on her husband's arm as he smiled at his daughter.

"Honey, maybe we should give her some time alone, we should go get stuff ready for when we call this in." He sighed and patted Cora on the head lightly.

"Your right honey, rosebud, we'll be outside the room, ok? If you need anything, just come and get us." Cora looked at her parents and nodded as they left the room.

"Hey, so I don't know if you can hear me, but thank you so much for saving me, it could've ended much worse, so thank you, I owe you." She smiled and pulled out her phone, playing some games before falling asleep.

"Abby?" It was the next morning when Maris started to wake up, as she did, she looked around and saw Cora next to her. Once she realized she was in a hospital bed, her memories of last night came to her one by one. Is she a bad sister? Is there anything else she could've done more to help Abby?

"Who is that? Oh, by the way! You dropped this." She handed Maris her necklace as she held it tightly, before drifting back to sleep, she thanked Cora. A few hours later, she woke up to see two more people in the room. She felt a weird sensation and started shaking, Kathy and Philp acted at once and quickly.

"Philip lend me a hand. We need to place her on her side to keep the airways clear." After a few minutes on her side, when she stopped, Philip placed her flat on the bed again. Kathy left the room, pulling her husband with her, she walked over to the nearest phone and dialed the police department.

"Hello, this is Dr. Jefferson; I need the Chief to come to the hospital immediately, it's an urgent matter." She was trying not to say much until he got there because whoever did this to that poor girl is still at large.

"He is on his way, Mrs. Jefferson." The woman hung up and Kathy walked into Maris's room covering her and Cora up with a few extra blankets. By eight pm the Chief walked up to Kathy and Philip.

"You called Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson?" Kathy started speaking right away while walking to Maris's door.

"Chief, thank god you showed up. We have a young girl here asking for you, it's kind of a long story." She looked at the police Chief hoping for a quick answer.

"How did you come across this girl?" He walked over to the nurse's station, putting some hand sanitizer on since he hated hospitals.

"This girl found us actually, sir. She had blunt force trauma to the head, but it wasn't enough to kill her. She looks to be about fifteen, with cuts all up and down her body due to her running. She had a small seizure, so I had the nurses give her extra strength pain medication." As soon as she finished, his phone rang, when he answered, it was Chris Snow, his youngest.

"Dad, it's Michael. He was shot and is in really bad shape. I was about to call you to tell you that the girls are nowhere to be found." Jaxson thought for a moment.

"I'm at Jefferson Memorial right now, I'm answering a call a got from the owners themselves. They have a girl in a room, she looks like Maris, Chris. It means that's one of my granddaughters and one of your nieces, Chris, your ass better be on your way because if she's here then they might still be here." He started pacing around outside as his son spoke.

"Alice and I are on our way out the door now Dad, we should be there by tomorrow morning. Go check to see if it's one of the girls please." He hung up and stood there thinking. He soon after ran inside to talk to the Jeffersons.

"I have two sons, Michael and Chris. Michael married a girl by the name of Ava. They had two children together, both girls, one named Maris and the youngest is Abigail. I never once trusted her; it's been years since I was able to see them." The chief opened the door and saw her lying there. His eyes started to water; he knew who it was because Abby looked mostly like her mother, while Maris looked nothing like either.

"Grandpa? What are you doing- Dad!? Where is he? And Abby, she's with her mom and two guys, I couldn't take her with me, her leg was too messed up." Chief Snow got up and hugged her while he talked.

"Listen sweetoad your father is just alive in a bad condition. As for you and your sister, we will get her back, hun don't worry." He patted her back softly as he hugged her. Knowing that Ava and the others would've already been long gone, he felt terrible for lying to her, but he had no other choice.

"Where is Uncle Chris? And Aunt Alice?" They heard a laugh as Chris and Alice walked in.

"Uncle Chris! Aunt Alice!!" Chris let out a little chuckle as he hugged her before talking.

"I thought I told you Maris, Alice and I aren't together." Maris started laughing and held her stomach as she started crying.

"Yet Uncle Chris, YET" She smiled as both Chris and Alice became agitated. They have known each other since they were in diapers. Alice's family were friends of the Snows for generations. Everyone in both families knows that they both have crushes on each other. The only few who tried to get them together were Maris, Abby, their grandmother, and Alice's mother. They sat down to talk to Maris and Cora while waiting for Doctor Jefferson. Kathy walked in holding a clipboard and a pen, she handed them to Chris.

"So, I'm having Michael transferred here with permission from Mr. Snow, of course, after that is done, we will have to do some tests and keep him here a few weeks to a few months." Philp stated before his wife interrupted him.

"My daughter insisted on giving you all our guest house." Kathy and Philip smiled softly, waiting for an answer.

"Ok, I guess that's fine, thank you so much!" Chris smiled and clapped his hands and yawned as Kathy wrote on Maris's clipboard, writing that it would take about three months to heal. Within those three months, she asked her uncle and grandfather to bring books from the library about police rules and procedures along with the library's police code of conduct.

"Alright, I have looked over your chart and you're all healed up and are free to go!" she smiled as Maris hugged Cora tightly. They packed up all the stuff they needed and headed off to Jefferson's guest house. The house was as big as the main but with one less room, making it five bedrooms and five bathrooms. Both houses were on the same property. That way, if Maris needed Cora, all she would have to do is wave through Cora's window to get her attention, she would not have to walk too far either.

"Here you are, Maris. This is the room you will be staying in for as long as you like. Now Mr. Anderson and Miss Smith allow me to show you to your rooms please." Mrs. Jefferson started walking, leaving Maris alone with her thoughts.

"Alright Maris, you will tell Uncle Chris what you want to do." She softly spoke before drifting into a deep sleep. On the fifth day, she knew what she wanted to do, so Maris called her uncle into the room. She was extremely nervous since half of her family were already police detectives, so she knew they would help her out while going through the academy.

"Listen, Uncle Chris, I have been thinking a lot and I think I have finally decided on what I want to do after high school. I want to go to the police academy." Chris was quiet at first, thinking to himself for a few minutes. He finally spoke.

"Ok, I'll make some calls and make some arrangements for when the time comes, ok sport?" Chris patted her head, gently getting up.